racism and prejudice
Race is such a deeply intrenched value, a potent symbol of one’s sense of being, that it seems wrong to challenge it. But race is nothing more than inherited genetic variations that evolved because of the specific climate and environment that one’s ancestors inhabited. There is no ‘value’ beyond the practical benefits that those adaptions originally provided. So when the conditions that necessitated those variations are no longer relevant, preserving them by selective breeding is irrational, let alone contrary to the advantages of genetic diversity and social cohesion.
Racism, and the resulting social divisions that are an ongoing cause of injustice and persecution in our ‘civilised’ world, is a contrivance. Attaching value on race, and justifying it by suggesting that it reflects our natural tribalistic proclivity, is duplicitous in its intent, being a deliberate ploy to normalise forms of apartheid by promoting the idea that race, and other identifiers, are both inherent and defining aspects of who we are.
Tribalism is a feature of our primitive brain, not a reflection of the highly evolved and considered potential of our modern brains, and is an ill-suited vulnerability if we want to put an end to the suffering that accompanies prejudice. These arbitrary identifiers need to be diluted, not encouraged, as they are a distraction which aggravates social tensions, limits opportunities, restricts liberties, and only benefits the already privileged.
When an identifier is used as a weapon of suppression, the response of the victims will be to take ownership of that identifier as an attempt to maintain some dignity and solidarity, and so we get sentiments like ‘proud to be black’, or ‘black lives matter’. But these just serve to entrench the idea of discrimination.
If blacks want equality, then they shouldn’t identity with their blackness – it’s an inverted sense of racism. If everyone interbred – demonstrating an overt lack of prejudice – we would all be a healthy shade of brown, and ‘colour’ would cease to be an issue. Being proud for being black simply strengthens the divisions that are at the root of injustice.
It is society, via our parents, that determines skin colour, along with our beliefs. We don’t have a say, so why own them?
Why do we need to belong to a group?
The first point is that we don’t need to belong to a group, that is a myth, but it is difficult to escape the emphasis that society puts onto encouraging us to celebrate our identity. And it is no accident either. This obsession with cultural heritage, where we try and connect (identify) with our forefathers and their traditions and beliefs, is just retrograde and controlling. The divisions that are created within society and between nations, are the justification for war, where we are each expected to fight and defend our heritage, beliefs, and nationhood, all because those that tell us that our identity is sacrosanct, profit from those wars. Ever since society was established (unnaturally) on a hierarchical structure, the ruling elite maintain their position with the simple maxim of ‘divide and rule’; we are, for the most trivial and irrelevant of concerns, conditioned to hate and kill one another, for no reason other than to preserve the status and insatiable greed of those at the top.
We don’t need an identity, nor do we need to be bound by the arbitrary culture and history of those who came before us. We really ought to be looking towards our future. Whatever brought us to this point of crisis is most certainly not where we should plant ourselves. Cultural heritage, religious beliefs, and our fixation with history are huge obstacles in the light of the issues we are facing, and so they are also part of the problem and should not be looked upon as something to value.
We are racist (sexist, classist, ageist, etc.), because we identify with a self that is only made real by belonging to a group which shares and compliments our arbitrary identifiers. The only way to eliminate all forms of prejudice is for us to ‘identify’ with that which we all have in common, and not focus and invent things that separate us. The most obvious is that together, we are part of what describes life, and we are all dependent on the planet that supports life. In that way, we are all one and the same.
March 2023
The best way to eradicate racism is to interbreed.