Sure, but in the West we have had kind of an intermezzo of creative optimism and civil rights, liberal spirit and founding entrepreneurs, humanistic philosophy, educated burgeois classes and a focussing on justice, ration and reason. Much of that is coming to an end, or is in the phase of terminal decline, it seems to me.

The Turbinators :hmm2:

Aren't we all? :haha:

Mankind's early development occurred in Africa, if I remember correctly :)

Many years ago, America was referred to as "The Great Melting Pot" - meaning different ethnicities and cultures could come together in one large society. Unfortunately, many are unwilling to let their culture combine with any other, else it be "diluted".

I am half German, part Irish and Scottish, with a bit of Cherokee and African in me. I look "Caucasian". I am not a "German-Irish-Scot" American - I am an American. Hyphenation and holding onto distinct racial and ethnic culture out of fear - as many in society do, only continues to reinforce racial and ethnic stereotypes - creating chasms that need to be bridged.

I get along with people of many ethnicities - and I can't stand a number of other people from those same ethnicities. Why? Because some people don't see everything as some sort of challenge to their "culture". Others do - and those that do need to grow the heck up and get a clue.

Societal segregation exists not only due to economic and educational differences, it also exists because many people of "minorities" choose for it to do so out of a misguided concept that if they are not "ethnic" enough, they will lose their "culture".

I won't even try to speak for anyone else, let alone "many". I've had friends from all walks of life and all races, and one of only two people I would describe as a "close friend" is of a different color than mine. I didn't say "race" because I don't hold with the splitting of the human race into sub-categories, other than to use as a descriptive term