Feed your children arugula, to fortify them against prejudice.
Both my daughters have emailed this week, both, coincidentally, facing eye-opening and close-minded experiences that they, raised by liberal parents in the upper Mid-West, haven't confronted before.
Yesterday Daughter Number Two emailed from her liberal arts women's college in Massachusetts, where homophobe Ryan Sorba spoke—or rather, tried to speak—at the invitation—or rather, he invited himself, as she says—of the College Republicans. He's apparently written a book promoting the idea that gays are made, not born. He's no newcomer to the hate speech circuit; as the head of the San Bernardino College Republicans, he was fired for posting anti-gay signs around campus.
Some of the women at Smith were conflicted: To go, and give him an audience, however hostile, or refuse to give an ear to his hateful comments? Daughter Number Two (who was writing a philosophy paper on morality at the time) reports that the students who went shouted him down, banging on pots and pans, and he never got to speak. I was proud to hear that DNT wanted to support her friends, although she wasn't sure how best to do that. (And also proud she chose to work on her paper. I want her to get As as much as I want her consciousness raised.)
The same day, Daughter Number One, who recently moved to a small town in the Deep South, emailed, concerned that some of the students she's met don't believe in evolution. She mentioned the movie "Expelled" which I'd never heard of. Apparently it's by this guy Ben Stein, who today I saw quoted:
Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.
So, two close-minded people who I'd never heard of, Ryan Sorba and Ben Stein, have influenced my daughters this week. As an arugula-eating member of the liberal elite, I should be appalled. But contrarily, I'm pleased that they finally see that the world is not the sheltered haven of science and reason they were brought up in. Perhaps we erred, raising them so far from the maddening crowd. Dealing with prejudice is a skill that comes with practice, as I well know.
There comes a point for every parent when you have to trust your child's ability to fight the good fight, to recognize evil and prejudice and hate, and react accordingly. Sort of like I trust them to eat right, to spend money wisely, and to dress warmly—okay, Daughter Number Two will never dress warmly. But she, like her sister, does have a fine ear for prejudice and cruelty, and that I'm glad of.
When Daughter Number Two joins her sister later in the month, I'm sure they'll have a lot to talk about. How do you deal with people who think science is evil, or who twist science to fit their own prejudices? How do people like Ryan Sorba and Ben Stein get an audience in the first place? Is prejudice confined to the South, or are northern liberals just as guilty, despite being fortified by arugula?
Or perhaps they'll just talk about how their mother continues to embarrass them on her blog.
