The American Dream Is Dead and Good Riddance

1/11/2015
The American Dream Is Dead, and Good Riddance - The Daily Beast
THE DAILY BEAST
POLITICS
ENTERTAINMENT
WORLD
U.S. NEWS
TECH + HEALTH
Getty
WAKING UP 07.07.14
Keli Goff
The American Dream Is Dead, and

Good Riddance
Its time to redene what it means to be successful in America.
New analysis confirms what many already assumed to be true: a sizable
number of Americans can no longer afford the American Dream. Inspired by
the new book, Chasing the American Dream, USA Today calculated that
subsidizing the American Dream costs approximately $130,000 annually,
meaning the dream is only within reach for about 1 in 8 American families.
The shocking six-figure price tag generated international headlines. But
instead of inspiring handwringing about how to make the American Dream
more affordable, I hope these numbers show us something else: the American
Dream as we know it is dead, and good riddance.
Perhaps nothing is more responsible for the lack of contentment plaguing some
Americans today than the outdated notion of the American Dream that has
been peddled to all of us for as long as we can remember. Im referring to the
version that usually involves some mention of a white picket fence.
As part of its calculation USA Today cited certain key benchmarks for
achieving the American Dream, notably home ownership, educating two
children, as well as owning a good car. But for many of us our American Dream
doesnt involve all of the above, and in some cases any of the above.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/07/the-american-dream-is-dead-and-good-riddance.html
1/18
1/11/2015
Adults living alone are currently one of the fastest growing demographics in
America. Nearly a third of households now consist of one person, and the
number of Americans living alone has doubled in the last fifty years. According
to a piece in Fortune, this demographic wields notable spending power. Many
of them can splurge regularly on things that traditional families sometimes
cannot, such as theater tickets. Is it possible some of these people are killing
time until they transition into a more traditional definition of the American
Dream via marriage? Sure, but a lot of these so-called singletons are already
living their own version of the dream.
Perhaps nothing is
more responsible for
the lack of
contentment
plaguing some
Americans today
than the outdated
notion of the
American Dream
that has been
peddled to all of us
for as long as we
can remember.
Moreover, the number of childfree

adultsincluding couplesis also on
the rise. Despite the fact that anyone
with common sense will tell you not
everyone is meant to be a parent, and
that some people are not cut out for
marriage, that has not stopped
marriage and parenthood from being
central to the most common
contemporary definition of the
American Dream.
But even as more Americans are
beginning to challenge these ideas,
there is still very potent societal
pressure on Americans to chase some
version of a dream many may not even
want, but have simply been told to
pursue their whole lives.
Similarly, while USA Today writes,
Home ownership is central to the
American dream, I know of plenty of
New Yorkers who might argue that a
reasonable rent is. Its also hard not to
wonder if the mortgage meltdown
would have happened if so many
Americans had not bought into the idea that their American Dream would not
be complete without buying a house, specifically a house they could not really
afford.
When historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase The American
Dream in 1931, he called it that dream of a land in which life should be better
and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to
ability or achievement. He added, It is not a dream of motor cars and high
wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman
shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable,
and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous
circumstances of birth or position.
2/18
1/11/2015
But over the years this definition of the American Dream has been lost.
Instead, when we talk about the American Dream, we often find ourselves
talking about marriage, children, mortgage debt, student loan debt, stuff, more
stuff, and even more stuff (to fill up the house you owe the mortgage debt on).
Thankfully, the tide appears to be turning back in favor of Adams definition of
the American Dream. A 2011 study found a sense of meaning to be the most
important factor for Millennials in defining a successful career, even though
meaning is not the kind of thing that always helps with a mortgage. Perhaps
now that the American Dream as we have long known it is now out of financial
reach for an increasing number of Americans, more will take the time to reflect
on what the American Dream means for them personally, and maybe for our
country as a whole in the 21st century.
SHARE
TWEET
POST
EMAIL
158 COMMENTS
PROMOTED STORIES
Recommended by
Mohamed Al-Sayaghi/Reuters
NEVER FORGET 01.11.15
The Forgotten War That Spawned

