American product which not many students from abroad know or value.True to form, the international students included a good number of smokers. Which meant that when someone mentioned (in connection with what I no longer recall) that he'd heard that Marlboros were owned by the KKK, another student had only to reach into a pocket for us to consider the supposed evidence: that the negative spaces between the legs of the horses on the logo looked like two Klansmen holding a banner. (This picture from the web is of a Paraguayan pack, but the logo is the same.)
Now here's the interesting thing. Students from Iran, Somalia and Holland looked and looked but couldn't see anything. But when it came my turn to look, it was clear as day; the other American present had the same experience. I'm not even saying that the rumors are true, but that an image of Klansmen is clearly very strongly grafted into our American consciousnesses, immediately accessible, perhaps, indeed, the very archetype of a white silhouette against a darker color. How did it get there?
