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Importance of Being Human |
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Written by Rachel Eagle Reiter
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The division that exists, due to race differences, is not my notion of society. Society includes a diverse range of human beings, all of whom make America all the more beautiful. The importance exists in being human. One of the questions that I dislike most, that arises so very often is 'What is your ethnicity?'
Never could I fill in just one circle without knowing that I was leaving out an important part of myself. Indeed, it is important to draw attention to race, for certain political purposes such as affirmative action. However, in general--in life--we seem to exaggerate our differences or even invent differences that don't in fact exist.
Learning evolution is no doubt an important part of any secular science curriculum, and most certainly Darwin is an icon in the world of science. However, if there be any taints of racism in his evolutionary theories, due to the opinions of his Age, they ought not be reinforced.
One human race includes all people from all around the world. The importance of being human is not found in the variation of skin pigmentation from one person to the next--that is the difference in melatonin levels. Certainly, it is silly for anyone to discriminate based on who has more or les melatonin or who has beautiful thick lips and who has thin ones and so on.
Often I feed ducks, and I can just imagine them separating themselves according to the fluff of their feathers or forming special social quack circles only for ducks with the whitest of feathers. How absurd to think on it, but human beings can be just this absurd. We might learn a lesson from certain flying creatures--birds for instance--the blue jay is no better than the red robin and the red robin is no better than the black sparrow. We can value the beauty of diversity that such creatures bring to our great blue
sky, but can we love the diversity amongst our own species?
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