Adam
Baron
3/18
1/11/2015
Paris Attacks
While the attack against Charlie Hebdo captured the worlds attention,
Yemen continued to bleed from relentless attacks from Al Qaeda.
LONDON The massacre at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo was neither
the only nor the deadliest terror attack to occur on Wednesday. Hours before
the Koauchi brothers made their way to the offices of the French satirical
magazine, thousands of miles away, in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, a car bomb
struck a crowd of men lined up to enroll at the citys police academy. Roughly
four-dozen were killed as the bomb went off, strewing blood and body parts
across the street.
Its a coincidence that has grown all the more notableand tragicin light of
the emerging ties between the Charlie Hebdo attackers and al Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based terror group that officials have
accused of carrying out Wednesdays car bomb. According to the AFP, Said
Koauchi, the older of the pair, traveled to Yemen multiple times between 2009
and 2011, studying at Sanaas Iman University, a controversial institution
headed by firebrand cleric Abdulmajid al-Zindani, prior to training with AQAP
in camps in the south and southeast of the country.
Notably, Inspire, an English-language, AQAP-affiliate magazine, explicitly
threatened to kill Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier in its March
2013 edition, and at writing time, AQAP has reportedly taken credit for the
attack on behalf of the group, though the ultimate extent of the Koauchi
brothers ties to Yemen and AQAP is still unclear. Either way, the attack has
refocused attention to the impoverished, conflict-stricken country.
Hailed as a textbook example of a successful counterterrorism strategy by U.S.
officials as late as fall of last year, Yemen has instead been riven with unrest
lately. An internationally backed power transition agreement has fallen apart,
and the countrys economyto say nothing of the central governments control
over the bulk of the countryhas appeared to collapse as well. And no one in
the circles of power in the West seems to have noticed.
Indeed, last weeks violence in Paris seems to underline how little progress has
been made against AQAP. Despite the efforts of the U.S. and Yemeni
governments, it still appears to possess the ability to unleash horrors against
Western targets.
Yemen had already developed a
reputation as a hotspot for extremism
by the time Koauchi allegedly first
arrived in 2009. Many western-born
Muslim hardliners flocked to Salafi
institutes in the country, most
famously, perhaps, the Dar al-Hadith
institute in the far northern town of
4/18
1/11/2015
The worry here is

that once the
attack on Charlie
Hebdo fades from
the headlines,
Yemen will return
to suffering alone
as the rest of the
world turns a deaf
earuntil, that is,
AQAP hits the
West again.
Dammaj. While the bulk of these

foreigners simply came to study, a
number joined up with extremists on
the ground. One of the most notorious
among them was Underwear Bomber
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a
Nigerian student trained by AQAP who
infamously attempted to blow up a
passenger airliner on Christmas Day
2009.
But while such rare plots against
foreign targets have garnered AQAP the
most attention, the bulk of activity
and the bulk of their attackshas
occurred on Yemeni soil. It is this
violence the West ignores at its peril.

