From the beginning of human history, people of all races have migrated across continents, a truly remarkable feat, especially during the migrations that occurred on foot alone from Africa to Asia and Europe and the Americas. Historians, archeologists, anthropologists, and scientists have made astonishing discoveries of our ancestral roots, especially with the relatively current knowledge of our DNA. We now have a good deal of evidence that suggests all of humankind began in Africa, and over the centuries, migrated throughout the world. During the course of adapting to different climates and environments, our genetics changed, and we became different races, even though we all share the same core DNA. We now have good reason to believe that even Native Americans migrated from Asia to North America and over time became a unique race of people from the blending of different Asian races.
In addition to migration, warfare among empires resulted in the combination of races between the conquerors and the conquered. Everywhere in the world, the captives among the conquered were made slaves, and, eventually slave trade became a cruel but lucrative market between Africa and the other nations in the world. Human history has been brutal no matter where we look, from incessant warfare to slavery and gladiators and the oppression of women of all races. The wealthy few in every nation tyrannized and exploited the rest of the populations without mercy.
Only within the last 200 years have nations been slowly developing a moral conscience for people who look or act differently from themselves, and we are still far from total acceptance of the ideal of placing equal value on every human life regardless of race, gender, culture, sexual orientation, religion, or economic means. Tragically, we are still living within the conqueror vs. the conquered paradigm, and peace is still a far-off dream of dreamers who yearn for it. Sadly, we are caught in the web of winners and losers and still cannot envision a world in which we can all win. We seem to be trapped in the illusion of needing to control others to get what we want or need, so we waste our lives trying to prove our superiority to be on top of the food chain. We have yet to imagine how we might get our needs met without having to manipulate, oppress, or exploit others. We will not be able to envision or even desire peace until we can imagine and trust in the ideal of equality and our ability to collaborate with each other to meet all our needs.
To envision this ideal, I find it helpful to draw from personal experience rather than from academia or the latest politically correct bandwagon. I think of my neighborhood, for example. We are a diverse people. Many of us are recent immigrants. My husband is an immigrant from Greece. Our son is an immigrant from Romania. Our next-door neighbors are immigrants from Mexico. Our neighbors down the road came from Yugoslavia. The family a few doors down are African-American, and the people living in the apartment complex at the end of the street encompass a variety of cultures and races.
Each of us has brought something unique and special to the neighborhood. My husband has brought the way of life he experienced while growing up in his family’s Greek village. He makes a point to meet and greet our neighbors as though they are family, and he helps them out whenever he can. His Greek-village spirit has caught on, and while I enjoy baking banana-nut bread for our neighbors, they enjoy sharing their homemade tacos or anything else they like to bring to the table. We enjoy hearing each other’s life stories and listening to each other’s music. Sometimes, we come together to help one neighbor in need, such as helping the elderly lady across the street to recover from the grief of losing her husband by planting a tree in his honor in her front lawn. We have even helped to raise each other’s children.
Personally, I do not have a drop of Greek in my blood, but having loved my husband and my adoptive mother who was a Greek-American, I have come to adopt many of the Greek ways into my life, just as I have integrated influences from friends or from authors of books whose ideas inspired me. My DNA is British, Irish, Scottish, French, Norwegian, and Swedish, and although I feel the call of the bagpipes and the haunting Celtic melodies in my veins, I also feel the beat of the drums of cultures far removed from my ancestry, and I feel the human spirit in the beauty of every culture’s art. Perhaps the history of the many lives of my soul speaks more to me than my physical DNA. Whatever the case may be, when we look at our collective history from the beginning of humankind, it is clear that we have all been transplanted from one place to another, and every culture has something precious to offer that can make us better. Therefore, I suggest we bloom wherever we are transplanted and learn from our differences as well as appreciate what we have in common. If I had experienced only one culture, my soul would be impoverished. All the joys and wisdom I have received from the gifts of others who have shared their cultures and different perspectives with me have made my life richer than any amount of money. I feel no need to be superior. I would much rather dance and sing and laugh with my neighbors and celebrate every day as a holiday.
Photo Credit: Luca Bravo
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