If you think you would have stood up for Jews during the Holocaust, then what are you doing now?
A couple of months ago my book club group decided to that we should read "The Zookeepers Wife" by Diane Ackerman. Set in Poland during WWII, the zoo is bombed, animals are killed, and the zookeeper's wife hides and helps 300 jews during a time when her own family was at risk, and her actions could have had dire consequences. As I was reading this book, I was reminded of all the other WWII books I've read and movies I've seen, and the same thought I always get came pouring back.
What would I have done?
It is taboo to talk about this topic in this way, unless you say that you would have helped, you would have spoken up, you would have risked your life and your family to "do the right thing". Well, I don't know. Would I? If I were in the same layer of life I am now, lower middle class, little access to money, stuck in a crappy neighborhood, would I have spoken up/out? I don't know. I would, obviously, like to think, duh, of course, but is that true?
I bring this up to my book club, and of course there is that awkward silence. The sideways glances. Ugh, I can't believe she said that. What a horrible person. And yet, how many people didn't speak up? How many people just stood by while groups of people were deemed non human, not worthy of living, wrong.
And then 2017 happens. White supremacists? Seriously? In 2017, with our advances in genetics, our knowledge of the human genome, of our place in the classification of living organisms. Our DNA is a code of chemicals, the four chemical bases (ATCG) that make up our instructional blueprint it identical to the four chemical bases (ATCG) that make up every known living organism - bacteria, mushrooms, penicillin, spiders, an oak tree, and on and on. As humans we are multicelluar and need to eat for energy, we are therefore classified in the Animal Kingdom. Our classification leads all known humans to be in the same genus and species. We are one. There is one human race. In that same race, there are small differences in our DNA that lead to limited uniqueness. We like to dwell on differences, it helped us survive in the wild. Our instinct to judge, to make assumptions, to stereotype, helpingus survive with split second decisions to run from that noise. Was that a lion? Those early hominids that judged quickly and ran, survived. What is different? Homo sapiens developed a large frontal lobe, a place to think, make decisions, reason. So we still have that instinct to judge, and we do, but the difference is we have a frontal lobe that tells us, ok, I see that you've made a split second judgement, before you react, let's analyze the situation and make a choice on what to do next.
Pick any group of humans you want. Ask yourself this - does that human have a liver, kidneys, lungs, two femurs, external ears, hair, hormones? We are virtually exactly the same, and yet we focus on things like the amount of melanin in the cells of the skin. There is variation in skin color in homo sapiens. This is science. Science doesn't care what you believe (thank you Neil DeGrasse Tyson), and if you believe that skin color makes a person more than or less than any other, than your belief, your claim, is not supported by evidence, and a claim without evidence is not valid.
Now the question becomes, what does society do with a population of people that have false beliefs? People that have built a paradigm on information that has no evidence to support the claims? And who are these people? I'm really curious to know if any atheist scientists identify as white supremacists.
And now, what do we do? A group of misinformed people chose a president that has an invalid belief system. He has yet to demonstrate that his frontal lobe is functional, and yet, I don't deny that he is a human, I just deny that he is a human that should be leading a country. So, do we wait, and for what? What are we doing, what should we do? Will this be in the history books in 50 years? Millions of Americans just stood by as their country crumbled into a pit of racism and despair? If this is a test, we are failing.
A couple of months ago my book club group decided to that we should read "The Zookeepers Wife" by Diane Ackerman. Set in Poland during WWII, the zoo is bombed, animals are killed, and the zookeeper's wife hides and helps 300 jews during a time when her own family was at risk, and her actions could have had dire consequences. As I was reading this book, I was reminded of all the other WWII books I've read and movies I've seen, and the same thought I always get came pouring back.
What would I have done?
It is taboo to talk about this topic in this way, unless you say that you would have helped, you would have spoken up, you would have risked your life and your family to "do the right thing". Well, I don't know. Would I? If I were in the same layer of life I am now, lower middle class, little access to money, stuck in a crappy neighborhood, would I have spoken up/out? I don't know. I would, obviously, like to think, duh, of course, but is that true?
I bring this up to my book club, and of course there is that awkward silence. The sideways glances. Ugh, I can't believe she said that. What a horrible person. And yet, how many people didn't speak up? How many people just stood by while groups of people were deemed non human, not worthy of living, wrong.
And then 2017 happens. White supremacists? Seriously? In 2017, with our advances in genetics, our knowledge of the human genome, of our place in the classification of living organisms. Our DNA is a code of chemicals, the four chemical bases (ATCG) that make up our instructional blueprint it identical to the four chemical bases (ATCG) that make up every known living organism - bacteria, mushrooms, penicillin, spiders, an oak tree, and on and on. As humans we are multicelluar and need to eat for energy, we are therefore classified in the Animal Kingdom. Our classification leads all known humans to be in the same genus and species. We are one. There is one human race. In that same race, there are small differences in our DNA that lead to limited uniqueness. We like to dwell on differences, it helped us survive in the wild. Our instinct to judge, to make assumptions, to stereotype, helpingus survive with split second decisions to run from that noise. Was that a lion? Those early hominids that judged quickly and ran, survived. What is different? Homo sapiens developed a large frontal lobe, a place to think, make decisions, reason. So we still have that instinct to judge, and we do, but the difference is we have a frontal lobe that tells us, ok, I see that you've made a split second judgement, before you react, let's analyze the situation and make a choice on what to do next.
Pick any group of humans you want. Ask yourself this - does that human have a liver, kidneys, lungs, two femurs, external ears, hair, hormones? We are virtually exactly the same, and yet we focus on things like the amount of melanin in the cells of the skin. There is variation in skin color in homo sapiens. This is science. Science doesn't care what you believe (thank you Neil DeGrasse Tyson), and if you believe that skin color makes a person more than or less than any other, than your belief, your claim, is not supported by evidence, and a claim without evidence is not valid.
Now the question becomes, what does society do with a population of people that have false beliefs? People that have built a paradigm on information that has no evidence to support the claims? And who are these people? I'm really curious to know if any atheist scientists identify as white supremacists.
And now, what do we do? A group of misinformed people chose a president that has an invalid belief system. He has yet to demonstrate that his frontal lobe is functional, and yet, I don't deny that he is a human, I just deny that he is a human that should be leading a country. So, do we wait, and for what? What are we doing, what should we do? Will this be in the history books in 50 years? Millions of Americans just stood by as their country crumbled into a pit of racism and despair? If this is a test, we are failing.
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