Comment by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 31, 2022 at 9:01pm

One reason we're sometimes reluctant to talk about it is that it's an illusion:

ie a space-alien biologist, who saw light in some different wavelength, might simply fail to find consistent, significant genetic differences between us.

& yet we-all seem to have somehow divided ourselves into two mutually-hostile nations -- not that most of us intend to be hostile; only that our very skins somehow become foreign uniforms to each other. & that makes direct talk about the barriers risky, at risk of misunderstanding & being misunderstood.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 8th mo. 3, 2022 at 7:10pm

So, can an illusion injure real people? We know it can; yet we find the whole phenomena baffling! Many people (called "white") and many people (called "black"), most of us well-intentioned, with no consistent genetic differences (aside from a few genes affecting skin pigments and resistance to malaria -- and yet those of us called "white" have been persistently in a state of economic war against those others, ever since our ancestors began to bully them into forced labor. Those of us called "black" have been persistently inclined to distrust our good intentions, finding us persistently clueless and indifferent towards the insults and injustices they continue to suffer at "our" hands. I utterly doubt this is at all what any of us had in mind.

Yet the condition persists despite considerable mutual good-will, as inexorably as if we did intend it.

Should we be surprised to find ourselves bewildered as to how that happens, and how it might be redressed?

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