This is copied from my site at Ashermains.com Upon reading “We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda” by Philip Gourevitch, and seeing the movie “Blood Diamond” and reflecting on my own experience, I have come to a conclusion. My first thoughts were on the concepts of race, ethnicity, and identity. Race and ethnicity foster many times exclusive tendencies and people are also eager to judge in some cases on another’s race or identity. For example: to me, the word ‘white’ entails more than the lack of melanin in the skin. It embodies a feeling, a history; baggage. If I wanted to disassociate myself from the word ‘white’ in almost any context I would be disallowed. “Who are you to say that you are not white.” This represents the nature of people needing to put people into categories. In the United States, if you have 1/10th black blood – you are legally a black person. You may look fair and have straight hair but legally you are not ‘white’. The judicial system has put that person into a box and has exercised on a legislative level this “categorizing”. People all over the world have done this categorizing. In Rwanda, identity cards were issued to identify who was Hutu and who was Tutsi. Identity cards were issued in apartheid South Africa. In the Caribbean there has been a history of “intra-racism” based on the darkness of a person’s skin. People are compelled to identify the race and/or ethnicity of others. People are also compelled to be exclusive about their own race/ethnicity. Many people do not immediately accept my identity as a Grenadian because being Grenadian implicitly means being black. Before being accepted in a Grenadian social setting I have to ‘prove’ myself. I have to ‘audition’. The fate of my identity in that case lies in the hands and minds of the people ‘evaluating’ my performance of identity. At times an individual is accepted into another racial or ethnic setting but not without a signifier to preserve our compulsion. A black person in the States may be accepted full-on by a white community – but many times by their initiated community or by other black persons may be signified as ‘oreo’. Black on the outside – white on the inside. The same principle applies to Asians being called ‘banana’. A white person in a black community may be accepted but with the signifier, “He/she isn’t like the others…” And in some cases no matter how long a person of a particular race or ethnicity spends in another homogenous setting they will always be identified as the “other”. This compulsion about our own identity and the identity of others has been the catalyst for history’s grossest atrocities. Apartheid, segregation, pogroms, holocaust, genocide, and war. Countless millions have died and perhaps billions have suffered during the course of history because of these ideas that we are who we are, and they are different. People defend their skin color and ethnicity and offend human life. In the course of history personal and group identity based on race and ethnicity has trumped the value for human life. This may be a simplistic and cursory analysis and I realize that there are more issues at stake such as religion, politics and economics. My point is to minimize the issue down to this point so that on a personal level we can realize the horrible potential within us to judge others. Then we realize that once we have the capability to judge, we have the capacity to condemn. We have seen the progression through history. There is no greater enemy to the concept of Humanity – than the concept of race and ethnicity. There is no greater distraction from the unifying concept of ‘living as one’, as race and ethnicity. Unite as humans. People seem to be ill-prepared to unite within their own groups much less each other. Rebel against the concepts handed to you about other people and yourself. Confront stereotypes. Educate yourself on other people and other parts of the world. Unite as people – not peoples. | 
