Just like in Star Trek, imagine a mirror universe with all the same people in it, except everything else is different. This brilliant comic shows the insanity of things that we largely take for granted in our universe, by showing how unbelievable it would be to us (dear readers) if the mirror police treated CEOs who dump millions of gallons of pollution the same way that our real police treat people who do petty crime (especially while black). And vice versa, with the blacks being the defenders of “law and order”.
Just try to imagine our world working that way.
The real moral is that anyone who thinks they aren’t the least bit racist is just deluding themselves. We are all racist (even me). It is the way we are programmed (so we can distinguish our tribe from others) and the way we are brought up. The solution is to realize the bug, and use that giant brain of ours (if we are smart enough) to do the right thing.
Maybe some day we will look at people of different races, and we will have evolved enough to think they look like us. But we sure as hell aren’t there yet.
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Racism is genetic? I don’t think so. It’s learned behavior, pure and simple.
I think there are arguments on both sides.
I remember when I spent some time traveling around China, including in areas where tourists rarely go. On more than one occasion we encountered a mother with her very young child on the street and the child would start crying or even screaming upon viewing us. It was unnerving.
It is hard to believe that this was learned behavior. Our brains fear people who don’t look like us. Our ancestors were tribal. Maybe we have evolved beyond that, but the evidence isn’t good.
Maybe the problem is the word “racism”. There’s no scientific basis for race, after all.
With a lot of intermarrying, at some point race will probably be not a thing. Of course that will take a very long time, but if we humans survive long enough, it’s a distinct possibility and then we will have to find other reasons to hate each other. And I’m sure we can do that.
When I was eight, my mother took me to see “south Pacific” When we came out, she said “When we are all the same color, there will be no more fighting.” The beautiful tan of the South Pacific people is the perfect color rather than the plucked chicken color I have in the spring before I get a tan.