You've Got to Be Taught

In a recent Facebook posting, I objected to the idea that all white people are inherently racist, because of the privilege they have had in not being immediately subjected to prejudice because of their appearance. To me, that is just as bad as saying that all black people are inherently lazy, all Asians inherently hard-working, or any other claim made about the inherent characteristics of any entire group of people.

In 1949, Richard Rodgers wrote the following lyrics for South Pacific:

You've got to be taught to hate and fear
You've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught 

You've got to be taught to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
Or people whose skin is a different shade
You've got to be carefully taught 

You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught
You've got to be carefully taught

I firmly believe that....and I believe it because I was not so taught; despite relatives who held such beliefs, my parents--especially my mother--impressed upon me that  every single person I met was to be judged on his own merits and not by what group he was part of.

We lived in a neighborhood that was primarily white, but bordered on others that were mixed and even primarily black. My elementary school was probably about five percent black; my junior high school and high school more likely 50 percent black, Latino (we called them Hispanic back then), and other non-white ethnic groups. I was beaten up more than once in those 12 years--but it was never by a non-white kid...it was always by kids who looked a lot like me.

So, I was taught to be afraid, but not of people who looked differently, but of people who thought differently.