Life in the Slow Lane

Contemplating life, faith, words, and memories

Month: February 2016

Are Racism, Hatred, and Bigotry in Our Genes? Or Are We Taught? — February 24, 2016

Are Racism, Hatred, and Bigotry in Our Genes? Or Are We Taught?

/Sherrey Meyer

WHERE DO RACISM, HATRED AND BIGOTRY COME FROM?

Always you’ll see a news item involving one or more of these emotions or themes. Racism, hatred, bigotry–it seems they will never go away.

Do you ever wonder why that is? We’ve even stopped watching anything other than the 11 o’clock local news to avoid some of the media coverage.

Friday night we even decided to go out for a change.

WE LOVE HIGH SCHOOL MUSICALS

Image via Tom Chantrell Posters
Image via Tom Chantrell Posters

As luck would have it, something was available we both enjoy. We attended a high school performance of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific, a timeless and beautiful Broadway musical debuted in 1949. Based on James Michener’s book, Tales of the South Pacific, a collection of wartime stories, the musical played a large role in constructing America’s post-war patriotism and deconstructing racial prejudice.

Was this intentional on Michener’s part, or was it something Rodgers & Hammerstein chose to do? 

If South Pacific assisted in deconstructing racial prejudice, why then are we experiencing violence all around us, some racially motivated and some not?

AS AN EXAMPLE

The following night, Saturday, a gunman in Kalamazoo, Michigan, shot and/or killed six innocent people in yet another shooting. The ethnicities of the six shooting victims here are unknown to me, but only hatred or mental health issues could drive someone to commit such heinous acts while driving others to their Saturday evening destinations.

BACK TO THE MUSICAL…

Program from Tualatin High School 2016 Production
Program from Tualatin High School 2016 Production

Two high school students performed admirably in the roles of Emile de Becque, a French plantation owner on the island, and Lt. Joseph Cable, a young American soldier stationed there temporarily. There is only one problem, or two I suppose:

  • Emile de Becque has fallen in love with Nellie Forbush, a lively nurse from Arkansas, who is happily considering married life on the island when Emile shares with her he was formerly married. Married to a Polynesian woman, now dead, and the two young children living with him are the result of that marriage. Nellie begins to think about the folks back home in Arkansas. What would they say about her stepchildren and the color of their skin?
  • Likewise, Lt. Cable, madly in love with Liat, a young Tonkonese girl, begins to think about the consequences of his marriage to a dark-skinned girl when he returns to the U.S. Will his family and friends accept her?

During this sequence, dialogue between Emile and Joe goes as follows:

Emile: What makes [Nellie] talk like that? Why do you have this feeling, you and she? I do not believe it is born in you. I do not believe it.

Joe: It’s not born in you! It happens after you’re born…

And here Joe launches into a song I’d never paid attention to before, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” Here are the lyrics and a YouTube video (John Kerr singing in a 1978 production):

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 different 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!

 

Think about six small words: “You’ve got to be carefully taught.” 

A HIDDEN THEME OR MESSAGE?

Rodgers and Hammerstein knew there was a hidden message in this musical. In fact, in a 1958 interview with Mike Wallace, Hammerstein stated:

South Pacific had two love stories in it. They both concern, in a different way, race prejudice.

Later in the interview Hammerstein touches on Nellie Forbush’s reaction to Emile’s revelation about his past. Hammerstein sets up the following quote by describing Nellie’s reaction when she learns Emile is in danger. Suddenly, her feelings change and her priorities shift so their relationship rises to the top. Hammerstein explains it thusly:

What we were saying was that … all this prejudice that we have is something that fades away in the face of something that’s really important.

SIX SMALL WORDS

What resounded with me on hearing this song performed the other night were those six small words. Even though some acts of prejudice occurred in my childhood home surrounding the “help,” I did not learn to own these feelings and opinions. In fact, as I grew older my memories of them turned repugnant.

Hatred, racism and bigotry are not always taught by our use of words. They can be learned by observing our actions.

  • How often is the man or woman standing a street corner talking to him- or herself stared at by others?
  • How often in our childhood did we see a neighbor snubbed by another neighbor, maybe one of our parents?
  • In school, did we watch our teachers to see how they treated other kids? What about in Sunday School or Church?
  • Did anything happen at home that was unkind or ill-tempered by siblings or your parents?

All of the examples above are simple, teachable moments. Accidentally teachable moments. Not because anyone intended to teach someone else to be unkind, but simply because someone, often a child, saw the act committed.

Did you ever wait to see or hear what kind of punishment the person who mistreated another person received? There was teaching here too. If the person doing the harm didn’t receive punishment, a clear message was sent the behavior was permissible, A-OK.

THE TRAGEDY

The tragedy is that over time acts of hatred, racism, and bigotry don’t shrink and disappear. Unfortunately, left alone and without repercussions, they multiply or are taken for granted. This will continue generation to generation if something isn’t done.

