When Your Team Shares a Name With the Leader of the KKK, it May Not Be Best to Call for a "White-Out"

When I checked my email this morning I noticed I had received two emails from Wizards Wire advising me that the Wizards had a "White-Out Playoff Offer" for me. The first thing I thought of when I saw the "Wizards" were advertising a "White-Out" was the Ku Klux Klan related controversy which sprang up during the process of renaming the "Bullets" the "Wizards. Pastor Morris Shearin, the first vice president of the Washington, D.C., NAACP and a member of the board of the national NAACP, raised protest over the Washington franchise's rebranding as the "Wizards" because an "Imperial Wizard" is the supreme leader of the Ku Klan Klan.*

Maybe it's just me, but in light of the above controversy, I found the following release from the Wizards reasonably comedic:

All persons attending the games at Verizon Center are advised that 'White-Out' conditions are expected in downtown, Washington DC.

I feel like I don't really need to say anything about how Klan members, including the "Imperial Wizard" dress in all white themselves. If you're one of those people who wear actual wizard-styled hats while cheering on the Wizards, I would recommend leaving your white wizard-styled hat at home during the "White-Out."

In spite of the low levels of hilarity the "White Out" produces, the only thing it really changes is Wizards fans will now have the privilege of watching the refs cheat Lebron and Cavs to inevitable, horrible victory while dressed in white. I feel bad because I know the Cavs are going to win the series and I also know the Cavs are going to win the series because of the increased number of "Lebron calls" that Lebron gets in the playoffs, especially against the Wizards.

*Bonus: The finalists in the 1997 Bullets renaming contest were the Dragons, Express, Stallions, Sea Dogs, and Wizards. Can you guess which of the finalists aside from Wizards also brought the scorn of the NAACP? The answer is the Dragons. A "Grand Dragon" is the Klan leader of a specific state, operating directly under the powers of the Imperial Wizard. This begs the question, how the hell did the two highest KKK titles end up as finalists in the naming contest for an NBA team in Washington DC?