The Golden Rule

When I heard about the shootings in Atlanta on Tuesday, I soon began playing in my head a song from childhood.  It became an earworm, which I still can't get out of my mind.  Called "Wun Long Pan," from The Blue Book of the John W. Schaum Piano Course series, it introduces students to sixteenth notes through the following lyrics:

"Wun Long Pan, Is famous Chinese Detective,
Wun Long Pan, He gives the crooks a chase.
Wun Long Pan, Is famous Chinese Detective,
Wun Long Pan, He always solves the case."

Here's the picture that accompanies this simple, clunky tune:

The year before I started piano lessons and learned to play "Wun Long Pan," my second-grade teacher taught us about Mao Zedong, whose name at the time was spelled in English as Mao Tse-tung.  He had most likely appeared in an issue of My Weekly Reader.  All I remember about this lesson is the way my teacher pronounced his name: Mayo Tease Tongue.

Wun Long Pan and Mayo Tease Tongue were my introductions to Chinese culture in the early 1960s.  The sad thing is I don't think much has changed since then.  Too many Americans wouldn't object to the illustration of Detective Pan, the absurdity of his name, or the disturbing syntax of the lyrics.  Moreover, newscasters and politicians continue to mispronounce Asian names, either as deliberate insults or as insensitive slights.  As one student said in response to a survey at the University of Alberta, "It is important for me to have my heritage name pronounced correctly because it makes me feel like I belong."

Exactly.  That's one of our main problems today.  Too many fellow citizens feel unwelcome and unworthy, as if they don't belong.  We can fix this, and it begins with respect: treating others as we would have them treat us.  Sound familiar? 

The Color of Hate

No wonder the congregation at Durham's Judea Reform synagogue gasped when they heard the news.  North Carolina's Department of Transportation is requiring that drivers' licenses of undocumented workers be marked with a pink stripe.  Sound familiar?  Sort of like the yellows stars of David that Jews were made to wear during the Holocaust.

As the synagogue's Rabbi Friedman said,  "The amazing thing to me is that Governor McCrory would not have had the historical sensitivity to realize what this would evoke in people. . . Wasn't it so obvious?"

Apparently not.  McCrory thought he'd developed a compromise between those who didn't think these young adults--brought to America as children by their parents--should be allowed to drive at all and those who thought they should.  Another example of compromise gone wrong--where human rights are whittled down to nothingness.

That we have too many ignorant people in power, both locally and nationally, is an understatement.  The rest of us cannot back down.  We need to keep showing up--on election day, in churches, in our neighborhoods and work places.

Hate and ignorance run rampant---especially when painted pink--are a dangerous combination.

The Color of Evil

When I first heard that a government building had been bombed in Oklahoma City in 1995, I said to my family--"Those people are crazy over there"--meaning that a terrorist group from the Middle East must have committed the crime. A similar initial thought crossed my mind when I learned of the attacks in Norway: Middle East extremists must have chosen an unlikely target for shock value.

We all know the endings of these two stories.

As if reading my mind on Friday--and perhaps the minds of many others--news commentators kept telling us that the gunman, once he was identified, was "blond-haired and blue-eyed." In others words, he wasn't what you think: dark-skinned, dark eyes, dark hair.

Perhaps we are wired in some fundamental way to blame "the other" when it comes to the unthinkable. More often than not, though, "the other" is in our own backyard.

The color of evil knows no color wheel. That we need constant reminder of this shows the depth of both our ignorance and our fear.

On Millinery

So maybe we disagree about whether or not it was OK for Pippa Middleton to wear white at her sister's wedding (she looked great), and maybe we disagree about whether or not William should wear a wedding band (it's his business). But surely we can agree that the hats in London on Friday were fantastic. Check out this slideshow if you have any doubts--you'll see a sleek and elegant look we simply couldn't pull off.

The millinery on display put to rest the American stereotype of Brits as dowdy and frumpy, consumers of fish and chips. Kind of like the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremonies put to rest the notion of a backwards China. Windows into other countries, these spectacles offer up another side of the countries we think we know. We're xenophobes at heart, and we need these shows from time to time to wake us up.

After all, if you look closely enough, you never know what you might find under someone else's hat.