Why the KKK is Not OK

The Star

11-05-2025

CONSIDER this: would you teach children not to play with fire by handing them a lit torch?
The logical answer would be a resounding no, given safety considerations and numerous possibilities of how it could go wrong. Hence, this is why I find the viral video involving university students wearing Ku Klux Klan (KKK) robes and the subsequent defence of it by the university extremely perplexing.
I first came across the video of students dressed in the KKK's distinctive white-pointed hoods and robes, crosses in hand, on Instagram Reels, where it was shared in a group chat. 'Crazy,' a friend simply remarked.
Media coverage and outrage began when the university came to the defence of the situation, saying that their donning of the extremist group's costumes was a class assignment for its 'Contemporary Global and Legal Issues' course. The video in question, according to the statement, featured a reenactment of the historical oppression of the Black community in the United States by the KKK.
The gravity of this issue can only be understood through the history of the KKK, the problem with cosplaying them, and the issue's setting within a Malaysian university.
The Klan, founded in the 1860s, is a white supremacist group that has long targeted minorities, particularly African Americans, with violence and hate. Their actions peaked during the 1960s Civil Rights movement when they bombed Black churches, murdered activists, and terrorised communities simply for demanding equality. These were actions that were driven by unbridled hate and zero tolerance for anyone deemed different.
But history alone cannot justify why wearing the Klan costume should be frowned upon. The contemporariness of this historical group needs to be viewed through nuanced and critical thinking which, ironically, should be taught at the higher education institutions where the incident happened.
The KKK stands for real-world atrocities and that legacy has not disappeared. Wearing their symbols today risks demonstrating endorsement like in the case of public figures like Kanye West, who accompanies that with racist tirades on X. Donning these symbols, even unintentionally, can embolden those who still uphold these dangerous beliefs.
It is precisely its very recent and relevant history that makes donning the KKK outfit unacceptable. In the same way that we would not don a Nazi outfit, wearing the KKK costume diminishes the gravity of historical atrocities and signals indifference or ignorance toward systemic oppression.
The imagery still perpetuates harm to this day. Unlike fictional villains or cultural icons, the KKK and Nazis existed to dehumanise and exterminate; and their outfits are uniforms of hate, not theatrical props. Wearing them regardless of intention is not the same as dressing as a movie character like say, the infamous Darth Vader.
It would be easy to slam this take as overly Western or woke (being outraged over something not Malaysian), but that misses the point. As Malaysians, we should care about this not because we are parroting Western sensitivities, but because racism and ignorance know no borders. The ease with which the Klan's imagery was used here reveals troubling gaps in our understanding.
Perhaps that is what needs to change urgently. While we are constantly reminded about valuing unity, diversity, and tolerance as Malaysians, our education system rarely encourages youths to critique privilege and power, be it at home or abroad. When race is taught in our education curriculum, it is often done at a very surface level, almost tokenistic inclusion. We avoid discomfort in the name of harmony, but in doing so, we also avoid honesty.
We need to teach our students not just to know history but to feel its very weight, and that is done by confronting both foreign atrocities and our painful chapters.
Take for example Germany, where teaching about World War II is accompanied by school trips to Holocaust memorials and concentration camps. And on top of that they do not shy away from teaching that Germany was responsible for some of the war's worst atrocities and that the actions of the Nazi regime were inexcusable.
At a time when Pusat Komas has documented that 'racism, racial discrimination, and xenophobia occur on a daily basis' across Malaysia's social, economic, and legal landscapes, we need to talk about the ongoing inequities that permeate our institutions today. If we cannot discuss our issues openly, it is no surprise we fail to grasp the significance of others'.
Without confronting the roots of racism, exercises meant to 'teach' human rights awareness risk perpetuating exactly the harms they claim to critique. Education should develop not just intellect but also empathy. It should push students to ask uncomfortable questions, challenge power, and see themselves as part of a larger global story. That means moving beyond surface-level awareness to teach the moral implications of history, especially what it means to be complicit and to resist.
The KKK is not okay. And if our institutions fail to grasp why, then the problem is not just what our students are wearing – it is what we are not teaching.
Student Jonathan Lee traces his writing roots to The Star's BRATs (young journalists) programme, which he has written for since 2016. He is now a Malaysian youth advocate. The views expressed here are solely his own.