61 years later

You’ve Got To Be Taught-Music by Richard Rodgers/Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II from the play 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 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!

Written and produced in 1949, South Pacific graced the Broadway Stage and for the first time on a large scale production the issue of bias, bigotry, and hate found its way to the American public. Its creators knew the subject matter was a rather touchy and relevant issue, but (they) also knew that by speaking aloud regarding hate they would be buffeting heads with organized religious institutions, perceived misconceptions of race, the status quo of how America should feel and think, and come into direct conflict with those who thrived on scapegoats and villains.

And most importantly Mr.’s Hammerstein and Rodgers made a very bold and blunt statement that hate was not inherent in the human condition but something learned, something taught. And could be untaught, or even stopped if any effort to find commonality instead of difference was ever applied.

Sixty one years later, the American public is waist deep in the sludge, slander, and cesspool of peddlers who through FOX News, Conservative Talk Radio, the Republican conceived Tea Bag Brigade, self promoting organized religious leaders, are encouraging the lessons of hate, bigotry, racism, homophobia, xenophobia and teaching once again loud and proud that difference is bad.

Sixty one years later we have the likes of Sister Sarah whining about who is bad and who is not. She professes as to who is the mama grizzly, moose huntin’ hockey mom, salmon fishin’ pit bull mama and who is the enemy. You are either with her or against her and she wants no middle ground, no compromise, and no exceptions. She pretends to be of the people, but is selective just which people she is of. Glenn Beck is now becoming a self appointed prophet of a God who worships a God made from loathing and hate. He is setting standards of what real Americans are and what an enemy of America is. If you are Christian, white, a conservative republican, preferably male then you are in the ‘we’ group, anyone else is considered ‘they’. Candidates from the corporate sponsored so called grass roots organization, Tea Baggers, insist that they know, personally the intentions of the creators of the Constitution. They state that the Constitution was never intended for all Americans just those who happen to be white, uneducated, want to pay no taxes, care less about health care, don’t mind corporations writing their own rules and regulations, need no organized public education system, and never collect unemployment checks because being unemployed is lazy and socialistic behavior.

Sixty one years later we find ourselves pretending that our fear of difference is based on some fact that doesn’t exist in reality but does in the lemming like mind of those who need the voices of others to manipulate them. The pro opposite sex marriage only group, will never say they hate gays, but will proclaim, that marriage is all about procreation/ the way God intended/ for the children. They will protest and shout out the LGBT community as wanting to destroy the institution, never looking at their own brothers and sisters who commit adultery and infidelity. And when the pro opposite marriage group of haters are asked about what love has to do with marriage, they reply if it was about love then those who love their brothers or sisters could marry them.

Sixty one years later we still are waging holy wars against other religions. We forget that this country was founded on separation of church and state, and insist that Christianity is the official religion of the land. The Muslims are now the villain of America, and it will be time for the Jews once Christmas time comes around and someone protests a nativity scene on government property. We still place our God above anyone else’s God and refuse to even accept the possibility that religion is not about a God being stronger than another God but about the strength that each God provides in giving us hope, heart, and harmony.

Sixty one years later we are still looking at the color of skin and insisting if not white they are not right. We now want to selectively discriminate against people of color based on some made up reason that it is because of them that our economic condition in this country is rancid and rotten. We forgot that the recession and near depression in the country over the past 8 years was caused by white men in powerful places.

You’ve got to be taught to hate. Why is it, some lessons are so easy to learn? Why is it the negative seems so easy to prove? Why does it take so long to remember the past and not repeat its failings? Why is it we trust those who divide and conquer and turn away from those seek consensus?

Sixty one years later, actually my entire life time, and it seems as if time has stood still.