The Rigging of Race

While reading a biblical passage in Esther, I immediately took note of the statement that said, "many became Jews." There in Persia where King Xerxes (Ahasuerus in the bible) was ruling, not only was he friendly to the Jews, but many of his subjects, modern day Iranians, actually became Jewish. Such was the concept of humankind. The idea that people could be classified according to skin pigmentation would not be on the scene for almost 2000 more years. Even then, when a French Naturalist, Louis LeClerc, Comte de Buffon introduced race in 1749, he did so as a means of demarcating a group of people from a geographic region. It was only a matter of time until this segmenting/dividing of people would evolve into the vitriolic device that we know of today as "race."

Race is a social construct and not science, not because we simply want to do away with the concept, but because the concept was simply constructed for the social context in which it was born and has been used that way since its inception. And while it may have been convenient for the early slave traders to ease their conscience by stating that the slaves they sold were people of an inferior "race" and this is their lot in life and while it may have been convenient for Adolph Hitler and the German Reich to believe that their "race" was superior to all others, justifying the attempted extinction of other races, it is clear that the concept was rigged from the very beginning.

Rigged like the wild hog trap that I saw at a friend's ranch recently. A deer had wandered in aimlessly looking for something better and now there was no way out. That's what has happened with "race." We actually thought it would work so we came up with nifty slogans and songs, "say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud." A friend of mine, of the lighter persuasion, told me that they grew up with a slogan similar that said, "I'm 21, single and white." Immediately we want to judge that "racial" statement and the fact that you feel that says that the rigged concept has trapped you like the deer. When "race" takes center stage in any story it only serves to prove that our country, our society, our very lives have been trapped and hopelessly and forever ensnared. And it all started rather innocently because someone wanted to be able to identify others by a given criterion. Initially that criterion was geography and it h as evolved to today's concept of "race" which is solely based on skin pigmentation. And we are trapped. Try telling a friend that "race" is a flawed concept that should not exist and see where that goes. The trap was set and we're all in it. Well most of you all are and I'm trying to free you. E.R.A.S.E. Race!!!