05/20/2007

Editorial

Rapid City must confront fallout from flag incident

It's apparently the best-kept secret in Rapid City.

No one, it seems — at least no one willing to come forward — knows who put a Ku Klux Klan "White Power” flag over a May 6 community barbecue in Rapid City.

And that's no doubt just the way the flag-raiser wants it. No accountability. No stares from the neighbors. Recrimination-free hate.

Anonymity, of course, is the coin of the realm for Klan types and, for that matter, a lot of haters. Hide behind a flag or a big white hood, litter a neighborhood with fliers or plant a burning cross on a lawn in the dead of night, make anonymous calls to talk radio shows. Chest-thumping in the closet.

Many Rapid City residents are angry and ashamed that their little burg is the talk of the town not for the new homes going up or the strong local economy but for that flag.

The truth, however, is that the flag is only the start of the story. What has given the incident real legs was the attempt by some to pooh-pooh the whole thing, to have us believe that raising a Ku Klux Klan flag over a community picnic is just a prank gone wrong. Yuk yuk, wink wink.

It's a variation on the old "If anyone has taken offense, I'm sorry they've taken offense” excuse, which is not only not an excuse but an attack on anyone wrong-headed enough to be upset.

There's been plenty of that in Rapid City, as those who called out the flag-raiser and talked about their anger over the incident have found out.

At a recent Clearwater Township meeting, some speakers blamed the whole problem not on the flag-raiser but on those who violated the code of silence and talked to the media or wrote letters to local newspapers. A man at a local real estate office said it was the media's doing. "It's not news unless you're making it news,” he told a reporter. "My feeling is the newspaper and TV stations are stirring it up.”

The crime, it seems, isn't flying the flag, but that everyone knows.

Clearwater Township Supervisor David Grimm is having none of it.

"This was brought on the town by the people who did it, not by the people who contacted the media,” he said. "It's ridiculous to assume nobody would be offended by that flag.”

Dick Ault, of Alden, who described the flag as a "banner of hate,” says he's now being blamed for "shaming” the town.

Bill Bockstahler of Alden, who attended the cookout and saw the flag, said he and some friends felt they had been duped into attending a Klan rally. Now he's taking heat for going public.

"They say it's making a mountain out of a molehill,” he said.

Bockstahler punctured that balloon: "I say you don't have a flag like that unless you mean it. You don't fly it unless you're really trying to make a very strong statement about your beliefs.”

He's right, of course. Are we to believe the flag-raiser just happened to have that thing lying around, like an old sweatshirt or a long-lost baseball glove? "Hey, look what I found.”

Of course not.

As long as the deniers and the head-in-the-sand types keep trying to blame the messenger instead of talking honestly about what happened, what the flag stands for, what they believe and where the community stands, Rapid City will be haunted by their hater.

Or haters, plural. You don't pretend you didn't see the flag or claim it's no big deal unless you, to some extent, agree with what it stands for or don't care that it's a symbol of intimidation and intolerance.

One business owner who helped organize the event said he knows who raised the flag but wouldn't identify him.

"I'm not going to say because it doesn't matter who did it,” he said.

But it does.