The Human Race, as we know it today, is thought to have started about two million years ago with the first of the Genus Homo - Homo habilis. A note: although as factual as I can make it, some "facts" here are not universally accepted, nor are they totally proven - I am presenting them to you as the best accepted facts as we know them today based on my research. I am not an anthropologist, nor do I have any formal training in the field. This is not meant to be a scientific paper from that perspective. There may have been a distant ancestor that could have met the criteria to be considered of the Genus Homo, but they are speculative as best as I can determine with my limited knowledge. If you are wondering what qualifies a creature as belonging to our genus, as best as I can determine it is the change to bipedalism, or walking upright on two legs. This helped make changes in body structure - and was caused by them as well - like longer legs, change to spinal structure, and arches in the feet to conserve energy and assist in balance. Enough of that, this was not intended as an anthropology lesson either! So, we have the first somewhat "human-like" creature. It has a larger brain than its evolutionary ancestors and not using its hands for forward movement allowed them to become more dexterous and nimble. These facts allowed them to use tools, which gave them more control over their environment. What little evidence remains of Habilis shows they were social, at least in that they were in camps, or packs if you will. This long introduction takes us to where I was trying to get!
When Homo habilis joined into groups for hunting, protection, and procreation they became an Us or We. Even if they had no words for it, the feeling was there. Every animal has an Us or We cognizance, as do humans to this day, at least to an extent. When a group of habilis, or later Home orgaster, Homo antecessor, Homo erectus, Homo beidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, to us - Homo Sapiens gather in a family unit, tribe, etc. one of the aspects of the group is protection. Four people can fend of predators - of the two or four legged type - better than a single person can. Identifying the predators or potential threats is part of the issue. One way is the Us vs Them. Any animal (prior to domestication, but I am not including that complication here) or hominid could be filtered by appearance. Humans eyes are some of, if not the, best long distance sensors we have. So, does that person look different? Us vs Them.
In millennia past in most cases Them were to be driven away or killed. Unless the Them could quickly prove they were no danger or could offer something to the group it was better just to be done with them immediately. The point I want to make is this - the Us vs Them still lives within the ancient part of our brain and cognizance. We divide ourselves into groups in many ways. Sports teams supporters are one. If you are wearing a certain team's jersey and run into someone also wearing the same, you feel somewhat of a kinship in a lot of cases. Work groups can be another group. Home Depot vs Lowe's for example. If a blue apron meets an orange one they know they represent "enemies". There are rivalries between States, Countries, Cities, even neighborhoods. They vary in their intensity, but wars between nations are well known to all of us.
What drove me to write this was the Us vs Them that has developed in politics. It has become very, very divisive in a large portion of society. One thing I want to mention here is that this division is being manipulated by news organizations and political organizations themselves. News organizations need viewers/readers to survive. Eyeballs on advertisements are critical to their business models. Political organizations need supporters to vote, to proselytize for them to obtain more supporters, and for money to support their efforts, Us vs Them is an easy way to do so as it reaches into that reptilian part of our brain that sees different as dangerous or even evil. We tune in to be told what offenses the other side has committed and to hear what our side is doing for us. I have seen this divide grow exponentially in my lifetime and to a tremendous extent in the past twenty years or so. It is no longer enough to say that the "other side" is wrong or mistaken. They are painted with vile and evil terms so they can be viewed as non-human. A non-human can be treated with total disdain and even killed as they are not even a person. This is dangerous indeed. It means a total breakdown in civilized discourse and activities. It is truly a danger to all of us.
The reason I started this with an anthropology lesson was to show that the basis for this divide is ingrained. It is being played to by people that understand this. However, it is not absolute or inevitable that we hate those that are different. What it does take is dialog. Conversation and discourse between people with differing opinions is necessary. That is one thing that has all but disappeared. Each side has its own news providers, its own "heroes", its own dialog. Anyone that does not toe the line is disregarded totally if not worse.
How do we start to overcome this? The first thing is to make sure we do not spread this to the next generations. Children are born without bias. They don't even see skin color or things that adults use to separate us. They learn bias from the adults in their lives. We need to make sure that schools do not spread bias. A lot of the anti-xxxx (insert whatever here - racist, homophobic, or other labels) movements draw attention to differences. If you truly want to stop bias, for example, racism - stop asking what race someone is when they are registering for anything. I know some of this is due to regulations and laws. They need to be changed. There are and always will be racists. The issue is there are and always will be people that try to profit off of race. If we point out repeatedly that group A is under or over represented in a occupation, a school, etc. we will never get beyond it.The same goes for a lot of the differences that we are arguing over today daily. The climate debate has gone beyond save the planet to a profit making cult. Republicans, even of the MAGA variety, are not inherently evil. Nor are Democrats of any ilk. We are all in this together. We are being played for profit by those in power. Providing an evil to fear and hate keeps up occupied from seeing that our leaders are mostly only there to build their wealth and power. Congress-creatures wealth increases much faster than the average person's does during the same period. We are not supposed to notice this and if we do we are to blame it on the EVIL OTHER SIDE! We need to broaden "US" to include all humans, or at least all humans that want to live in a society. There are true evils outside of our tribe group that need addressing.
Them can be those that truly do not want to see change or peace. Us can come together.
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