Education Ignores "Sticks and Stones" Lessons

The firing of Juan Williams, the film maker and "liberal commentator", is a fine illustration of the confusion in our society between words that may hurt and people who kill.  It is apparent that NPR fears Muslims terrorist so much, that they shy for even the appearance of offense.  This story reminds me of my own struggle with words.

 As puny, brown, immigrant child in a majority "white" school in 1959 my teachers taught and I learned the rhyme, 'sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me."  Inoculated thus, I got on with my life, knowing the difference between psychological and physical blows.  In sum, we all have to "Man Up" and become "Mensch".   Somewhere in between school and my military retirement, a cult of victimhood took hold and confused the heck of a lot people and stifled Americans to cower at verbal insults.  It's as if the country went sissy and crazy while I was away.   Now, if feelings bring hurt or somebody feels unloved it becomes a national cause of concern.  Giving offense is never kind, but this is a matter of etiquette. Earlier this month I heard a dispute where it is believed by some that saying radical Muslims drove airplanes into building on 9/11 is considered a slander to Islam.  Have we lost our collective minds?


Today, we don't recognize context.   Yes, injustice continues, today a good many are from laws fostered by federal and state regulation in the name of equality.  Yes, I do remember when black people were not merely taunted across the nation, but in the South were lynched at real or imagined slights to whites.  (In the North they had their own ways of humiliating & destroying minorities).   Yet, the civil rights movement triumphed as I and a generation of children watched a heroic people abused by words and stones, march stoically to simply demand a voice in government and freedom from harm.  The nation saw it and slowly changed in its shame.  The sticks and stones philosophy did give us a mental toughness, that didn't continually require adult or governmental intervention from abuse from the ignorant. 


Martin Luther King's said it best "legislation cannot make you love me, but legislation can restrain you from lynching me".  This is the reality, we shouldn't expect coerced friendship, love, acceptance, respect and if indifference is best I can get so be it.  I only expect government to protect me and my property from the likes of the ignorant trolls among us.  We cannot expect government do every thing especially when it comes to people dealing with people, we have to do it.  To get respect you to have to give respect. 


If we are to survive as a nation, in this radical experiment called America, we'd better get back some of the mental toughness of our founders, black and white, and latino and asian, braves and squaws, men and women, gay and straight and stop on all the whining for real or imagined slights to our feelings.