I grew up in a culture that was fraught with racial tension.

I can say this: We never knew the other sides of the racial partition. Yes we heard stories, heard from them directly and made our own judgements good and bad. But we never knew them. But I don’t know my own cousins’ family either. Again, I know alot about them but they finally run on rythmns and rational I will never completely understand. Racial culture starts in families and those bonds are what hold the culture together. Individual races often don’t understand themselves and deep divisions open up. They don’t share these with the other groups because they might be a sign of weakness. So the internal chemistry intensifies. The internal code system becomes more elaborate. The race becomes more different. And history is always there, ringing its mighty bell, reminding everyone where everyone comes from, who did what to whom and why.

People wonder, often with great frustration, when it will end. It will not end. We will go on covetting our own priveleges, projecting our ideals, and nurturing and protecting our own. Can you actually imagine doing other wise? No. It is impossible. You are human, a tribal hunter and forager, kitted up with language to create networks of communication and cooperation among YOUR people. And that tendency will cause conflicts with other groups that will intensify differences.

Where I grew up what works best is perpetual, enlightened engagement. Liberals take pride in this. They are right to adopt this strategy. They do it incorrectly sometimes but the strategy absolutely doomed to make mistakes. It is a humiliating process and very difficult. But its all we have for all of time. We can not surrender to this particular human trait. We will never destroy it. So much of what we cherish comes from racial culture. So much good comes from tightly knit communities. But the cost of isolation is very great, for our group and all those we contact.

We have to read history, be aware and confront problems with what the buddists call awareness, and forthright honest self-respect. We must know that we will always struggle. But as the USA and other cultural amalgams prove, we can have some successes. We can do better. We can continually wake up. Together and struggling with it is better than apart and killing each other. Its not just a moral point. Its an economic one. Cultural understanding has repeatedly demonstrated a rise in living standards. We are not perfect but we must fight on. The other option is finally war, which is failure, which is the abyss.