To those of you reading this, I hope you will begin to look around and take note of some of the acts of hatred, racism, and bigotry–large or small–you see in your community, workplace, schools and churches, your own family. [ctt title=”Look for ways you can make a difference in silencing hatred, racism, and bigotry today.” tweet=”Look for ways you can make a difference in silencing hatred, racism, and bigotry today. Via @Sherrey_Meyer” coverup=”124vV”]

We must be the change makers. If not, there will be more Kalamazoos, Roseburgs, Sandy Hooks, and Columbines, not to mention mall, theater, and church shootings. Is this what we want? Do we want to leave a legacy of continuing tragedy?

What can we do? Share some ideas about how changes might reshape our country and our world on these issues.

Has your town or your child’s school been the object of a shooting? Share how your area is responding.

Repeat Performance: What to Do When the Book You’re Writing Throws You a Curve Ball — February 18, 2016

Repeat Performance: What to Do When the Book You’re Writing Throws You a Curve Ball

/Sherrey Meyer

As I was working out a topic for this week’s post, I came across this one from May 6, 2014. Reading it, I am reminded that once more my memoir has thrown me a curve ball. I need to sort out what to do with this draft still waiting in the corner.

The two curve balls came from different directions and for different reasons. If you want to know more about the second curve ball, you can read a personal note to my followers and friends who subscribe to my newsletter.

Upon reflection, I believe my May 6, 2014 post may stand me in good stead when the time is right to begin inching my hands toward the binder holding my manuscript. I don’t think I’ll be rewriting so much as restructuring and moving things in my draft around to make my memoir more readable. The wheels are turning and never forgetting this draft, but the pull to go back and revisit this post left me with a need to share it with you once again.

Here’s the original post from May 6, 2014:

WHAT TO DO WHEN THE BOOK YOU’RE WRITING THROWS YOU A CURVE BALL

The drafting of my memoir began in earnest sometime the late spring of 2012. I had jotted down notes and memories plus digging through boxes of my mother’s personal papers for years. Folders filled with potential material for a book cover a work table.

Via Google Images
Via Google Images

Now, here we are approaching late spring of 2014, two years later. A few weeks ago as I was considering my progress and listening to my husband’s take on what I had written for one particular chapter, I felt like I had been hit by a tidal wave of emotion.

It was as if a tsunami had taken over the life of my memoir, and what came next threw me for a curve.

An epiphany in the form of a major change in direction left me wonder struck. Not so much because it was such a stunning transformation, but because it had stared me in the eye since the year 2000, when the seed germinated into thoughts of a memoir after moving my mother to Oregon from Tennessee.

Now, what am I going to do was the next thought passing not so silently through my mind. It was simple: Regroup, rethink, rewrite–the writer’s three R’s.

REGROUP: 

When I began writing my story of life with Mama, I sat down and started pounding out words on the computer screen without any thought for an outline or a plan. I knew the story I was writing and thought I needed no organizational scheme to get it done. So far, I believe I have a pretty good draft on that first turn. But this curve ball I’ve been thrown made me stop and take stock of the time I would have saved if I had gotten my writing act together first.

  • The first thing I decided I needed to do was spell out what I wanted to tell my readers and why. And I did.
  • I then moved on to think about outlining or story boarding. I vaguely remembered a post of Kathy Pooler’s on Memoir Writer’s Journey where Kathy talked about story boarding. Unable to find it, I emailed Kathy and she sent me the link, which is here.

 

Kathy Pooler’s Storyboard
Kathy Pooler’s Storyboard
  • As I sat and studied Kathy’s storyboard, it occurred to me that my favorite writing software, Scrivener, uses a bulletin board with index cards to act as an option to an outline. I rarely use it, but checked it out and below is an image of my current storyboard or imaged outline in Scrivener:
Scrivener corkboard
Scrivener corkboard

 

  • I think it’s going to work perfectly, and I’ve set about rewriting my first draft.

RETHINK

A good deal of rethinking went into picking up the draft and rewriting it. Was this worth making the book into a better story to share with readers? Would the rewrite get my point across any better? After all, I’d spent a goodly number of hours not only in writing but researching, retrieving and reading.

  • I decided the answer was a yes. I want to publish not just a good book, but a book people will refer to as a “really good book,” perhaps a “must read,” maybe even a “bestseller.” No matter the nomenclature used to describe it, I want it to be my best work product. So, yes, the extra time is worth the effort.
  • As I rethought the outline I’d come up with it, I could actually see the story unfolding in a much more cohesive fashion and with greater ease.
  • Rethinking taught me a great lesson: Rushing in headlong isn’t always the best route to take.

REWRITE

I am actually enjoying this “R” of the three “R’s” because I am sensing a better writing style, a tighter style. I feel the story coming together with less negativity about my mother, seasoned with a dash of her goodness here and there, because there was goodness in her. And at the end of her story and mine, I learn there was good reason for her parenting skills, or lack thereof. I think in the rewrite this will be more easily finessed.

