In reaction to the Charleston shooting...

In reaction to the shooting in Charleston, my 7 year old son, Jackson said, "I thought racism was over, Dad."

He thought racism ended with desegregation. I told him I wish that was true. He couldn't understand how anyone could believe that a person could hate someone based on the color of their skin.

Jackson is not colorblind. He doesn't want to be. He sees the beauty in color and values people based on their actions and attitudes.

I felt good that my son thought racism was stupid, but I realized today that we need to teach our children that it is still all too prevalent in our society. We need to teach them to rage against racism and bigotry of any kind.

We need to teach them that the best thing is to live a life of love and that the second best thing is to expect that of others and to help those who do not to learn to do so.

The kind of racial hatred perpetrated by Dylann Roof was not born in a vacuum. Love and activism also are not and we need to teach and live them with vigilance.

We prayed for the people of Charleston and for our country tonight. But before we did, I sat my family down on the couch to watch a couple episodes of Diff'rent Strokes. I wanted the kids to see it because of scenes like this.

Eric Coomer

Mourning the loss of Gary Coleman and Diff'rent Strokes

I've always felt a connection to Gary Coleman. I have been saddened over the past several years to see the troubles he went through. May he rest in peace.

Like many children of the eighties, I learned the word bigot from the show that made Gary Coleman (and his character Arnold Jackson) a household name, Diff'rent Strokes. The show also reinforced my parents' teaching that racism is unacceptable. It taught me to love "even the purple people" as Arnold put it.

Come to think of it, Diff'rent Strokes taught me many truly important lessons. I learned about:

• Eating disorders - Arnold suspected, and turned out to be correct, that his sister Kimberly had an eating disorder. I had never heard of bulimia before this episode.
  
• Taking care of the environment - washing with acid rain turned Kimberly's hair green
• The ills of drugs - First lady Nancy Reagan even appeared on an episode to thank Arnold for his work against drugs
  
• CPR and the importance of telling the truth - Arnold's brother Willis lied about knowing CPR to get a job. When Arnold electrocuted himself, his life was jeopardized because of Willis' seemingly harmless lie.
  
• Bullies - they never showed The Gooch and I'm still a little scared of him
• Child molestation - Gordon Jump played many memorable characters--from WKRP's Art Carlson, to Maggie's dad Ed Malone on Growing Pains, to the Maytag Man in his later life--but none were as memorable to me as his portrayal of Mr. Horton, the child molesting bicycle salesman from the two episode special

I could go on and tell you about Dudley and Robbie. I could talk about the guest appearances by Ed "Too Tall" Jones or Muhammad Ali. I could tell you about my crushes on the mean Lisa and Janet Jackson's character Charlene (and maybe Mrs. Garrett too). I could tell you the exact moment the show jumped the shark (it literally involved a red-headed stepchild).

I could talk about Diff'rent Strokes all day, but I'll just say this: I learned all of these lessons and gained all these memories from a truly funny 30 minute sitcom. Which leaves me with the question, what are prime time shows teaching children today?