Huntington Beach has laid the stage for controversy in the recent past. Photo: Unsplash/Renato Sanchez Lozada
Update: As of 3:49 PM PT Huntington Beach Authorities declared the gathering an unlawful assembly and are urging people to avoid the area.
Surf City residents are readying themselves for a Ku Klux Klan rally in Huntington Beach on Sunday afternoon. The KKK rally, created by a group of racist, fragile losers, has been dubbed the White Lives Matter rally. The Huntington Beach Pier has been used as a spot for rallies on numerous occasions over the last year.
Over the past few weeks, the KKK has been advertising the gathering of stupid, terrible people on social media and with fliers posted around Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, and Long Beach. It’s one of several demonstrations in the country that will be full of the drooling, unwashed, and unloved dregs of society.
According to the L.A. Times, Lt. Brian Smith of the Huntington Beach Police Department spoke with organizers of the event, which is surprising, insomuch that they are intelligent enough to hold a conversation. Smith was able to confirm with the Loyal White Knights that the rally is definitely taking place. Oddly, police “do not believe the same people are responsible for the fliers and the rally.”
For a long time now, Huntington Beach has tried hard to prove that it’s not a racist town, but as is generally the case, a town can’t be measured as a single entity. Instead, it must be measured by the people who call the town home. And apparently, a few supporters of the KKK call Surf City home. But it’s not just Huntington, not even close. Back in February, a middle-aged white asshole called a man the n-word in the lineup at Manhattan Beach. The whole thing was filmed from the pier. That event spawned the Black Sand Peace Paddle Out.
As an aside here, the Nazi movement has been curiously embedded in surf culture for decades. Miki Dora spray painted swastikas on his surfboards. The epitome of “cool” in surfing, Dora was famously criminal and racist. “Dora’s take is push the black man under,” world champion Nat Young told an interviewer. “He’s a supreme racist, always has been. When I was younger, I believed it was all just in mirth, that he was just jivin’ it all; but no, he believes absolutely in white supremacy.”
Hell, the term “surf nazi” was thrown around so much in the eighties and nineties that a movie was made around it. But back to Huntington Beach, where some might recall, that in the late eighties, racist skinheads prowled the streets, attacking anyone who wasn’t white. Racism is real and alive in Huntington, and has been a for a long time.
In response to Sunday’s KKK rally, Black Lives Matter Huntington Beach has organized a counter-protest at 11 a.m., which is causing the police some concern. “Every rally that we have there’s always the possibility for some violence to occur,” Lt. Smith continued. “That’s always a concern for us regardless of what the group is or the positions they’re taking are.”
The fact that the KKK has been allowed to organize a rally is sparking outrage, which the Huntington Beach City Council addressed by denouncing the hate speech and white supremacy. At the same time as the White Lives Matter rally, the city is putting on a virtual rally they’re calling a “Day of Unity.”
“We can’t stop people from coming to the pier, and we’re not going to be able to stop people from hiding behind the First Amendment to spew hateful rhetoric that’s really divisive in our community,” Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr said. “But what we can do is counter it with these types of events.”
Black Lives Matter Huntington Beach founder Tory Johnson wants residents to come out and show their disapproval of the Ku Klux Klan. “I made a call-out to everybody and anybody around the city that cares at all — and there are a lot of people that care,” he said. “We need to show that Huntington Beach will no longer tolerate racism in any way, shape or form. This will not be a reflection of our city.”
Editor’s Note: In the words of the immortal Willie D, “Fuck the KKK.“
