Ethics & Public Policy

Essays by Harry T. Cook

August 8, 2008

I am pleased to introduce a long-time reader of this web site and its offerings as this weekend's guest essayist. He is Dewey Barton, M.D. - a clear-thinking public citizen who keeps current on politics and has no patience for shoddy thinking.

Harry T. Cook

Time to Move on

By Dewey Barton, M.D.

What could be a more appropriate time to address the so-called racial issue than right now in the present political atmosphere? The likely Democratic nominee for President is a person of mixed- race. Barack Obama's mother was a white woman from Kansas; his father, an African from Kenya. Yet Senator Obama is most often referred to as "African-American." Not that there's anything wrong with being an African American. But where is the math here? If you are 50 percent black and 50 percent white; why are you identified as black? Gray, I can go along with or mixed- race, but black? This may be a subtle case of racial profiling. By that math, it appears that one can be "white" if you don't count the varying hues of the Caucasian skin. But one can be termed "black" if one's skin is distinctly dark and the person in question bears certain identifiable Negroid features. One commentator, Mary C. Curtis, calls this a "one size fits all" classification: Any so-called "black" is all black - a pretty unrealistic expression, as it is obvious that there are many, many people of the mixed-race classification among the U.S. population. One way to "get real" about this issue is to get hold of book entitled The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells (2002, Princeton University Press). Wells, formerly head of the population genetics research group at Oxford University's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, is currently a consultant to the biotechnology industry. Tracing Y-chromosome genealogy, Wells reveals how developments in the cutting-edge science of population genetics have made it possible to create a family tree for the whole of humanity. Among other important points Wells make is this: "We now know not only where our ancestors lived but who they fought, loved, and influenced" . . . Around 60,000 years ago a man - identical to us in all important respects - lived in Africa. Every person alive today is descended from him." Wells shows "why differing racial types emerged when mountain ranges split population groups." That means to me that we are all, in fact, brothers and sisters, which observation leads to the question: "Why should it be that race comes into the civil and political conversation over and over again as if race were a commodity?" Of course, it's part of human nature to make distinctions among people, the better to identify "enemies" and competitors. It's been Roman v. Greek v. Hun v. Anglo-Saxons v. - and don't forget religion: Christianity v. Judaism; Catholics v. Protestants; Muslims v. Hindus and on and on. I grew up in north New Jersey; an ethnic melting pot; where identification by nationality was the norm: "He's a Jew, or an Italian, or a Polish-Joe, and all sorts of ethnic slurs. I moved beyond all that years ago, and I am convinced that it's time for the nation to move on now, to get beyond the tribal mentality. What's important about the human being is neither skin color nor racial features. What is important is any person's honesty, intelligence, judgment, and inclination to compassion. The American people demean themselves in the preoccupation with skin color and ethnicity. Given the state of the nation and our standing abroad, it is time for new national leadership, and we shouldn't go into the election season with skin color on the brain. Reason and not emotional reflect should characterize how we behave as voters and citizens. It's time to move on.

Dewey L. Barton is a retired physician. He earned the bachelor of science degree from Bates College, Lewiston, ME. His medical degree is from Duke University, Durham, NC. His specialty was radiology.

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© Copyright 2008, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.