And an update on Rebecca’s preparation for the 2021 Des Moines Register’s Bike Ride Across Iowa

Euro 2020 and England vs. Italy

On Sunday, July 11, Italy defeated England to win the European 2020 soccer championship. The game ended in a 1 – 1 tie after regular time and two additional periods. In international soccer, penalty shootouts decide the winner. A penalty shootout is where five players from each team take turns from the penalty spot, 12 yards from the goal. Italy won the penalty shootout 3 – 2.

Three of the five England players Manager Gareth Southgate selected for the shootout are black: Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka. All three missed their shots. A small number of fans used Twitter and other Social Media platforms to direct hateful comments at these players. And someone defaced a mural of Marcus Rashford. Southgate, who himself had missed a penalty shot against Germany in Euro 96, condemned these odious tweets and the England team and most of the country rallied around the players in the days following the game.

I watched 45 of the 51 Euro 2020 games, including this championship match. I wanted England to win but my stomach tightened an extra notch when England’s final three penalty shooters – Rashford, Sancho, and Saka – all missed. I worried about what might follow.

Where does the hate come from that would lead someone to post a vicious tweet or damage a mural? Thinking about this question lead me back to a day many years ago.

“You’ve got to be taught”

In 1958, two delivery men hauled a huge package up 25 steep steps through a little entry way into the living room of my parents’ house. Inside was something called a stereo, the iPod of the day. After supper, my parents, two brothers and me sat around the living room – we usually only used the living room at Christmas time – and listened to the soundtrack of the film South Pacific. I knew nothing of the story but one song stuck in my memory, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

I did not see the film South Pacific until the summer of 1980. I was living in Ann Arbor, Michigan where The Michigan Theater showed classic movies every weekend. I settled into my seat about 15 minutes before the film and was startled to see an organ piano rise from the theater depths with the organist playing the music I last heard in 1958. The film began and eventually wove its way to the”Carefully Taught” subplot. I saw the anguish of American Lieutenant Cable and Tonkinese girlfriend Liat. Cable decides not to marry Liat because love was not enough. Too many of his contemporaries had been taught to hate, in the words of the song,

“People who’s eyes are oddly made and people who’s skin is a different shade.”

Children notice difference

My mother too often told this story about me. “When Paul was three, I took him shopping to Walgreens Drug Store. We were in the check out line and Paul turns and sees a black man for the first time. Paul starts crying and pointing and would not stop until we left the store and got into the car.” Rebecca’s mom told a similar story about her three year old son Mike. They were at the State Fair in Illinois and Mike saw a black man and said over and over “he’s black, he’s black.”

Last summer Rebecca and I spent three months in Houston, Texas babysitting four year old Irene, one of Rebecca’s grandchildren. One day Rebecca showed Irene a You Tube video clip of a friend’s 4 year old Chinese granddaughter singing a song. After the brief clip, Irene said “I don’t like her.”

Apparently humans are programmed to start grouping people – making distinctions based upon physical characteristics – by the age of two.* Little Paul, Mike, and Irene did what all humans start out doing. They notice human differences and respond. I was scared, Mike was bewildered, and Irene was displeased. Yet, I did not become a hater. Nor did Mike. Irene, well, let’s just say the chances of Irene becoming an adult who hates Chinese people are slim.

But some little children do grow into adults who hate “those whose eyes are oddly made and people who’s skin is a different shade.” I know nothing about the people who felt the need to send out into the world venomous words and images directed at the England’s black players. Nothing, except their actions. But I also have seen the actions of the more numerous non-haters. Most Social Media messages after England’s loss to Italy supported Rashford, Sancho and Saka. And fans from across England rushed to bury the graffiti on Marcus Rashford’s mural in flowers and other tributes.

It’s not easy to teach people to hate

When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s I do not remember my mom or dad talking much about race. My mom did not describe the Walgreen incident until I was in my thirties. The only comment I ever heard my father make about race was that the singer Nat King Cole was a “good negro.” Yes, I know, cringe-worthy to our 2021 ears, but this race-language was enlightened compared to what I occasionally heard from his parents and brother Jim at Sunday dinners in Tipton, Iowa. Other than my dad’s judgment about Cole, my parents never taught their children there was anything wrong with people who did not look like us.

Rebecca’s mother and father spent one year in the 1940s in Georgia before moving back to Illinois to raise their six children. According to Rebecca, her mom would told her kids that blacks in Georgia had to use different drinking fountains and how wrong that was. Throughout the 1960s Evelyn Franklin would refer to that Georgia experience when talking with her kids about the motivations of those protesting for Civil Rights.

Irene lives in Houston, Texas with her mom Suzanne and dad Jonathan, Rebecca’s son. Houston is one of America’s most diverse cities and Irene’s daycare, preschool and neighborhood friends reflect that diversity. And the evening after Irene’s “I don’t like her comment” we all played the I Never Forget a Face Memory Game and all three adults took every opportunity to talk with Irene about how different human faces are and how that is difference is good.

Most people do not become haters because their parents and increasingly the society that surrounds them send too many messages into the “little ears” of children that are antidotes to turning those differences children note into fear and then into hatred. Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II published “You’ve got to be carefully taught” in 1949, the year I was born. How much has changed, for the better.

The little Paul’s, Mike’s and Irene’s of today learn in a world where the messages sent by haters are condemned by most adults. It’s never been easy to teach people to hate.

You’ve got to be taught from year to year; It’s got to be drummed into your dear little ear; You’ve got to be CAREFULLY taught…You’ve got to be taught before its too late; before you are six, seven or eight…

It’s even harder today.

Rebecca’s Ragbrai update

In A Life Lesson from a Biking Grandma, I wrote about Rebecca’s preparation for the 454 mile bike ride across Iowa that starts a week from today, Sunday, July 25. She is now at 550 miles and probably will fall a bit short of the 700 recommended pre-Ragbrai miles. However, she says “I feel strong and think I am ready.” As the distance between us increases on our daily rides, especially up the Decorah bike trail switchbacks, I agree. And it’s been fun playing the part of trainer Rocky Balboa to Rebecca’s Adonis Creed.

* Kwame Anthony Appiah makes this point in The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity.