Halloween costume offensive?

Are you sure the KKK hates/hated the Irish that much? And on what grounds? I'm sure some of them say it and I'm sure some of them do hate the Irish... but if Irish people wanted to give their support/funding etc, I doubt the KKK would object - whites are whites. In the early days, catholics were certainly a target of the KKK but by the turn of the century, commies became more of a concern. Some grandmaster nut-job praised McDowell's immigration policy a few years ago. I would say many of those loons admire Ireland because of its mostly white population and good ol' simple, rural, traditional way of life (that's how Ireland is perceived still).

rstans wrote: »

Would the OP dress up as a neo-nazi?

Maybe. I think an excellent fuk-you to such people is to laugh at them - Mel Brooks, a Jew, did so when he made The Producers.
To Be or Not to Be is another piss-take of the nazis and a chiefly Jewish production.

Well if I saw a black person or Jewish person dressed up as a member of the KKK, I would view it as a piss-take... not an "endorsement".

Dudess wrote: »

There's a loose connection based on historical factors, but not a close bond. That's actually something I did a bit of reading up on. Guarantee you most of those yokels don't have an iota about the Orange Order.

Like most racist movements the KKK places great faith in endorsing irrational hatred of colour / creed as their motivations for attacking those different to them when their true motivations are completely different.

While there are of course, slack jawed yokels ready to do whatever to "purify" or "defend" the race their real raison d'etre is purely to do with economics. The migrations of 18th and early 19th century delivered 100's of thousands of immigrants to America ready to do any work at whatever price. They were able to undercut the traditional WASP white thrash class and as a result drew the ire of those who stood to loose out financially.

Interestingly enough, post emancipation, the original Night Riders were more concerned with driving out anyone they considered foreign. They deliberately targeted churches, businesses and families in an attempt to "cleanse" the Labour pool not the gene pool. The whole burning cross and disguises was an attempt to threaten and intimidate people into leaving. If they were on their way to murder the witnesses in a town that approved and backed their actions then why would they bother?

Anyway they detested the Irish in particular who flooded into their traditional strongholds post Civil War. The reasons for this are varied but the most important being that local merchants would be more inclined to employ a white English speaking, Irish man rather than a freed black. The only reason however, that there were less outright murders was because State Legislatures placed more importance on the death of a white man than a black man whatever the white mans nationality. Also as it's a WASP movement you can imagine the traditional superiority that these would have for the prehensile Irish men turning up in their towns.