Throughout history there has always been one group of people who thought themselves superior; giving them “permission” to own others they deemed “inferior”.
In the story of the Tower of Babel, G-d scattered the people and gave them different languages not because one was “better” than another, but because He wanted to make it more difficult for them to try and another tower.
If I could un-invent anything bigotry would be the big one.
On his voyages of discovery, Christopher Columbus landed on an island filled with people…some of them with dark skin. Calling the entire population “barbarians”, Columbus referred to the people with dark skin -negro (black in Spanish) and erroneously thinking that he had found a new route to India, he referred to the others as Indao (Indians).
And so it began…
“They” say not to judge a book by its cover. So why judge a person by the way they look or the colour of their skin???
Ever notice when slavery was legal how a person with darker skin was not allowed to darken the front door of a southern plantation mansion; BUT the slave owner had no problem with skulking down to the slave quarters to make “a boodie call”?
Or how performers in places in Harlem like The Apollo or Cotton Club were not even allowed to use the front door of their own clubs????????
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian!”, words spoken all too often by frontier travelers during the early days of western expansion.
There is good and bad in all people. Lumping an entire group of people and giving them a “label” – especially a bad one – all due to the experience of ONE person is not just a bad idea…it is WRONG!
If you must judge someone, then do it by what they are (good, bad, compassionate, a snob, etc.), not who they are (male, female, light skin, dark skin, ability, disability).
Recent years in the United States have shown that bigotry is not only alive and well in the country; it is positively thriving; all due to the bad assumptions and attitudes of ONE man!
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We have become a divided nation…one that may never be whole again and it is all due to BIGOTRY!