Frustrating day today. I was trying to get a bunch of germs in a jar. Finally I had to yell at them. I screamed "Get in that jar, germs!" They replied in unison, "But we don't want to; we really like it out here." I told them, "Don't bacilli."
I'm spending my days in a hospital lately, seven days a week as my mother-in-law is quite ill and my wife is taking incredible care of her. I'm here because my wife needs support, and they do have wireless, so I can work here instead of my home office.
Walking in this morning, I noticed a "wash your hands" sign just inside the main door, telling us to wash our hands repeatedly to help win the "war on germs", or some phrase like that. I'll take anything as a thinking prompt, and that sign was no different.
A "war on germs" is truly a losing battle. Not only do we have no way of eradicating bacteria, we don't want to. There are plenty of very valuable bacteria in the ecosystem, including the lactobacilli vital to human digestion. No, we do not want to eliminate all of them. And we can't; it is surely a losing proposition to declare a war on germs. We can only try to take reasonable steps, and reach an accommodation with the world's tiny flora.
For whatever reason, I got to thinking about another "war" that is not going to get won, a war that some insist on battling despite the odds.
I'm talking about "racism."
Yes, racism, that oh, so terrible treatment by individuals of other individuals based on their ethnic origin or skin color. I'm distinguishing institutional racism from individual racism, because institutions should not be discriminating on the basis of ethnicity, either for or against. It's not their place.
No, I'm talking about individuals, and I'm going to tell you that the people who are working to stop their fellow humans from hating on others for their color are fighting a losing battle, in the same way that the world's medical community is not going to eliminate germs from our environment.
We grow up discriminating. Our basic biological urges as males and females tell us to stand out in some way to procreate and attract a mate with whom to go forth and multiply. To stand out, we are constantly looking for differences in our "competitors" for mates, and emphasizing those differences to our advantage.
We do that, right? I'm taller than that guy, or I'm shorter ... or stronger or smarter. I can tell a joke better and really make you laugh. I can cook a steak like you read about. I can make a great living, or be relied upon to hold a job for a long time and give you a home. I can sing really high, or really deep. I'm better looking, or have great hair ... or no hair at all.
Or my skin is light. Or dark.
Get the idea? At the same time we value friendship and enjoy life by the help and society of others, we are also constantly contrasting ourselves with those others as competitors, however subconsciously. We are humans first, after all, therefore we will always distinguish ourselves because discriminating is a basic human trait.
So what should be our attitude? I would venture to say it is that we treat it like the war on germs. Racism is simply the inevitable consequence of our subconscious, human desire to distinguish ourselves from our fellow man. It is certainly not exclusive to Caucasians; not only are some of the worst raging bigots (Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton) not white, but black Americans even distinguish among themselves by lightness or darkness of skin tone. It cannot be erased, merely contained.
By "contained", I simply mean that it not be treated with riots and chest-beating, but rendered as uncivil, and that we are taught that it is an uncivil thing to do. And -- we all accept and understand that it is a fight that will never be won. Rather than make racism the worst, most evil crime that can be committed against our fellow man, we treat it as an offense against civility. Something, perhaps, that we recognize is in our nature but one that civility tells us to suppress, out of decency to our fellow man.
Racism, like germs, is a battle that cannot be won. Therefore, let us not expend excessive energy, and certainly not excessive venom, on something that, whatever its history, is best treated by looking down on its practitioners as less civil and shaking our heads at them. Recognize that discrimination is inherent in the human process. Recognize that there are places where it is actually fine to accept and practice it, and others where it becomes demeaning and unworthy of our society. And then ... move on to something that can actually be fixed, like the economy, or immigration, or eliminating ISIS, or creeping socialism.
But not germs. We aren't going to fix those either.
Copyright 2015 by Robert Sutton
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