Hello Class,
Racism is a terrible consequence of ignorance and the hatred that it can create. While we are still dealing with racism today in many forms, I think it is still important to remember how far we have come. It is remarkable how humankind can change when they are given new information and new education. The biggest problem with racism, at its root, in its earlier manifestations, and in its lingering effects today, is that people are taught to see themselves as different from people who look, or talk, or act different than themselves. I do not believe that people are born racist. They are brought up and are taught racism by the ignorance of their society or their culture, or on a smaller scale by their family group or general community. As we have come far as a world, with an almost universal consensus against sanctioned slavery or segregation, we still have a long way to go to eradicate the roots of these terrors. It is an amazing thing to think that only 50 years ago people of color could not have lunch in certain restaurants, sit in certain seats on buses, or could not even drink out of the same water fountains as people with a light enough skin color, and today there is a person of color in the White House. Yet there are groups of white supremacists, many who even call themselves Christians out there in this country training with guns and ranting and raving about racial purity.
I went to the Museum of the African Diaspora today in San Francisco with a group from PSR and one of the first things that the lady who took us on a tour made clear was that every one of us, every human being on earth no longer in Africa, is a member of the African Diaspora. She asked where the human race began, and pointed out the Great Rift valley to us on the map. That is where our entire race is from. It was pointed out that there is more genetic diversity among human beings in Africa than there is between human beings (the rest of us) outside Africa, because there was such a small group that first left and those of us who have covered the earth outside of the home continent are all descended from them. There is more genetic diversity between two neighboring groups of chimpanzees than there is between any two human beings on earth. Every single one of us human beings on earth are 99.99(and probably a few more 9's) genetically identical. Race is a social construction. We are one human race, and depending on how far our later ancestors moved from the equator, how far north or south they went, what they ate, what sort of climate they lived in, and who they were mating with, determined their shade of color. If we want to eliminate racism as people of faith, in religions, and to foster social justice, we simply need to teach this truth. So long as we look to history we will find someone to blame. They did that, they did this, and the truth is, we are they. We are all relatives if you go back far enough, and nobody is from anywhere, we have been so busy identifying with the illusions of society and culture, we are so habituated to a tribal mentality, that we have become addicted to the ignorance of the fact that we are all one tribe. If racism continues we will destroy ourselves, because we will continue to act out of ignorance if we are incapable of acting on the new information we have at hand. Can we transcend an addiction to thousands of years of ignorance which has kept the truth hidden from us? If religion and people of faith will update their ideology with the information we have at hand, that we are one human race, one people, living on one small fragile planet that we are highly interdependent with, then we will make great headway in eliminating racism. To combat racism and racist groups, we must teach, preach, and spread this new knowledge with every ounce of energy we have, to become free from the fetters of a history of ignorance.
As Paul wrote:
You, my brothers [and sisters], were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful [we might replace this word with ignorant] nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other." Gal. 5:13-15
all the best and many blessings,
Andrew Scott
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