A jew, a christian and a muslim get in to a hybrid not joke

The only real cure for racism is for people to spend time together, get to know each other, and recognize each other's humanity. Horray for the Sierra Club!

 

agreed...

one of the many messages conveyed in the Lord of the Rings when an elf and a dwarf learned not only to work together but how much they really had in common.

 

I think it takes a bit more time than a road trip to really knock down some of the walls that divide society. Besides, if the personalities don't mesh, forget race/religion/ethnicity, its gonna be a loooong trip.

 

well you notice that as usual, its religious dogma causing most of the problems.

to me its so funny that everyone's idea of God is so different especially considering that God was the exact same extraterristrial all over the world.

 

Every culture invents its own god(s). It's no surprise they're all so different.

No, but knocking down the walls that divide individuals is the necessary first step.

If every Jew became personal friends with one Palestinian, and every Palestinian became personal friends with one Jew, the rest would be a piece of cake.

 

you can't hate people that you know...

it's a simple fact. you can only really hate whole groups if you de-personalize them. once you get together, you find the similarities vastly outweigh the differences, especially if all parties are, as they are in this case, educated.

 

Technically, Jews and Palestinians are the same race, along with the Arabs: Semites. However, race is more a matter of perception than reality, based on skin color most often, and facial features; but in the case of Jews and Arabs the "racial" divide is cultural and religious.

I read somewhere that there is more genetic diversity within any given race than there is between races, making the whole concept of race a cultural myth, having no meaning at all except sociologically, as people judge or mistreat each other based on perceived "racial" differences.

 

Well there are some medical differences between races, like some kinds of cancer and such.

If I recall correctly, skin coloration darkens to keep out the oversaturation of Vitamin K from the sun and lightens to let in as much Vitamin K as possible. During pregnancy, too much Vitamin K increases the cases of problems with birth.

Of course, medical differences mean nothing so far as the notion racial inferiority goes. That's all hogwash.

 

There are a few medical conditions, such as sickle-cell anemia, which are statistically more common in certain races. However, I was refering to the fact that such intra-racial commonalities are dwarfed by the overwhealming inter-racial commonalities, and by the differences between individuals within any given race.

 

LeVautRien said"

"If I recall correctly, skin coloration darkens to keep out the oversaturation of Vitamin K from the sun and lightens to let in as much Vitamin K as possible."

Response:

Over the years I've read several theorys on why skin is darker in some areas than in others. Vitamin wise, the most common discussion seems to center around vitamin D. But the most plausible axplanation I've found centers around the fact that skin is darker in warmer climes simply because the body needs to do a better job of getting rid of absorbed heat (black radiates heat much more effectively than does white). In cold climates of course, it's necessary for the body to retain as much heat as possible. Apparently, evolution has decided that getting rid of heat (or not) takes a higher priority than absorbing heat (or not).

 

well as long as there are differences between one person to another, racism will flourish.

dwarfs, mentally challenged, and others suffer from discrimination. although it is getting better, we still have a long long way to go.

 

I always thought that skin color was an adaptation to protect against sunburn. Or, alternatively, that we evolved from ancestors who had lots of melanin in the skin to protect against sunburn, and races that migrated to high latitudes lost the melanin because it no longer served a purpose.

The world has gotten too crowded for racism. Either we learn to appreciate each others' differences, or we'll end up killing ourselves off. I'm getting old enough that the choice we make won't affect me for much longer, but I'm still pushing for appreciation. One of my favorite t-shirts says, "CELEBRATE DIVERSITY

 

Could be Vitamin D...I could have just gotten confused. And sunburns don't matter because the cancer we'd then get would strike us later in life than early man lived.

I personally think racism is just a natural human condition that civilization can eventually cure. Currently, skin color makes an easy target, but imagine if we were all the same ethnicity...would suddenly hair color become the pattern for some racist-like behavoir? Some people simply want to hate something, sadly.

 

I agree about cancer, but protection from sunburn is very important: an individual that had no protection from sunburn would burn, dehydrate, and die.

I don't think that people "want to hate something." I think that we are born open and accepting of everything, and that hatred is taught by parents to their children. It's a sociological phenomenon. I do not know the answer, but I don't believe it necessarily has to continue forever.

 

Ah, I didn't mean to imply that it would last forever. When I said people want to hate something, I meant not as an inborn thing but as a societal reaction. Certain conditions do definatly seem to generate much animosity whereas others generate absolutely none.

 

Two of my best friends back in HS happened to be Jewish and Muslim (and they were good friends with each other too). I was lucky enough to go to an incredibly diverse HS in a very diverse region (the DC suburbs). And I think most of the people coming out of the area's schools have very open-minds and broad world-views. But I think an important that diversity is arrived at by choice, naturally, and not at gunpoint (or by busing). Our prom limo had 7 couples (1 or 2 more than legally allowed, I think), and 6 of them were interracial. But its only significant because we didn't say "lets do this social activisim thing," that's just how things happened to work out among a large group of friends. An attempt to force people to get along seems like it could badly backlash.

Personally, I think economic differences trump religious and culteral boundaries (see: born again Christian-American Bush being best friends with Muslim Saudi Prince Bandar).