or (Or the One Human Race Project)

The presidential race of 2008 revealed the intensely shameful racist views not only of Chicago but of our nation as a whole, leaving the scratched raw topic of race open for healing.

During the course of and in the aftermath of the election of Barack Obama in 2008 what resonated and still resonates in our nation is the issue of race. The election of Barack Obama didn’t cause it; rather it revealed it. Instead of issues of goodness, of integrity, of strength of character or of a proven track record, we continue to show ourselves a society of looking at rather than seeing throughfilters of color.

Why, then, in the midst of all this was our bible study small group, a mix of peoples and colors, remarkably unfazed and colorblind?  The reasons why are refreshingly hopeful and point toward the ultimate cure for racism.  Because when all events and patterns of “racist” behaviors are looked at and corrected through the lens of biblical truths and the right existence of one human race resultant from creation and not from evolution, a challenge remains: for the people of God to humbly ask society: Can the race be over?

Being a part of the culture that launched Barack Obama, I have lived my 48 years in and around Chicago, interrupted only by military service. I have been affected by, or rather swallowed up by the pervasive and divisive racial views of this region of the country, the Chicago suburban area. Where like some other metropolitan areas in our nation, a mere streets mark an imposing boundary for those people groups who are not welcome on the other side. (And I am not even referring to gang wars—which have their own set boundaries.) In short, I had been racist, maybe even subconsciously, avoiding friendships with anyone whose skin didn’t match Band-Aids(tm) as nicely as did mine.

Case in point: In 1991, I was assigned to a military barracks in Washington, D.C. I was there a day or two before I had seen my roommate due to opposite shifts yet I elected to freely use her ironing board since I didn’t have one and my uniform was wrinkled from the trip. So I took it, used it and promptly tried to put it away but couldn’t get it closed. There I stood helplessly fumbling the ironing board that wouldn’t close as my roommate walked in!

Although I don’t recall her name, I remember her vividly: she was a black-skinned woman, filled with forgiveness for my bold, dishonest actions. Not only did she not care that I had taken it upon myself to help myself to her belongings. She introduced herself and talked about her most recent military assignment: Iceland. Now, if there was ever a place that was white, Iceland was it. She told me with a smile of the isolated, reticent Icelandic people, upon seeing her in their white land. She didn’t have to tell me of her enduring spirit—I could just tell she had endurance, steadfastness and… a decent sense of humor.

She proceeded to tell me of the Icelandic peoples’ aversion to her because of her skin color. They were apparently a people bent on keeping their isolated “race” purely white. They didn’t take kindly to darker skinned folks inhabiting the Naval Air Station on their island country. Without hesitation and in an almost comical irony she invited me to church that coming Sunday in Washington, D.C.! All I could think was, “there’s no way I am going to a black church in D.C.!” Instead I said, “No, that’s ok.”

Our culture at large is flat-out racist. Sometimes it is almost subtle but usually it’s not subtle at all. It’s always there.

In 2009 we have the same weak, shameful consciousness of race as we did in the 1950s when rarely did a citizen speak up about how it was wrong for blacks to sit at the back on the bus. Some generations later we still have special places for people groups like blacks, i.e. Black history month,  black dating services, black television shows and entertainment (recently criticized by Harry Connick, Jr. for “making blacks look like a bunch of buffoons” , all with purpose of serving a special population yet all the while segregating and oppressing it.  The CNN special Latino in America recently aired further highlighting our intense aversion, if not hatred to all Latinos because of the illegal residents stereotypes.  if not aybe the bus scene isn’t so real these days but the settings have changed, while the theme remains.  We live at a certain level of society and we place everyone else accordingly.  Our parents may have lived with racist ideals, never giving it a second thought and we may be inadvertently teaching our children about a presumed hierarchy of racial worth.

