by The Abbot
My mother used to joke with others that my first word was “agua.” It wasn’t that I was obsessed with water or that I grew up in a Hispanic or Spanish-speaking household. We were a poor white family living in a working-class suburb of Detroit. When I was a child, I only watched a handful of television shows –Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, Mr. Dressup, The Barabara Mandrel Show, The Incredible Hulk. But my mornings started off with Sesame Street.
Those familiar with Sesame Street know they covered the basics in counting, and the alphabet, and mixed them in with songs and lessons on what it meant to share, be a good kid, and how it’s okay to be a little different. It’s Not Easy Being Green was a Kermit the Frog staple. Sesame Street, being located near the very diverse and multicultural Alphabet City in lower Manhattan was home to all sorts of people, puppets and monsters. There were the ambiguous roommates Bert and Ernie who lived below Luis and Maria, the Latino owners of the neighborhood Fix-It Shop. It’s not that they exclusively spoke Spanish but on occasion they spoke it. Telly the Monster and Grover were often curious when they heard it and neither Luis nor Maria minded explaining a little of their mother tongue. One of the words they focused on a lot was “agua.” I don’t know why. Sesame Street was not aquatic. Big Bird was not a giant duck. Cookie Monster did not list among his many hobbies – water skiing. Still I picked up agua joyfully pointing out agua to the adults in my life no matter where I encountered it.
It should now come as no surprise that neoconservatives went after public broadcasting again. They’ve been trying to get rid of it since Nixon was in office. Mr. Roger’s himself, in a last-ditch effort to save public television testified before Congress not only extolling the virtues of public TV but also admonishing lawmakers who found more value in bombs and less in kindness and curiosity. Programming on public TV is everything that conservatives and Republicans hate. It makes no money. It features no violence. It rarely references religion or Jesus through talking cucumbers. What it does have are diverse puppet monsters living together, caring about one another and curious about the world they live in. They focus on avoiding littering, being a good citizen, the value of protecting the environment, the importance of being open-minded, and the crucial need to preserve factual history. Children might learn to be nice to someone who is different than they are. They might want to learn more about the Great Migration or the New Deal. They might even want to learn to read – a frightening prospect indeed for a culture bent on controlling the collective mind of the nation. It’s almost comical that the same people who believe their government is trying to manipulate them through chemicals in the air or water or through microchips in vaccines are already completely controlled by nothing more than planned blissful ignorance and broadcasting in an echo chamber on Fox News. No need for harsh chemicals at all! All natural mind control.
I haven’t watch Sessame Street in many years. I like to think that I had the privilege of growing up during the golden age of Sesame Street. We had Bob, the local music teacher, one of the longest serving cast members who appeared on the show in 1969 and did not leave until 2016. His girlfriend Linda, who was deaf and communicated with others through American Sign Language. Olivia, the fabulous black woman photographer who was also the singing powerhouse. Her brother Gordon, a science teacher, and his wife Susan, a nurse, owned the apartment building at 123 Sesame Street. Mr. Hooper owned the local bodega until he passed away and David, the eccentric hat wearer man took over. There were always children around as the street was kid friendly. Of course there were the Muppets who each represented an aspect of human emotion and experience and were every color of the rainbow. The show also featured a cast of guest stars that rivaled even SNL’s. I had the chance as a 5-year-old boy to see Arthur Ashe talk about tennis and near and far with Grover. James Taylor sang with his guitar and so did Judy Collins. Yo-Yo Ma appeared with his cello. Gregory Hines tap danced in the streets. Madeline Khan famously sang “Sing. Sing a Song.” Don’t worry if it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear. Just sing. Sing a song.
I cannot imagine the kind of person I would be today if I did not have access to public TV as my second parent. Sesame Street made me curious about a bigger world that I would never have thought existed outside of the suburban street I lived on. How many 5-year-olds are running around singing because Madeline Kahn inspired them or dance because Gregory Hines suggested they do so or to learn more about art and theater because a group of puppet monsters made it fun.
Republicans hate public television because it dares to suggest that “normal” is something other than white, nationalist, and Christian. PBS portrays a normal that could be just about anything. Sesame Street is the idealized dream of what happens when people stop caring about “what” you are and are rather more concerned with who you are. Children raised on PBS might actually not care that their neighbor is a pigeon hoarding gay man but might care if they’re unkind or bad at sharing. Even Oscar the Grouch, as nasty as he could be, still was loved and even loved others. His best friend in the world was a 4” worm named Slimy.
PBS is likely a nightmare for Republican parents. I can see it now, Chad a closeted gay man who works every day repairing copiers and his wife Rebecca, a stay at home mom who spends most of the day trying to get her kids to become YouTube celebrities so she can spend more time with her Pilates instructor Reggie, are hosting the local mega church’s bloated pastor and his wife, Sharon, a morbidly obese Tupperware collecting, behemoth in the living room of their modest home in Someplace, Ohio but definitely not Columbus. Suddenly, after Rebecca has served a second cup of coffee and her extremely dry homemade almond roll, little Dallas barges in and proudly asks “Why can’t I tap dance”? or “Why are there no black people in our church?” or “Mommy, what’s diversity?” Rebecca faints immediately. Chad laughs nervously and tries his best to shoo Dallas out of the room while winking at the pastor and saying that kids say the darndest things. The lecherous, sweaty pastor and his blank stare of a wife politely laugh into their lace-trimmed linen napkins but think “Damn PBS.”
The danger that public broadcasting poses to the conservative establishment is significant. It is no coincidence that ridding the country of both PBS and NPR are part of their party’s life’s work. When you can inspire, at no cost to parents, curiosity, kindness, creativity, and acceptance, you represent a grave threat to a party line that it is better to be rich or rich adjacent than to be kind to someone who is different than you, or to be powerful rather than merciful, or to be a bully when you can be someone’s friend. I feel sorry for Republicans. I really do. Imagine the bland, empty, two-dimensional worlds they inhabit. No depth. No real purpose. No Make-Believe. Just raw, unfiltered ignorance and fear.
