A high school swimming and diving coach at Germantown who compared Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan fired

Alec Johnson:

“Of course I agree with the statement (Black lives matter),” but the Black Lives Matter organization is “not something that I as a conservative can or will ever support,” Damico wrote, adding he compared the group to the KKK. 

The comparison is one others such as a New York assemblyman and a sandwich shop owner in California have also come under fire for making.

The Ku Klux Klan, founded at the end of the Civil War, is an American hate group with Black Americans the Klan’s primary target, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC, a U.S. nonprofit organization that monitors the activities of domestic hate groups, said the KKK was formed to intimidate Southern Blacks to prevent them from enjoying basic civil rights. 

Black Lives Matter is a global organization whose goal is to eradicate white supremacy, its website says. BLM was founded in 2013 in response to the acquittal of the man who killed Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager, in Florida. The organization is in the spotlight in the aftermath of the George Floyd death in Minneapolis, a Black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes while in police custody. Protesters have called for an end to racial injustice and have chanted “Black lives matter.”

Damico, who was the assistant coach for three seasons, said Germantown High School Athletic Director Sara Unertl told him the district was concerned about his Facebook posts, some of which also referenced “rioting and looting,” and “most having firearm references.”