2009. In many ways, that's just number. But in others, it's a measure of mankind's failures. Today, I'd like to talk about one of those failures in particular - racism.
2009 comes some forty years after the civil rights movement. One hundred and fifty years after the emancipation proclamation. And 200,000 years since we were all african. Americans can talk abo0ut how awful Hitler was and what a madman he was and how evil the nazis were, and a few minutes later complain about the "god-damned niggers" who live at the end of the block. I wish I had made up this example, but I can't. Perfectly functional americans with spouses and jobs and (most scarily) children, still think and behave like we're living in 1950's Alabama - and 1950's Alabamians were living like it was 1830's Virginia.
Biologists and anthropologists have known for decades that "race" is a meaningless and superficial label. African americans who's families have been in the US since the 1700's are genetically much more similar to white americans than they are native africans, in terms of alelle variants and frequencies used to identify someone's genetic place of origin. Aside from melonin levels and thicker hair, there's not much of a difference at the genetic level. A lot of people don't have a problem with that idea, but they do have a problem with the same thing said in a different way. Caucasians whose families have been in the US since the 1700's are genetically more similar to black americans than they are to white europeans. "Fury" doesn't begin to describe it.
What kills me is they always have one black friend, and invariably, that friend is an exception to the rules, but all the rest of them (the ones they've never met) are dirty, they smell, they steal, they dropped out of highschool to have more time to do drugs, shoot people, and rape white women. Do these things happen? Of course. Do only black people do them? Not even close. Do most black people partake in these activities? Not by a long shot.
I guess my problem (one of many, but the main one, I guess) is I don't see what they get out of it. An "us vs them" mentality can be useful if there's a threat, but racism only creates a threat. And you have to be able to throw out everything science has learned for the past forty years. But mostly, it causes fear. Who purposly causes fear that has no gain? It makes sense to fear muslims if it can get us better oil prices. It makes sense to fear the chinese since, you know, they'll own the world in a hundred years. But why the hell so many people spend so much time and effort to make the rest of america want to hate black people is beyond me. But fortunately, I haven't had to hear any rediculous racists remarks on a dialy basis from people I don't even know half the time ever since John McCain won th... oh, wait...
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First off I must say, America Fuck Yeah! Or maybe, America we're number one, we're number one. But then again we're not. Racism is rampant all over the world (is there are score sheet?). It's probably part of the human condition. Like making fun of the poor kid down the street. He/she (don't want to be sexist) doesn't have control over his/her parents' income anymore than his/her skin color. Haha, poor people. We high brow evolved humans love to form little groups and poke fun or outright oppress outsiders. That oppression doesn't have to be direct, it could be preferential treatment of someone in your club over the afore mentioned outsider. We do it all the time. I'd like to cite ever religious text ever and all of them are virtuous so it must be OK. Fuck, half of the crazy ass rules of religion are based on separating your group from the "others" (not the "others" from Lost but the other others). God if you're listening could ask blogspot to make this comment window re-sizable. I have big thoughts and I need a big space to spread them out on.
ReplyDeleteAlso these "black people" sound dangerous. I'd keep my distance if I were you.
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