View From the Fringe

"IS THAT PRO-KLAN or anti-Klan?" this enormous figure in a white robe and hood demanded, and what could the poor guy say? After all, most people wouldn't read the book he was passing out--the John Birch classic "None Dare Call It Conspiracy"--but it presumably has little to say on the subject of the Invisible Empire. "Read it--see for yourself," he ventured, his shoulders quivering under his polyester suit. Squinting through embroidered eyeholes, the Klansman leafed through the book, which offers conclusive proof that the Marxists who celebrate their religion on Saturday are responsible for virtually everything nasty. "Well, I see you're anti-minority and anti-Communist and anti-women--I guess you're all right."

Had the conversation ended there, moderation, played by the Bircher, would have triumphed. But he had to say it, courageous in a way. "I guess the only thing we don't entirely agree about is Blacks," he said. "What?" the robed figure cried. "What has a nigger ever done for you? Tell me, what has one ever done for you?" The short guy, he blanched a little, and the words started to spill out fast--"Oh, I know in general they're a problem, and for the most part you're right that they're a blight. But I knew one once, this guy George Schuyler who worked for George Wallace, and he was all right..." As he finished, another robe marched over. "I showed his stuff to the Imperial Wizard, and he says you have to stop it. So get out." And the little guy did--just walked away.

The shelves sag with Marxist thought, corners devoted to the master, Engels, Lenin, even Stalin. A chart on the wall, querying, "How Many Hands Wield the Revolutionary Worker?" chronicles the number of party newspapers sold each week. And Revolution Books, just outside Central Square, serves as local headquarters for the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The press conference is conducted from two sofas and a couple of chairs in the middle of the bookstore. A press conference without press, save one Harvard Crimson reporter, and he looks bored. To interest him, a local party publicist reads some statements of support for the featured attraction, Stephen Yip, U.N. One of the U.N. Two, about to be sentenced for throwing red paint on the U.S. and Soviet ambassadors to the United Nations.

When mainstream politicians seek endorsements, they usually ask famous people. When the U.N. Two look for friends, they are less selective. "Here is a statement from a socialist doctor in Boston," the leader announces, and the physician stands up to deliver a short, snappy round of revolution-talk. Other supporters include "2 Lawyers and 2 Employees from an attorney's office in Heidelberg, West Germany," and "30 inmates at the Cincinnati Workhouse." Well supported, Yip answers a few questions, explaining that his was an attempt to "expose imperialist war preparations." The paint, he adds, was waterbased.

Bill Wilkinson, Imperial Wizard, climbs out of his silver Caddy and, clad in a blue business suit, strides to the platform. Backed by an American flag and a Klan banner, surrounded by hoods (literal use), he launches into his speech. Starting slowly, he declares, "I'm a segregationist, and I will die a segregationist." Warming to his task, this former electrical contractor explains that mixing the races will never work because "you cannot make unequal people equal." His philosophical cards on the table, Wilkinson's job becomes easier--his only remaining task is to suggest the future course of public policy. His program includes the shooting of Cuban refugees in the water, voting for Ronald Reagan, and putting pressure on President Carter to refer to Blacks as "niggers" in public.

The speech tends to drag; the reporters, who make up a third of the crowd, keep looking over their shoulders at the 30-foot cross that will be burned to cap the evening. But the real audience, most of whom look like they arrived on motorcycles, won't let him stop. "Send the fuckers back," they yell when he talks about refugees; and when he mentions that a high proportion of the Cubans "don't like the things that other men like," they all start screaming, "faggot, queer." Welfare is unpopular, as is charity, deemed "communist." A beery tough asks one Klansman how much it costs to join. Told $20, he replies, "For that, can I burn two niggers a month?" "The Klan has no connection to all that violence you've heard about," the kleagle says, and the man looks confused till he sees a radio microphone stretched in their direction. "Get that fucking thing out of here," he tells the reporter, and then apologizes profusely to the robed one. "That's all right--and once you join, you can do anything you want," he's told.

