Over the last few days I have received far too many e-mails with a theme calling on me to be proud of my white skin, mainly because of the achievements of some of my supposed ancestors.
You would think that my friends would know better, and would know not to send this tripe to me.
The truth is that I understand that they are scared and emotional, following on from a fairly tumultuous few weeks. We have, far too often, heard some or other politician ascribing blame to those of us with paler features. Either way, I did feel that it was worth replying to these in a more general manner. Perhaps somebody is listening.
For me there can be nothing more vacuous than to feel special because of something that you did not achieve personally. In this instance people are basically saying that a white skin makes you clever. It is of course quite logical that the majority of people who say this will not be able to explain how we get from relativity to branes. It is also quite likely that I just lost that half of the crowd...
People who espouse this philosophy will also want to point out the historical input of white folk, but will obviously neglect to inform their waiting audience of the contributions of a large community of non-white contributors. Without these contributions Europe would still be wearing bearskins and hugging trees. If you don't agree with this then you quite probably have a myopic view of history.
In short - you're not special if you are descended from Isaac Newton - you are special if you ARE Isaac Newton. The only things in this world that make you special are the things you achieve for yourself. Stop trying to catch a shine from your ancestors and start bearing in mind that the genetic difference between races is inconsequential.
PS - if you had to look up any of the words on this post then you should rather spend time on education than distributing opinion
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