As the central governments control over much of the country evaporated over
the course of 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring-inspired uprising against the
countrys long time leader, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, AQAP quickly moved
to take advantage. While the group was pushed out of its former strongholds in
the southern Abyan in a Spring 2012 military offensive, theyve quickly
regrouped.
AQAP has continued to find safe haven in areas across country, ranging from
the eastern province of Hadramawtwhere the groups fighters have displayed
aims of establishing an Islamic emirateto the oil and gas rich provinces of
Marib and Shabwa, to Abyan itself. AQAP has continued to unleash a steady
flurry of attacks on military and security targets, supplementing their finances
through everything from bank robberies to taking foreign hostages for ransom,
allowing the group to buy new weapons and loyalties as it aims to spread its
writ to new territories.
Only the most diligent of news junkies would be aware of this bloodshed, given
the dearth of coverage in most Western mediaa disheartening oversight,
because AQAP represents perhaps the purest distillation of al Qaedas ideology
and ambitions outside of the core group headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri. Most
terrorism analysts consider it the most dangerous al Qaeda franchise.
The U.S. has worked to counter AQAPs growth, gaining a comparatively free
hand from President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, Salehs successor and a
former vice president. He has openly backed American drone strikes in the
country.
But while the sharp uptick of U.S. drone strikes has succeeded in taking out a
handful of key figures, including AQAP deputy emir Said al-Shihri and
charismatic extremist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the barrage of remotely operated
American airpower has failed to deliver anything resembling a knock-out
punch to the terror group.
5/18
1/11/2015
Yemenis overwhelmingly oppose the strikes, which they see as violations of the
nations sovereignty and the rule of law. These misgivings have only been
heightened by a series of civilian casualties resulting from the strikes. A
number of observersincluding former U.S. deputy ambassador to Yemen
Nabil Khouryhave vocally criticized the strikes, arguing that they ultimately
risk creating as many militants as they kill, ironically threatening to inflame
anti-American sentiments to the point of spurring the very attacks the U.S. is
aiming to prevent.
All of this, however, fails to touch on the key factors behind the presence of
extremist groups like AQAP in Yemen. In large part, AQAP is a product of its
environment; as many Yemenis see it, the group is the fruit of a foreign
ideology that has been able to lay roots in the country due to Yemens
widespread poverty and the governments endemic corruption and persistent
dysfunction. As the groups resilience in the face of repeated U.S. drone strikes
has demonstrated, AQAP will continue to carve out a presence in Yemen as
long as its given space to do sosomething that is virtually inevitable as long as
the power vacuum in the country remainsmeaning the group appears
destined to retain the operating space to train operatives who can take aim at
targets in the west.
In light of the ongoing political crisis in the country, its rather hard to see a
way out. Paradoxically, as foreign diplomats continued to hail the countrys
supposed progress along a UN-sponsored transitional roadmap, things
continued to slowly spiral out of control on the ground. An ongoing
humanitarian crisis means roughly half of the already impoverished country is
going hungry. Secessionists in the countrys restive southan independent
country until 1990stage daily demonstrations calling for a return to
autonomy. Tensions between rival factions in the Yemeni political
establishment paralyze the government. And the Shia-led Houthi rebel group
finally took control of the city on Sept. 21 last year.
Despite their vociferously anti-American stanceepitomized by the caustic
Death to America slogans displayed on their checkpoints across the Yemeni
capitalthe Houthis have made fighting AQAP a top priority. But AQAP has
fought back; the groups military commander, Qassim al-Raymi, ominously
threatened to unleash casualties that would make the hair of young children
turn grey.
In the wake of Wednesdays car bomb attack in Sanaa, appalled Yemenis,
noting two attacks on Houthi-linked targets in the central towns of Dhamar
and Ibb mere days before, worried that the group appeared to be making good
on Raymis word, wondering, with horror, when the violence would finally end.
And when the world would remember this war.
Its unspeakably tragic that it took a violent attack in Paris to refocus attention
to the ongoing unrest in Yemen, a nation whose conflict has been all but
forgotten for some time. But the worry here is that once the attack on Charlie
Hebdo fades from the headlines, Yemen will return to suffering alone as the
rest of the world turns a deaf earuntil, that is, AQAP hits the West again.
6/18
1/11/2015
Adam Baron is a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign

Relations. He was based in Yemen from 2011-2014.
SHARE
TWEET
POST
EMAIL
16 COMMENTS
Pepsico
PARTNER CONTENT
GAME CHANGERS 12.19.14
The Science of Ingredient Innovation

Industry leader rooted in smart new innovations.
How far would you be willing to go to remain a leader in your field?

