Thursday, May 27, 2010

A Little Irony

This is completely speculative, but it tickles my irony bone to think of it.

MPR featured somebody talking about DNA testing, with preliminary results suggesting the possibility that Neanderthals interbred with our homonid ancestors. Nothing is definitive yet, but one thing stands out: the markers in question are not present in African populations. European, Asian, etc., just not African.

Now skip to the centuries-long assertions that Africans are less intelligent somehow than the rest of us. Clearly bogus to anybody who doesn't need to justify slavery and other despicable acts by claiming it doesn't really matter what you do to those you claim are less human that you are. There's a whole body of "studies" to back those sorry excuses for human beings trying to justify what they've done. Those viewpoints are often put forward by folks who treat their animals better than dark-skinned folk, and don't see any contradictions in the act.

Now skip once more to the widely held assertion of the "sub-humanness" of Neanderthals, so widely disseminated that their name alone is the punchline of countless jokes.

So, wouldn't it be ironic if we're the ones with the Neanderthal genes, we're the real sub-humans, and the Africans are the "pure" race? That is, if any of it actually meant anything except that as humans we're all pretty sorry excuses for what we like to claim our species stands for.

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