C.P. Ellis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

C.P. Ellis - Essay Example He worked day in and day out and even worked in the week ends in order to gain some extra money but ended up being angry, annoyed and frustrated as he saw little success. With all these efforts that he had been putting, he was not even able to break even, that is to say, he was not even able generate enough income to sustain himself. With all this building up inside him, he did not know who to blame for all that was happening and who should be held responsible for his failures, one after the other. He wanted to vent out the anger and frustration upon something. Blaming the situation or the country could not help because it can not be personified. With this at his background, he joined the Klan which was meant for the anti black movement in order to 'hate' them in a formalized manner. The fact that his father was also a member of the Klan once upon a time and that his initial mental makeup was done up by his father, he was more inclined towards joining the Klan. While doing this, he assumed that this would solve his problems that he was seeing at personal level. Many members of the klan were of lower income and education and they joined it because it gave them a platform for hating and opposing the blacks, which they could not do in an equally efficient manner when they were individuals. Also, the Klan gave Ellis a certain kind of respect and recognition that he was deeply longing for, and which he had not received till date. When Ellis took the oath in the presence of more than four hundred Klan members, he felt certain kind of satisfaction for being respected and honored. 3. How did C.P. Ellis's assumptions about the Klan and those who were in power change Why did they change Ellis took great honor himself with the fact that the municipal council members would call him up from their side in late hours and spoke to him in person. He had a certain sense of importance felt with this and thus felt good about that because he had never received any such treatment when he had not joined the Klan. However, at one instance, he realized that the behavior of the municipal council men was not the same in public as it is in the private. He felt that the people in the power would avoid him in public so their associations are not revealed. This was the first instance when Ellis found that something was wrong with the people in power. He felt that the people who were in power were using the groups of black and the white by dividing them and then with their support they would be in power. Both the groups were being used against each other in order to achieve their motive. By keeping them engaged in fighting the council men made it sure that none came up to a level where they would have to share the power with them because they were unwilling to part from the wealth and the power that they were enjoying. When he tried to put this point through in the Klan meetings, he was unable to make people convince and think the way he was. Fellow members of the Klan would no believe that the people in the council were not really working fro the whites but were using them. This make Ellis