Thursday, May 03, 2007

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 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!

-From South Pacific

This is the problem. Whenever I hold my little girl, I think of how innocent and wonderful she is. She has no hate, she has no fear. All those things she will learn. She will learn from me, and those around her. I will pass on my thoughts and beliefs. I hope to teach her not to hate. I hope to teach her not to fear.

Why is it we are so afraid? Who really cares what religion a person believes in? Who really cares? And why is it we can't forgive, learn to see the good? People will say, well we have seen too much, been through too much. We must protect ourselves. There is evil out there. We have a right!!

Do we? Do we really? What about people who have been through so much more than us?

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death."
-Anne Frank
Anne Frank!! People are really good at heart. She wrote that while hiding in a attic because she had committed the crime of believing in God! Yet, she knew. She understood.

One more-

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Yes, you've got to be carefully taught.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are so right. I think part of the problem is that society seems so focused on the negative things that go on. I was watching the news last night with some friends, one or two of them complained that the weather was the breaking news. I have thought this way too. What are we thinking? Do we really want tragic things to happen to make the news more exciting???? When things that aren't so tragic are reported we tend to think of the news and of our lives as boring. What a strange thought.

Anyway, I love that quote from Anne Frank. What an amazing outlook she had. How would it be if I could view life that way all of the time? The world would be a totally different place if we all believed that way.

Anonymous said...

Well said.