Very interesting thread (as is Parson's stuff on the early Klan in general), though I disagree w/ her on the elaborateness of the Klan's costumes showing deliberate strategy, any more than (say) drag queens' do. The early Klan did a lot of stuff they just thought was fun & funny.
https://twitter.com/Evolving_Moloch/status/1417895257585291265
As Parsons notes in her fascinating book KU-KLUX, the Ku Klux Klan started out as a freakin' band (like, a *literal actual band,* as in *a garage band with musical instruments*) from Tennessee who amused themselves by shitposting in their newspaperman friend's comment sections!
The first Klansman (mostly well-off dudes disenfranchised by Reconstruction) were exactly the sort to figure that if something funny was worth doing, it was worth overdoing.
There were two other really interesting things I gleaned from Parsons's KU-KLUX:
1) the general term for groups like that was "night riders;" "Ku-Klux" caught on as a catch-all -- like "kleenex" for all brands of tissue -- because it was memorable and sounded funny.
1) the general term for groups like that was "night riders;" "Ku-Klux" caught on as a catch-all -- like "kleenex" for all brands of tissue -- because it was memorable and sounded funny.
2) Nathan Bedford Forrest, whom a lot of people think of today as being The Head of The Ku Klux Klan, actually bore a relationship to it sort of like Michael Flynn has with QAnon, except if Michael Flynn went around winking and nudging that he himself might actually be Q.
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