Our human race teters on the brink of annihilation as we remain well within the shadow of Ignorance. Do you suppose we'll come out of this having learned anything?

The Mexicans settled Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and California. America took that territory from them. You can lie about their productivity, call them lazy and shiftless, call them idiots, joke about their desperate journeys to our country as if you have ever endured anything like that; you can build a wall, and ignore their slave labor in our produce fields, but do not tell them they belong back in Mexico. They are in Mexico - the part you stole. They are family here. And let that be a starting point...

The Natives, a diverse people who cover a broad swath of North America, who are made up by countless unique cultures swallowed up through genocide and indifference, and who are nearly lost entirely within the shackles of Time, owned this land before the Mexicans, before the Spaniards, before the Vikings. We get pissed off because they say, "Get rid of the Washington Redskins team," like they're trying to shame us, like they're trying to steal our culture. But the 'redskin' brave is their culture; the 'redskin' is them. The Native is American, and America broke the backs of those people. We should be ashamed how we talk about ourselves. Let's have some class and quietly strike those images from our rosters. And let that be a starting point...

The Blacks, meaning people with skin ranging from the lightest caramel to deep ebony (a people whose nationalities we can't begin listing because they encompasses so many different nations that it's ludicrous to even lump them together) are followed as they drive, or shop, or walk; they are harassed endlessly and killed in our streets because their skin possesses more melanin than white skin. Their culture is appropriated (much different than appreciated), their opinions are crammed together as if there is a single black one, their plight is mocked. But deeper into the problem, we have taught ourselves to fear them - fear them. What is a black man to do when we ignore the honest statement, "I am just another person,"? You don't have to be white to be a racist - those come in all shades. But if you're white, you do have to understand what people of color endure. You must put yourself in their shoes to see what they face. Forget "black" and instead think "person." How can we let another person die in the street like an animal, and then turn around and say, "We have to protect ourselves against [people]!"? How can you look at a black woman, a coworker, and say, "She only got this job because she's a [person]? How can you follow a kid through a store because he's a [person]? What damned sense does that make? It doesn't. People of color are Americans. They built America. Their sweat grew the plants we ate. Their muscle stacked the bricks we used to build. Their tears were our quiet dreams slept at night. None of this by choice. At the very least, we must begin to embrace people before we lose them, because we do not want to lose them. They are us, and we are them. Don't be arrogant and think you came from something better - your fathers were portrayed as lazy, shiftless, ignorant savages once, too. Drop the act and start embracing our family. We are all Americans. And let that be a starting point...

The alternative?

The survivors of our eventual nuclear war huddle around firelight and explain to their children that there was a time when we hated each other because of the way we looked. We will explain that we all came from the same ancestors, crawled out of our caves and peered into the starlight so that we could one day throttle each other. We will explain that those grim trees in the distance or not earth's creatures - they are the man made shells of what once was. Ashamed, noiseless, we will fall asleep choking on the irradiated dust, dreaming of a simpler time when we had everything anyone wanted, but we decided to spite ourselves for good measure. And that's if anyone survives.