The Human Family Tree

I see you, I hear you.
photo source: Unsplash
Photographer credit: Luis Morera

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's was the beginning of  change that was needed, both then and now. This was a movement led to a large extent by the GI Generation and Silent Generation, as they mentored Boomers in their youth about nonviolence. C.T. Vivian of the GI Generation, who we just recently lost, was a minister, activist, and author, an MLK aid who shed his own blood on the front lines of the 60's Civil Rights Movement and helped create a culture of moral leadership. John Lewis, of the Silent Generation, who also just passed away, was often called the Conscience of America. Both of these men continued leading with love as the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum, just before they left this world. Gen Xers read about the Civil Rights Movement in our history books and learned first hand stories from the parents and grandparents. Some first wave Gen Xers witnessed these protests on the streets as toddlers in strollers. Like the civil rights work of the 1960's, the BLM movement points out systematic and institutional injustice, and just like the 1960's, it is still hard to speak truth to power.  

Say Their Names
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Photographer credit: Clay Banks 

As statues get torn down, along with the oppressive systems they represent and as protests happen in the streets, it is also a time for us to silently search our own hearts, to look at ways we've been conditioned, and to learn better ways as we move forward. Of the most racist people I've known personally, I am no longer in contact, or I keep quite a distance, but I can say they were people who ultimately hated themselves. I wonder if these people had been taught to love themselves if they would have hated others less. When humans have been taught to believe their race is better than another, the problems of history have begun. When people are conditioned to believe another race or ethnicity is inherently "bad," they can justify doing terrible things to them. All humans are 99.9% identical in their genetics. The idea of 'race' was a fabricated concept from very recent history on the timeline of human history. As more and more people get their DNA tested these days, we discover within our own ancestry that the lines of the borders of countries blur and that the very ethnicities some of us had been taught to fear actually are within us. Science traces DNA to a 'Mitochondrial Eve' and you and I have a DNA match to a woman in Africa many generations ago. She is a grandmother to us all. Certain theories say everyone on earth alive today is at most a 50th cousin to anyone else. Other theories say we are at most a 10th cousin to anyone else on the planet. As the family tree of all humanity is built, Gen Xer A.J. Jacobs writes, "Human beings are biased to treat family members with more consideration...By revealing the cliché of "We're all one big family" is true, we hope to provide bad news to bigots who will have to face the important fact that they are related to whatever ethnic group they despise..." 

photo source: Unsplash
photographer credit: Jon Tyson 

If we had any idea how closely related we are to the person behind us in line at the grocery store, to the person on the street corner, or to the person holding up a sign with words we might or might not agree with, biology shows us what was theorized for a long time before there was evidence for it: everyone is related to everyone on the planet. 

As we witness angry conversations happening online and people yelling from their cars at people holding up poster boards, the response is often "all lives matter." Black Lives Matter doesn't mean other lives don't matter, it means they also matter, and for far too long, Black lives have been most vulnerable. 

photo source: Unsplash
Photographer credit: Nathan Dumlao

As the idea of everyone having an equal place in the human family spreads, I'd like to think of the Gen Xers of today, a little older and wiser now, as the mentors in this era, and the Millennials and Gen Z learning from us just as various socially conscious Boomers learned from the Silent Generation and the GIs. Of the founders of the BLM movement, Alicia Garza (b. 1981) is a Gen Xer, Patrice Cullors (b. 1983) and Opal Tometi (b. 1984) are Millennials. One of the defining principles of BLM is intergenerationality - generations coming together to collaborate and mentor from wisdom and experience.  

 "When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression, and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and power of everlasting love be your guide." 

-John Lewis 

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Gen Xer Don Lemon's podcast: Silence is not an Option

 

Remembering C.T. Vivian (1924-2020) of the GI Generation,

and John Lewis (1940-2020) of the Silent Generation  

Memory Eternal 

 (c) 2020 writing by Chloe Koffas 2020, all rights reserved  

sources: 

Wikipedia

Common Dreams

A Family Tree of the Entire Human Race - A.J. Jacobs 

How Mitochondrial Eve Connected All Humanity...