Medary.com

I posted this a while back:

Problem 1: Us-vs-Them-ism. Call it tribalism, nationalism, racism, whatever. Any time you divide the world into Us and Them, you're asking for trouble. Unfortunately, that's how we evolved to view the world.

Problem 2: The Expert Syndrome. Any time you find someone who's absolutely convinced you should live your life some other way than what you're doing right now, you've got conflict. Religious zealotry, health-nuts, safety nazis, the list goes on and on. "I know better than you, and you should be forced to do things my way." Both halves of that statement are also how everyone evolved to view the world. The first half (I know better than you) isn't that harmful in and of itself, it's the second half (you should be forced to do things my way) where things fall apart rapidly.

There. I've pretty much identified the basic problems with the world today. Somebody needs to go out and fix them. Actually, everybody needs to go out and fix them.

Problem #1 is rampant in the world today. See this story about a South Dakota State basketball player who's half-white, half-"native american":

Observing the struggle was (basketball player Casey McKenzie's) father, Tom, who came to Pine Ridge as a graduate student in 1970 and married Belva Hollow Horn, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. They separated in 1993, when Mackenzie was 7 years old and his siblings, Meghan and Sean, were 10 and 13.

That left Tom to raise three children as a single parent while he works as general manager at KILI-FM, a public radio station founded by the American Indian Movement.

In 1992, a group of activists camped outside the station for seven months to protest Casey's role as a non-Native American in charge.

"White people have no monopoly on racism," says Casey, who has covered Pine Ridge-area athletics for more than 20 years. "Have I felt racism because I'm a white person living in an Indian community? Of course. But I've lived in this community for 36 years, and we're making it work."

Fear of the different.  Everyone, regardless of skin color or culture, feels it.
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