The KKK bogeyman

Linda Sarsour, is an anti-semitic bigot who, oddly, rose to fame on the back of the short-lived #MeToo movement. I saw some chatter a couple of days ago that she was claiming that the KKK marched and waved confederate flags during a speech she gave. Someone linked to a tweet from her, conveying that message.

I spoke in Hillsborough, NC in March of this year and not only were they also there holding confederate flags, they were joined by right wing Zionists carrying Israeli flags. So disgusting. https://t.co/zb1lfUYdEI

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) August 25, 2019

OK. The Mandarin Class are eager to convey a rising white supremacist movement which does not actually exist and Sarsour seems to have jumped on that bandwagon. Just more cognitive pollution. Not worth focusing on.

Lots of citizen reporters then pointed out that there were no KKK members or confederate flags in the local news reports and TV video of the event. SHE'S LYING! was the explicit claim.

None of this is especially interesting. Second rate lying activists or confused opponents making counter claims. While it is unpleasant grit in the national conversation, none of this is particularly interesting.

Then a couple of days later, there is this post from Sansour.

I know, you don’t want to believe it, but it’s true. When I was in Hillsborough, NC I was protested by local racists. That’s just the facts. It was reported on too. Here are some photos that are worth a 1000 words. They may change costumes, but their message is consistent. pic.twitter.com/9JmDQZ4n2R

— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) August 25, 2019

Well, that's interesting. No confederate flags or Klansmen in her photos.

This becomes marginally more interesting. Was the KKK there or not?

Did she really post these tweets? I go back to her account and find them.

But in doing so, I discover that the pictures of the KKK and confederate flags at the protest actually originated from Graig Meyer, Democratic Representative of District 50, NC General Assembly. He is the origin of the pictures, Sarsour is merely endorsing his message by retweeting.

Based on the second Sarsour tweet, in which she is offering evidence that there were indeed racists, the fact that there are no confederate flags or KKK members suggests that there were none there. Perhaps she believed there were, relying on Meyer's tweet, and in fact there were none.

Then there is that cryptic comment "They may change costumes, but their message is consistent." Is she suggesting that there were KKK members there and then they changed before anyone other than Meyer could get a picture? An interesting rhetorical device, if that is her intent.

Or perhaps she is saying that pro-Israel supporters, Trump supporters, Christians, and Libertarians are all the same as the KKK. That in her mind, her original endorsement of Meyer's tweet still stands because while they may not have literally been KKK members protesting her speech, anyone who does so is basically a racist/white supremacist.

I am interested in the epistemic aspect of this. In a digital world where everyone is curating their own feeds and where people are properly free to post false or misleading information (i.e. I have no issue with people's freedom of speech), how do you sort the true wheat from the fake or misleading chaff? It is a little like a detective story.

My hypothesis is that Meyer originated the KKK photos as a misguided attempt to push the white supremacy narrative. Perhaps a staffer found these photos from some other source, claiming there were KKK protesters. Either deliberately lying, or mistakenly trusting the research capabilities of a staffer, Meyer tweets out factually wrong pictures. Perhaps evidence of these chimerical protesters will yet arise, but it has been 48 hours and no one is coming forth with such evidence.

I suspect Sarsour saw the pro-Israeli flags and assumed that where there are pro-Israeli flags, it is probable that there are KKK members with confederate flags, based solely on what she saw in Meyer's tweet. In other words, she relied on Meyer and did not see the KKK herself.

Not wishing to contradict an ally like Meyer, Sarsour then sends her second tweet with photos of pro-Israeli flag wavers, Trump Supporters, America Supporters, and Christians, in an attempt to equate them to the KKK.

And there it ends except for the shouting or if further evidence emerges.

The working version of the truth then is that there were some twenty people supporting various popular causes (Israel, patriotism, Trump, Christianity) outside an academic hall where Sarsour was doing her spiel. Sarsour saw some of them. She expanded her claim mote-and-bailey style by forwarding Meyer's tweet.

Sarsour is retreating to her motte - that everyone who disagrees with her is obviously a racist white supremacist - while giving up the bailey that there were actual KKK members protesting with pro-Israel advocates against Sarsour. Probably a pretty sensible decision to give up that particular bailey given the historical KKK anti-semitism. Not dissimilar, in some respects, to Sarsour's own profound anti-semitism.

Still an inconsequential event; much ado about nothing. But kind of an interesting case study of what has become a de facto challenge. You can't trust politicians to tell the truth (Meyer), you can't trust advocates to tell the truth (Sarsour), and you cannot trust the media to accurately report. Given all that, assembling some semblance of an accurate picture of reality becomes more challenging.