Wednesday, August 8, 2012

You Have To Be Taught


“When I was a child, I thought like a child,” wrote St. Paul. Me too. When I was a kid, my regular playmates were David and Johnny who lived next door. Their folks had a garage. Since they didn’t have a car, the gargage had junk stored in it, right on the dirt floor. Still, there was room for a “clubhouse.” Both David and Johnny were older by a year or two, so I was kind of automatically in what therapists call a “one-down position.” Sometimes when I would balk at something that wanted to do, since it was their clubhouse, they’d kick me out.

I well remember the humiliation of pushing aside the fairly useless wire fence that separated our yards and skulking into my back yard. My first stop was my mother whom I would tell about David and Johnny kicking me out and calling me names. She would tell me, “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” She was wrong about other things too. The words did hurt. 

She would also tell me to go in the backyard and play and just ignore them. Take some of your toys out and play and have lots of fun, she’d insist. “You’ll see,” she would say, “They’ll be sorry they kicked you out.” Because my older brothers were no longer at home, I didn’t have to share toys with anyone and I took very good care of mine. Consequently, I had some pretty neat stuff for the 40s and a relative large number of toys. David and Johnny were two among kids at their how and toys of any kind or number were hard to come by.

What mother was teaching me was a kind of revenge. Treat them with disdain and they’ll suffer was the particular kind. Make them envious of your toys and your fun, was the plan. They’ll be reminded of how little they have and will feel bad. Not that she ever actually said those things, but the message was there all the same. Teaching revenge is something we seem to do a lot of in our world. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” Or, “Living well--that’s the best revenge.” Or, “You march right back out there and hit him back; you can’t let him get away with stuff like that.” I may have said some of these things myself.

What made me think about this was the recent shootings at the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin. The news tells me the shooter, Wade Michael Page, was a white supremacist who may have been “less than honorably discharged” from the Army after being demoted.  He was a member of several hate groups and had a band that played hate-filled songs. His body was tatooed with symbols of “white pride.” He may even have been providing funding for some domestic terrorist groups.

Clearly, Page felt as if the Sikhs weren’t fit to be in his club. 
Clearly, Page had been taught that he needed to take revenge on “those kind of people” who dared to not be white, not be Christian, and had the nerve to live in his community.  Remember the song from South Pacific, “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught”?

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 afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent 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!

Evidently he’d been carefully taught, and he took his revenge too.

What about the Sikhs? What are they taught? They are taught to believe in one God, pursue salvation, to engage in social reform through the pursuit of social justice for all human beings, and to reject discrimination based on caste, creed and gender. One of the Sikh leaders said, “It broke my heart that this thing happened, especially just a few weeks after this Aurora thing. It just breaks my heart.” Another said, “We’d like to view this tragedy as an opportunity to tell the world what Sikhs are. Sikhs believe in peace and harmony.” It just breaks his heart, he said.

Apparently, they never learned about taking revenge.

Peace,  Jerry

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