For PepsiCo, anticipating and staying ahead of changing consumer demands
for healthier and great tasting products is an unwavering commitment.
Remaining a food and beverage powerhouse takes investments to expand
research, engineering, science capabilities, and new technologies to understand
consumer preferences and develop high-quality, great-tasting products that
7/18
1/11/2015
consumers trust.
Sometimes it takes going to the ends of the Earth.
Traveling to highly bio-diverse areas like the forests and jungles of Brazil, Peru,
Malaysia, China, and Taiwan, PepsiCo is discovering indigenous ingredients,
thousand-year-old recipes, and their possible applications in new and existing
products.
For example, visits to local markets in these regions have allowed PepsiCo to
find ingredients like exotic antioxidant grape-like fruits, ruby-red yumberries
and ginseng, betel nuts, seaweed, and sweet tropical longans, and allowed the
company to observe how they are being incorporated into regional cooking.
These insights and discoveries help PepsiCo anticipate, rather than react to, an
ever-changing consumer landscape. Its all part of a longer-term PepsiCo plan
to broaden its portfolio through science-based research and development.
During the last three years, PepsiCos investments in R&D increased by an
impressive 25%. And research and development facilities in the United States,
United Kingdom, Shanghai, Germany and Mexico to name a few are
engines of innovation, driving topline growth. The new Shanghai location, the
largest outside of North America, serves as a hub for new food and beverage
products, flavors, packaging, and equipment throughout Asia.
The investments in science-based R&D
are paying dividends. In the United
PepsiCo eliminated
approximately
402,000 metric tons
of added sugar from
its beverage
portfolio in North
America in 2013 as
compared to 2006,
and has introduced
low- and zero-
calorie beverages to
that end.
States, PepsiCo has debuted nine of the

top 50 new food and beverage products
across all measured U.S. retail channels
in 2013. They are Mountain Dew
Kickstart, made with 5% real fruit juice;
Starbucks ready-to-drink Iced Coffee;
Tropicana Farmstand beverage thats
100% juice, which includes one serving
of fruit plus one serving of vegetable
per 8 oz. serving; the fresh-brewed
Lipton Pure Leaf Tea; Muller Quaker
Greek-style yogurt; Tostitos Cantina
Tortilla Chips, Doritos Locos Taco
Chips, Ruffles MAX, and Cheetos MixUps.
Work on science-based strategies includes a focus on enhanced consumer

