KK> True enough.  A century ago the existence of "races" was so obvious to
 KK> people that they had to find solutions.  Today we know that genetically
 KK> there is no such thing as "race,"  and that we all have an instinctive
 KK> tendency to fear and hate anyone who looks different than we do.  That
 KK> is the basis of racism.
 KK> When a person is desperately awaiting an organ for an organ transplant,
 KK> doctors know they must have an organ from a donor who is genetically as
 KK> close as possible, or the organ will be rejected by the body. It is not
 KK> unusual that the donor whose organ is genetically closest to that of the
 KK> donee is from another "race."
 KK> Take any two African gorillas from different social groups, and you will
 KK> find more genetic 'distance' than you find between any two humans
 KK> _anywhere on earth_.  "Race' is a fiction based on trivial physical
 KK> characteristics that trigger our instinctive hatred of people outside of
 KK> our tribe.
 KK> There is a modern explanation for this xenophobia, this instictive need
 KK> to support the Cowboys versus the Broncos, this instinctive hatred of
 KK> people with slanted eyes or chocolate skin, or a language we don't
 KK> understand: no one can survive alone on the savannah or the forest, but
 KK> a group can survive quite well.  So those who instinctively formed
 KK> groups were those who survived.
   All of this is, of course, quite true, Keith, but it makes for even 
reater
mystery when one considers that the racial myth and a myth of the brotherhood
of man under a "fatherhood of God" can exist simultaneously in a group as it
did so strongly in the American South and still does within certain social
circles.  Spiritual movements have not overcome this tendency and neither has
education.  I find SOME explanation ( the terror of the savannah, e.g., to
which you've already alluded) but not all of it in Blumenbergs, _Work on 
yth_
demonstrating that myths (the Promethean, Judeo-Christian, others) are
non-static entities with "histories" of their own.  My childhood experience
was a range of curiosities I had to resist as my world quite early in life
grew wider by reason of circumstances.  In the typical Southern village, the
"colored" people were ONLY feared if they should step out of their fixed 
oles
of both servant and "bearing of servility."  In fact, as Edwin Adams Davis
(one of my graduate professors) showed in one of his book, the "free people 
f
color" (who might even be skilled, independent workers such as barbers) had a
different code of social relationships with the "white" upper class than did
the slaves.  
   In the typical Fundamentalist religious body of my childhood much time,
energy and even money could be devoted to overseas missions to "the heathen
Chinee" or even Africa while blandly refusing brotherhood to the other race
within their midst.  Those who might have noticed this simply did not dare to
express it.  World War II began the process of placing the ambiguity and
glaring inconsistency of such a position before the American people, yet, as
is obvious, even the half century since has brought about no complete
consensus against it and the woods are full of closet racists and people 
hose
every expression in ordinary conversation reveals their firm racism yet they
honestly do not BELIEVE themselves to be racist.   A large reason for this,
IMHO, is the knowledge that there is no Ku Klux Klan in the background as a
viable force to be negated theoretically while still operating in reality to
offer behind the scenes protection against social openness.  
   Perhaps it is no wonder that a counteractant myth of "true" justice in 
ome
realm of reality beyond this one also "lives" and offers a "faith" beyond
hypocritical religious social circles that somewhere there must be an
adjustment.  But, that faith is NOT any assurance whatsoever.
   Withdrawal into the "realm of pure contemplation" is one approach and
society DOES  have its philosophers who make that attempt but the affect upon
the "body politic" from this quarter is seemingly negligible.
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
---------------