Racism is incredibly successful, despite having no basis at all in fact. There is only one race – the human race. —Deborah Orr
In the wake of the Charleston church massacre and police shootings of unarmed blacks, a cry has once again gone out for an end to racism in America (#ENDRACISMNOW). Americans will never rid themselves of racism until they put an end to the idea of racial groups. Without race, there would be no basis for racism. You'd have to hate me for some other reason like I dress funny or talk with food in my mouth for instance. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but not as ridiculous as this whole pretense of race.
As much as America tries to justify using race to socially stratify, identify and classify groups of people, it cannot. Clearly, I'm not black and you're not white, yellow, red or any of the other colors we've all been conditioned to paint our fellow human beings. Everything about race is a false, contrived, misleading, controlling, divisive, debasing concept meant to control some and elevate others. God created one race—the human race; and we're all equally a part of it.
The notion that human beings belong to distinctly different racial groupings is simply untrue. Anthropologists, geneticists, biologists have proven this. But for reasons previously stated, societies have been culturally programmed to believe otherwise. We've been falsely lead into believing that we have no genetic or biological antecedent. The problem is this view can't be supported by scientific evidence.
Science has proven that all living humans belong to the same species, Homo sapiens, and subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens. There is a wide consensus that the racial categories that are common in everyday usage are socially constructed, and that racial groups cannot be biologically defined.
According to historian John Henrik Clark says race is a means of dividing and controlling groups of people:
The idea of "race" was developed as a direct response to the exploitation of other peoples, to provide both a pretext and a justification for the most unjustifiable conduct, the enslavement, murder, and degradation of millions of human beings.
and author Paul R. Spickard writes,
Race is primarily a sociopolitical construct. The sorting of people into this race or that in the modern era has generally been done by powerful groups for the purposes of maintaining and extending their own power.
The seeds of race and racism in America are traceable back to slavery. Race coding originated with light-skinned Europeans who forged a system to enslave their darker-skinned African-born captives.
The issue of race and racism has been at the center of American culture, politics and capital development since European colonialists first set foot on land they claimed as theirs.—Malik Miah
Slavery reinforced a belief of light-skinned Americans that they were somehow superior to the darker-skinned Africans under their control. They used their dominance to justify the cruel and inhuman treatment imposed upon these darker-skinned humans, and the racism that continues to this day.
Thus was created the only slave system in the world that became exclusively "racial." By limiting perpetual servitude to Africans and their descendants, colonists were proclaiming that blacks would forever be at the bottom of the social hierarchy.—Audrey Smedley
Racism is a horrible part of America's history, but it's a history that all Americans share. And when they travel to other countries, Americans import their racist thinking and behaviors to other cultures where it never before existed. The only way race and racism will ever be eradicated from American life is by the collective will of future generations. The old ways of thinking have to die out as well as those who maintain them. Quite frankly, we're not there yet. People are still dying in America—both black and white—victims of racially motivated killings. Last week, it was Charleston, 52 years ago it was Birmingham, not to mention all the other incidents in-between. At what point is the price we are paying to keep race and racism alive too high?
Who in America has not had his or her whole life existence defined or marred in some way by race or racism? The U.S. government and many of public institutions knowingly or unknowingly encourage race coding by forcing people into racial categories on official forms —primarily, whether the applicant is white or black. It's an open invitation to use this information to discriminate, segregate, or exclude from further consideration or give preferential treatment. Despite laws against it, discrimination still happens. It's in America's blood so to speak.
So what can we as individuals do about it in our everyday dealings with persons of different racial or ethnic origins? We can decide collectively or individually to de-sensitize race and eliminate the need for racial categories altogether.
It's not a perfect solution, but it's a start toward changing attitudes about race and moving toward reversing the damage it has caused. Just imagine if race were a non-issue, think of how much time we'd have to explore new ways of relating to each other.
This is the list of the descendants of Adam. When God created human beings, he made them like himself. He created them male and female, blessed them, and named them “Human Beings.” —Genesis 5:1-2 GNT
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