In certain towns in America, racism is not a quiet happening. Racism is alive and well, and exercised in public, in 2020. That said, it's hard to peg which town in the country would qualify as the most racist.
Rob Bliss thinks he's managed to narrow it down. The director and YouTuber decided to put his theory to the test. Rob traveled to Harrison, Arkansas, to try to capture the essence of the town. It's known as the headquarters of the Klu Klux Klan and has a deep history of racism that has driven out nearly all its Black residents.
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Rob stood roadside in Harrison with a Black Lives Matter sign to see what would happen. The results were unbelievable. Not only were a variety of epithets leveled at Rob, but threats to his life were made. Later, he took the sign and stood outside a local Walmart. The manager of the local store asked him to leave. Rob captured these deeply frustrating interactions on camera and shared the video on YouTube, where it's gotten over half a million views.
Director and YouTuber Rob Bliss feels confident he's found America's most racist town. He was so confident, in fact, that he traveled to Harrison, Arkansas, to prove his point. Rob made a two-minute-long video showing what happened when he held up a Black Lives Matter sign in the contentious town.
The town's history of racism has been an issue before. The town is best known as the national headquarters of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Race riots and white supremacist activity in the area has driven away Black people, with the town reporting that just 0.3% of its residents are Black.
Arkansas Online reports that the city tried to erase mentions of the KKK and other historical race incidents in the town from its Wikipedia page as recently as last summer.
"It was almost so fast it looked like it was a bot changing it back," said Layne Ragsdale, public information officer for the Harrison Community Task Force on Race Relations.
"We thought we could just go in and change it. But a few minutes after we changed it, they'd change it back."
As he expected, Rob was blasted by residents of the neighborhood for holding up a Black Lives Matter sign.
"Have a little pride in your race brother! White pride worldwide!" one passerby said.
"Find Jesus!" another man urges.
Rob was accused of being a number of things in the video. Those who saw his sign called him a Marxist, a communist, and many disparaging expletives. The general consensus was that people were infuriated and disgusted to see the sign in their neighborhood.
One man was very aggressive in his treatment of Rob. He drove by two different times. On the third, he threatened Rob.
"'Bout 10 minutes I'm going to be back, you better be [expletive] gone," he warned.
Rob then took the sign to stand outside a local Walmart. There, he was told that Black Lives Matter is "the biggest hoax there ever was" and the "next thing to ISIS." Shortly thereafter, the store's manager came out and asked Rob to leave.
There was a hopeful spot at the end of Rob's video. A young lady who was white approached him with a hastily scrawled note on a napkin. It read, "Ignore the haters, you're being peaceful, what you're doing is good, just a friendly reminder — don't give up hope."
She gave him a quick thumbs up before walking away.
The video garnered a lot of controversy. Some of the people seen in the video have threatened to sue him for not blurring out their faces in the video. Rob has started a GoFundMe page to help retain a defense attorney against any possible legal action.
"I am desperately in need of retaining a defense lawyer to protect both the video and myself from legal action. These funds will be used to support and protect my activist work," he wrote.
"I am deeply grateful for your help in keeping this video alive."
The GoFundMe has the goal of raising $15,000. It has already raised over $2,000.
