They're Carefully Taught

On Friday they got to skip school and yell and scream. It was a good day to be a kid. (Chronicle photo)

Friday, March 15: [bold added]

Thousands of Bay Area students walked out of schools Friday to protest climate change and many of them marched down Market Street in a noisy, energetic show of youth frustration and determination....Similar protests took place across the U.S. and in more than 100 countries.

In San Francisco, about 2,000 students — many with their teachers’ blessing — and their parents gathered first in front of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office at 7th and Mission streets, then marched to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office at Market and Post streets before heading for a rally at Union Square.

This girl's photo was in the Chronicle print
edition and is strangely missing on the web

The kids received a valuable education on Friday. At a tender age they felt the adrenaline of anger and the rush of self-righteousness. In a crowd of the like-minded it was intoxicating.

Later, perhaps, in a moment of self-awareness they will understand how a Cultural Revolution can occur in late-60's China or why students like themselves burned books across Germany in 1933.

However, your humble blogger will not fall into the trap of pronouncing judgment on a person's character--especially a young person's--on the basis of one photograph, much like sophisticated adults blasted 17-year-old Nicholas Sandmann based on a single facial expression.

The lyrics from a musical that I heard as a child keep running through my head (with apologies to Rodgers and Hammerstein for italicized changes to the second verse):

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 who say climate's not man-made
And people whom progressives can't persuade,
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.