Regularly, I check the “Stats” page to see how many persons have read the post for the day.  It is not done to gauge interest or determine what my next post will be about.  It is certainly not done to bolster my ego as the numbers vary too much to undergird my identity with a narcissistic foundation.  Still, the statistics provide more than numbers but search engine terms used to find a particular post on The Daily Race or subjects that led persons to the blog.   

Recently, the search engine terms included the phrase “racial differences which can never be reconciled.”  As you know, I have been writing about race and reconciliation for the past week so this search sparked my interest.  Today, I am wondering, perhaps just as the person who visited my blog, “Are there ‘racial’ differences that are irreconcilable” and if so, which ones?  What is meant by difference and what are the terms of reconciliation?

Some of the historical “racial” differences have been physical and external like skin color, hair type and facial angle while other differences have pertained to blood type, brain size, intelligence, physical ability, crime, sexual behavior, temperment and life span.  But, what makes one’s appearance or perceived ability/inability irreconcilable and what or who must it be reconciled to?  Does the social coloring of one’s skin produce conflict?  Is one’s hair type oppositional in nature?  What about brain size, perceived intelligence and temperment?  What of them causes an unavoidable clash?  It seems, at least for me, that the suggestion that the social coloring of one’s skin would be a determinant for any of the internal differences mentioned above would be the most contradictory.  These are irreconcilable.

The birthing process is overly complicated if persons are going to be lumped into one of several categories.  Why get butterflies in your stomach when he or she passes by?  There’s no need for sweaty palms or the cat who has your tongue when you attempt to say, “Hello.”   Why fall in love or date?  Why get married? (I’m assuming the stages of the nursery rhyme, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.”) Why get pregnant?  Why choose a name if its meaning will be overshadowed by the assumptions of the social coloring of one’s skin?  Why plan for her or his future?  Why dream or hope that your child or any child will make a difference in the world?  Race may make life predictable but it also makes life meaningless, inserting its predictions and pseudo- scientific observations. 

Are these physical differences and subsequent racially inferred abilties/disabilities irreconcilable and if so, on what grounds?   Because of their inability to change and if so, change to what?  Or, are the differences irreconcilable in that they prevent dialogue or relationships?  Why does our external appearance prevent reconciliation?  Why do we continue to allow external differences to determine internal worth and ability, whether social, relational or otherwise?  Why have we not matured as human beings to see beyond the surface and ultimately, the superficial to the person underneath it all?  Because we aren’t different at all without the dyes, extenstions, straighteners,curlers, whiteners, injections, tanning, waxings (Men, you will have to speak for yourselves here.). 

The fact that we have the truth of God’s unconditional love in the person of Jesus Christ yet continue to submit our lives to society’s determinations of worth and ability is an irreconcilable truth for me.  I guess I’ll go to a search engine today and see what I can find in this regard.