UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a mbpro that has my backup drive (a usb drive) and I've put some directories into the trash folder on it. I'm trying to remove the directory with the rm -r command. When I do that, I get this asking me this:

override rwxrwxrwx [filename]

(It's a keynote directory that has some fonts that were downloaded from some site).

I tried answering 'yes' or 'y' but when I try just 'y' I get an error message, and when I try "yes" i get a loop if the letter 'y' down the left side of the screen. Can someone tell me what's going on and what I can do to just delete these files from my usb drive?

Please check how is usb drive mounted (read-write, read-only?), mount will tell you that.
Are you deleting those as root or user ? What is the ownership of files you are trying to delete ?
Have you tried -f option with rm ?

It would be helpful if you post the exact command and the output from the Terminal application.