by Ted Sherman

Created on: February 07, 2008

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.

Lyrics of the song, "Carefully Taught" from the Broadway musical about World War II, "South Pacific" seem to answer the question. It is sung with biting sarcasm in the play, and refers to two troubled romances, one of a Navy nurse's love with a Frenchman who had two mixed-race children, and a Marine lieutenant's love with a dark-skinned island girl.

An easy example to test the theory is to put a bunch of two-year-olds together in a room, a sand box, wading pool or on a playground. In the mix, you include White, Black, Asian and kids of mixed parentage. To make it interesting, also bring in kids of the same age who are mentally and physically handicapped. OK, now sit back and observe. You'll see that the kids will play together, push each other, babble, laugh and cry, but none of their actions will have anything to do with skin color, intelligence or body shape. Their acceptance will be total and enlightening, but it won't last more than a couple of years.

I'll always remember when our son was age two, and of course, we were certain he was the most intelligent two-year-old in the world. We were on a city bus after Christmas shopping, when a very small Black man, about the same size as our son, boarded. Our very observant son stared and stared at the man, and then pulled at my sleeve and pointed. I tensed, knowing we'd be embarrassed by an inappropriate, possibly racist, remark, but when the words came out, everyone in the bus, including the little man, laughed. My son said, "Ooh, look, Dad. One of Santa's elves." There was no sarcasm nor bigotry in what he said, but all the wonder and innocence of a curious child.

Actually, on the subject of racism, I don't see much difference between the words taught and learned. If the debate's two opposing themes were explained as taught/learned from the influences of others versus instinctive behavior, the differences would be much clearer. For instance, if after ten or fifteen years, you were to gather those same kids from the original test and place them in a similar environment as total strangers, you'd see how much racism they had learned from parents, TV, movies, teen music and street-talk with other kids.

Name the negative emotions and conflicts. They'll be there in all their shameful exposure: suspicion, fear, forming separate ... segregated ... groups, fights, hatred, anger, threats, derogatory words and a thousand others, all, as the song says, carefully taught.

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