funny, isn't it?
by jeanne charters

I was doing the remote rumba, bored senseless with reruns and cooking shows. In mid flip, I heard it…I’m as corny as Kansas in August…I’m as normal as blueberry pie…no more a smart little girl with no heart.
I have found me a wonderful guy. It was South Pacific on PBS with Reba Macintyre playing Nellie Forbush. Breathing a deep sigh of purest joy, I closed my eyes and was transported back to the early 50’s where I sat in the biggest Broadway Theater I’d ever seen.

Once again, I was twelve years old and could feel the tropical breezes from the island of Bali Hai where anything was possible…love, valor, heroism. Though just a kid, I was smart enough to know that seeing Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza fall in love before my eyes on Broadway was a joy I would never forget. That enchanted evening, I wept
with Liat, laughed with Bloody Mary and developed a crush on Lieutenant Cable that lasted right up until they made the movie and totally miscast John Kerr in the part.

America was innocent in those days and mighty proud of herself. After all, she was less than a decade away from winning the mother of all battles, World War II. The daddies were home and everyone was licking their wounds
and rebuilding their lives. Patriotic bonds joined towns from sea to shining sea across this nation.

The music of South Pacific was by Richard Rodgers and the lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Just about every song in the play was a smash hit, but the one I remember best was little known. It was called: You’ve Got To Be Taught. I remember the words to this day.

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
To live in 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
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.

At twelve, that song taught me a morality lesson better than any history book could have done. From the day I heard it, racism was an unacceptable ism and fear, based on difference, was banished from my psychic lexicon.

Things are mighty different today, and not for the better. It breaks my heart that kids are growing up in something called the culture of fear, with our leaders raising levels of terror from yellow to orange to red in what seems to be a mindless, calculated and politically expedient manner. The question is: will fear protect our kids? Or will it destroy that patriotism and bravery inherent in a child’s psyche, unless that child is carefully taught to be afraid.

Funny, isn’t it, that while I agree the world is a frightening place since September 11, I’m pretty sure it was scary back when we were dealing with Pearl Harbor and the Nazis, too. There are huge differences, though. People were part of the war effort, even the children. There were paper drives and poppy sales and everyone
collecting flattened tin cans. People had a feeling of power and control about the situation, even the kids. Also, in those days, fear wasn’t plastered daily across television screens in glaring neon colors designed to heighten adrenaline levels and rev up the fight or flight syndrome.

So, what’s a mother or grandmother to do? Maybe go out
and rent an old MGM musical and escape with the kids for a couple of hours into Technicolor fantasies of more innocent times? That’s not a bad idea. Or maybe we should just make up our minds to stop being so scared of things we cannot control. Or start voting in a way to change those things.

Is there anyone out there with the courage, the brains and the pure chutzpah to fix this mess? Whether your eyes are “strangely made” or your “skin is a different shade” or your gender is not the one we’re used to, talk
straight…don’t cave when they tell scurrilous lies about you…focus on the real issues without hiding behind religious rhetoric (most of which is false and unchristian)…
because this country needs you. Call me a Cockeyed Optimist, but I think you’re out there somewhere. You may well be A Wonderful Guy; but I will admit just a tiny bit of prejudice here because, after all,
There is Nothing Like a Dame.

Jeanne Charters is a former V.P. of Marketing for Viacom Television. She started her own award-winning broadcast advertising agency in 1990. Jeanne lives in Fairview with her husband, Matt Restivo.
[ charmkt@juno.com; 828-628-0023 ]