Sheriff Hall Speaks to White-Hooded Crowd, Earns Notice from 'Hatewatch'
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Descended from the pro-segregationist White Citizens' Councils (also known as the uptown Klan), the CCC has described blacks as a "retrograde species of humanity" and "genetically inferior," compared pop singer Michael Jackson to an ape, and condemned"race-mixing." Hall's appearance at the Middle Tennessee CCC meeting was reported in the latest issue of the Citizens Informer, the CCC's in-house publication. "The meeting drew the largest attendance in 12 years, with many youth in attendance," the newsletter noted.
Called on it by the Tennessean, the sheriff struggles hard to appear clueless. "To be honest, I had no idea," he says. "The person doing the scheduling for me had no reason to believe that this was such a group. I regret that we didn't know. I surely don't want that reputation."
But Hall, one of Nashville's most popular politicians who'd probably like to run for mayor or Congress someday, has been flirting with an unsavory crowd for some time with his 287(g) program. He claims he's merely enforcing immigration law ("just doing my job here") and not harassing poor brown people to score cheap political points by cynically exploiting fear, intolerance and worse in the city. Here's a cliche that fits: When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
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