experiences and preference drivers such as taste, texture, aroma, and
convenience.
There are a lot of clues that nature gives you, says Dr. Mehmood Khan,
executive vice president of PepsiCo and chief scientific officer, who oversees
the food and beverage companys global R&D organization. Whats interesting
to me in the past couple of years is the merging of biology and chemistry and
analytical technology that has opened up more applications with the potential
8/18
1/11/2015
to create more new products in our innovation pipeline. Its exciting. He likens
the rapid-fire changes underway to the difference between black and white or
color TV and high-definition technology: We can see things now we didnt see
a year ago because the technology wasnt available.
Less Is More
For decades, consumers generally only cared about taste and price. Now better
informed, they want to know about the sustainability of a product and its
packaging; where and how an ingredient is sourced; exactly what is in a
product, and how it fits their specific functional needs. Not only do they want
more information from manufacturers producing their foods and beverages,
but consumers are also more inclined than ever before to share information
and recommendations with each other. And they also expect those products to
remain affordable and taste great.
PepsiCos science-based R&D capabilities are helping the company anticipate
and meet the consumer needs on a global scale. For example, PepsiCo
eliminated approximately 402,000 metric tons of added sugar from its
beverage portfolio in North America in 2013 as compared to 2006, and has
introduced low- and zero-calorie beverages to that end.
Within the same timeframe, nearly 3,900 metric tons of sodium was removed
from PepsiCos food portfolio, and the company continues to invest in new
technologies and recipes that even further reduce salt levels.
Working with scientific and technology partners to create, what R&D calls a
more efficient salt, PepsiCo R&D scientists recently discovered how the size
and shape of salt actually affects taste perception. A couple of years ago at a
forum, says Dr. Khan, we taught medium-to-small companies some of this
technology so they could utilize it in their products. We believe it was good for
the industry to adopt some of this as well. Of course, it was also good for the
9/18
1/11/2015
consumer.
The Transformation Journey
How did this transformation happen? PepsiCo recruited scientific talent and a
leadership team with backgrounds and credentials that were unusual for a
traditional food and beverage company. Experts hailed from disciplines such as
agronomy, exercise physiology, endocrinology, metabolomics, and rheology,
among others. Dr. Khan was previously a faculty member at the Mayo Clinic
serving as director of the Diabetes, Endocrine, and Nutritional Trials unit, and
oversaw worldwide R&D efforts at the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company as the
president of the Takeda Global Research & Development Center.
With the transformation, a message of commitment was sent to the industry
regarding their new approach to product development, innovation, deep
consumer insights, and product design.
The R&D team is combing remote regions like the Amazon in South America
and parts of Asia and even Iceland, both on land and in the sea. The mission?
To find various indigenous plants that are inherently sweet or salty, have fatty
characteristics, are naturally sourced preservatives and could be useful in many
product categories. According to Dr. Khan, PepsiCo has not only taken the lead
in the industry in finding ways to reduce salt and fats, introduced lower-sugar
orange juice, uncovered new oat-based benefits for consumers, and delivered
high-protein beverages, it was also one of the first companies to come out with
high-intensity, non-nutritive natural sweeteners like Stevia in its beverages.
Part of that, Dr. Khan says, was a direct result of the global trekking PepsiCo is
doing. Were finding other ingredients similar to Stevia that we believe might
unlock further great-tasting products in the future.
With more than 5,000 different species and plants R&D looks at on a yearly
basis, PepsiCo has at its disposal digitized tasting technology, which was first
10/18
1/11/2015
used by the pharmaceutical industry for new product discovery. Says Dr. Khan,
once we discover a plant, we can fractionate it in order to look at it a little
more closely; each one of those fractions has eight to ten natural flavor
ingredients. Then as we drill down, our screening technology will tell us if an
ingredient is inherently sweet, salty, fatty, or could be used for another purpose
such as preservatives or energy applications. Incorporating taste biology and
sensory biology, the technology is helping to decipher hundreds of thousands
of molecules to go further into human tasting applications along the road to
yielding a new product. The now-efficient process once took a month by
former means and now actually takes a day, says Dr. Khan.
When we go out into the field, we have high, rapid analytical methods where
we can actually see inside the plants or molecules and send that information
directly to a cloud and central database in New York, he says, referring to a
technology that has only been in place for the last two years. The final piece is
our sensory science, where once we narrow it down to a few molecules that
have been validated for tasting going through our protocols, we have R&D
experts that can say yes, this is sweet or salty or fatty and can be used in our
offerings. That methodology, says Dr. Khan, is PepsiCos newest. Because
these ingredients are so new, we need new methodologies just to evaluate
them. Its not like evaluating vanilla extract, because some of these things
represent the first time humans are actually tasting these ingredients. Or, he
says, they were only used previously in ancient recipes and its the first time
we brought it back to the United States to be able to taste. The whole idea is, of
course, to ultimately explore how we can use these ingredients in potential new
products that have a tangible consumer benefit.
Another strategy has included PepsiCos collaboration with chefs both in the
United States and globally who, for example, might prepare desserts that, while
sweet, are made without sugar. We recently held an exposition at the Culinary
Institute of America in Napa, California, and as a result our internal PepsiCo
chefs recreated the same dishes these chefs did in order to capture the flavor
ingredients before, during, and after the cooking and plating process. The idea
was to identify what they are and apply them to different snacks, beverages,
and foods. This, says Dr. Khan, is a way for us to explore ways to get these
flavorful ingredients into products, and offer more uniqueness and realistic
flavor in seasonings for a snack chip. These insights also help PepsiCo
continue to expand its nutrition business, which represented approximately 20
percent of its net revenue in 2013. Its a portfolio of good-for-you offerings that
include drinkable oats with dairy, 100 percent juice, yogurt, humus and protein
shakes to name a few.
11/18
1/11/2015
A Global Focus
As R&D helps to drive PepsiCos business with state-of-the-art technology, its
solutions are offering more consumers enjoyable and nutritious food and
beverage options, while making them available to more places across the globe.
What tastes great to an American consumer may not be what folks in China or
India would choose to eat or drink. To that end, PepsiCo adapts different global
brands with products customized for specific markets. Two culturally relevant
examples are Tropicana Frutz Sparkling Drink in the Middle East and Quaker
Inner Smile in China, a dairy and oat beverage. Likewise, the companys iconic
potato chip offerings worldwide are customized to suit local palatesfrom
Walkers Pickled Onion crisps in England and MAXX seafood-flavored chips in
Thailand to shrimp-flavored chips in Egypt and salad chips in China. Without
reinventing the wheel, PepsiCo is able to leverage its global scale by creating
the opportunity for great ideas to be adapted from one market to another
across the world; efficiencies that allow the company to further invest in
innovation that ultimately benefits the consumer worldwide.
For a company that began 50 years ago, PepsiCo has successfully transformed
itself into a global and diversified organization, with a portfolio providing a
considerable range of food and beverages around the world. As it grows and
continues to innovate, PepsiCo also remains committed to offering consumers
everywhere more choice and better nutrition to meet and exceed their needs
while it works to minimize its environmental impact. PepsiCos stated mission
of performance with purpose not only fuels its growth but allows the industry
leader to stay ahead of trends as it helps to sustainably shape the world in
which it operates.
For more information, visit pepsico.com.
This content is partner content, and was not necessarily
12/18
1/11/2015
written or created by The Daily Beast editorial team.
SHARE
TWEET
POST
EMAIL
Sasha Mordovets/Getty
BOOM IN THE NIGHT 01.06.15
Anna
Nemtsova
Is Putin Turning to Terrorism in

