The Elimination of Prejudice

I've long had the hopeful thought that someday, racism, prejudice and bigotry of all kinds could be eliminated entirely from the human race.

After all, we're all human-we all bleed the same color, no matter what we look like or how we act on the outside.

But over and over, mankind has proven that while some of us are capable of seeing past the differences in each other to the sameness on the inside, others refuse or cannot seem to admit that we're all part of the same species.

The root of the problem, in my eyes, seems to stem from the fact that we partly identify human as "like me". And while we are all homo sapiens, this crazy world of ours allows for a lot of interesting and wonderful diversity. But that makes it harder to see each other as "like me". Sometimes, all we can see are the differences between us. Instead of seeing those differences as something beautiful to be learned from, we focus on the strange things that are unfathomable to us from our backgrounds. And unfortunately, we seem to be hardwired to respond to the unknown with fear much of the time. What we don't know or understand is something scary, uncontrollable. So our response is to lash out and keep that fear at bay by using hatred, stereotypes, and other knee-jerk reactions.

But I do have one great abiding hope for us in the future. Aliens. Or mutants. Or the discovery that the myths and legends of fiction are real. Take your pick.

Because if we were to discover that we aren't alone in this universe, or that there are things hiding amongst us pretending to be homo sapiens, we would then have common ground to unite on.

We could point to these aliens or monsters and say, "They aren't like me. They are different, unknown, not human." It could be the thing that unifies all humankind together, this ability to point and say, "I'm human, and I know what human is, and this is not human."

It would throw many for a loop, but I think ultimately it would allow humans all over this earth to band together like the social herd animals we are. We would withdraw, consolidate, and collectively understand, in a fundamental way, that we really are alike in many ways. With the incontrovertible proof that a sentient race exists outside our own, we would then have a different framework in which to think about ourselves. That framework would be broadened by necessity to include all the variations of mankind in all its glory. Because we would finally see and recognize as a race that while we can be very different from each other, we are still more similar to each other when compared with an entirely different species.

Sadly, I don't think an alien visitation or the announcement that werewolves, vampires and faeries really do exist would eliminate the true root cause of our hatred and blind prejudice. My cynical side believes we would just transfer the blind hatred onto this new threat.

This unthinking fear of the unknown and the anger and hatred it engenders appears to be part of the human condition, something we have to actively strive to overcome. But maybe that's what makes us truly capable of great things. This struggle in some ways defines us, shapes us, makes us better. Without darkness, there can be no light. So perhaps this is our burden, our cross to bear, the struggle that we must constantly be on guard for, to be vigilant against, but without which, we would be less. Less volatile for certain, but maybe less passionate, less capable of truly great things as well.

If this alien visitation or whatever happens in my lifetime, I might be glad, depending on the circumstances. Obviously my hope would be friendly aliens, not ones bent on invasion or probing.

But if they were friendly, I would then transfer my hope to the idea that we could eliminate our fear of the unknown, or at least our tendency to translate that fear into hatred and violence against the object of our fear.

And I would stand proudly, holding my hands up in the widely recognized symbol of cooperation and goodwill, and say the famous words. I would try to actively work against my fear & anxiety, and remember the wise fictional aliens who have moved beyond illogical emotions and embraced reason as the only true way to look at the universe, and embrace their creed in turn as my own:

IDIC: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

Live long and prosper, my friends.