INTERRACIAL VOICE - Guest Editorial

Guest Editorial

Racism: 'Ubiquitous' No More

Ubiquity is a word that describes the pervasiveness, omnipresence, or what we'll call the "fundamentality" of a concept or idea. As such, that which is ubiquitous is virtually everywhere, and "in" everything. Or at least, it seems that way. Today, technology has become ubiquitous. Computers, cellular phones, network access and the Internet are becoming as pervasive to today's generation as televisions and telephone service did a generation before. Ubiquity is worth noting because the more pervasive the product, idea or concept becomes, the more "invisible" and implicit it seems to be within our individual or social consciousness. We take it for granted that the idea in question should be as it is, simply because it is that way. Consequently, interaction and more importantly, reaction to the idea becomes more automatic, without fresh thought or critical thinking. Such is the case with the ubiquitous concept of race.

While no one is born knowing his or her racial makeup, by the time they die, everyone has adopted a belief. Yet, I submit that even after a lifetime of experiences, what we ultimately believe to be our racial makeup is incorrect, for race has no biological basis in fact. It is what someone thought they knew or wanted us, or society to think, and for various reasons, have thusly passed it on. Having never stopped allowing its meaning to evolve within my mind, I have come to believe that the now ubiquitous concept of "race" is a myth. There are too many mitigating factors to consider settling on a purely genetic or biological answer.

Racism is not the same as race. However, racism's foundation is based on the ubiquity of the idea of race. It requires a universal acceptance of race (and therefore, no critical challenge with facts) as a means of solidifying a perceptual hegemony, hierarchy, "genetic pecking order" and "wedge" between various groups of people. If the idea of race itself is not examined, questioned, challenged and ultimately rejected, then racism will retain its power to influence those who believe in the primacy of race and its associated concepts. Adherents to this belief can be of any "color", and place themselves in any role (e.g., victim or villain). Only as a non-partisan observer can one be free.

"Okay, so you reject race," you are saying, "what are you proposing?"

Good question. I will not convince anyone that race does not exist if they are unwilling to consider that it might be true. But I will offer my opinion. What we believe to be one's "race" is in effect, the genetically recorded amalgamation of one's genealogical "history" on the planet Earth. This is influenced, but not controlled by their cultural history. However, one's physiological and base mental acuity is likewise imprinted in their genes.

The phenotypes that we identify as racial groups are also the result of historical motility, as passed on from one's parents to their children. By "historical motility", I simply mean the degree to which an individual's forebears have traveled on this planet, accumulating experiences from which to "extract", gain, and thereby use knowledge. The wider the experiences, the greater one's historical motility and, the greater the available knowledge that is "built in", in the form of aptitude. This is not to presuppose that those with less genetically endowed aptitude have no chance of gaining it, as some actual racists would assert. It simply means that they will have to be open to new experiential possibilities and willing to explore them. Like any muscle or talent, all aspects of one's being get better and stronger with "exercise".

Within this idea of "hard coded" racial groupings, some phenotypes are deemed be genetically inferior to others, as measured by active intelligence and the various contributions they have, or have not made to civilization. This is the cornerstone of racism. Whether said power was to damn great rivers, cut canals across continents, and build great edifices to an emperor's ego, or kill the world population a thousand times over, it was deemed to be evidence of superiority by people who look like the ones who did. This notion amounts to no more than propaganda. If the majority or all of the people responsible for these achievements were of a given racial phenotype, then supremacists would point to them as proof of concept. Not so for me. This form of "proof" serves no purpose, except to the one seeking to prove superiority, and those who are inclined to believe in it. While the statistics are interesting, they are no more than anecdotal.

Today's racial phenotypes of "white", "black", "brown", "yellow", and "red" are not necessarily yesterday's. They are as arbitrary as the purpose that they serve, which is a vehicle to justify continued differentiation, separation, fear, and loathing between people who are weak minded enough not to know better. In spite of the fact that they shared physical characteristics, European individuals were once considered to be of a different race if they spoke a different language. What we know today as Europe is itself the product of many wars and involuntary interbreeding between victors and the vanquished. Without the distinction of color, racism today would be simply called survival of the fittest.

Some people see racial groups in terms of "Occidental" (Western) and "Oriental" (Eastern). Others see race in terms of purity and impurity, and use statistics as a thin veil for their hatred. Problem is, if they didn't hate someone who "looked" different, they'd find some way to hate themselves to death. Protestants and Catholics have been doing that in Northern Ireland, as have the Serbs and Bosnians, and now Kosovars in Yugoslavia, and the Czarists and Bolsheviks in Russia. Hatred knows no race. It only knows itself. Strip away the veneer of race, and we'll see hatred for what it is.

White supremacists and black separatists are peas from the same pod, trying to protect something that can't be protected, our ability to choose who we will love and marry, and our will to do so. A reasonable case could be made that men and women are indeed of different races. But then, there would be no plausible way to justify one group's annihilation by the other. Men and women are genetically, naturally predisposed to set aside their fears and prejudices against each other and use their complementary physiological designs for the perpetuation of the human race, if not the betterment thereof. Only when men can turn against men of a different race, religion, class, profession, etc., can we harbor the kind of acrimony that has lived throughout history. Race therefore, is only today's means of hatred justification. It is a justification of convenience. Given that race has no real biological basis, we might as well stop using it now. By making race ubiquitous no more, we may well begin seeing the true ugliness of hatred, and then stop it.

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