Clowns are universally agreed to be pretty terrifying, and in recent months, reports of mysterious clowns emerging from the shadows to terrorize innocent Americans have been sweeping the nation. In a new op-ed for Time, Violent J, one half of the infamous clown-themed hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse, addresses the rash of killer clown sightings and does his part to fight unjust discrimination against clowns.

“Way back in 1981, when me and my partner in rhyme and best friend Shaggy 2 Dope were in grade school, there were reports of so-called ‘phantom clowns’ supposedly driving around in vans, harassing kids, and in some reports, wielding weapons like machetes,” Violent J writes. “Despite the many reports, police could not confirm one incident of this wave of sightings and not a single ‘phantom clown’ was ever arrested…Cut to 2016. Everyone once again is seeing so-called ‘killer clowns’ everywhere — popping out of bushes, threatening people on social media and assorted other public pranks. Cops have actually arrested a few people this time around, though, because there’s a lot of copycats out there and mass hysteria has a way of making people do stupid shit.”

But the real killer clowns, according to Violent J, “don’t wear greasepaint.” You see, “There’s a whole army of scary, terrifying and dangerous clowns out there in this country trying to suppress the rights of thousands of people to exercise the most basic part of the Declaration of Independence, which evokes the freedom to ‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ … From keystone-cop clowns shooting unarmed citizens, to racist clowns burning down Islamic centers or clowns in the NSA spying on us through our cell phones and laptops, America has turned into something far more terrifying than Insane Clown Posse’s Dark Carnival.”

The “ultimate example” of these killer clowns, Violent J explains, is the FBI, who named the Juggalos in its National Gang Threat Assessment in 2011, causing innocent ICP fans to be “targeted, profiled and blatantly discriminated on by law enforcement agencies across America.” Which is why ICP are leading a massive clown protest march in Washington DC next year, which basically sounds like the scariest thing ever.

No comment yet from Slipknot’s Clown.