Will Race Submit to Science and Please Die

The only race I never won I fell backwards into sand, ending on my ass. The measure though went to the front toe of my foot. It might seem odd that a race can be won falling down, but in the grand scale of humanity, we all fall down. Standing Broad Jump was my best skill in the art of track, best known for running in a circle where you don’t get anywhere. I figure, my race was shorter, only three steps and whump. Likewise, race doesn’t exist. Race is bad science done backwards and we all fell from grace.

I’m truly sorry that life isn’t fair. I demanded fairness as a youngster. It made my father who was normally the jokester, the laugh and let go kind of guy truly angry. He grabbed both my shoulders and shook me. “Get it through you head, there’s nothing fair in life.”

I walked off, teary and mulish and silently washed the car by myself while my sisters giggled at the dinner table. I didn’t know why I was required to do this task when no one else had to. Cinderella and me were two of a kind all of a sudden. It truly was no fair. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was picked on and abused.

The reality was car washing was fun in a backward way. It was hot outside. I got out of the stinky kitchen and didn’t need to do dishes, hurrah. I could get as wet as I wanted and no one could chide me. When you wash a car, there’s immediate pay off when the scum turns soap black and then you spray it away, feeling mist on your face and arms. You can stand and hose off soap for as long as you want as a kid because you don’t pay the water bill. As long as I was playing with cold water, I didn’t get into hot water and I had some amount of fun. I worked off whatever rage I had at the unfairness of the world. I accomplished something I could take pride in, a shiny clean car.

Because my dad cared to take me by the shoulders, shake me up and tell me the truth, “We are not all born with the same wealth, pedigree, ancestry, skills, knowledge, interests, skin color, weight, hair color and type, muscles, frame, IQ, etc.”

When we look at skin, no one came up with a gauge that offered pride. Skin had no pride but may have a pelt, it can be removed, shredded, injured, punctured and change with the rays of the sun. Some people are born with more or less melanin and some have greater and some less chance of skin cancer. There is no direct correlation with ancestry and skin color. There is a direct correlation with skin color and sun exposure and therefore location.

What we all should have in common is the disaster caused by Hitler and his desire to create a super race of Teutonic Germans and kill everyone else. Resentment at minor slights like extra duties assigned by parents can twist a person if they let it. Instead of building our resentment, we should build our armor. We should twist ourselves so that extra assignments are privileges meant to teach a life of accomplishment.

Because the science of evolution doesn’t promise anyone a rose garden, a specific skin color, parents you want for their wealth or family name, we should first try to look at what evolution says. It says, that statistically we reproduce those more adapted to the environment than not.

So the lesson of adaption does not go along with whining for extra privileges or thinking life will be fair. Race was supposed to record who our family was by the color of our skin or hair or eyes. Race didn’t do what it was meant to do. Race, racial, biracial are all historic words that led us into war and hatred. 

Differences in hair, skin, eyes, make us individuals who can nurture their worth or decry it however they choose but the reality will be, it’s not fair we’re not all the same, but thank heaven I don’t have to look at myself in the face on every person I meet.

We call differences between people, diversity. We call differences from one group of people to the next culture. Race only exists in track and field events, every other use subverts culture, individuality, diversity, accomplishment.

​I'm sorry to be so racist as to tell everyone so.