Community Calls For Boycott After Virginia Newspaper Runs A KKK Recruitment Ad On Their Front Page
April 28, 2018
(DAVID MAXWELL/AFP/Getty Images)
Newspaper Gets Backlash After Running Front-Page Ad For KKK
What in the Yakubian world is going on in Virginia?
The Westmoreland News is facing major backlash after they recently ran a recruitment ad for the Ku Klux Klan on its front page. This blatant advertisement is complete with disgusting statements like “Wake up White America! Stop allowing these third world savages to walk all over YOUR people!” and the telephone number to a national KKK hotline.
Westmoreland News in Virginia ( @TheWN ) featured this #racist ad on their front page today. In 2018. In America.
This is unacceptable and should enrage every decent human. #racists #racism #WhiteSupremacy #FightRacism pic.twitter.com/vBTZ7BzThw— Jennifer Knecht (@_jenniferknecht) April 26, 2018
Black residents only make up about 15% of the town’s population–go figure–and are obviously appalled at the publication’s decision to run such an ad.
Colonial Beach resident Betty Tate Thompson said about the incident on WTVR, “They posted the whole flyer as if they were giving them free advertising. It even had the number on flyer to contact the head of the KKK. Which I thought was totally ridiculous.”
Police Chief Danny Plott, who alerted the paper about the ads, told the station that after speaking to the editor of the paper,Brittlynn Powell, she “explained that she wanted to put it in to show people that those of us in Colonial Beach who may think there’s not racism … I think she didn’t expect for this to blow up the way it did.” Sure, seems legit….
Newsweek has reported that there are multiple calls for boycotts on the paper’s Facebook page, saying that the story was essentially free advertising for the hate group.