It will soon be 40 years since Enoch Powell delivered his now infamous ‘Rivers of Blood Speech’. His polemic argued for the repatriation of black people as integration he argued was doomed to failure on the grounds of visible difference – skin colour.
Integration, assimilation or multiculturalism, are different models which are used to describe the political processes being used to eliminate difference. But difference persists, indeed post 9/11 the gulf between colour and whiteness is arguably wider than ever. But what are issues about race really about? Ostensibly it’s about racial difference; however the human genome project has largely eliminated such differences.
There is no black gene, in the way there is no ‘criminal’ gene, there’s just us, people. You have to look at it like this there are billions of human beings living on earth at this very moment. We all share the ability to learn a language, reproduce, and grow and development in the same way. Similarly we all age the same and are anatomically and physiologically identical in form and function as well as being susceptible to the same diseases. We all laugh, cry, love, feel pain hunger and desire no matter what our race. Therefore the mapping of human genes has told us we are all more alike than we are different indeed any difference is largely superficial.
Nevertheless, any difference no matter how superficial it is can be exaggerated to the point it becomes the most visible dynamic. Skin colour is superficial, it’s a coating, a cover, a layer of and not the person yet it’s become the key difference between people. Paradoxically legions of white people go to great lengths and expense every year to darken their skin. Moreover once home from holiday they even ‘top-up’ their tan so they can continue displaying their new coating of colour. Therefore it would seem that colour per se isn’t the basis of prejudice so what is? Part 2; Part 3; Part 4
