Ku Klux Klan Calling Cards

Did you know that the Ku Klux Klan has calling cards? I didn’t until I read Mari Matsuda’s detailed article on racist speech in the Michigan Law Review.

Prof. Matusda recounts the following: “A black family enters a coffee shop in a small Texas town. A white man places a card on their table. The card reads, 'You have just been paid a visit by the Ku Klux Klan.' The family stands and leaves." 

She cites several sources, including Patsy Sims, The Klan (1978). Sims explains that the “calling card is a typical Klan technique.”

Prof. Matsuda also cites a federal lawsuit, Vietnamese Fishermen's Assn. v. Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1981). In that case, involving KKK efforts to terrorize an immigrant fishing community to leave south Texas, a white woman who allowed Vietnamese immigrants' fishing boats to use her docks received a card that read "You have paid a 'friendly visit' do you want the next one to be ‘real one?’”

Prof. Matsuda concluded: “Part of the special harm of racist speech is that it works in concert with other racist tools to keep victim groups in an inferior position." 

Prof. Matsuda published her research in 1989. Twenty-eight years later, it is immensely relevant.