You've Got to Be Carefully Taught (or Not)

Daily Dhamma At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being. ~Friedrich Otto Hertz

"You've Got to be Carefully Taught" from the musical "South Pacific," lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

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!

But, then again, maybe not!

Here's an article on research that suggests that bias is built into us. Rather than to be taught to be prejudiced against things and people who are different than us, we really need to be taught to overcome our innate prejudices: We Might Be More Racist Than We Think We Are. I believe there is a lot of truth to this theory. I know I've had to work on acknowledging my own prejudice. Even today and even with the multi-racial make-up of my family, I have to admit I would probably be more alert meeting a dark skinned stranger on the street than I would a light skinned stranger, more cautious of people with tattoos than those without, and the list goes on.

I remember with great shame one occasion when I went to get gas in my car very early in the morning. It was still dark. A young black man with dreadlocks started walking towards me and I immediately reacted by getting back into my car and locking the doors. He looked very sad and turned and walked back to the building portion of the gas station. When my gas was finished pumping, I went to the building to pay for the gas. The young man was sitting just outside on the cement. He looked up at me as I passed him and said, "I wasn't going to hurt you lady."

He was clearly homeless and probably looking for some change -- maybe wanted to offer to clean my windshield or something like that. I would have been nervous if it had been a young white man coming at me that early in the morning too, but there was an extra edge to it and I had to acknowledge that to myself.

Now I understand that it is a dangerous world out there and we should be cautious, but racism hurts. I could see the hurt on that kids face. I'm sure he has encountered that same reaction hundreds and hundreds of time in his short life. We need to be cautious, but we don't need to be ridiculous.

We need to carefully teach ourselves to overcome our immediate bias and get beyond it -- and this goes for people of color getting over their biases against Caucasians as well. Whites do not have the corner on the market of racism and prejudice.

Tolerance.org

Speaking of being carefully taught, daughter-in-law, Tai, is a teacher in an at risk middle school. A very high percentage of the students in the school are black or hispanic and many of them are poor.

Tai and some other teachers have developed an after school program for young girls who are having problems. They call it "The Homework Club," which I think is a really cool name that sounds positive, rather than punitive. They are having some great results with the girls.

Anyway, the girls don't just do homework. The teachers offer them opportunities they may not otherwise get, like tea parties, career days, and so forth. Tai asked me if I would come and give knitting lessons to those girls interested. I don't know if any of my knitting readers remember when you learned to knit or if you've ever tried to teach someone else, but teaching one person is a challenge -- teaching a bunch of teen girls is a huge challenge.

I put the request out to my knitting friends who donated money for knitting needles and made offers to help. Most of us have yarn enough for an army so we didn't have to purchase any fiber. Four of us went to the club yesterday and divided the girls up into groups of four each. We spent about an hour an a half teaching them to cast on and do the knit stitch. By the end of that time most of them were catching on and none of them wanted to leave! They all wanted to stay and work more on their skills.

We will meet with them again next Monday to improve their skills and those who stay interested will eventually be given the knitting needles they are working with an enough yarn to make a simple garter stitch scarf. They seem pretty excited about it and all of us who helped them were jazzed as well. There's nothing like bringing new blood over to the Dark Side of Knitting Addiction.