Racism is an inevitable topic when we discuss about United States.

It becomes
one of the most crucial elements in the history of America. Racism is related closely
to the dichotomy of black and white. Black people were seen inferior to the white.
This behavior dates back to centuries ago when the slavery begun. What does it
mean? It means that racism occurred and still occurs up to now. When we talk about
racism, we must look at the existence of Ku Klux Klan. It was formed in 1865 and its
main purpose was to restore the supremacy of the Whites. The Klan did not recognize
blacks for being free (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan). They explicitly
stated that their actions were to guard the purity of American descendent.
Surprisingly, KKK survived long. It even still exists in present day life. Even, as
being reported in news.com.au, KKK’s members increased rapidly during Obama’s
campaign for presidency. This news was justified by former member of KKK, Johnny
Lee Clary (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24984514-401,00.html). This
phenomenon is considered interesting by us. For that very reason, we as the researcher
wanted to find out why KKK can survive long and to find out what it is that makes
racist view of KKK very strong. To fulfill our research, we choose David Duke, one
of the leaders in Ku Klux Klan. David Duke is not a mere leader. He gets PhD and
even becomes an author. Therefore, this paper is aimed to analyze what ideology
bases racist group as represented by David Duke, the leader of Ku Klux Klan.

Who is David Duke?

David Ernest Duke was born on July 1, 1950 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, United
States. His education background was from Louisiana State University. He learned
deeply about theory of evolution. Surprisingly, it made him into a racist. He joined in
the Ku Klux Klan in 1967 and he founded the Knights of Ku Klux Klan in 1974
(http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/david_duke/default.asp). An interesting fact is that
he ran for Governor Election in Louisiana in 1991. He received 680,000 votes at that
time, ended at the second place. He also was elected to serve in congress in the state
of Louisiana. (Bergman, Jerry). And the most surprising is that he once ran as the
candidate of U.S. President but he failed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Duke).
He is very sensational because at one time he is a national political figure but at the
same time he is also a widely know racist, the leader of Ku Klux Klan. He also joined
the American Nazi party. Duke offered revolutionary change in these two extreme
racist organizations. He wanted to stop using violence and to stop using Nazi
traditional rituals. Rather, David Duke wanted an intellectual movement such as by
publishing books, holding Ku Klux Klan conference and gathering, or holding regular
meetings. (http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/david_duke/background.asp)

The Background of David Duke

Duke’s father played an important role in shaping his thought and ideology.
His father was Methodist, a Sunday school teacher in church and also a geologist.
Duke’s father joined two contradictory thoughts: Evolution and Creation. He believed
that evolution was a means for God to create life (Bergman, Jerry). From this
childhood background, we know the trail of Darwinism in his ideology. Jerry
Bregman, argued in his paper that David Duke read many Darwinist books stating
about significant differences between Caucasian and Negroid. These differences
determine one race’s quality and create race’s superiority over another. Such book as
The Outline of History by H.G. Wells contains argument to defend Darwinism and
also support the use of eugenics (a field of study deals with the improvement (as by
control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/EUGENICS)). Wells’ ideas and
writings have convinced young Duke that race was central to evolutionary
advancement.

Many other Darwinists figure shaped David Duke’s point of view of racism.
Professor Carleton Coon, author of Living Races of Man, Story of Man, Origin of the
Races, and The Races of Europe, contains racist ideas and support Darwin’s theory of
evolution. While Professor Elmer Pendell’s book, Why Civilizations Self-Destruct and
Sex versus Civilization stating that brain intelligence is heredity and the key to
evolution is the elimination of the less fit. Pendell also offers radical solution to
regulate reproduction according to eugenic principles, which can be translated into
sterilization of ‘inferior’ humans (Bergman, Jerry). There are still a lot of
evolutionists who have influenced Duke, such as Julian Huxley, George Bernard
Shaw, Frances Galton’s, and many more. Finally, David Duke states that Caucasian’s
purity (White people) should be kept by separating inferior races from the superior
one i.e. The Caucasian. The next part of discussion is about the understanding of
Darwinism and theory of evolution.
Darwinism
We all surely have already known well about the theory of evolution by Darwin.
A theory that has successfully made controversial debates among people all over the
world. This theory has spread up quickly because of its sharp contrast with Creation
theory. Charles Darwin established his argument through some researches and wrote
it down in a really popular book called as “Origin of Species”. He expressed some
terminology related to the human origins and human development. Some terms like
evolution, natural selection, and also survival of the fittest will be found in his book.
What was actually his theory about?
a. Evolution
The theory regarding the origins of human nature had been overwhelmingly
talked about a long time ago, even before the evolution theory of Darwin appeared to
the surface. Figures like Thales, Anaximander, Enpedocles, and even Aristotle had
made up their own theories about human origins (Horton, Rod W. and Edwards,
Herbert W.). However their theories were restrained in the hypothesis process, some
of them only shared the description of existing forms without coming to explanation
why the changing occurred in the species. Besides providing the description of the
development process, Darwin also explained much of his hypothesis about evolution
and natural selection. Like other old scientists, he agreed that actually human was
formed from lower forms of animal life. Furthermore, he argued, “The forms will
naturally experience the changing into more complex forms as a result of their
adaptation to the surrounding environment” (Horton, Rod W. and Edwards , Herbert
W.). This theory contrasted directly at the old theory of human creation of Bible, that
human was perfectly created by God, and they have been in their fixed forms. Darwin
stated that species underwent gradually unceasing mutation, and they were not in a
fixed form like what Bible have said to us. Darwin challenged the Creation theory
regarding unchanging and fixed nature and moreover his theory made humans equal
to animals, while Bible said that human is the most perfect creation of God and
human’s position is higher than animals. His theory was not only a mere irresponsible
opinion. He provided the proofs and also supported ideas about natural selection.

