As many of you know, I'm a white dude with a black son by adoption and a white daughter by accident. They are six and five, respectively.
A couple weeks ago, my daughter was looking at the latest edition of the magazine where I'm a writer/editor. She started laughing at one of the pictures, so I glanced to see what she found so funny. Turns out, it was a picture of a Klan rally from the 1920s accompanying an historical piece called "The Birth of Evil." (You need to scroll down a ways.) And from a five-year-old's perspective, I guess the rows and rows of guys in pointy hats might be a bit funny.
So naturally I took it upon myself to explain the Klan to them. It wasn't easy, especially for my son. But the story is a bit funny.
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Basically at the time I just told the kids that those guys are not funny, and they're not nice, either. They wore those funny masks because they're SO naughty they don't even want anyone to know who they are.
That seemed ok for a while, until this past weekend, when I let the kids watch "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" (I'm a big Coen Brothers nut.) I forgot that it had a Klan scene in it. Whoops. Anyway, they asked again about the Klan and why those guys had masks on and what they were so mad about.
I told my son, "Well, Buddy, they're very mean. And they don't like certain people." I thought about it for a minute before deciding that honesty is the best policy. "They don't like brown people," I said.
He looked really crestfallen. He put his hand on his chest and asked quiety, "Me?" I said no, not him personally, because he's a smart and nice and good boy. No one could dislike him. But they just are afraid of and don't like anyone different from them, including some white people who go to different churches, and brown people like him and his stepmom (who is Mexican).
He considered this for a moment and narrowed his eyes.
"Those son of a bitches," he said finally.
And you know, I couldn't even bring myself to scold him for swearing.