You've Got To Be Carefully Taught!
A sermon by Rev. Dr. Marie deYoung
Delivered to the Gulf Coast UU Fellowship on October 31, 2010 

When I was a child, my great aunt, Lizzie, a public teacher and church organist, taught me and the rest of our family – indeed her whole town of Tuscarora Pennsylvania – to love all of the great songs from Broadway that inspired us to love, to laugh, to be brave, and to be patriotic.

One of our favorite musicals was called South Pacific --a wonderful tale about the struggles, passions, loves and losses of our navy men and women who served in the Pacific during World War II. 

One song that my family sang with gusto around the piano was called: “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught.”  As children, we were completely unaware of the deeper meaning of this song.  All we knew was that a handsome determined young navy lieutenant was taking a beautiful island girl to be his beloved – and many of us wished to be that girl! 

But, listen to the message in this amazingly insightful ballad:

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! 

Now that I’ve grown up, I often marvel that Hollywood writers of yesteryear truly believed they had Gospel powers to promote racial and religious tolerance through their art.  When you go back and watch classic movies on the TCM, you can see that many Hollywood writers and stars were sympathetic to the cause of racial justice. 

I just don’t think it is an accident that they used soft forms of speech: musicals, plays, movies to teach Americans a better way of living as a human family.

Words do have power.

As Unitarians and Universalists, we dedicate ourselves to the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  This is an almost impossibly high standard to live up to. But, when we choose to live by it, very often, we should feel conflicted, as we are bumping up against another of our great values: our prizing of the freedom of speech.

In the past few weeks, our national discourse has become shrill with inflammatory rhetoric and dehumanizing characterizations of people who are not in the mainstream of our power structure.
   -We’ve listened to politicians and church leaders dehumanize men and women who practice the Islamic faith. 

   -We’ve listened to politicians and church leaders dehumanize men and women who lack documents that would give them the right to live and work in this country.
   -We listen to politicians and church leaders demean and dehumanize women all of the time, but for some reason, we don’t seem to feel the necessity of stopping this hate speech.
   -We listen to politicians and church leaders demean and dehumanize the GLBT community.
  -We listen to commercial artists promote violence against women, against other members of the community, and we do nothing, fearful that we will be accused of trampling on the free speech rights of those who demean women, African Americans, teachers, police and other workers in the community.

Now, we have an ironic turn of events, that I believe we can use as an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to loving, respectful speech.  

Recently in a national media event, Juan Williams expressed his fears about sitting next to Muslims while riding an airplane.  His inappropriate statements occurred in the context of his role as a national public commentator.  His remarks were inappropriate at best, but realistically, with the authority and power that he enjoys as a national figure, we must recognize that his speech constituted coded messages to a very hostile, angry, and revenge-seeking public that wants to punish all Muslims for the actions of a very few terrorists.

Juan Williams, who also enjoyed status as a commentator for NPR, was terminated for his comments.  And upon his termination, there has been a maelstrom of complaints and outcries from pundits and strategists on our left and on our right. 

Some are even calling for the end to public funding of National Public Radio. I am not one of those persons.

Frankly, I am relieved that a national media organization finally had the common decency to draw a very public line about incendiary and hate speech.  If anything, it is my hope that other news organizations will begin to return to their standards of yesteryear, when inflammatory, derogatory, biased, prejudiced comments were not tolerated in any form – not on the part of commentators, and certainly not on the part of guests.

Certainly, Mr. Williams should know firsthand how prejudicial speech -- speech that incites violence -- can hurt good men and women and children who become targets of bigots when they believe they have been given the license to do so.  He is an African American Hispanic man, and as such, I no doubt believe he has personally experienced cruel speech throughout his lifetime.

Who in this congregation is not familiar with the experience of hate speech?

As a woman, I have experienced the hatred, the targeting by fundamentalists in the military, and by fundamentalists in the community who think our religion is a cult. 

As a congregation, we have experienced the hatred: our sanctuary was firebombed in the 1970s because we promoted racial harmony and inclusiveness.  In the past two years, we have been denied permits to build on our land because of coastal residents who expressed their hatred and fears of our beliefs at zoning board meetings. 

But to the case of Juan Williams, whether or not Mr. Williams intended to fuel the flames of hatred,  I believe that NPR’s guidelines and journalistic ethics are such, that after twenty some years as an NPR commentator, he should know that it is irresponsible to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre when there is no fire.

By giving public credence to his personal fears of Arabic men and women, by making it known that he feels it is okay to be suspicious, terrified of another human being just because of their faith, their physical attire, he did just that. He carefully taught his audience how to hate.  And, that is simply not acceptable.  It is dangerous speech, yelling "fire" in a crowded room.

When NPR drew the line, I believe our nation took its first step in restoring journalistic integrity.  Hopefully, the rest of us will have the courage to stop our participation in hate-mongering of any kind, but especially towards those who practice the Islamic faith.

   -We know that men and women of the Islamic faith have been persecuted in this country.  Right here in Mississippi, and in other states, they have had difficulties building their mosques.    
   -We know that around the country, bullies have used the national mood of fear and hate as an excuse to beat up American residents and citizens who are of Arabic descent. 

Even in our darkest days of this war against terrorism, we make a terrible mistake when we lump all those who practice Islam into the category of terrorist -just as our neighbors make a terrible mistake when they lump all Unitarians and Universalists into the category of “cultists.”  

It is important, when we choose our speakers, our commentators, our preachers, our leaders, that we choose men and women who have the capacity to inspire love, peace, harmony, cooperation, friendship. 

For, the pen is mightier than the sword.  Words are the swords that too often are used to carefully teach hatred.  Words are too often the swords drawn to provoke and incite mob violence.

By the same token, our words are our best tool for creating the peace that we so much need in our world today.

When we speak to the world, it is important that we treat all of our fellow humans as brothers and sisters.  We need to remember that our speech can heal, bring love, and restore harmony.When we use words, we must always be aware of our capacity to carefully teach. 

As Unitarian Universalists, may we always live up to our responsibility to teach ourselves and our neighbors carefully not to fear, but to understand.  Not to hate, but rather to love.  Not to withdraw into isolated communities, but rather, to unite in one community to celebrate our differences as well as our common humanity.