I don’t think anyone would contend that it is a part of the Main Stream of our generation’s culture to feel that “mixing the races,” as previous generations would call it, is an actual, objective moral don’t. This is an example of modern progressive values. We, for the most part, understand that the color of a person’s skin is irrelevant to the content of their character. This idea was novel to the (arguably slim) majority of our parents’ generation. However, it does beg the question: How could something be so obvious to our generation when it was a very major point of contention to another just a few years older? Further, it begs: Will our children find us barbaric in our views for some moral standard we haven’t even conceived of yet?
Think about it. To most of your mothers a “whites only” water fountain was just a fact of life. No reason to question it. Will your daughters ask you, “What the hell took you so long in granting dolphins civil rights?”
I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. I just have all the rum.
I do know that we can’t let tradition dictate our morals to us. Tradition has gotten some things right, but only because it was lucky, not because it had a good system of valuation. Tradition has gotten some things horribly wrong, as well. It’s a crap shoot. The sooner we come to understand and accept this, the sooner we can move forward into the future. We live in an age where we can measure the echo of the moment the universe was created, and men can visit the moon. The old rules are no longer relevant to us. We can just make up our own. We can live in the world we want to live in. Each and every one of us has the responsibility to do something every day to make the world into what we want. You have the responsibility to yourself and to future generations who may feel the same way you do.
Maybe nobody will. It’s a crap shoot. But you exist, and you are you for a reason. Be you. Change the world.
-Today’s post was written by Chris Brown, writer of the web-comic Alchoholgist Airship Alliance. If you are interested in writing a guest post for Screaming Voice of Reason, email me at mbrotherton@screamingvoiceofreason.com
Tags: Guest Post, progress, Racism