"Racism at the very core?"

I just love those shows on the History Channel or NatGeo (sorry MJ, I like that moniker...) and Discovery. You know the ones; they have key words in their titles like Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon DNA, First Modern Man, Skulls and Fossils, Clovis points, and the like. MillieJupiter and I sit and watch them all. We watch dinosaur ones, archeology ones, anything involving digging up bones and fossils. I've noticed over the last several weeks there seems to be a predominance of shows about the Neanderthals. About their DNA. About them surviving despite the odds.

How could they have survived, they were physical brutes with small brains and lacked the ability to communicate. They were forced out by the smarter Homo sapiens who were traveling the land bridges and moving into all the inhabitable areas. At least this is what we learned in science and anthropology class. The Homo-sapiens had better tools, more social society, better skills. They were more like us.

But recently there seems to be a major change in thought about this group, a positive spin on them, not had before. Following is a quote from The Independent, a British newspaper published by Independent News & Media, a media organization based in Dublin, Ireland.

“Neanderthals were not as stupid as they have been portrayed, according to a study showing their stone tools were just as good as those made by the early ancestors of modern humans, Homo sapiens. Scientists who spent years learning how to make replicas of the stone instruments used by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens have found the Neanderthal tools were just as efficient as anything made by Stone Age man. And researchers believe that the demise of the Neanderthals – which has often been explained by the supposed inferiority of their technology – could not have come about solely as a result of their stone tools being worse than those of their rivals. "Our research disputes a major pillar holding up the long-held assumption that Homo sapiens were more advanced than Neanderthals. It is time for archaeologists to start searching for other reasons why Neanderthals became extinct," said Metin Eren, a graduate student at Exeter University. "Technologically speaking, there is no clear advantage of one tool over the other. When we think of Neanderthals, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' but more in terms of 'different'."

That last sentence says it all – “we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' but more in terms of 'different'." Could this be the earliest form of racism? Believing that the Neanderthals were somehow less human. They were stupid, would not be able to survive? Were our anthropologists and archeologists closet racists?

If you change the word Neanderthal in that last sentence and substitute any one of multiple races that have faced the sting of racism in their life, don’t we have a plea for accepting diversity, for understanding and accepting others, for (cue the music…) that Pepsi moment when we teach the world to live in perfect harmony. Try it:

When we think of African-Americans, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' but more in terms of 'different'."

When we think of Hispanics, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' but more in terms of 'different'."

When we think of South African blacks, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' but more in terms of 'different'."

When we think of Americans who live in the Deep South, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' but more in terms of 'different'."

Kind of interesting, don’t you think.

One final note about accepting diversity. When Ms. Fabulous and I went on our first cruise last spring we sat for our meals with four people from South Africa. White people from South Africa. It was a wonderful experience, filled with stories and laughs and positive feelings. Except for one thing. When they talked about the Blacks in their area, they were mostly negative thoughts. Words like lazy and doing nothing crept into their conversation. When I told my podcast partner Maqz, who calls it like he sees it, about this, he immediately branded it racism and reminded us of the Apartheid issues there.

Thanks Maqz.