Like schoolchildren sent off to learn their three “R’s”–reading, writing and ‘rithmetic, we writers can also learn from a different set of three “R’s”–regroup, rethink and rewrite.

We’re never too young or too far along in our writing to learn a little something or make a change in the direction we’re headed.

Happy writing!

Guest Post: Embracing Christian Themes While Writing Afta-U by Author, Jennifer Lynn Kenniston — February 11, 2016

Guest Post: Embracing Christian Themes While Writing Afta-U by Author, Jennifer Lynn Kenniston

/Sherrey Meyer

It is my pleasure to take part in Jennifer-Lynn Kenniston’s WOW! Blog Tour for her début novel, Afta-U. 

Today Jennifer will be sharing her thoughts and insights on embracing Christian themes while writing a Christian novel. Her post is honest and provides us with a look inside her emotions as she wrote Afta-U.

Welcome, Jennifer!

EMBRACING CHRISTIAN THEMES
WHILE WRITING AFTA-U

BY JENNIFER-LYNN KENISTON

I am going to be honest here: when I began writing the first draft of Afta-U, I wasn’t writing it with an audience in mind. It was a personal book, something I had to write. Simply put, it was a life-long dream of mine to write a full-length novel, and I had to build up the confidence in myself that I could actually do it. So, I had no problem initially embracing writing Christian themes for this first draft, since some of the themes registered deep inside of me even though the story itself was fictional.

But then I finished writing the first draft.

And for a fleeting moment after I finished writing this first draft, my initial joy turned to fear. I began to panic and question if writing these Christian themes throughout this novel would discourage readers from reading it. It was then that my friend, Lisa, said to me: “Do you know what the number one best-selling book of all time is? Well, let me tell you: it’s the Bible! And over 5 billion copies have been sold.”

I smiled. I needed to hear that reminder. I also discovered my niche audience. It was the Christian reader. A few of the prevalent Christian themes in Afta-U, are ones that I’m still personally working to achieve as my novel is released into the mainstream. For example the idea of “Let Go Let God.” Like Jean, I often find myself trying to control situations and I still struggle to release and have faith in leaving it all up to God and His plan. There are other powerful themes mixed into the story, such as the idea of forgiveness for oneself and others, and being present in the now and not trapped in the past or future.

When I began the editing for my début novel, I did tone down some of the Christian themes and scenes, but I was determined not to be deterred from writing these. Instead I was going to embrace these themes and do so without forcing them onto the reader and taking away from the enjoyment found in reading the story itself.

When I finished the multitude of drafts and editing, I realized that, yes, the audience would be these Christian readers, but perhaps those non-Christian readers would actually enjoy the book and who knows, there could be that one reader who might need to either connect or reconnect with their faith, and perhaps they will decide to do so, after they have finished reading and put down Afta-U.

Thank you, Jennifer, for joining my readers and me today to share your thoughts and feelings on what, for me at least, is an area of interest and one filled with many questions. For those of us wanting to include a Christian theme in our work, whether it is fiction or nonfiction, these are issues to be vetted on a personal level like so many others.

 

THE BOOK

Michael’s smile broadened. “It seems you’re surprised to see me, Jean. Don’t tell me you thought that they’d leave an eleven-year-old boy locked away forever.”

Twenty-nine years after the tragic death of her childhood best friend, Hope, Jean Cartwright Rhodes returns to her hometown with her husband and daughter after she inherits the house her friend’s family once lived in. Now, years later, she finds herself haunted by a dark truth – and by the specter of Hope herself.

Every time Jean looks through her kitchen window, she sees two stark reminders of her troubled past; the Afta-U sailboat, ironically named after young Hope, and the old oak tree where her eleven-year-old friend met her death at the hands of another child.

Afta-U unfolds as a psychological chess match, a complex web of intrigue, unexpected relationships, lies, and devastating secrets as Jean struggles with the impact of decisions she made long ago on all the lives around her. When Jean confronts and tries to come to grips with Hope’s killer, she finds herself waging a personal battle between madness and redemption.

PURCHASE THE BOOK:  Amazon

MEET JENNIFER-LYNN KENISTON

Raised in Hanson, Massachusetts, the author earned a Master of Arts degree in English, from Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English, with a concentration in writing and a minor in philosophy, from Plymouth State College in New Hampshire. Jennifer-Lynn currently works as a project manager for a company that provides cloud software products for call centers at small, medium, and enterprise companies. In April 2014, she started her own business, Ansel Resume Resolution Services LLC, writing resumes and cover letters. She now lives and writes in Concord, New Hampshire, and enjoys teaching Spinning classes in her free time.

CONNECT WITH JENNIFER:

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | WEBSITE

 Perhaps you have considered a Christian theme in your memoir or novel, and further you have questioned whether using such themes is going to help or hurt you as a writer. If so, maybe you’d like to share a bit about how you rationalized your final choice. Let’s talk!

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