Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

'The Andrew Show,' Hosted By Pint-Sized Andrew Pendergraft, Markets Klan's Racist Message To Kids

Andrew Pendergraft is the grandson of Thomas Robb, the modern-day Ku Klux Klan's national director. As a young boy with floppy blond hair and a slight speech impediment, Pendergraft hosted a number of short episodes of his very own amateur talk show, "The Andrew Show," which presents the Klan's ideology in a format aimed at kids -- more specifically, white kids.

Viewable on YouTube, the first episodes of the series were apparently filmed several years ago when Pendergraft was around 9 or 10 years old. The segments use pop culture references to relay advisories against race-mixing and other controversial beliefs promoted by the KKK.

Although its not clear when the last episode of "The Andrew Show" was produced, videos from the series were posted on YouTube as recently as April. This week the program caught the eye of several bloggers, thrusting the show back into the national spotlight.

The third episode of the series (seen above) was likely produced sometime in 2009. It features Pendergraft (bearing an uncanny resemblance to Disney Channel stars Dylan and Cole Sprouse from "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody") and a co-host named Alex, who holds a pug in his lap. They begin by discussing Disney's first African-American princess character, Tiana from the animated film "The Princess and the Frog."

"The princess is a black, so that is good for all the black kids out there," Pendergraft says haltingly, clearly reading from a script off-camera. "But the prince is white. It is all about how race-mixing is good. But race-mixing is wrong."

Later, Pendergraft decries the film's depiction of characters he calls "voodoo doctors [who] worship the devil." He goes on to explain voodoo as the "religion that lots of blacks used to have, but white people taught them about God."

The segment ends with his signature send-off: "Be white and proud. And tune in next week. Bye!"

Pendergraft's mother is Rachel Pendergraft, who is the daughter of Thomas Robb and is the spokeswoman for Robb's Knights of the Ku Klux Klan organization. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the KKKK was founded sometime in the 1970s, and has since attempted to update the image and reputation of the original KKK, as well as grow its online presence.

"The Andrew Show" is part of the KKKK's umbrella of linked websites including ThomasRobb.com, KKK.com and ChristianIdentityChurch.net. Scattered across these sites are a handful of crudely produced shows that all push the Klan's agenda.

According to The Sun's 2010 profile on the Pendergraft family, Andrew and his two older sisters were home-schooled at the family ranch in Arkansas. Sisters Charity and Shelby at one point participated in a white nationalist band called the Heritage Connection and, according to The Sun, indicated that they didn't mind their relative isolation.

“It is true we don’t have any black friends, but then where we live is a 98 per cent white area anyway," Shelby told The Sun.

The Pendergraft family did not respond to The Huffington Post's requests for comment.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: Meredith Bennett-Smith

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