Now, in the 21st century, forward thinking Klan members are looking at ways to financially exploit this successful brand, giving the organization a more corporate sheen and putting the defining racist principles that govern the organization on the backburner. In an effort to accomplish this goal, they’ve put out a broad call to agencies and individuals across the globe to help in a rebrand, and I was one of the people lucky enough to be contacted.
1. KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack
A fast food franchise throughout the rural south would serve as an excellent transition business, moving the KKK from violent hate group to an affordable, family-friendly eatery in no time. Competing with KFC, but with a more authentic, regional flavour, a Klansman with smiling face exposed–but still wearing the distinctive white hood– would be the corporate logo, much like Colonel Sanders for KFC. KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack would be racially inclusive, thus combating any negative connotations that might linger about the past of this emerging corporate titan.
The signature dish would be fried chicken skin crisps, and like MacDonald’s Happy Meal, KKK’s would serve The Hooded Order, which would be two pieces of chicken, an order of fries and a bottomless Coke, as well as a KKK action figure for the kids.
2. KKKSN Klu Klux Klan Sport’s Network
There’s nothing, excluding beauty pageants and guns, that’s’ more American than sports, and the marriage between the KKK and sports entertainment is a no-brainer. The network should focus on competitive eating (cross-marketing with KKK’s Fried Chicken Shack), crossbow hunting, street fighting and various rural soldier type programming. Over time, the network could expand to include more conventional sports, but to start it must specialize in that which it’s core audience loves best.
3. KKK: Guardians of the Earth
In the era of Global Warming, nothing could be more important to the public than the appearance of trying to save the environment. The KKK, showcasing their defining uniforms, could roam the land as a kind of cross between Forest Rangers and Guardian Angels, policing the public and making sure that people are not polluting, using too much hot water or otherwise disrespecting the land. One of the bonuses of this is that the KKK could still position itself as anti-government.
4. KKK Dog Walking and Pet Care
This would essentially be a corporate shell, existing primarily to keep members of the KKK in the public eye and achieving the positive association of being caretakers of the pets that American’s so love.
Open 24 hours a day, the place is large, impersonal and sloppy. The staff has nothing invested in either the customers or products, and you really do feel like you’re an anonymous cog in a massive, amoral industry. The lighting is economical and unflattering, the music bad and the absence of attentiveness, perhaps even love, is evident. It’s just not a place you really want to be, and as I made my way joylessly through the aisles– getting bumped repeatedly by the same man– I thought about everything that was wrong with it, my mood turning black.
As I waited in the line-up for the cash, I watched as an oozing package of chicken was dragged across the scanner. The cashier, dead-eyed and young, was indifferent, but the university-aged woman who was buying the chicken pointed it out to her, and without making eye contact the cashier sighed and quickly gave the scanner a wipe. She just didn’t care and was responding by rote, like an automaton, and for that shift was clearly not present in her body, never even bothering to look at the people in front of her. Naturally, this irritated me, and when it was my turn I made a point of looking at her directly. She didn’t see me at all. While looking away at some distant horizon, she mumbled the price I owed into her shoulder.
“No,” I said, “you’re speaking too quickly and too much to yourself for me to hear you.”
I’m not really sure if what I said registered, as just repeated herself, still remote and inattentive. I noticed now that she had a library book open, jammed in beside her cash register. Whenever she needed to get away from her life– which appeared to be always while working at the Metro– it was into this world she was escaping. I felt badly for my pissy mood and wanted very much for us to become human to one another, if for just one minute, and asked her what she was reading.
This startled her.
“The Calling,” she said, “it’s about the supernatural.”
“Are you enjoying it?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty good.”
“If you had supernatural powers, what would you do with them?”
“I’d bring my mom back to life,” she said.
