Missouri Woman Who Praised KKK In Viral Video Apologized, Says She ‘Doesn’t Represent hate’
A Missouri woman who appeared in a viral video praising the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) at a Black Lives Matter protest and promising to teach her grandchildren to hate wants to apologize for the “ugly” things she said, Springfield’s KOLR-TV reported.
This week, a video surfaced from a protest in Branson, Missouri, in which a woman could be seen antagonizing Black Lives Matter protesters. In the video, which has since gone viral, a woman can be seen sitting in the bed of a pickup truck and holding a Confederate flag.
“I will teach my grandkids to hate you all,” she said to someone off-camera.
She could also be seen raising her fist and shouting “KKK belief!”
On Wednesday, the woman, now identified as Kathy Jenkins, called the KOLR-TV newsroom to talk about what has happened to her since the video went viral, and how she has since changed her heart.
Jenkins said that she went to the protest at Dixie Outfitters to see what it was about. The Branson store sells Confederate paraphernalia, and according to The Springfield News-Leader, was the target of the protesters that day.
“I’ve never been to [a Black Lives Matter protest]. I just wanted to see what the rally was all about,” she said.
What happened in the moments leading up to her tirade are something of a blur to her, she said. Somehow, she wound up sitting in the back of a counterprotester’s truck, someone she didn’t know. She was handed a Confederate flag, she says, which she thought was a “symbol of unity.”
Then, she says, when a BLM protester confronted her, she “kind of blacked out.”
“I don’t even remember saying half the stuff that I said,” she said.
As for her advocacy of the KKK, she says that it came from a place of not appreciating being called a racist.
“I wasn’t saying I’m KKK or for the KKK. I was mocking them because I don’t like being called a racist,” she said.
Now, she said, she regrets her actions that day. She said she lost her job and has been banned from Facebook, both of which she said she deserved. She’s received death threats and even her friends have been threatened, she added. She had to leave Branson, her home of six years.
In a statement, she said that her actions that day don’t represent who she is, and she would like to apologize.
“This isn’t who I am as a person. I obviously cannot take back what I said. I can only learn from this. I want to make it clear. I am not teaching my children or grandchildren to hate anyone,” she said.
Faith Pittser, one of the organizers of the protest, isn’t buying Jenkins’ apology, saying that she (Pittser) doesn’t believe that someone could not know what the Confederate flag represents.
“This woman is lying and apologizing because she’s sorry she got caught in her acts of racism,” Pittser said.
