'Courage sometimes skips a generation'

“Courage sometimes skips a generation,” so spoke the movie "The Help," a fictionalized account of growing up in the early 1960s in segregated Mississippi.

The story is taken from the book by the same name, and narrates the tales of African-American domestic help. These black women were the maids, cooks, nannies and surrogate mothers to wealthy Southerner families. Both the film and the novel describe the lives of African-American servants retelling the pain and bigotry that unleashed the social forces in the struggle for civil rights.

The daughter of a traditional, white mother gathered the narratives of the help. In doing so, the young writer risked social ostracization even possible personal harm to go against the laws of the great state of Mississippi. Separate but equal was always separate but never equal. It was the girl’s resolve that prompted her mother to admit, “Courage sometimes skips a generation.”

Hearing that made me wonder if we inherit courage. Is there DNA for bravery? In science how the genes line up in us is the genotype. How the chromosomes are expressed in physical characteristics is called the phenotype. Not all genes even if present exert the same influence on their owners. This means the trait may be submerged or not evident at all. That is why a characteristic could by-pass a generation. We may have the genotype but not the phenotype. We may not act the part when there is a crisis of conscience, in spite of our biochemical make up. This complication of inheriting gutsiness also means that every father doesn’t have to have his daughter marry a combat engineer or a fireman if he wants grand kids that aren’t scaredy cats.

We may all have the blueprint for fortitude, but the house that we build may keep it hidden or worse locked up in the basement.

There is no blood test for courage. Because a gene may show itself in a variety of ways, those who are afraid of needles can be gutsy in different parts of life. Someone who is terrified of their own shadow will stand on a stage in front of hundreds and forcefully act a part in a play. For another who skydives jumping from airplanes, kittens terrify them. A person nervous about speaking in public may stand up and shout out against injustices to others.

We look around and see a variety of phenotypes. There are those who sacrifice their careers to whistle blow. Faithful people live their beliefs quietly everyday in spite of public scorn or private ridicule. Common people stand up to bullies, and whole nations rebel against their tank driving oppressors. Sadly, there are also those whose displays of cowardice remind us that either the phenotype or the genotype is missing.