Most Racist US High School to Send Band to Trump Inauguration

The U.S.’s “most racist high school” will send its marching band to Donald Trump’s inauguration, and it will go thanks to a funding campaign by a libertarian knife artisan.

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The band hails from West Monroe High School in Louisiana, known for once flying the Confederate battle flag at games to match its “Rebels” name and mascot.  The school later banned the flag but kept the mascot and remained tolerant of Confederate imagery. They were dubbed the state's "most racist" high school by the local Independent.

Debate especially ensued over the flag, which represents the South’s fight to keep slaves in the U.S. Civil War, after a white supremacist killed nine Black churchgoers in South Carolina. The town was the site of a pro-Confederate rally and the popular “Duck Dynasty” reality show featuring an ultra-Christian duck hunting family, which went off air after drawing harsh criticism for its offensiveness.

The public high school could not afford to send its band to the inauguration, so it launched a GoFundMe campaign that quickly drew the attention of Arkansas Infidel Knives, a one-man artisanal blade operation which promised to raffle knives — valued between US$175 and US$500 — to donors. The logo is a map of Arkansas with the Arabic characters for the word “kafir,” which roughly translates to “infidel” or “unbeliever” in Arabic.

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The company’s Facebook page includes quotes like, "If you're not carrying a knife, you may as well be wearing a skirt" and a comment section that references the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and displays the Gadsden flag, a symbol originally of U.S. freedom and independence which has since been appropriated by the Tea Party and far-right groups, with the words “Don’t Fuck With Me” in the place of “Don’t Tread on Me.”

The knifemaker, Joshua Bryant, is a part of the Armed Citizen Facebook group and regularly questions the racism of cop shooting in his posts.

One historically Black college, Alabama's Talladega College, will also send its marching band after heated debate that ended with administration it would not pass up the opportunity.