We are all Africans

While I was out having a drink with a friend the other day, a gentleman sat down next to us and interjected himself into a conversation my friend and I were having. At one point, the conversation shifted to the topic of racism and he drunkenly declared, in a rather bellicose manner, that, “We are all racists!”

This is a phrase that one hears quite frequently nowadays, often by those who hold some degree of racially biased opinions. While it may seem harmless on it's face, this rhetorical assertion is a dishonest appraisal of the relatively common bias within human culture, and breeds a tolerance for racially biased points of view that deserve no respect, whatsoever.

We all possess a tendency, due to our genetic and societal evolution, to identify by group. In our days as hunter gatherers when food was not easy to come by, identifying with the right group meant life or death and this fostered the genetic traits that gave us this feature.

In modern society, this tendency reveals itself in various ways, you can see it in sports, religion, and of course, in racial bias.

To say that we are all racist, is incorrect. It would be more accurate to say that we all have a tendency toward racism and group psychology. Knowledge about human biology and history gives us insight which can allow our conscious minds to easily overcome this side effect of our evolution.

Those of you who are openly racist or have racist feelings and seek to justify them, please do so, but not with the qualification that all others are racist, just admit you are ignorant.

If you still have trouble quelling those underlying feelings toward individuals of another nationality or race, try to remember that while we are not all racists, we are all Africans.