Chapter II Verse II - Race-schism pt.II

Note from Dsus: I’ll still be monitoring the comments section to get ideas for the next topics to explore so if you want to disagree, offer a direction or whatever, leave a comment.
Thanks to everyone (both of you) who commented in time for this update.


With my part in this race topic out of the way I want to move on to more general ground. Where does it start? I say does because while there are significant historical reasons for race conflict I believe there are more immediate, daily reasons that we keep up this segregation.

Insecurity

There is insecurity, so often at the heart of violence and hatred. Enter a new situation and we immediately figure out the people we want to be like and talk to and the people we want avoid. What are the two main groups at a party? The boys and the girls. If that don’t say it all right there. After those two you have groups of people who know each other. Half of these are talking about why they like or don’t like people in the other groups. Everyone’s reassuring themselves that they are better than the people around – “I might not be the best dressed but I look better than him/her”.

The point of most of these social situations – party/office/school - becomes to compete with each other instead of learn about each other. And when you are talking about each other you don’t need things like facts. It’s easier and more fun to make those up. So we use race and economic status (too often these two are hand-in-hand) to classify each other, to mock each other and to reassure ourselves that we are superior to most of the people on the planet.

I am special, damn it!

To support this competition and comparison it is essential that we think we are different from each other. That “everyone is a unique snowflake” thinking that makes us value being individuals but forget that all snowflakes are made of water. It’s the same thinking that makes us think that all the ‘criminals’ are chemically different from us. Vanity.

There is a small percentage of people that skew the graph but on the whole most of us want health, the chance to be creative, safety and room to grow. And nice stuff*. Look at how many cultures love music, food and art independently of one another. But the more alike we are the less we stand out and we are busy trying to star in our own music video. We count the things that separate us before the things that tie us together.

The tragic part is that we are so busy trying to be the best at what we think will make us the most popular, we miss the part of ourselves that is unique. Developing your talents - whether in dog grooming or eye surgery - is the path to individuality, social consciousness, fulfillment and popularity.

We don’t get to know ourselves though, because we are running between being like everyone else and standing out. We want clothes that everyone can recognize but no-one has, that car that everyone wants but no-one can afford and a God that everyone knows but no-one worships like us. Sick, huh?

Cooperation makes it happen, Cooperation (you know the rest)

So there are two of the worst culprits, insecurity and vanity. They screw up all kinds of things. Fortunately we know what to do. Stop being jerks. Investigate instead of assume. Say something kind instead of something mean. Seek to understand instead of to be understood.

I often take heart in this quote from Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver, published in 1968: “Competition is the Law of the Jungle and Cooperation is the Law of Civilization.”

Final two: Marketing and Media; *Nice stuff.