Here’s all you need to know about the Ku Klux Klan: it is a racist organization that advocates violence against Black people. End of Story. So why is A&E trying to normalize this historically hateful group with a new eight-episode documentary?

“Generation KKK” will be released next year, just in time for Donald Trump’s inauguration. A&E’s General Manager says he wants the show to send a “message of hope” and the “promise of redemption”—at the same time race-based hate crimes are spiking and white supremacy is on the rise.

Make no mistake: Generation KKK is normalizing hate in return for ratings. It’s giving a platform to a domestic terror organization that has countless murders on its hands.

Tell A&E not to normalize hate. Cancel Generation KKK.

We’re not fooled by the show’s claims of aiming for objectivity and humanity. This is about shock value, pure and simple. While there will no doubt be abhorrent things that appear in the show—we’re talking about the KKK after all—it’s also giving KKK Grand Wizards the chance to share their views to a mainstream audience every week.

The stakes aren’t hypothetical either. Donald Trump has filled his cabinet with white supremacists and racists. Hate crimes surged 6% in 2015 and the Southern Poverty Law Center reported over 200 incidents of anti-LGBTQ+, misogynist or racist attacks in the two days following Trump’s election victory alone. The Klan itself more than doubled its number of chapters nationwide last year.

A&E, don’t give hate a platform. Ditch Generation KKK.

This isn’t censorship. A&E could have commissioned a sensitive, pointed portrait of any political movement: of anti-prison activists, migrant rights advocates or land defenders in Standing Rock. But instead it chose the Ku Klux Klan. And we know why, don’t we? Ratings and profit.

It’s going to be a hard four years, but we need to fight hate every time it raises its head. We won’t stand by and let the Klan become normal. Let’s stop this show.

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