Posted on 10/30/2013 3:22:18 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Keshia Thomas, a Black woman who protected a White man at a Ku Klux Klan rally back in 1996, recently recalled her act, according to BBC News.
“I knew what it was like to be hurt,” Thomas said. “The many times that, that happened, I wish someone would have stood up for me.”
Thomas was 18 years old, when Klansmen decided to hold a rally in Ann Arbor, Mich., her hometown. Known for being a heavily liberal and multiracial area, hundreds of residents gathered in a show of force against the group.
Though officers protected the White supremacists with riot gear and protesters were held behind a fence, the rally soon turned hostile. A woman holding a megaphone reportedly noticed a White man among them wearing a confederate T-shirt. She reportedly notified protesters who then proceeded to chase him from the crowd.
Though it’s not known if the man was a Klan member, protesters allegedly yelled, “Kill the Nazi,” before knocking him down. They reportedly began attacking him with wooden sticks from their signs.
For Thomas, the situation had clearly gotten out of hand.
“When people are in a crowd, they are more likely to do things they would never do as an individual. Someone had to step out of the pack and say, ‘This isn’t right.’” she said.
Consequently, Thomas threw herself over the man, protecting him from further harm.
Then-student photographer Mark Brunner, who photographed the motion, was amazed by Thomas’ actions.
“She put herself at physical risk to protect someone who, in my opinion, would not have done the same for her,” he said. “Who does that in this world?” According to Thomas, “Violence is violence — nobody deserves to be hurt, especially not for an idea.” Now in her 30s, Thomas has never heard from the man, but she did have an encounter with someone close to him: Months after the gesture, a man reportedly approached her in a coffee shop and thanked her. When she asked why, he said, ”That was my dad.”
Knowing the man had a son put things in even greater perspective for Thomas. ”For the most part, people who hurt…they come from hurt. It is a cycle. Let’s say they had killed him or hurt him really bad. How does the son feel? Does he carry on the violence?”
Now living in Texas, Thomas says she is looking toward the future and not her past.
“I don’t want to think that this is the best I could ever be. In life you are always striving to do better.” she said. “The biggest thing you can do is just be kind to another human being. It can come down to eye contact or a smile. It doesn’t have to be a huge monumental act.”
Klan in Ann Arbor is asking for trouble but that’s what they do. Too bad so many idiots are easily baited.
You do know that Newsone is a black racist website not posted here by those who want to be taken seriously.
Hopefully some good comes out of all this.
Confederate symbol = Nazi? Who knew?
There are lots of good folks out there of all races. There are also lots of scum of all races, note the victim and his attackers are all white.
It is ironic that a black woman would be the only one trying to save a man up north who is proud to wear the Confederate Flag.
He had a Confederate T-Shirt. The BBC story say he has an SS tattoo.
I used to know a guy who was an American Nazi (yes, he was CREEPY). They hate the Klan, and I assume vice versa. Who would have ever thought?
Conversly I recall David Horowitz, from an article in the Amer. Spectator many yrs ago made a similar observation from his black panther sympathizing days. How Huey Newton and Bobby Seale were mortal enemies. Amazing they didn’t kill each other.
SS runes on shoulder.
We had a Nazi in my basic combat training company at Ft. Leonard Wood. He had been in an earlier cycle, had been busted somehow (he joined the Army to learn small arms repair for the Nazi Party) and they were putting him to work painting murals in the orderly room while his discharge was processed. Not a bad artist in a folk art sort of way. This was in June or July of 1978.
The SS tattoo is clearly seen on his shoulder in the second photo.
The Klan are dumbest bunch of damned fools only equaled by Farakhan’s crazy bunch...
They are too stuipid to realize that the issue is never the genetic attributes of race of a group of humans but the negative aspects of degenerate cultures...
What make any culture degenerate?
Any culture that doesn’t push their children to be better than the previous generation is by definition degenerate.
So instead of taking responsibility for the failings in their own respective cultures and taking steps to remedy the situation by demanding more of their offspring, they instead blame the roll of the genetic dice.
Is is any wonder that both the above bat sht crazy groups blame the jews for all their problems, when Jewsih culture HAD to work hard to survive and that is what made them a sucessful group in the first place...
I’m sorry...I don’t buy any of this...a klan rally in 96....69 maybe....and this source? Sorry ,ain’t buyin any of it.....
I agree...we need a mod to weigh in here.....this is HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE
Yes. But certainly it influenced the child and to me that is even more important as the children are the future.
This post just shows how gullible and mindless some people are.
Anyone, like Abby on CSI or seedy characters on Law and Order, can stamp a tat on their body anywhere to play a specific role and then wash it off afterwards.
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