Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/25/michigan-cop-is-fired-over-vas.html
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Hmmm, that excuse would certainly explain a collection of orange Chargers, very short shorts, or even some moonshine, but an application to the KKK? It’s been a while since I saw the show, but I don’t recall any episodes where the Duke boys had to join the KKK in order to foil Boss’s plan to buy Uncle Jesse’s land at a bank auction.
How’s the officer explain it?
“It’s our heritage,” he said of the application which he purchased for $20 or $30. “I mean it occurred, good or bad and it’s part of history. And I love history, and I have thousands of antiques and I could show them to you, I have thousands.”
I bet you do, sir. I bet you do.
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When I was a kid growing up in Southern California, I was a huge Dukes of Hazzard fan. I never scented any racism in the show, and I don’t think there was ever anything explicit. But nowadays the Confederate flag on the General Lee (fer christsakes) would be a big tell about the underlying feelings of the characters.
Still, Bo and Luke always seemed like more than “good ol’ boys.” They seemed like good boys. Two guys who would stand against injustice of any stripe. Boss Hogg I can imagine being racist. But the Dukes? I can’t do it.
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Yeah, he’s a big fan of the Dukes of Hazzard—especially the David Dukes of Hazzard.
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The BEST antiques. Seriously. Nobody has better antiques then me. They’re HUGE.
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I think the key is that some people embrace the Confederate battle flag because they see it as the rebel flag while being able to conveniently ignore exactly what the South’s “lost cause” actually was (to wit an economy based on chattel slavery). The show itself was part of that white-washing of history, a subtle revision of the truth. I don’t think the Duke boys or Boss Hogg were depicted as being racist, because their characters were part of a show that participated in that cultural revisionism (including ignoring the racism endemic to policing in the US). Yet by being part of that white-washing, there’s an implicit racism to it. Which is not to condemn the show - those involved in making it may have been completely unaware of that (or maybe they weren’t) - or to judge its quality as television, but rather to recognize the context of its creation.
That said, I also don’t remember any KKK applications in The Dukes of Hazard. What the canned cop seems to be saying, before slithering off to be hired by some other police department, is that KKK iconography is the sort of thing people share at the kinds of Dukes fan conventions he patronizes, which says a lot about those particular fans.
Just my 2¢.
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Yeah, I remember watching that when I was a really young kid. And from what I recall, I agree, the Dukes seemed to be a friendly, good-natured bunch. But I was young enough that anything subtle or encoded would have gone right over my head, so I’m not sure how much to trust those memories.
And I cannot see any connection whatsoever between Hazzard merchandise and KKK paraphernalia.
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In the 1970s and 1980s the Southern Cross was not as proudly displayed by gangs of white supremacists marching down the streets of United States towns and cities. That battle flag has increasingly been used by white supremacists to represent their cause in the United States to the point of having largely coopted its message.
Bo and Luke were LIKELY not knowingly terrorizing black, Jewish, Mexican, or LGBTQ American folks with their car. Today they would be and might rather paint a Hogly Wogly logo on top because its less controversial, identifiably Southern pride and would get product placement dollars.
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‘Just a "good ol’ boy"; wouldn’t change if he could…’
SMFH
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Wrong Duke boys:
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Truly crass lying from Michigan ex-cop. Michigan, the US state at the end of the underground railroad, a state that fought against the traitors from the south…the notion that the Flag of Hate is part of anyone’s Michigan heritage is simply offensive.
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Hogly Wogly? Is that like Piggly Wiggly?
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Oh Hogly Wogly is a bbq place in Van Nuys,CA. Piggly Wiggly is their market. I am sure my confusion is offensive.
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It sounds like he had more than just some die cast models of The General Lee car lying around.
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Apropos of nada, the General Lee is the USS Voyager of soft racism. Hundreds of accidents and incidents; still got that new car smell. The Dodge Charger of Theseus. 
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I can understand the toy General Lee and 100’s of jpgs of Catherine Bach in jean shorts, but not the robes, pointy hood and autographed pictures of David Duke and George Lincoln Rockwell
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also jeffrey epstein just really likes anime
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Edit - I just found this story interesting as I was looking into this. I’m not saying it’s especially relevant, a get-out-of-racism-free card, or that it argues anything. It’s a mention of the DOH and racism I found in a google search; a side story that BB might find interesting.
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The show is irrelevant. The cop who is lamely claiming his collection is about the show is relevant.
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“The show has black friends” might not be the get-out-of-racism-free card you think it is.
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