When I first read this letter from my brother (older and, like me, raised by a somewhat racist mother) I thought he was reacting to the Trayvon Martin tragedy. However, due to his having been ill lately, he hadn't even heard anything about this riveting national issue. I feel this is a really awesome insight into how hard he has struggled to overcome his early childhood conditioning. I came along 17 years later, so was much better able to struggle against the racist conditioning. Hard to imagine, but our little Dairy Queen that opened when I was two years old had for many years a drinking fountain on the outside of the building labeled "White Only," and nobody, including me, thought anything about it. Anyway, I offer this for your consideration as a sign that even a dog as old as my brother can learn some new tricks, if he has a heart open to change.
THE ISSUE OF COLOR
To day I took a load of scrap metal to the yard to sell. As I waited for the rather attractive young lady to read my weight slips and draw me cash from her cash register, I noted a picture of the casher‘s baby fastened to the cashers window.
The child was absolutely beautiful! The child was, without question, a black child. I asked; in joking, I said; “I’ll take this beautiful baby rather than my money.” The casher light up with pride to tell me of her joy!
For several miles after I left the junk yard I thought in depth of this situation and the issue of interracial marriage. I consider myself to be a Christian man. I therefore believe God’s Holy Word!
God created Adam and Eve and placed them in Earth’s Garden of Eden. I am assuming that God created Adam and Eve of equal structure and features. Therefore, my assumption, they were light in skin pigment.
Time, weather, nourishment, and other factors changed the elements of human genetics into many types. The cold snowy regions at the top of our planet produced the lighter skin pigments over time while the hot sun of the lower part of Earth produce the darker pigments of skin. The nomadic nature of humans altered features to varying degrees through interegation. Residents in the cold regions of the planet, (less direct sun effect) in general, maintained the lighter skin pigment while those humans in the hotter regions of the planet gained darker pigments. Genetic controllers within the human body are elements that effect nature and mannerisms of humans.
The haughty attitude of some humans is the by product of acceptance of generational attitudes of discrimination while the down trodden are cast deeper into dependency by the early life’s failure to experience upper mobility. This factor can become a hereditary habit and is very destructive in human evolution.
The end product of this most destructive path in human evolution is segregation and all of it’s destructive practice. The baby’s picture in the window of the scrap yard casher brought about the thoughts herein recorded. The solution is for our generation is to balance the scale of human evaluation through correcting the imbalance in human presumption. My presumption is fueled in the smiling, white, mother’s pride in her dark skinned child. I found myself very pleased to have a moments glimpse at a lovely child and a proud mother’s presentation of that child. I can but no less share my pride in this child’s smile and beauty. I can also have nothing less than my prayers that this child will become a well fitting and productive human in the evolution of mankind. I further asked my God to change our hearts of racial predigest to one who extends there hand towards all humans to rise to the level of love that our God created each of us in.
And all of this because I saw a baby’s picture in the cashiers window!
David A. Britt
March 28, 2012
Biloxi, Mississippi