b. Natural Selection and Ideology of “The Survival of the Fittest”

“Natural selection holds that in the struggle for existence the advantage goes to
those organisms which deviate from the norm and whose deviation is best adapted to
their environment” (Horton, Rod W. and Herbert W. Edwards). This statement about
Darwin’s theory taught us that only species having abilities to survive from natural
selection like natural disaster, war and conflicts, and the fittest organism must have
the best adaptation for their surroundings so they can live or survive longer than any
other species. The ideology of the survival of the fittest leads us to the comprehension
that we as the species should not need to prevent the cosmic process because it is the
way for the nature to evolve into a complex and better system. The fittest or strongest
species will survive through all of the process and the weak must extinct. That is
nature law according to Darwin’s theory. This natural selection also has brought
pessimistic and skepticism to certain society in the world who consider themselves as
the weak, because they cannot do nothing if they are not destined to belong in the
fittest group. And it also brought over optimistic to certain society for being superior.
Therefore, by this comprehension, ethic and moral would no longer apply and cared
by people. These all understandings will support Darwinism’s theory intends to
Racism.
The intention of Darwin’s theory to racism has been shown in his book “The
Descent of Men”. The classification of species that Darwin has showed to us also
became a concrete evident about his intention to racism. In old definition of human
origins, Bible states that there are no classified groups. People are considered equally
in God’s eye. This classification challenged us to think new theory about races, that
actually since long time ago there have been classifications and groups classified from
the biological approaches as Darwin has stated in his book. Races were at first
attributed to animals, according to Darwin in his book, The Descent of Man. But, as
human was derived from lower class animals, race was then attributed to human. Ever
since race was attributed to man, the word racism then emerges to refer to treat people
differently based on their racial traits such as skin color, hair, eyes color, etc. For this
very reason, Darwin is then closely related to racism.

