Cooties and DPs

Homemade cootie catcher from 1966

When I was growing up, back in the sixties, DPs and cooties were synonymous. DPs, aka displaced people, were marked as different at school because of their possible cooties. While the ethnicities of displaced people may have changed, cruel childhood prejudices haven't stayed behind in the backwoods of the post-war period. 

Unfortunately, the displaced people of today still face stigma and prejudice. Our own ignorance makes us afraid of anyone different. In spite of globalization and a Canadian pride in being open-minded along with our generous immigration policies, kids continue to shun those who look different, worship different, and speak or eat different. And, sadly, the cooties we tried to avoid in childhood, continue to contaminate our adult lives. 

Here’s a link to creating cootie catchers. Maybe by interacting with each other through child’s play, we can catch those nasty, invisible cooties that lurk like viruses throughout our lives. If not educational, cootie catchers can be fun and fun always helps to bring people closer together.

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