Pentecost 2015

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!
- Oscar Hammerstein II, lyricist, SOUTH PACIFIC

The heartbreak in Charleston, South Carolina this week is on many of our minds. When we heard the news of the horrific attack on a group at the AME church who were engaged in a bible study that ended in the deaths of nine faithful, and by all accounts, caring individuals, there were no words. As details from the killings continue to be revealed, many of us are overwhelmed with emotions – some sadness, some anger, some confusion, and some, of course, with a deep desire for retribution and justice.

My mind, of course, linked to the lyrics of a Broadway musical. In 1949, the legendary musical team of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II brought their award-winning adaptation of James A. Michner's TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC to the stage with SOUTH PACIFIC, a sweeping love story set in World War II. While many more immediately might immediately recall the songs Some Enchanted Evening, or I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair, or There is Nuthin' Like A Dame, I was drawn to a song that is, even now, sometimes cut from performance: You've Got To Be Carefully Taught. In the second act of the musical, Lt. Cable is confronted by Emile Debecque who asks why his love interest, Nellie Forbush, has such aversion to his biracial children to his first wife, a Polynesian woman. Cable is overcome with his own self-loathing, and confesses that, “...it's not something you're born with...” but something that is intrinsically part of many's upbringings. As he sings, he confronts his own racial prejudice and hatred, and the audience, too, must also be confronted.

The song's inclusion in the musical almost brought about the downfall of the show. Many producers were concerned that the message was to controversial for audiences, and that potential supporters, particularly in southern theatres, would not book touring companies or produce the show because of its clear condemnation of racism. Many in the US had linked anti-racist rhetoric to communist principles. In Georgia, for example, a bill was introduced outlawing entertainment containing “an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow.” But the authors were stubborn, and refused to allow the song to be removed, as it was in integral part of the show.

While we will continue to wrestle with questions regarding the mental state of the attacker, his behaviors and statements before the murders, the acquisition of the weapon used to commit this horrific act, and the correct response to create safer public spaces, one thing simply cannot be argued or explained away: this person was carefully taught – by his family, by his teachers, by his friends, by media, by society, by history – to hate. And his hate is more than mere distrust or aversion; it is a hate that allowed him to take the lives of others even after he was treated by those victims with caring and welcome.

Our response must be assume our responsibility, as followers of Jesus Christ, to counter that hateful teaching with the teaching of welcome, hospitality, concern, equality, justice, and love. It was radical in the first century; it is, in some parts of the world, just as radical today. We have to talk about it with our young people. We have to talk about it ourselves. We have to show it in how we live our lives and open are arms to all who are different from us.

Years of teaching of hatred are not easy to overcome, if they can be overcome at all. However, complacency in the face of racial intolerance does not follow the example of Jesus, who not only called out hatred, but confronted it with radical, unconditional love and self-sacrifice. The struggle for equality and justice is not one that was fought and one in the last century; it may well be the eternal struggle for all of human history. It is our responsibility and charge to engage this struggle and do what we can to leave the world more loving, more accepting than it was before our first entrance on the stage.

In the peace of Christ,

Fr. Shawn