Can We Immunize Against Prejudice? 1954

the news of the day is full of troubles problems that challenge our time here is one we'd like you to think about let's look at it from the point of view of Three Families one lives in a ground floor apartment another on the second floor another on the third floor these are all sincere hard hardw working people Henry the father of this family is a bank teller he and his wife are anxious to be good parents they dislike race Prejudice and religious Prejudice and want their son to grow up free of that sort of nonsense now Henry believes that the main thing is to set a good example if a child sees good attitudes at home Henry says he'll grow up with good attitudes so Henry sets an example so does his wife confidently they watch the effect on Henry Jr then one day the little angel comes home looking like a little monster he's been in a fight when asked about it he says that Jewish boy started it wait till the gang gets hold of him they'll fix him good they'll fix those wanky blanks wanky blanks meanwhile their neighbors on the floor below have been going about things differently George the father is an insurance salesman and he also favors friendly relations but he feels that if you want your kid to have the right attitude you have to give him the right facts facts information that's the key to what says George so George Jr gets a lot of information quote there are three main races in the world unquote quote all three races have made important contributions to culture and civilization unquote as Junior acquires more and more knowledge George and his wife become very confident that all this will keep their son free of prejudice but one day The Bookworm turns Junior comes home looking like a little he's been in a fight and he explains it this way those colored kids are always starting it wait till I get the gang together meanwhile the family on the ground floor has been going about things in a still different way Fred who is Sergeant at Arms at the courthouse also favors friendliness between races and religions but he feels it has to be backed by law and order so one day when his kid uses some language Fred doesn't like Fred tells him right away he'll be threshed if he does it again Junior seems to understand all right but one day he has a little trouble it's those Italian kids again those blankety blank blankety blanks we're going to fix them so Fred and his wife George and his wife and Henry and his wife begin to wonder what they've done wrong they begin to watch their children more closely they begin to see what a complicated World their children live in full of tension and conflict these start early for any child from the very beginning he hears voices of authority that say no no no this builds resentment in any child he learns it is not safe to let this resentment out on spokesman of authority so he looks for other safer targets some young people find harmless ways of working off their aggressive feelings but in others these feelings turn into hidden hate when such people get together in a gang the hate can become more dangerous looking for expression looking for easy targets finding justification in any differences such as religion or race sometimes with tragic results in a world in which such tensions exist what can parents do about Prejudice we have learned to protect our children against small pox and deia how can we find some antitoxin against this other disease if the methods of these parents were not adequate why weren't they what should these parents do what is your advice how can we immunize our children against Prejudice the problem how can we immunize our children against Prejudice has been the subject of our discussion no we haven't settled the problem we've looked at some of the solutions that are Tried by people like Henry and George and Fred but no we haven't quite solved the problem so give it further thought won't you because here is one of the problems the challenge our [Music] time l