[imagesource: Tiam Tellez/Washington Post]

There are poor life choices that you can recover from, like that last tequila shot that you probably shouldn’t have downed at 2AM.

Then there are the choices that are made when people are willfully ignorant.

I don’t need to tell you that the Ku Klux Klan is historically one of America’s most violently racist hate groups. While they no longer have the foothold in the country that they did in the 1870s, or infamously in the early-mid to 1920s, and again in the 1950s, that easily recognisable red or white pointed hood has cropped up every now and then, including the infamous white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

Around the world, people have been encouraged, or even sanctioned, to wear masks when leaving the house.

Earlier this month, despite the iconography behind it, a man in a Vons supermarket store in California, donned a pointed white hood to stock up on groceries.

Over to BuzzFeed for some background:

The images went viral, and following public outrage on social media, the sheriff’s department released a statement on May 4 that they would be investigating the incident.

This week, Sheriff William D. Gore said that after reviewing the case, they found a lack of sufficient evidence to charge the individual.

Here’s the worst part: they cited his “right to free speech” as the primary reason for their decision.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has said that ‘[s]peech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought that we hate,'” the sheriff said in Monday’s statement.

The hood-wearer was interrogated.

“The man expressed frustration with the coronavirus and having people tell him what he can and cannot do.”

Photo: Times of San Diego

“He said that wearing the hood was not intended to be a racial statement. In summary, he said, ‘It was a mask and it was stupid.'”

Santee, where the photos were taken, has a long history of racially motivated violence so notorious that it earned the name ‘Klantee’, with local government hiring an image consultant last year in an attempt to rebrand.

One of the most high-profile incidents of racially motivated violence in the area occurred in 1998, when a group of white men attacked a black Marine at a Memorial Day party, leaving the 21-year-old with a broken neck and paralyzed for life.

According to witnesses, the five men shouted slurs and “white power” as they carried out the assault. (The instigator, who admitted the attack was motivated by race, was sentenced to nine years in prison. The other four were sentenced to one year of jail time and five years of probation.)

It seems impossible that the man in the grocery store unaware of Santee’s history and the significance of the hood.

Another job well done, America.

[source:buzzfeed]