 Holocaust and slavery are two of the obvious and necessary nerve centers of any healthy and real discussion of race. A bold reality to some is the recognition that any oppression/murder/hate of any race or people group is sinful, depraved behavior, not condoned by God’s word.  And how the ideal of the melting pot has not happened. The concept of a ‘melting pot’ in our young nation was began perhaps by the 1792 poem from The Melting Pot,  introduced in 1909 where one character announced “America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting Pot, where all races are melting and reforming.”  Is it? Really?  It’s been 100 years since then.  By contrast it was noted in 1972 in what book that instead of one nation with one unified cultural pattern, we are seeing the continuation of a variety of cultural, ethical and language groups within our nation.  His books observes that in practice, whether or not intended in theory, the “melting pot” idea has meant melting diversity into conformity with Anglo-Saxon characteristics, attitudes, language and behavior. Samuel Lubell wrote in White & Black Test of a Nation, (2d edition 1966) that “First, it is steadily becoming clearer that no magic overnight “solution” to our racial troubles is possible….The mere passage of civil rights legistation, we have learned, settles nothing.”He had written the first edition of his book two years earlier, but updated it with a revised edition as he “sought to define more sharply what it means to live with a continuing racial crisis that cannot be resolved for some time to come no matter what is done today.  This edition claimed that our country was being “ripped into two separate nations with segregated skins.”

Some would think an enlightened 35 years later would bring in hope.  In The Bridge over the Racial Divide, (1999, University of California Press) William Julius Wilson focuses on “the rising inequality in American society and on the need for a progressive, multiracial political coalition to combat it.  (He blames the reality of suburban sprawl, outsourced jobs, and other real societal phenomena on the separation of America into two classes of people)

And we come to 2009. And quite possibly we have achieved the dream of William Julius Wilson’s—a broad-based multicultural coalition. Look, we have a black president who is half-white, yet after the dust has settled we have an approval rating which is less than half.  So much for coalition, politics of representation. Could it be we still have racism issues because we still have race? I  challenge the origins of the “races”, definitively challenging the widely-held secular viewpoints, offering explanation of varying physical characteristics, today commonly categorized into “races” as actually the current genetic results of tribal and people group isolation or togetherness while they were procreating.  The truth is that as peoples become less isolated and intermarry and the race demographic becomes more muddied and less clear cut.  An appropriate visual is an overused ball of comingled colors of PlayDough(tm) until recently known as interracial mix.

I was taught in school that there were three main races of people: Caucasian, Asian, and Negro. (No mention was made of Latinos in the 1960s and 1970s although I am quite sure they existed.) These  three categories represent a gross oversimplification as well as an inaccurate outline of the varied characteristics of our world’s people groups.

The charge here is that the concept of race, while socially inhumane, unfair, and strongly tipped in the favor of white-skinned people, is also biologically inaccurate as well.  There is only, however varied its members may creatively mix and become, one human race, begun at creation.

Simply put, our people groups are not static and are still changing, becoming less isolated and more commingled like an old ball of Playdough.  There are no tightly defined races; the people alive now are a picture of the isolated tribes at the tower of Babel reunited and intermingled brining infinite combinations of features never seen before.  What if a biracial black/white man marries and procreates with a Hispanic-asian woman.  Is their child not a clear cut picture of a certain race?  Rather he would be a more complete picture of why we don’t need the word race anymore. And our creator never intended people to be classified by their characteristics. Only judged by their heart for him—but that was always his job and has never been ours.

You know those fish stuck to the rear ends of cars, the simple little fish outline that let’s folks know you are a Christian or reminds you to drive nicely and not blow off toll booths?

Then you know those things have launched fish wars. I recall seeing, in no particular order, the Darwin fish (with legs), the Christan fish eating the Darwin fish, Fish ‘n Chips, and more recently “Reality Bites” written on the body of the Darwin fish eating the Christian fish. The Christian fish is new only in application and materials but not new, really, just reintroduced. Christians had been using the two simple intersecting arcs to identify themselves as early as the second century, many years before the birth of Charles Darwin.

Here’s the irony. Evolution = racism. Racism = hate. Evolution = Hate. If they had a clue as to what they were spouting with their silly cartooned legged fish. Some of the more “liberal-minded” bumpers are actually mobile contradictions of themselves, should they stick “hate is not a family value” next to a fish with legs.

Did Darwin really say bad things about race?? Well, it depends which “race” you are. If you are “still evolving”, then yes, he did say bad things about you.

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