Why is racism?

A quick thought, not even really developed, but since I was sitting at the computer…

Why is racism?

Why is there racism at all? Really, it doesn’t actually make sense in the bigger picture because all it does is make things worse for everyone. Here is an idea from Searching for God knows what.

Remember the question back in grade school? There are five, seven, ten people in a lifeboat; a white male lawyer, and black female doctor, a crippled boy, a stay-at-home mom, a garbage man, a, you figure out the rest. A decision has to be made. For the rest of the people to survive, one person has to be thrown overboard and killed. Murdered that is. Who would you pick? I remember doing this in junior high. I am guessing everyone has done this little sociological test at one point or another. It is a great test to see how people think, but what about the idea of the test itself. Where did the idea that not everyone gets to survive come from?

I think that this test is a marker of how we think, we meaning humans, all of us. There is something inside of us that makes us think that not everyone is going to survive and so it is an issue of figuring out if you are the one at the bottom of everyone’s list and are going to be thrown overboard. When we start to think this way… Start! It isn’t a matter of starting it is one of continuing; we didn’t start this fire, and when I say we, I mean those humans living today. Since we think this way, it is everyone’s goal to not be on the bottom. Racism is maybe the easiest way to not be on the bottom. If you can discount an entire race of humanity, then you are already above and safer than a certain large percentage of the population. That makes sense, but only in the context of someone being thrown out.

But what if? What if there isn’t a top and bottom or being thrown overboard isn’t a bad thing? That would mean those that are are laughing at the rest of us who thought we were succeeding. But I can’t say for sure because I am pretty sure I am still in the boat. There are a lot of people in my world below me. Sad, I know, you don’t have to point it out.

Chew on that for a while.

It is tomorrow.

Jason