How To Heal The Divisions In America

It's easy. Just make sure everyone knows that all of us, rich or poor, black or white, tall or short, come from a pack of imperialist, warmongering slaveholders. Ideas are what make the difference, not race.

I'm currently making my way through the excellent A Short History of Africa. I've already been surprised by a couple of things.

• Iron working originated in Africa. 
• The reason Europeans bought instead of captured slaves from West Africa was not just the mortality rate from disease upon landing on the continent, but the fact that the Africans were more than capable of making any military expedition very expensive. 
• Once the Mediterranean and Arabic cultures advanced sufficiently,  the black Africans found that they could make a good living trading raw materials for finished goods. These raw materials included gold, ivory, spices and slaves.

And, of course, the African kingdoms, like the Europeans, the American Indian tribes, the Aztecs, the Incas, the Chinese dynasties, the Indian whatever-they-weres and the Ottoman Empire used warfare and conquest to expand their influence.

Doesn't it make you feel better to hear that? Everyone you meet on the street is a descendant of a pack of ravening jerks. We're all here because someone back in the day whupped up on someone else and took their stuff. Ahhh, sweet, sweet unity.

What made us different and made America what it is in particular, are ideas. Specifically, the ideas of Athens, Jerusalem and London. The logic and reason of the Greek philosophers means we make sense of the world around us. The faith and morality of the Jews and Christians means we see each other as equals, each made in the image of God. The legal and political systems of the English gives us stability.

The things that divide us now, perceived slights and oppression of the past are irrelevant, especially when you consider that all of our predecessors are positively drenched in those sins. Yep, we're all one, big, happy family of schweinhunds.

"We just got back from a corporate offsite and now that we know all of our ancestors were jerks, we feel so much more harmony!