Teach Thy Children

"What people don't understand is that black people should die."

These words were uttered by a 7 year-old girl to social workers in Winnipeg in May of this year. We can (and should) easily condemn the parents for raising a young child with this type of world view. We can only hope that somehow she can be raised out of it, over time.

The bigger picture here is that children will adopt their parents beliefs and world views. We can raise inquisitive free thinkers or automatons of dogma. What's truly distressing is that parents also risk being condemned for raising children with open, questioning minds - which is the real tragedy here. Check out this short list, for example, of custody cases where one or both parents are atheists.

The 7 year-old Winnipeg girl is on one hand of the extreme, and free thinkers are on the other. Unless you walk a fine line somewhere in the middle, you risk discrimination and ostracism.