My kid loves Sid the Science Kid. We watch it almost every morning. Pretty funny show. Well done for the most part........
We were watching this morning and my other older kid says, "Hey, check it out. Sid's family has a Menorah!"
First, a classic Jocoeveryman digression. When I was my kid's age growing up in SOJOCO I thought there were only 3 kinds of people: White, Black and Indian (like Native American). There were several variations of white people like Chinese people (which included all Asian people so Koreans, Japanese, Thai, etc all were Chinese) Mexicans (which included all types of Hispanics regardless if they were from the southern tip of South America or or Tijuana) and something I'd heard of called Jewish people but that I didn't think I'd ever seen except that people like Jesse Jackson and Adolf Hitler didn't really like them. All these were basically some variation of me and of course they were the best kind of people. There were black people who I knew were from Africa and from the show Roots I knew they came here as slaves. I only had like 2 or 3 at my school. You were suppose to feel sorry for them because of that slavery thing, because they lived in those shitty apartments literally on the other side of the tracks and you weren't ever, never, ever allowed to say that horrible "n" word. My grandma called them darkies even to my grandpa's best friend's face who was black. Of course there were Indians because we learned about them in school (you know how they robbed and killed nice white people traveling across the country in wagons) but mostly because Tonto was the Lone Ranger's best friend and I watched that everyday when I got home from school. Tonto was a bad ass and loyal as a good dog. One kid at my school swore he was good at sports 'cause he had a little Indian blood in him. I remember that making good sense and asking my parents if I might be so lucky to have a little Sangre del Indian running through my veins. Pretty jacked up, right?
Anyway, so I look up and not only does Sid's family have a Menorah but they also have a Christmas tree AND some Kwanzaa thing going on. I'm sure if I would have looked closer I might have seen some Mother Earth or maybe a Wicca reference there too. It was moving pretty fast. So, I'm thinking to myself.......what is Jim Henson trying to get across here? Usually the PBS, horseshoe balding, turtle neck wearing, pipe smoking, sporting the Elvis lamb chops regardless of era with patches on the elbows of the sport coat liberal type avoids any and all reference to religion. They believe that by the government not establishing a state religion it means that religion must not be mentioned at all. This was a different angle all together. What family celebrates every and all traditions? This Sid is gonna be seriously messed up when he gets older.
And really? Doesn't that just freaking sum it all up anyway? To them it isn't your faith. It is your cultural tradition. Judaism, Christianity, Santa Claus, made up African holiday, Winter Solstice Celebrations for the Earth, Druidism, Wicca..........to them all just merely traditions, myths, stories all in the same category so why not just throw them all in together? Not science. Not to be taken seriously. I guess Sid is all about science so it makes sense that throwing them all up there together to minimize them is perfect like an inside joke that they thought we wouldn't get.
It was bad enough that my generation practiced tornado, fire and bomb drills with the same frequency and because my church, my school, nor my parents thought it was important it wasn't until college that I learned what makes a Jewish person the same and different from me. Of course this was a little embarrassing because I learned this from a roommate who was......Jewish. I'll tell you another time how I learned what intercourse is and the definition of being a homosexual.........two different stories......I promise. Okay, so my generation from Midwestern Lilly white America started out pretty jacked up but most of us have figured it out eventually. What about Sid?It won't be long before I have to listen to this song performed repeatedly by my kids via Wii Rock Band but think some kid on American Idol sang it first.
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