Ukraine?
In this nervous city in an embattled country, even small explosions can
have a big impact.
ODESSA, Ukraine On Sunday night a powerful explosion shook the heart of
Ukraines most elegant city. The bomb went off right on the porch of the local
Euro-Maidan Coordination Council, where volunteers store humanitarian aid
for Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russian-backed forces in the east of the country.
Authorities categorized the incident as an act of terrorism, the seventh
bombing targeting strategic points of Odessa in the past few weeks.
The explosion destroyed the Councils porch, tearing the entrance door to
pieces, breaking windows in apartments on upper floors, and terrifying
pedestrians on Gimnazicheskaya Avenue.
13/18
1/11/2015
Fortunately nobody was hurt seriously. But such are the tensions here that last
week the central government in Kiev deployed two units of National Guards to
launch an anti-terror operation in Odessa.
We are convinced that money for terrorism comes from Moscow, says Vitaliy
Kozhukhar, a commander of Odessas self-defense forces. The special services
of Russian President Vladimir Putin seem to be happily organizing explosions
in order to destabilize life in our peaceful city, which to their frustration does
not want to become a part of Russia.
Terrorism is bad news anywhere, but especially rough on Odessa, where the
city motto seems to be make love, not war. It is the only tourist center
Ukraine has left on the Black Sea, since Russia annexed Crimea last spring. Its
graceful hotels and beautiful restaurants are totally dependent on the tourist
trade. But most visitors stopped coming after the tragic events of May 2, when
over 40 pro-Russian activists from the separatist movement and Ukrainian
soccer fans were killed in a fire and in the violent clashes that surrounded it.
In 2014 only a tenth as many tourists came as had come the year before.
Instead, spa hotels filled up with over 30,000 refugees from the war-troubled
Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
The advent of terrorist bombings, even if they are targeting buildings more
than people, will lead tourists to decide almost any place is better for a vacation
than Odessa.
We are
convinced
that money
for
terrorism
comes from
Moscow.
One bomb went off outside an office of