Darwinism, Racism and David Duke

From the background history presented above, we already have known who
David Duke is. We also note that Darwin’s theory play a big role in the making of
David Duke as a racist. In this part of paper, we try to take the relation of how racist,
represented by David Duke, can take Darwinism theory. Our analysis is going to be
based on two of Charles Darwin’s books: The Origins of Species and the Descent of
Man. And from an excerpt of Chapter 7 of David Duke’s book, My Awakening: A
Path to Racial Understanding.
As a scholar of evolution, David Duke also learned deeply about Charles
Darwin’s books. Origins of Species influenced David Duke very much. Now, let us
observe how this book can influence racist in general and David Duke in particular.
There is one thing that is often being neglected by layman. Actually, the title of
Charles Darwin’s book is not only the Origins of species. Its complete title is Origins
of Species; or the Preservations of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life (Darwin,
Charles: 1870). According to our discussion, the subtitle of the book ‘the
Preservations of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life’, is already tempting to be
used by Racists. They will instantly think that there is this dichotomy of favored and
un-favored race. Which one belong to favored and which one belong to un-favored?
To answer this question, we are going to refer to two main points of Darwin’s theory
i.e. evolution and natural selection.
Evolution theory states that human evolve from lower class animals. Hence,
to evolve human needs more intelligence so human can survive. For Darwin, each
race has different intelligence capability. It is reflected in the different size of skulls in
the savage and civilized races (Duke, David). Again, dichotomy of savage and
civilized emerges. It becomes the basic understanding for David Duke in his book. He
believes that there is savage people and civilized people. The trait for savage is giving
smaller I.Q. than the civilized people. Another factor is that this I.Q. is derived from
each race’s ancestor. Heredity matters in determining one race’s intelligence. Heredity
is also one of Darwin’s fundamental theories for a favored race to survive. Racist who
want to bring white’s supremacy bases their actions in this. American white people
are mainly the descendent of superior race. American white people are the far
descendent of Roman people that is widely known as the superior race. Henry Cabot
Lodge Sr. argued that American purity should be kept even from the other ethnic
minorities (Crow, Herman L. & Turnbull, William L). Other ethnic minorities will
only taint the seed of white supremacy. Once American mixes with other race,
American supremacy will fall. This racist view is also found in David Duke’s works
stating the importance of keeping the white supremacy. He argues that preserving the
Caucasian genotype is critical and it had to be prevented only by separating the races
in order to prevent degeneration of the human genome (http://www.prometheism.net/
articles /duke_h_or _e. html)
 The next point of Darwin’s theory in the Origins of Species is about natural
selection. Natural selection means the survival of the fittest. It means that one race is
considered a favored race when it becomes the strongest. Alred Russel Wallace, a
follower of Darwinian Theory stated that “The weak dying was necessary to improve
the race because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off leaving
the superiority- that is, only the fittest would survive”
(http://www.biblebelievers.net /creationscience/kjcevol1/htm). Racists understand this
notion naively. They naively think that white people are the fittest race to survive
because white has endured a long struggle to reach America. They actually have
declared themselves as the superior or favored race from the early beginning.
According to our opinion, this notion strengthens the already existing notion i.e. the
Chosen. We understand that the early days of America, Puritan people established
themselves as the Chosen people. They did not recognize other nations and other
people. Gradually, this notion establishes a notion of WASP (White, Anglo Saxon,
and Puritan/Protestant). WASP becomes a prevailing myth from early days of
America until now. KKK, as racist group, employs this myth as their purpose i.e. to
keep America as the myth says. David Duke also states in his book that to keep
American purity, all black people should be removed and placed differently from the
white. By doing so, both races will not come into conflict and each will purse its
dream without having to violate other race’s right (http://www.prometheism.net/
article/duke_h_or_e.html). What behind this segregated opinion is actually based on
keeping White’s purity, so that mixed relationship, that the Racists think can destroy
the superior quality of white, can be avoided. Hence, white will always be the
strongest race and will always be superior.
The next book of Charles Darwin that we want to discuss is the Descent of
Man. In his book, Darwin states:

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the
civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the
savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous
apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be
exterminated.” (Darwin, Charles: The Descent of Man)

These lines express some extreme opinions. We should underline the words: civilized
races of man almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races. This notion
if interpreted literally will be a very racist view. Hence, Racist groups as well as racist
leaders as David Duke use this notion as their justifications for their actions. They
who believe in white supremacy as being civilized people will exterminate the savage.
Who is considered as the savage here? Definitely, the answer is the black people. It is
related closely to the previous explanation of heredity. Black people are from African
which is remarkable as the land of savage people. Racist whose view is based on
heredity superiority will of course reject the presence of black people. No matter
modern they are, black people will always be considered as inferior because of their
ancestry in the savage land. And from the lines presented above, we also understand
the reason why racists are very extreme in their actions. Pay more attention to the
word exterminate. This word clearly expresses a deep hatred toward the existence of
savage people so that they deserve to be banished completely from this world.
“Exterminate” means so, isn’t it?

In conclusion, we finally understand what it is that makes racism prevails in American

society. It already has a strong root in American society long before Darwinism
becomes the strongest ideology that bases racism in America. It is embodied in the Ku
Klux Klan. In the early days of racist’s movement, their aim is to prevail the myth of
WASP, a myth that emerged from early Puritan settlement. Darwinism becomes their
main ideology to do racist actions after Civil War era. From the analysis of David
Duke in this paper, we come to a new understanding David Duke is not a mere
person. He transforms KKK into more “respectable” racist movement, which excludes
violence and illegal action. He chooses to spread his racist ideology through his
writings and some other seminars held by Ku Klux Klan. This new method is also the
reason why Ku Klux Klan can survive until now. With these kind of gatherings, basic
elements that become the foundation of Racist people keep preserved and get
stronger. An example is the number of Ku Klux Klan increases rapidly during
Obama’s administration (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24984514401,00.
html). It shows that the number of racist people still high. They still demand
superiority of the white over the other race. Whites still believe that they are the
superior race and the fittest race. And based on our analysis, Darwinism plays a big
role in shaping American racist organizations. We never really know whether Darwin
itself a racist or not, even though he is accused to be so. Or, whether the racists misuse
Darwin theories by interpreting his theory as they wish to justify their actions.
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