Racisim

Race and racism makes deep wounds on the body politic. It is an irony that although
racism is a reality, race itself is a fiction. The concept of race has no genetic or
biological basis. All human beings are closely related to one another, and at the same
time each human being is unique. Not only is the concept of race entirely artificial, it
is new. Yet in its short existence, it has, like most lies and absurdities current among
us, done a mountain of harm.

In human terms DNA analysis dismantles the idea of race completely. Race
has no basic biological reality, the human species simply doesn’t come packaged that
way. Rather, race is a social, cultural and political concept based on superficial
appearances and historical conditions.

All human beings have the same ancestors. Human history is a short one; it is
less than a quarter of a million years long, with the first migrations from Africa
beginning half that time ago. The physical diversity of human populations today is
purely a function of geographical accidents of climate and the isolation of
wandering bands. The distinctions which have since been drawn between peoples
are therefore arbitrary and superficial, even those relating to skin colour – for as a
moment’s attention shows, there is simply no such thing as ‘white’, ‘black’ or
‘yellow’ people; there are people with many shades and types of skin, making no
difference to any other aspect of their humanity save what the malice of others can
construct.

To advance beyond racism one has to advance beyond race. But that goal is not
helped by anti-racist racism, as with the Black Power movement and its cognates. It is
understandable that communities which suffer prejudice and abuse should shelter
behind a protective assumed identity; but identities grow rigid and become a source
of new pieties, new excuses to repay evil with evil – and thereby indirectly entrench
the very idea that lies at the root of the problem.

Racism will end when individuals see others only in individual terms. ‘There are no
“white” or “coloured” signs on the graveyards of battle,’ said John F. Kennedy; and
there is a significant moral in that remark.