Donnie's Blog

I’ve been inundated with racist vibes over the past few weeks. Not as a victim, just as a bystander. Bystander best describes it, because I hardly ever partook in the discussion.

It’s not that I didn’t realize that racism existed, but it’s just that I’ve been made acutely aware of it over the past few weeks, or even months. Some of this was due to people I cared about being of the race which was the target of some racist remarks, and at other times, just due to realizations of how deeply divided we as the human race are.

We are so tribal in nature that we are compelled to divide ourselves into different sects. I’ve read that we are capable of treating a maximum of 150 people as ‘tribesmates’. Anybody beyond this number is outside the tribe, and hence, not of particular concern.

The implications of this is that we truly care for only about 150 people. Maybe that’s not accurate – maybe the number’s 1500. Or 15000. But the point is that after a certain degree of separation, we tend to think of people as ‘them’ rather than ‘us’.

For different people, this means different things. For some, it might not make much of a difference. With enough empathy, you’d cry every time you’d hear of anybody’s death or other tragedy. Clearly, this is not so. On the other hand, this might mean that you don’t give a shit if 1.5 million people die in a flood in Cambodia. This, I’m afraid, is closer to the truth.

But more importantly, this leads to other behaviors like racism, dishonesty, etc. After all, it’s easy to cheat somebody at a gas station when you don’t know them that well, and even easier if it’s the first time you’ve met them. But it’s far more difficult if you know and care about that person, like if it’s a friend.

It’s also not difficult to imagine somebody hating a particular race, until they become good friends with somebody of that race. Their being inside their ‘tribe’ forces you to change your view of the world. You have to either wrap (or rather warp) your world-view around them, by thinking “all except XYZ of this particular race are ____”, or to accept that “maybe this race isn’t _____”.

I’ve always wanted to believe that I’m not racist. I’ve never believed that any of the human races is superior to any other. I believe that over time, we evolve differently in different parts of the world, but in a very irrelevant, tiny manner, which leads to absolutely no differences between any two people of different races. Any characteristics we might observe in the current generation of a race is a short-term (a couple of 1000 years maybe) adaptation of that particular race.

I believe in individual superiority – that is the only measure that can have any importance. It doesn’t matter where you came from, who your related to, what color your skin is, what language you speak, what food you eat, what gods you pray to (or don’t), what area of land of the Earth you came from, what your previous generations had to go through, how rich/poor your forefathers were…………….

….all that matters is what you make of yourself.

Of course, I’m using the term ’superiority’ lightly. I don’t believe that any of us is better than any other. I might be better than you in Football, but I won’t be better than you. There’s a difference.

The title of this post comes from the particular prejudices I know I carry. I feel strongly about certain sets of people. Just observing certain characteristics immediately leads me to conclude that there’s a high possibility of them having certain other undesirable characteristics. A certain style of dressing, might for example, indicate orthodoxy of religion. I do always try and account for exceptions – I don’t assume that my first impression is always true. I let the person prove who they are or aren’t.

But this prejudice might be unfair, considering the burden of proof is on them.

Also, what I view as ‘negative characteristics’ are of course, my opinion, and of relevance to me alone. I don’t pretend to think that anybody else should think that way, or that my way is always the right one.

However, I believe that this is the way it must be. If I assumed the best of everyone, I would be setting myself up for disaster. Trusting a stranger is illogical, and is asking for trouble.

What I don’t do, however, is hate somebody, based on one of these prejudices. If they turn out to be exceptions to my assumptions, I will gladly open my mind to the possibility that I was wrong about them.