Reporter and journalist Ilia Calderón was threatened by Ku Klux Klan leader Chris Barker, during a one-on-one interview.
Calderón, who works for the American Spanish Language broadcast network Univision, and is of African and Colombian descent, was threatened to be burned out and called a ‘n*****’ during a live broadcast.
The KKK leader’s threats were so vile and full of vitriol that Calderón actually feared for her safety, but being a good reporter means going outside of your comfort zone and, sometimes, into the belly of the beast.
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Calderón agreed to visit Barker on his ‘his wooded North Carolina property’. According to The Independent before the interview she watched Barker lead a KKK rally where attendees donned their white hooded robes and ‘danced around with torches’.
With the interview barely underway Barker immediately told her to ‘go back’ to her own country.
He tells her, ever so crassly, that:
We have nothing here in America; ya’ll keep flooding it.
But like God says – like Yahweh himself says – we will chase you out of here.
However Barker felt the need to correct himself on those statements saying that:
No, we’re going to burn you out.
When Calderón asked him how he hoped to ‘burn out’ 11 million immigrants from the United States, he told her that it would be no challenge.
He explained that:
We killed 6 million Jews the last time. Eleven million is nothing
Barker is the leader, or if you’re a fan of childish hyperbole, ‘Grand Wizard’, of a branch of the KKK known as the Loyal White Knights who participated in last weekend’s ugly ‘Unite The Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Last weekend’s rally left dozens injured and one dead after a member of the Alt-Right movement drove a car into a crowd of left wing protesters.
The Driver responsible for the death of Heather Heyer, was praised by the Loyal White Knights for ‘running over nine communist anti-fascists’.
Speaking to WBTV Baker echoed his Klansmen’s sentiments saying:
When a couple of them die, it doesn’t bother us.
They’re always attacking and messing with our rallies.
Despite claiming that he isn’t racist and that his branch of the KKK isn’t a ‘hate group’, Baker still saw fit to label Calderón as a ‘n*****’ and a ‘mongrel’ during the interview, which was conducted in July, a month before the events in Charlottesville.
In an interview with Univision, Calderón said:
My team told me that I would be insulted, and I knew, but I never imagined the level.
At that time I was really felt very afraid for my safety and the safety of my team.
In another interview with Radio Blu she explained:
As part of the editorial meetings we were discussing the incidents of hate that had been presented, and how, from 2016 to here, these people and these groups feel entitled to raise its highest voice – perhaps backed by a President who speaks very weakly about it.
Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office White Nationalist rhetoric has been increasing at an alarming rate.
Trump’s comments about ‘hatred and violence on both sides’ has done nothing but embolden the Alt-Right, leaving the majority that oppose their anti-fascist views to believe their President is on the side of fascism.