Human Migration and Racism

I have ancestors from five of the seven continents on Earth. So I have always been fascinated by the history and prehistory of migration of humans all over the Earth. I realize there has never been such a thing as a pure race of humans. We have mixed with each other, and in Europe at the least, with Neanderthals. Therefore, I am proud to be a product of the American melting pot, where all these migrations have come together. There seems to be three primary starting places for all these migrations: the Great rift valley in Africa, the Tibetan Plateau, and the valley of Mesopotamia.

Europeans tend to originate from all three, but the various tribes that became European nations were conditioned to a colder, lower sunlight existence than the people who stayed in Africa and the Middle East.

So far as the anthropologists can discern, the people who settled the Americas came from the Tibetan Plateau and crossed from Siberia to Alaska. There is also evidence of migrations across the oceans from Africa, China, the Mediterranean and Northern Europe. North America has always been a collection point for the various migrations of tribes and clans. New comers would start out keeping to themselves for a few short generations, then become absorbed into the going predominant culture of the land. Phoenicians, Norsemen, pre-Celtic Irish, Moorish monastics fleeing persecution from Roman or Muslim conquerors, anthropologists have found evidence of all of these.

So I am really confused at the attitude of these people who would make a case for “racial purity.” To be the most pure of human race a person would have to be able to trace ancestry to all of the human “races.” Most of us are a mix of three or four “races,” even in the most isolated communities. When people have urged me to take sides in a racist conflict over the years, my response has been, “Which side of me should I take?”

I don’t identify with any of the common racial labels. The government has always classed me as “white” or “Caucasian.” I always want to check the “other” box on government documents, but it causes such a stink when I do that a acquiess to being labeled “white.” When I faced legal problems in a racist city each wanted to condemn me for being too much of the other. I don’t want to be one of them.

Since the racial labels are all questionable and arbitrary, I propose we dump them. I have met humans who resembled elves in superficial ways, yet I have never met an elf. I have met humans who had congenital dwarfism, yet I have never met a Tolkenesque dwarf. I have met humans who resembled the anthropologists’ description of a Neanderthal man, yet I have never met an orc. I have seen Vulcans and Romulans on television and in movies, but not in real life. Face it, there’s only one race of people on Earth, and you are all my family. And I love you, cousins.