Young girl meets her ancestor, Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy) on 17 October 2016. Image by the Neanderthal-Museum, Mettmann, Germany, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. ‡
Science has accepted as a foundational aspect of humanity that our species, Homo sapiens, emerged from Olduvai Gorge , in Tanzania, millions of years ago. Gaze on the image above. How does that foundation affect our understanding of race?
The political issue of the superiority of one race over another has been imbued in all of us. It has scarred the psych of all people, as Resmaa Menakem explains in My Grandmother’s Hands. It affects colonizers as well the colonized, being a particularly nasty issue in nations descending from European colonizers. Those nations used race as a tool to declare certain people inferior and justify the taking of their possessions. How moral is that approach? How Christian is that approach? How rational is that approach?
For all its punditry, how has the MAGA movement processed the triteness and irrationality of valuing people based on “race”?
Personally, I have come to see myself as having a lineage tracing all the way back to Lucy and before. That is human evolution, that is the lineage of all of today’s members of the human family. Organizations such as Ancestry.com can describe the contributing elements that make up the biological identity of each human— we are each a rainbow of diverse DNA contributions. How rational is it to continue to ponder what race, a purely human construct, defines each of us?
It is clear that the current GOP’s attempt to further divide Americans is illustrated by this article. This attempt has as its goal the eventual economic and social domination of each ethnicity and group within the United States by white supremacists. How is that goal supported by reality?
For the 2024 elections, the GOP is attempting to divide the voters to maintain control of the planetary wealth that is the common inheritance of all creatures on the planet.
How should intelligent Americans respond?
That photo just sends the message home, Manuel. I'd argue that non humans (all of which are sentient beings) are more pure in spirit and therefore superior.
My little family is an everyday example of the melting-pot-we-are: My lineage is mostly German and Scottish, throw in a dash of English ... stir in a smidge of Cherokee a few gens back. Notice my black sister-in-law and nephew who identifies as "black." Welcome my Persian son-in-law and three beautiful grandlings - one part Jew, one part Muslim by heritage. Dare anyone attempt to divide us. We are small in number - and true to the great history of this country that makes all this love and family possible! We all must vote to preserve what's given us freedom of choice.