My Filipina co-worker has a 13 year old son. It was National Day at their school this week so all of the students were asked to come to school wearing their traditional national dress. The lad proudly donned the traditional garb of the revolutionary army which fought for Philippine independence: The Kataas-tasan, Kagalang-galangan ng Katipunan, or the KKK. So the innocent boy went to school in a KKK hat, which caused a lot of questions from his classmates, who know something vaguely negative about those letters. I asked my co-worker if she knew the significance KKK had in the USA. She did not. She has never heard of MLK or Malcolm X or the American Civil War or Texas. She is aware that Obama is black and that this is significant for some reason. After I explained that the KKK is an evil group in the U.S. that hates all races besides white Christians she had some questions.
Q: Are they young people or adults?
A: It’s a very old group. So people in the group raise their children to be like them.
Q: Is it true that people in the U.S. were sometimes killed just because they were black?
A: Um…Yes….
Q: How long ago was this?
A: Ummm...(a stumbling explanation of the Civil War, reconstruction, segregation, and enduring racial animosity which I’m sure made about fifty per-cent sense to my co-worker. How do you explain something like that?)
Q: The black people in the U.S., are they Americans?
A: Yes.
Q: Like Obama is an American?
A: Yes. Just like Obama.
Q: So now that Obama is president everything is good for black people!
A: Ummm.....
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