the Council of Public Security on Dec.
10, another one destroyed railroad
track outside Odessa on Dec. 24, right
under a moving freight train.
Thankfully there were no casualties
the driver managed to stop the train
immediately. A few days later an as yet
unidentified man carried one kilo of
TNT explosives toward the
headquarters of Ukrainian Patriotic
Activists, but by accident the attacker
was killed by his own bomb.
Last September, according to local
investigative journalist Sergei Dibrov, a
group of five local men received an
order from their alleged strategists in
Moscow to fire at a checkpoint on the
highway outside Odessa. They were
provided with a mortar and promised to be paid in exchange for a video of their
attack, but police detained them; on Dec. 26 all five of them were exchanged
for Russian prisoners, Dibrov said.
For now Odessas terrorists do not target civilians. This week, a few days before
14/18
1/11/2015
Orthodox Christmas, the citys parks and squares were full of families, and
nobody seemed too concerned about safety. The terrorists message is
addressed to us activists but they should know that their bombs will not stop
our work, says Sergei Sarafanyuk, a member of the Odessa Euro-Maidan
Coordination.
SHARE
TWEET
POST
EMAIL
44 COMMENTS
PBS
HISTORY REPEATING 01.11.15
Lewis Beale
New Documentary Shows The

Moderate Klan of North Carolina
The Tarheel State had a reputation as the most progressive in the
country on race relations. But it also had the biggest Klan chapter in
the South.
If you were driving through North Carolina in the mid-1960s, chances are
youd see this billboard:
You are in the heart of Klan country. Welcome to North Carolina. Join the
United Klans of America, Inc. Help fight integration and communism!
Klan support in the South was not exactly breaking news. What made these
15/18
1/11/2015
highway signs stand out was the fact that they were fairly common in what had
long been considered the most progressive state in the region, where the civil
rights movement had been met with a minimum of bloodshed and violence.
But the fact is, by 1966 the Tar Heel State had over 10,000 KKK members,
more than all the other Southern states combined.
The reasons why are explored in Klansville, U.S.A., a documentary based on
the book of the same name by David Cunningham, which will be broadcast on
PBS on Jan. 13. And although the documentary deals with events that
happened 50 years ago, it also helps us understand contemporary Southern
racial politics.
So why North Carolina? As it turns out, the strength of the Klan was a response
to the Tar Heel States relatively smooth transition from segregation to
integration. White people in North Carolina could not count on their
politicians to resist integration like the politicians in Mississippi and Alabama,
Cunningham told the Daily Beast, so there was this opening the Klan could
step into.
It also helped that North Carolina had a Klan organizer like Bob Jones, a
former lightning rod salesman who had been discharged from the Navy for
refusing to salute a black officer. Jones began organizing in 1963, claiming to
be a voice for poor whites who felt threatened by black progress and who were
left behind by the states economic upturn.
White people in
North Carolina
could not count on
their politicians to
resist integration
like the politicians
in Mississippi and
Alabama, so there
was this opening
the Klan could
step into.
Jones was not a charismatic figure as