RCP members are nothing if not eager. I went to North Cambridge one day last spring to write a story about a party follower who had been fired for proselytizing fourth graders in his job as a gym/history teacher. That glimmer of reportorial interest was spark enough; since, there have been visits every couple of weeks from party members bearing the newspaper and willing to talk about the revolution, more than willing. Dawn, a party publicist, comes most often. She speaks a strange brand of English, leaning heavily on the rhetorical question ("Yeah, but what's at the base of all that?"). There is a theory for almost everything, and as long as you buy the basic assumption--that capitalists consciously try to oppress others constantly--then it fits together pretty well. And the inevitability part is nice--one day Dawn brought along "The Draft Manifesto and Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA," a thick booklet on what will happen after, with detailed discussions of the personal ownership of firearms, the place of culture, and the limits on dissent.

The visit is important, but other things take precedence--one RCP member excused himself after a summer conversation saying only, "I've got to go agitate."

The Klan puts out a newspaper called The Klansman. A special "mini-edition," five million copies of which they say they are distributing across the nation, was available at the Scotland, Conn., rally; it offers a glimpse into the journalism of the Neanderthal Right. "Ku Klux Klan Calls For:" and then, in 144-point type, "WHITE UNITY." The lead article, written by Mr. Wilkinson, urges whites to "unite and reclaim our country and bring an end to black crime." Otherwise, it is a fairly dull treatise on liberal social schemes, affirmative action, "blood money" sent to Israel, and welfare. More interesting is the other front-page story, which calls on youngsters ten to 17 years old to join the Klan Youth Corps. "Uptight about schools... or just about Negroes!!!" Have you 'had it' with blacks following you home to beat you up?... Are you 'fed up' with special privileges given to blacks by the School Administration simply because they are black? Are you really 'uptight' because White girls have to submit to being molested by crowds of grinning black thugs?"

If so, you should "get on the Klan van" by sending in $6 and organizing "White Youth in every school along racial lines," adopting "a get-tough policy with arrogant non-Whites," and forcing school administrators to offer "White Cultural" classes. The program ends like this: "We want segregation of classes, followed by eventual segregation of schools."

The RCP newspaper features many articles by its leader, Bob Avakian (as in "Free Bob Avakian"). Usually there is a political piece or two--insights on Iran or imperialist war preparations or the people raising the red flag of revolution and telling their capitalist bosses that they plan to get off their knees. Lots of space is devoted to timely causes, often to demands that someone be freed--the U.S. Two, the Houston Park Four, the Mao Tse-Tung Five. For several issues last winter, the theme was May Day 1980, which the party urged workers to celebrate by leaving their jobs and marching. The edition after the event conceded that the national goal--10,000 people in the streets--had not been met, but it did insist that "shock waves," pictured on the front cover, had been sent rippling through the establishment.

The Revolutionary Worker appears in both English and Spanish.

No word ever sums up an event, but "pathetic" does a pretty good job when applied to the first three quarters of the Klan rally. The end, though, the end was scary. Wilkinson led the crowd of 400 across the field to the cross and, cautioning spectators to stay out of range of the flames, distributed torches to the 40 or 50 hooded Klansmen. After explaining the religious significance of the ceremony--"Christ's purifying light will shine forever"--the Wizard told his followers to light their gasoline-soaked torches. Barking out his orders, he had them circle the cross three times and then wave their torches up and down, up and down, up and down, slowly so the whoosh could be heard. "Klansmen to the cross," he intoned solemnly; and forth they went, lighting the gas-doused burlap wrapped around it. In a second the flames rolled up the shaft and across the crossbar; around it, Klansmen danced in ecstasy, arms spread wide, the heat and light full on their chests. The followers, the bikers, broke the "reverent silence" Wilkinson had requested and began to holler: "Get me a nigger," "Put a Puerto Rican up there, they burn well cause they're so greasy."

"Kill Martin Luther Coon," someone yelled.

* * *

EVERYONE TALKS contemptuously about radicals, repeating something someone once told them about how the far left is just like the far right. There are some similarities--neither the RCP nor the Klan is particularly realistic, and both are hated by a good segment of society--often the same segment. But the differences are much more important--the Klan member wants for himself; the revolutionary communist, however screwed up, wants for others. The Klan has a vision of the past, the RCP of the future. People can be excused for their fantasies about the future, for no proof exists that they are wrong. So scorn the Klan, hate the Klan, pray that they go away. But when you pass the RCP people in the Square, understand them, tell whoever you're with that their hearts are in the right place, give them a quarter for the goddamn newspaper.