Satire and Racism and the long ago - why not.

What is Racism?

. . . no, not that.

What Is Racism?

I’ve read the definitions and watched the YouTube videos and Frontline reports. I understand pretty much what everyone else understands it to mean.

But my question is: What is it really?

What’s lies behind or underneath it that makes a person not sit next to another human being, not smile at a baby of color, not want — ever — for their child to marry someone like that?

What makes humans react in this way?!

Let’s face it, people are strange. They were strange 242,000 years ago and they are strange today.

But back then, when we were mostly all slumped over and looking for food and mates and thinking — fuck it’s hot out here and there’s no water and our feet hurt — we were still strange and filled with urges to do strange things.

We would look at someone and think — they’re eating something that I should be eating. They’re wearing something I’ve never seen before and I want it.

So, they went and found a stone or a large branch and shaped it by rubbing it carefully against a rock 5000 times until it looked like something interesting — a blunt object maybe.

And then went and found that guy, still eating what they liked and still wearing something they wanted and so, they hit him over the head.

But it’s not like he was eating something that wasn’t available to everyone — it was right there. On a bush, lots of them. But the ones he was eating, well they looked better, bigger, juicier, and why not. Maybe we weren’t doing much that afternoon, so spending time making a club made the afternoon go faster and it all worked out.

Strange.

We’ve had hundreds of thousands of years to shape who we are and what we do and here we are, after centuries of striving to get it right, in 2023 still telling others what books they can’t read.

Telling others, they can’t be or feel any different than how we think and feel and making it illegal to do so.

And we drive around in cars and see people that look a certain way and think — they’re probably doing something dangerous. It stands to reason, right? Otherwise, why are they here?

And we stop them and search them and their cars because we have this thing now called probable cause. And we find things. Well, maybe find is not the right word — but things appear, like drugs or something and we react.

We shout. We tense up and get angry and worried, which turns into angrier and more worried and before we know it, we’re off finding a large branch and shaping it, and hitting someone over the head.

Only today it takes less time and we’re much more efficient at this sort of thing — so, in minutes it’s all over.

And here we are, all these years later, still doing strange things because people are different.

But why is different so important?

Going back in time, to a time when there was no internet and no libraries and human knowledge was stored in the smaller less agile brains of our forebears, it was more difficult to figure things out.

You couldn’t get too complex because there was no way to index the shit. No way to look at a stone or a person or the back of a female as she’s walking slowly away, thinking what’s this thing I’m feeling right now? What does it mean and what should I do with it?

So, to survive we kept things simple. Round is good, flat, not so much. Wide is good, slender okay but with issues.

Tall is good, able to reach the top branches. Color and shape are good because it takes less time to figure out if this other person is one of us.

From our group. Our people. Those who look out for us. Share their food and fire and let us borrow a club when we need one.

It makes life easier when we know who someone is by looking at them. Know what they are likely to do and more importantly perhaps what they likely won’t do.

Can’t sleep in a cave with someone you don’t know and sleep well, because we remember what happened last year to the other guy that was our friend and he slept with a woman who was first with another guy — and anyway, it didn’t end well.

So, simpler is better. Simpler and same is safe and knowable. No point in having to fight lions and rats the size of small horses and have to fight people picking berries. Important to keep things simple so we can keep track of them.

When involved in flight or fight it’s important to minimize distractions. As the whole pack is running from a rampaging elephant or whatever was larger and predatory at that time, it’s better, often a lot better to not think — is this guy one of us?

Should I fear that he’ll, you know, trip me and make me dinner while he and my mate get safely to the next cave, while I remain here in pieces?

These were understandable thoughts in 243,500 BC, but not so much today.

Today we have cars and subways and Uber and are capable of flying from New Jersey to Bangladesh in 12 hours and have plenty to eat, relatively speaking, so less likely to get killed while getting take-out.

And yet . . . we still are wary of people that don’t look and act like us.

That don’t read the same books and worship the same gods or wear the same clothes or listen to the same droning beat, while seated around the fire, discussing who forgot to check the cave before moving in.

In modern times with modern-sized brains and devices to store more information than we will ever have the opportunity to process, we still try to keep things simple. We still focus on genetic cues that make us feel safe and comfortable. Make us more certain that during moments of fight and flight, one of these others won’t trip us and make us “dinner.”

But isn’t it time we emerged wholly from the long ago? Isn’t it time to realize that food and shelter are more plentiful and that time out in the groves foraging has been replaced by time in an office and that money is what we use to buy things?

Things that are available to all of us most of the time.

So, is racism just survival?

Is racism like knowing that one track belongs to an animal smaller than us (like a rabbit) and another to an animal much bigger with long claws and a 1.9 second 40-meter dash?

Is that why we, the descendants of those back in 245,000 BC, are still clinging to the same survival instincts, the same desire to stick with the safe and familiar?

But when we look around us today, in a city or suburb or out a window of a new 757, aren’t we confronted with a reality that is different than way back then? Aren’t we witnessing change and modern comforts that are outstanding compared to say, sleeping in large numbers to stay warm?

Don’t we see the differences between then and now?

Why is it that collectively our brains have evolved in ways unimagined a few millennia ago? Capable of space flight and quantum computing and fridges that text us when we’re low on eggs.

And yet, we still stutter and stammer and jump reflexively when seeing someone we don’t recognize walking across the street.

While simultaneously whistling and calling, here boy, to a 170-pound animal named Rufus, who’s holding a bone in jaws capable of crushing a lug wrench, and ask it for a kiss.

Is racism really just survival instincts that we’ve grown too close and comfortable with, kicking in or is it something else?

Like fear.

Fear that we’ll be replaced, surpassed, overthrown, overloaded, overwhelmed, and made obsolete. That the world we created to be a boon to all of us is quickly becoming a reminder of how fragile we really are and how quickly we can be gone.

Fear of being eaten or killed while walking with your mate by the river is just as real as the fear of losing our grip on life and our future.

We think we’re creating a safer more user-friendly world but in fact, we are creating a world filled with more groups and splintered tribes all vying for the same turf, the same patch of berries, the same chance at survival.

Maybe racism is ancient. As old as people. Born out of fear of being eaten or killed for no reason, that should have evolved out of the limbic system and made more current, like electric cars and talking watches.

But it hasn’t and it’s still here. Fight or flight in the 21st Century is not quite the same as back in the long ago. Not quite the same look and reactions but it’s not all that different either.

Isn’t it time to stop fearing different?