You've Got to Be Carefully Taught

I visited a new church Sunday, and before I had made it 10 feet through the door, two old ladies stopped to greet me. One was named Katherine and said she liked that I'm named Sarah -- "We have old-fashioned names" -- and was even more pleased when I told her that her name was my middle name. The other lady took my arm and started guiding me around the foyer and into the sanctuary, introducing me to teachers and people my age as her "new friend from Texas." After the service, she found my arm again, parading me around to at least half the congregation.

It was then that she caught me by surprise when she introduced me to her family: "We've got a mixed family. Our family is mixed." She said it happily and matter-of-factly, and it took me a few seconds to understand that she meant her white granddaughter had married a black man. She wasn't ashamed, and hopefully didn't think I would be, but I can only assume that the culture she was raised in is so ingrained in her, she's used to having to explain to strangers in the South why a white woman in her family would marry a black man. I don't want to imagine what would have been said to her if she'd said her "mixed family" statement in a more liberal environment.

I just smiled and said the baby was precious, and by then she'd already gone on to fine others for me to meet. It wasn't until today, as I was digesting my obsession with the Broadway revival of "South Pacific" that I realized how far we haven't come as a nation, or as people.

"South Pacific" is a musical I underestimated as a kid growing up watching the film version at my grandma's, wondering why the old French guy was considered so dashing. Once I read about the revival this spring in the New York Times, I was hooked, checking Amazon.com every week to see if a cast recording had been released, reading everything I could about the new production, proclaiming my love for the lead, Paulo Szot, etc. And of course, on Sunday, I watched the Tony's while at work, singing along with various songs with coworkers who, thankfully, love musicals as much as me.

Much has been said about this brilliant revival, most notably how its themes of war and racism resonate today, but it didn't hit me until Sunday, when I spoked with the old lady at church and later watched an interview with the respective daughters of Rogers and Hammerstein. They predicted their fathers would be both proud and disappointed their musical was so relevant; proud that they could tell so keenly of the human condition through a form often thought of as frivolous, and disappointed that 60 years later, America still has a long road to go toward achieving anything close to racial equality.

Sure, Obama is the nominee, but there are also rumors that his wife, Michelle, referred to whites as a collective "whitey." Sure, a local white woman married someone of a different race, but her grandmother felt the need to point the fact out to me as soon as I met them. The "South Pacific" revival brings back some of author James Michener's (the musical was based on his novel, "Tales of the South Pacific") more colorful and truthful dialogue. When Nellie refers to the mother of Emile's children as "colored," the modern audience (especially in New York City) winces. But not everyone these days is so modern, especially here.

When Szot accepted his Tony Award for best leading actor in a musical, he described his character Emile as someone worthy of admiration because he "opposes war and fights for love." Emile also doesn't see the skin tones everyone else sees. Maybe that's why Emile's so loved; he's almost too good to be true.

He's real in art, though, and thank God for the artists who give us heroes to live up to.