I haven’t really fooled with this type of thing in a good while, but I’m for it right now. La Shawn has an intriguing post that raises the question, why did God make people different races. In a way, it’s a thoroughly modern question. For the overwhelming majority of the time that people have been on Earth, most people would not have wondered such a thing, because most people wouldn’t have traveled far enough to see someone of a different race. Or should I say skin color. Thing is, even in instances where people did come in different colors, people grouped themselves by language. Even now, language is still a bigger determiner of self-segregation than skin color.

Thinking about race is always interesting to me, because if we’re scientifically honest, then we hafta look past what we can immediately see. The tendency is to look at Black folks and say that we’re the same race because we have (M >X) level of melanin. Thing is, that doesn’t necessarily make me any closer genetically to somebody else who’s Black than I am to any other random person walking down the street. My skinfolk but not my kinfolk, indeed. Personally, when I think of genetic races, I tend to think of people with attached earlobes who can roll their tongues. But that’s just me. Most times, when we say ‘race’ in America, there’s a shared understanding and genetics really has nothing to do with it.

I can’t front, the variety in humankind has been something I’ve puzzled over myself, but not so much in terms of why are there different “races” specifically. I’m more the type to marvel over the variety in people. That is, we all come with the same standard equipment, but within that, there is a staggering variance. To keep it simple (and PG), just look at everybody’s nose that you see over the next couple days. I mean, if you look across the whole human spectrum, there are as many types of noses as there are gallons in the Mississippi. Long, short, wide, narrow, straight, curved, crooked, flat, pointy, and any combination thereof. You got hole nostrils, dot nostrils, slit nostrils, snout nostrils, gills…there’s simply a constant variety. And even with all that, all those noses do exactly the same thing. We ain’t even gon’ talk about butts and breasts. Cuz I’m sayin — you wanna see some variety, jack…

At any rate, the big question La Shawn posed is not whether there is variety, but why it’s there. My answer to that question would probably be that it’s just a vehicle for God to manifest his creativity. Why does he make people with different [insert a body part]? Because he can. Why does he make people with different metabolisms and muscle-to-fat ratios? Because he can. Why does he make AA’s and DD’s and everything between? Because he can. Why do some folks have flatties while other folks have fatties? Same answer. For a materialist, the simple answer to all those questions would be genetics. And I’m on board with that too, I just think there’s something beyond the material.

Bearing the genetics in mind, I do kinda wonder whether God toggles each set of genes for each person, or whether he set up the general principle of genetics and then let the combinations come out how they will. I can imagine certain people and their answers to that question, but I’ll just leave myself in the ‘don’t know’ slot for now. But it is quite amazing when you think about it. Like the li’l girl? She ain’t so little any more, but she still looks like…me. Not no casual resemblance, either. She looks like me as a girl, only she’s got enough of her mother in there to smooth out the rough parts. We’re not exactly the same, but the phrase “spi’it and image” couldn’t be more accurate. (Spi’it and image - spirit and image. Not “spitten image.”)

Even in the answer,there’s a question.

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