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So.

Some of you have heard about what’s going on in Oakland. All that rioting because the white cop, Johannes Mehserle, who shot the 22 yr. old black kid, Oscar Grant, who was unarmed and already subdued by 2 other cops only got 2 years in prison. I say kid because now that I’m a little older, I recognize how young 22 is. Frankly, I can’t believe we’ve kept that 15 year old kid Omar Khadr in Guantanamo so long but that’s another issue… (Ok. It’s the same issue but I’m digressing.) Back to the black kid who was face down on the ground, unarmed, subdued by 2 other cops and the cop who is only 6 years older than him, shooting him in the back at point-blank range, killing him.

It’s totally distressing! Even more distressing is the growing division in our country. I wasn’t fooled when we hired Obama. We thought we were post-racial but we were really just terrified of the three wars and global economic meltdown Bush had gotten us into. Some of us thought, “Obama might be Jesus.” The other option was an older man we thought could die any minute. President Obama even won a Nobel Prize just for inspiring the planet. But we’ve squandered that inspiration. The dawning of the Tea Party and growing American anger at the global economic situation created by Bush is revealing the great fault lines that still gape between us. I am so sad that those fault lines are still mostly, just about race.

Some of the comment-board responses I’ve read to this news story about Oscar Grant and Johannes Mehserle probably represent a lot of people’s feelings. Some suggest that all people of color should be out killing white people because of the unfairness perpetrated in the last few centuries. Others suggest that all people of color should be eradicated because- well, it’s unprintable. The comment-boards tell me that we are in a dangerous place as a species, heading towards another world war in the guise of religious warfare and government sanctioned racism.

The angry message boards and more horrible news stories.

Here is a recent one about a non-white 11-year old girl who a police officer allowed to die because her mother drove recklessly while trying to rush her asthmatic daughter to the emergency room.

There is also the black Pace university student who got shot by cops after some confusion and was left handcuffed and bleeding to death on the ground while his friends shouted in vain at the cops and paramedics for help.

I happen to feel for the cops in all these situations. People behave in dangerous ways and cops are just people. They don’t get more time than we do to make split-second decisions. Their ingrained beliefs based on race become incredibly important. So even more dangerous is the ingrained fear we all now have towards people of color.

Many studies have proven that we are all afraid of people of color because literature, news-stories, art, advertising and other media has taught us to be for hundreds of years. Even people of color are afraid of people of color. This puts people of color in great danger!

If you want to watch a social experiment in action proving how ingrained racism is in our lives, watch this 12-minute episode of What Would You Do on Hulu: Would You Stop A Bike Thief?

I’ll summarize. This experiment showcases how people react to a black male teenager, white male teenager and white female blond teenager each respectively trying to steal a bicycle.

Passers-by help the white blond female steal the bicycle; passers-by ignore the white male stealing the bicycle; and passers-by become an angry mob raging around the black teenager stealing the bicycle.

How does Omar Khadr fit in?

Go find any 15 year old. He or she will be very easily brainwashed and convinced to do anything, especially by a parent or authority figure. But our fear of people of color allows us to treat each other in very unfair ways. So, we kept that colored 15-year old Khadr in Guantanamo for 8 years and have sentenced him to 40 more years. In the future, it will be evidence of our barbarity and utter irrationality that we treated someone who was not thought to have sufficient responsibility to vote or operate a moving vehicle in this manner.

Many have pointed out that the black Michael Vick was sentenced to more time in prison for dog-fighting and abusing animals than Johann Mehserle.

It is natural to feel angry; for people of color to feel angry at being persecuted because we are persecuted; and it is also natural for whites to feel angry at being blamed because they are blamed. But blaming and persecuting is getting us nowhere. Obama tried to say as much in his famous race speech.

What’s the real problem?

Race is making us all very unhappy. It’s putting some of us in great danger and making others feel blamed for everything. It’s killing us, holding us back from working together, from creating together, from seeing the world through new perspectives. Race is destroying the most unique human quality- collaboration.

What’s the solution?

If the way we think is the problem, let’s change the way we think. It’s time we kill race. It’s just an idea that has no biological or scientific basis in fact. It’s only a social construct, but it’s not constructive, so let’s get rid of it. Next time you have to fill in that “race” box, write next to it, “Race does not exist!” and then accurately describe yourself with where you come from, where your parents come from, eye color, skin color, height and weight.

When you’re asked what someone looks like, you can use your descriptive powers of language to give useful information and say, “They were dark-skinned or brown-skinned or light-skinned or olive-complexioned or peach-skinned or cream-complexioned.” because we all know being dark-skinned doesn’t mean you’re “black” and being light-skinned doesn’t mean you’re “white” so why tell lies?

People come in different colors so we have to see color in order to describe each other but the idea that skin color exactly corresponds to one of 3 “races” for almost 7 billion INDIVISUALS (you saw it here first) is just crazy and promotes actions based on pure silliness. It’s like separating dogs into groups based on fur color. And unlike dogs, humans haven’t even been around long enough to subdivide into subspecies yet!

Maybe this will be a start.

Don’t get me wrong. I love being “black.” I might miss saying it. But what I like is the cultural innovation, survival ability, creativity, diversity, artistry, wide variety of skin tones, honor of being the first people on the planet, linguistic innovation, and eternally unmatched dance and musical legacy within a community that has been historically ham-strung and even tree-strung by a word that etymologically related to “bad things.”

So what I really like, I guess, is being a dark-skinned African.

“Race” takes away from that and places me in opposition to other “races”. Race is, in fact, a race– a competition that we really do not need to be having when we should be working together on having enough potable water for the next 50 years.

Maybe you were one of those kids who thought there were monsters and ghosts under the bed. Maybe you know one of those kids. Now make that kid a grownup. Now make the “under the bed” the world outside your house. Now make “monsters and ghosts” anyone who is “colored”. Now give that grownup a gun and a badge. DANGER!!!!!

So repeat after me, “I don’t believe in ghosts.”