We humans are, to use an out-of-date expression, some mighty queer customers.  We have to hate.  All over the world, my fellow human beings have demonstrated to anyone who would care to watch that we just plain need to hate.

Why are we twice as adept at hurting as we are at caring?

Not very many days ago, a troubled man from India posted something in an online forum that shows just how isolated we aren’t.  He was decrying the level of racism in India, talking about what he called the Indians’ “fetish and bias towards fair skin”.  Before you laugh and say there aren’t any white Indians, see if you can get one to talk to you about the caste system.  Sure, I know that it was supposed to have been eliminated way back during the British Raj.  Just like racism disappeared in the United States at the end of our Civil War, right?

He suggested a deep-cutting and broad system of forced integration, mandatory job switching, and affirmative action.  It was meant in the highest spirit of equality, just as our own programs are.

These ideas have all been tried in many places all over the world. Quotas don’t work. So-called “affirmative action” doesn’t smooth over color boundaries; it accentuates them and makes people angry on all sides. I commended him on his sentiments and his good heart, but if there were an easy answer, it would have been used by now.

This kind of thing makes me sad, because it isn’t really about color. It’s about some petty little people looking for reasons to scorn others. You can see it in isolated suburban settings. Even in a small suburban school, where almost all students are of the same race, color, economic level and even religion, some kids are reviled because they have the wrong brand of backpack or lunchbox.

In Northern Ireland, Bosnia and other places, people who look alike kill each other for having the wrong religion.  “My god tells me I have to kill all followers of your god.”

There are people in this world whose self-esteem is such that they have to find somebody to look down upon in order to feel good about themselves. It’s quite sad, ignorant, dangerous, and often violent.  Is there anyone who believes that the Tutsis and Hutus are a different race?

Having spoken with many of my own friends from India, I believe the “caste” system is still a serious problem. The U.S. has also has to struggle with bigotry being ingrained in tradition, ignorance, everyday life, and even religion. We still struggle with it, but I hope we’re learning. It takes time, and the movement must build support one person at a time until it is so overwhelming that society will just not put up with it anymore.

I have spoken with children who come home from school heartbroken — agonizing! — because their cruel classmates attacked them because of their clothing.  We’re passing it on to our children, for crying out loud.

I don’t have a problem with judging people and their actions according to a rational system of values.  If somebody attacks your mother, you are allowed to dislike that person — and if you don’t, something is wrong with your survival instinct.  But without personal knowledge of an individual’s actions, words or character, there is no rational basis for hatred.

Are you listening?  No rational basis!  If you refuse to abandon irrational ideas, then you are refusing to embrace the only thing that makes you human.  Rats get angry.  Pigs get horny.  Dogs develop irrational fears.  I choose not to be a rat, or a pig, or a dog, but a man.

Bigotry is not a value.  It has no value.  Parents, your daughter is going to marry that other-race person.  Maybe even another female!  You can choose to accept this, or you can lose your daughter.  If you choose to lose your daughter, you are an ass.  And I shall tell you that to your face.

Isn’t it disgusting?  Aren’t you revolted?  Is it really going to take a zero-tolerance policy on intolerance?  The U.S. has outlawed discrimination on the basis of gender, color, religion, sexual preference… all sorts of new “hate” crimes… but we still manage to come up with new things to hate about other people.

We shall never see equality until we, as a human race, stop talking about how different we all are.