we usually think of that, said
Cunningham. He was an excellent
people person. He was disarming, with
a sense of humor. He also knew enough
to partner with people who had more
charisma.
The Klans appeal was to people leading
traditional lives in rural areas. Their
rallies, which could attract thousands,
were like county fairs and social events,
and were in many ways similar to
religious revivals of the past. Jones and
his followers also claimed they were not
a violent organization, unlike Klan
outlets in the Deep South. Their major
form of intimidation, in fact, was not
murder or beatings, but cross burning.
If the North Carolina Klan was, in its
own bizarre way, a relatively moderate
organization, this was a reflection of the Tar Heel State itself. The state was
considered the shining light of the New South, in which the North Carolina
Way, advocating non-confrontation in race relations, was highly praised. This
16/18
1/11/2015
moderation was reflected in The Andy Griffith Show, set in fictional Mayberry,
N.C. A soothing vision of small town life, the popular program featured blacks,
but they were always in the background, and seemed to respect the racial
boundaries of the day. That sense of neighborliness also contributed to that
broad complicity to maintaining this sense of racial solidarity, Cunningham
said. Those boundaries drawn along racial lines were very strong and very
formal.
All this contributed to North Carolinas relatively benign image, but also to a
sense of complacency, especially regarding the Klan.
I think the political class saw the Klan as nothing more than an annoyance,
said Klansville, U.S.A. director Callie Wiser. They werent in tune with the
working class, and they either believed, or wanted to believe, that the Klan
wasnt as scary as they thought. Their thinking was that these people were just
blowing off steam.
Eventually, however, Jones and his Klan movement were brought down by a
number of factors. Following the violence in Selma, Ala. and the murder of
white civil rights worker Viola Liuzzoall recounted in the current film
Selmathe FBI, which had been indifferent, if not openly hostile, to the civil
rights movement, was forced to take on the Klan.
That, plus a Jones confidant turned informant and Jones conviction on
contempt of Congress charges after he refused to turn over the Klans bank
accounts to a congressional committee, reduced the North Carolina KKK to a
shell of its former self. Yet racial and economic anxiety, the forces that made
the Klan a player in North Carolina and the South, still existed. In North
CarolinaCarolina, they were channeled into support for hard-right racial
demagogue Jesse Helms, elected five times to the U.S. Senate.
And nationally, they were manifested as opposition to the 1964 Civil Rights
Act, which President Lyndon B. Johnson accurately predicted would deliver the
South to the Republican Party for years to come.
People have anxieties, and will continue to have them, Wiser said. There are
always going to be threats to peoples livelihoods, and when they feel unsure
about their place in the world, they will lash out. That fear has not been
exhausted.
In the areas where the Klan was present in the South, those areas tended to
drive the shift towards Republican voting, added Cunningham.
The Klan never became a political force, but they were influential in loosening
ties to the Democratic Party. This isnt purely a historical story. We see the
resonance of the Klans presence continuing. ++Where the Klan was popular,
we see more violent crime (PDF).
The Klan wanted to delegitimize authority, and that vigilantist impulse
continues to have a legacy today.
17/18
1/11/2015
SHARE
ABOUT US
C O N TA C T U S
JOBS
ADVERTISE
HELP
MOBILE SITE
TWEET
POST
EMAIL
343 COMMENTS
Privacy
Community Policy
Te r m s & C o n d i t i o n s
C o p y r i g h t & Tr a d e m a r k
2014 The Daily Beast Company LLC
18/18

The American Dream Is Dead and Good Riddance

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The American Dream Is Dead and Good Riddance

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

1/11/2015

THE DAILY BEAST

The American Dream Is Dead, and

Moreover, the number of childfree

NEVER FORGET 01.11.15

The Forgotten War That Spawned

The worry here is

Dammaj. While the bulk of these

violence the West ignores at its peril.

Adam Baron is a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign

The Science of Ingredient Innovation

How far would you be willing to go to remain a leader in your field?

States, PepsiCo has debuted nine of the

Work on science-based strategies includes a focus on enhanced consumer

This content is partner content, and was not necessarily

written or created by The Daily Beast editorial team.

BOOM IN THE NIGHT 01.06.15

Is Putin Turning to Terrorism in

One bomb went off outside an office of

HISTORY REPEATING 01.11.15

New Documentary Shows The

Jones was not a charismatic figure as

You might also like