I am currently reading the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. The way the book connects the past and present across various parts of the world truly makes you appreciate the impact of history on the present day world. All my life I have tried to not box up people into generalized categories. I truly believe each person is an individual. But then upon reading this book, I cannot help but wonder if some of the things that have happened is because I was typecasted to a particular box. The histories of most countries are fraught with war and vengeance. While it is only human to seek revenge on people who have been responsible for atrocities directed your way, does it make any sense to propagate the atrocities and prejudices to future generations? And if your answer is Yes Do Not Forget, where will this circle of vengeance stop? Would it continue on till the end of world? While it makes sense to put oppressors and bullies in their place, I cannot find justification for subjecting future generations to the same prejudices. You come to this world with a clean slate and when you are told that it is because of your ancestry that for the rest of your life, you will treated in a certain manner, how do you come to terms with it? The person may think I have always treated other people with respect, followed rules, then why am I being marginalized this way for something that happened many years ago and wasn’t my fault.
World War II started an era of Cold War. The death of so many innocent people and the inhuman deplorable atrocities to which sections of people were subjected to is horrifying. Words fail me to describe my true emotions. The fact that people and entire nations were capable of such brutal inhuman treatment of other fellow human beings is just hard to comprehend. And this was just 70–80 years ago. We all have grandparents of that age. To what extent has human mind evolved to overcome such violent tendencies in just two generations? I don’t know about you, but I truly find it hard to put a mask of Hitler or Stalin on any of the older generation members I know and imagine them conducting mass murders on such a scale. When I first heard of the “murder gene” in a recent TV show I was watching, it made me laugh. Now, if I put it in perspective of this book, it is not difficult to follow the train of thought that might have brought about this discussion. The wars did take place and they took place just two generations ago. So, what is to say that it won’t happen again? However, where the genes have a role to play, so do the environmental and epigenetic factors. If we go down the rabbithole of putting a person in a particular mold because of their genes, it isn’t any different than the systemic racism that is currently underlying most societies around the world.
Uplifting sections of people to level the playing field makes sense but upliftment of one section should not happen at the expense of marginalization of another section.
