Yes, Racism is Taught — But Not the Way You Think

The most effective teacher of racist thinking is systemic inequality itself

Image: Marina Kliets, Shutterstock, Standard license, purchased by author

In the 1949 Broadway musical South Pacific, by Rodgers and Hammerstein, there is a song, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” which stirred quite the controversy at the time.

As a tune about racism, the song provoked howls of protest from Southern lawmakers and even charges of communist “race-mixing” propaganda during the early days of the Cold War.

Here are the lyrics:

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

Many years later, the National Conference of Christians and Jews would adopt a variation on this theme as their semi-official slogan: “You Have to Be Taught How to Hate.”