Peppermint Americans

This last year I took a lot of pictures of our 9th graders. Hundreds of them. Every chance I had – in the hall, on breaks, on hikes and overnight trips – I captured them. They don’t get it yet, but when they graduate, they'll want these memories.

One kid asked me why I do it and I told him. "You're optimistic", He said, "who says we'll be alive in 4 years?"

He's referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinijad's promise to wipe the Jews off the map of the Middle East just as soon as he gets nuclear weapons. This year, or the next, Iran will start producing an atomic bomb. This generation's mad dictator, cross-eyed and dressed in cheap suits, is spelling out the next Holocaust every bit as plainly as the funny little man with the little mustache did in Mein Kampf. How much time is left? Will our 9th graders finish school before they graduate?

I don't know how most Americans respond to what's happening on my side of the world. It must be a little overwhelming.

Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Darfur, Tibet, Myanmar, Congo.

Terror, Poverty, Ethnic Cleansing, Starvation, Torture, Hatred, Rape, Death.

I can imagine that it can be too much in Safe, Sensitive, Sensible, United, States, of America.

Some Americans - not all, not even most, but a few - live in a Hollywood happy-end musical. Good wins over evil, and everyone is happy and perky. They are Julie-Andrews-Marias on a stunningly beautiful, but isolated, mountaintop and the hills are alive with the sound of music. And if things are nasty down there at the bottom of the hill, well, they just remember their favorite things and then they don't feel so bad.

......"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
......Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens,"

Like, if they concentrate on the good, if they take in the beauty around them and listen, yes, listen to the music, they can heal the world. Sure, there is pain, but there is beauty; listen, just listen to the sound of music.

How did Arundhati Roy (The God of Small Things) describe cheery Rodgers and Hammerstein Westerners?

Clean, white children, "like a packet of peppermints".

"The house they lived in had a lake and gardens, a wide staircase, white doors and windows, and curtains with flowers."

"…… Baron von Trapp's seven peppermint children had had their peppermint baths, and were standing in a peppermint line with their hair slicked down, singing in obedient peppermint voices ……."

What about the children on my side of the world? What about children that have dark skin and brown eyes? What if they're frightened and hungry and have grubby fingers? Peppermint Americans sound out of tune and their peppermint songs are off key on my side of the world. They are smug, snug and complacent. They can't heal anything, certainly not my least favorite things.

......Hunger and hatred and ethnic cleansing,
......Rape and starvation and nuclear testing,

This side of the world is a tough neighborhood, and bullies get away with murder around here. I don't know what will be this year, or the next; I don't know if our 9th graders will graduate from high school. I don't know what Americans are supposed to do about it, but somebody better do something and they better do it fast.

And I know this: peppermint Americans and their peppermint songs won't make evil go away. Don't tell us how much you care about the misery over here, and then in the next breath about listening to your pretty peppermint music and how then you don't feel so bad.

When the mad dictator's henchmen were one step behind the peppermint von Trapp kids, even Maria knew that it wasn't the time to sing about her favorite things.