Recently I visited a museum of human health. It was a facility that housed organs. Mostly they were used for organs that are then used for transplants. While I was looking around, I noticed this filing cabinet. Someone I was with jokingly opened it. Hundreds of folder like papers were inside, name after name, stored away for safe keepings. I asked the guide what they were for, and she replied, "They're skin grafts. Its when someone dies and either they sign or a loved one donates there body to help others. Burn victims or people with skin transplants use skin grafts to help them heal." She pulled one out, and I saw that it was this paper looking thing that was stored in a sealed plastic bag.
I noticed something about them. I asked why there were all the same color. I jokingly made the comment, " What does an African American or asian person do if they need a skin graft? Do they just have a patch of pink skin?
The guide looked startled by my question. Almost as if she hadn't thought about it before. What do they do?
She told me, " When we receive skin grafts from patients, we have to strip away the first layer of the skin. It has hair particles and its dirty. I suppose were all the same color underneath."
The people around me looked startled. Like nobody ever thought there is no difference of race between people, we are literally, all the same, except this small piece that covers the top of our skin. Yet we let this define so many choices. People hate this simple covering, they use it to excuse violence and discrimination against others. Wars and battles are started over something that is so insignificant, and really not that accurate. There is nothing different about the skin of an African compared to a person of origins from Ireland. Why do we still have issues over something that is a figure of the imagination. There is no biological difference between race or color. There is not a man or a women who is 'flawed' on the outside. And yet, the KKK exists. Terrorists exist, all on the basis of skin. When will we, as one race, realize that the separation we create in our minds is systematically tearing apart the world.
When will enough finally be enough?
