Timothy Wilken
Robert Reed sent me an interesting email this morning with the provocative question in the subject line: “Should We End Race?”
It linked to an interesting and well written article by by James A. Landrith, Jr. entitled Childhood’s End. Landrith writes:
“A transformation is occurring in the American mindset regarding the concept of blurred “racial” lines. Simply put, many people can’t grasp the concept of no “races” and therefore require a middle ground in order to move on to greater truths. The middle ground is/was the “multiracial” movement, which sought to remove the one-drop rule from the Census and all other forms that collect “racial” data for the government. The “check-all-that-apply” method adopted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has mucked up the Census’ racial categories in ways many of us did not imagine. The object was to allow people to self-identify in a manner they’d never been able to before. The result, however, was a mish-mash of vague and contradictory regulations and policies from the OMB that only further proves the ridiculousness of classifying people by “race.” If the U.S. government, who manufactured America’s current “racial” classification mess don’t know what they are doing, then how is anyone else supposed to figure it out?
“The next logical step, then, consists of abolishing all forms of government mandated “racial” classifications. Whether these perverse classifications come in the form of college applications, grade school admissions forms, birth certificates, or the decennial Census, they exist for only one purpose – keeping people separated.”
Full Text of Childhood’s End
As a physician, I have a deep training in biology. It has amazed me that we humans seem to relate to our dogs and cats in a much more accepting way than we do with each other.
We are not, in any real since, bothered by the color, shape, or size of our animals. We would all think that making a big deal about a pet’s genetics before loving it was silly.
Looked at it from this perspective, the biological differences between humans, whether they are called whites, browns, blacks, yellows, or reds, are obviously minor and inconsequential. I agree with James Landrith. It’s time to grow up.