When I was thirteen, my English teacher(???) had us do reports on various groups throughout American history. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea what made her think this was on-topic. ANYWAY, I was assigned the KKK. My mother had just finished college a couple years before and something she’d hammered into me while she was writing essays was that you should always present both sides of an argument.
If you think this is ending with “Nina did you actually try to interview the KKK,” you are…wrong.
It is ending with “Nina DID interview the KKK.” It’s ending with “some KKK secretary or whatever saw an earnest, gullible teenager say ‘my mom says I should present both sides so I thought I’d ask if I can talk to someone’ AND HAD THE GRAND FUCKING DRAGON ANSWER ME.”
It is ending with “when I was thirteen I came dangerously, BLISTERINGLY close to being recruited by the KKK.” Because let me tell you about this Grand Dragon. He was nice. He was kind, and patient. He answered all of my questions about his chapter’s history and what various KKK symbols meant. He sent me supplemental links on various bits of Klan history (Google didn’t exist yet, so this was both a treasure trove and, you can imagine, a way to tip the scales in the KKK’s favor). He encouraged me to let him know how my presentation went and praised me for doing in-depth research. Most of the adults in my life thought my research rabbitholes were weird or even dangerous, so “good job looking for your own answers instead of stopping at your first three sources” was a really big deal. “I’m so glad you reached out, what questions do you have?” was a really big deal.
What stopped me from falling all the way down that rabbit hole?
I was deeply Christian at the time and uncomfortable with the idea of burning (or, as they call it, “lighting”) crosses.
That’s it. That’s all that stood between me and “yes, I would like to talk to a local leader, I had no idea how much I knew about the Klan was wrong.”
That should scare the shit out of you. It scares the shit out of me, and I know the story turns out okay. How many of our young alt-righters do you think got caught EXACTLY THIS WAY?
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