Am I really color blind? (10/25/2023)

As everyone that blogs should and it is something I haven’t yet, is speak out about the latest happenings in the Middle East. In the past I was somewhat neutral about what was going on; however, the attack by Hamas nudged my neutrality of kilter, a bit. Having lived in the Arabic/Islamic world for two years, I was somewhat sympathetic with their plight; I really believed that the Palestinians had an equal right to a country of their own as the Israelis (or in other words, Jews). While this opinion has not changed, the Hamas attack was horrific and I condemn it. However, in my opinion, retaliation by Israel will just worsen the divide. Yes, Israel wants to eliminate Hamas but the collateral killing will just harden the lines between the Islamic world and the Jews. Both groups are at fault in my eyes and actually, I am not sure if I see a way out. And I haven’t written about the plight of the hostages.

Now I have always claimed to be neutral in this case (but who actually cares about what I think). You can almost say I am colorblind when it comes to this case. It is this word colorblind that I really want to write about. The Washington Post (10/19/2023) had an article about the wish to abolish the idea of race designations the upcoming census. The article tells us that we human beings have 99.9% of our DNA in common with each other. In other words, we are so similar that race seems to be an artificial construct to claim superiority (especially by folks who have a white skin color). I have always argued in the genetics classes that I teach that the African population is evolutionary more advanced than the European folks, since the African folks have a lot more variability in their Ribosomal DNA than the other groups on earth. This shows that they have been in the evolutionary process much longer and all other ethnic groups originate from them. In other words, I don’t think I discriminate and I used to consider myself color blind.

From the Washington Post I learned that calling myself colorblind is actually discriminatory and that got me thinking. Is my neutrality with and consideration of the Middle East conflict as a conflict between Palestinian and Jews, me telling you that I am colorblind in this conflict, discriminatory? Interesting to think about. Here I am dividing the waring parties into two distinct groups, instead of just calling them plain human beings. It seems to me that a lot of warring and fighting comes from pigeon holing people into one group or another, whether it is religion, race, political belief, and so on. No folks, we are just human beings with what seems to be a lot of faults and weaknesses. Privately I wonder if strife would disappear if we consider ourselves equal human beings.

A lot of my readers will know that I was born in the depths of Africa, the Congo. I grew up in the Caribbean and was partially raised by a black maid, had black friends who I often played with or went fishing with after school. Somewhat tongue in cheek I used to tell my employers that they should classify me as African American to show how diverse their hiring practices are. Moreover, I sometimes tell black folks here that I am more African American that they are, having been born in Africa. Folks tell me that I do not have the correct skin color to be considered African American (I wasn’t born in what was at that time racist South Africa, but I am not count as a strike for or against calling myself African American) . However, I now feel emboldened by the article in the Post about colorblindness. I am human and no different than anyone else out there; however, I was born in Africa and have US citizenship!

Honestly, have no firm opinion about all this, but it got me thinking. I am contemplating about any solution to racial, ethnic and all other forms of discrimination. I honestly wish that all folks of different religions, skin color, country, sexual orientation, political persuasion would agree that they are human and no different than someone who is different than the. That they treat them with respect. Yes, I still wish for world peace!

Walking in the woods gives me time to contemplate things like this.  I am actually slightly color blind and often have a difficult time distinguishing between the leaves and a red bird, kike a cardinal.

On Islamophobia (11/3/2017)

So here I was planning to write my next blog post about spiders and the fear of spiders; however, you all will need to wait.  I feel the need to write about the need for another fear, Islamophobia.

I was teaching one of my workshops in Northern Virginia, this week.  It was two days after this 29-year-old nut from Uzbekistan drove a Home Depot truck over a bike path in New York City, killing eight and wounding more than a dozen.  My workshop is for inspectors that go on construction sites to make sure that the contractors follow the federal and state environmental laws and regulations; and local codes and ordinances.  I teach my students a module on situational awareness, as part of the class.  This ranges from a tripping hazards to aggressive people.

Northern Virginia is very diverse.  During breaks in my workshop I had a fun talk with a lady from Iran who works from one of the counties in the region, and with two guys from Nepal who had heard that I had lived and worked in Nepal and wanted to know more about me and my stay there.  My classes up there are always a fun multicultural mish-mash of people as opposed to other regions in Virginia where it is ethnically pretty boring.

My class had ended and I was approached by a middle-aged (50-ish) Arabic looking gentleman who wanted to ask me a question.  He spoke very softly and I had to ask him three times to repeat himself.  The first two times I understood that it had something to do about his arm.  Finally, the fourth time it came out: “are weapons allowed on a building site.”  So it was not about his arm but about the other definition of arms or weapons.

My “friend” had a building site that he was inspecting where the contractor was openly carrying a gun (yes we in Virginia have an open and a concealed carrying law).  The contractor would of course need to accompany the inspector on his round showing his gun and also inspect the most remote corners of the project.  You get my drift, the inspector felt very intimidated.  Being a Muslim, looking and sounding obviously Arabic, even in when dressed in western clothing, just having had the killing in New York, and having a Fox News and other conservative media whipping up the masses against Muslims and immigration (and people who carry can be assumed to be conservative), he was scared.  My heart broke!

Regular readers of my blog may know I worked in international development.  I took this picture during a wedding in a village in Yemen to which we were invited when I worked there in the mid 1980s.  Just before the ceremony the men went out to the border of the village to do a shooting competition/target practice.  It is all friendly, but everyone there was armed to the teeth (even during a friendly wedding).  To tell you the truth no one from the Arab world should be afraid of weapons, that makes this case I write about so remarkable.

When we arrived at the weeding we were welcomed by this sight.  We had an absolutely great time that day.  We were made welcome and there was no discrimination.

I had a long talk with him, gave him some solutions, and hopefully set him at ease, but obviously it kept bugging and eating at me.  I am just amazed that some of us still have to live in fear because of our ethnicity.  I realize that this is why we have the black lives matter movement and we still need to worry about civil rights.  There are still fringe groups in society that think they are better than others and they are the reason why we had gatherings like in Charlottesville that even the guy in our Whitehouse does not dare to condemn.  I see that today’s people in power are trying to erode our civil rights and try to silence us with terms like “fake news.”  Don’t let them do it, a lot of the news is real, my inspector friend made me realize that again this week.

Just a miscellaneous picture of a Yemeni village (town) somewhare in the desert.  My heart breaks again thinking about the civil war they have gone through in the past years.