Recognizing our shared humanity reduces violence. In this scene from Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing,” Lee illustrates this when he shows the recognition of our shared humanity preventing a Korean man’s store from being burned down during a riot (the riot was caused by the festering wounds of racism, but was sparked by the death of a black man). As the Korean store owner says, “I’m black. You and me, same.” As someone who had a Korean mother and half-black and half-white father, and who grew up in Alabama feeling like a racial outcast, I have devoted much of my life to the dual goals of working to heal the wounds of racism and helping to move humanity toward the higher vision of our shared humanity. If humanity does not make significant progress toward recognizing the reality that we are a global human family, our species will not survive. Recognizing our shared humanity will not solve all the world’s problems, but dehumanization and the denying of each other’s humanity is a major cause of our problems. Regarding the importance of recognizing our shared humanity, Malcolm X said the following one month from his assassination: “I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being, neither white, black, brown nor red. When you are dealing with humanity as one family, there’s no question of integration or intermarriage. It’s just one human being marrying another human being, or one human being living around and with another human being.” - Malcolm X https://youtube/watch?v=4G7TTDEHl5o
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 22:36:16 +0000
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