Blake Hall
The Citadel is a military college in Charleston, South Carolina.
The KKK (aka the Ku Klux Klan) is a white supremacist group/movement.
Generally, students or “cadets” who attend the Citadel dress in uniforms like, well, military personnel — unlike the individuals documented in the photograph above.
Generally, the bigots or “knights” who belong to the KKK dress in white robes and hoods — just like the individuals documented in the photograph above.
What’s strange is this: those are Citadel cadets in the photograph above.
Dressed like … klansmen.
But. But! According to the president of the school, that’s not at all what the cadets are clothed as, rather, they’re “singing Christmas carols as part of a ‘Ghosts of Christmas Past’ skit.”
Here’s what the prez, Lieutenant General John W. Rosa, posted as a statement from the school on Facebook:
Strange right? On one hand, he hints that what the cadets were doing wasn’t related to a famous, murderous hate group. On the other, he says it was deplorable and that they were being suspended.
Does he hate Christmas?
Heres’ more on the story from Gawker, via WCIV (a local South Carolina outlet):
… the photos were uploaded to Facebook on Wednesday night by a woman who found them on Snapchat. According to her Facebook post, she discovered them after she was “approached by a guy she did not know on several social media platforms who reportedly told her ‘I always wanted a black girl.’”
She then checked his Snapchat story, which included photos and videos of Citadel cadets wearing white hoods and laughing. “I screenshotted and decided to share because I was so offended,” the woman wrote on Facebook. “Was this their idea of some kind of joke?”