Steel City: Stronger than Hate!

“This is still the City of Champions. The cheering has stopped for now, but here, in Pittsburgh, the Renaissance City, the cheering will never stop. When you play Pittsburgh, you play the whole city. Yes, it's still the City of Champions. It has nothing to do with victories. Pittsburgh has a winning character."  - Howard Cosell, 1982

            One strain of the malignancy known as prejudice is antisemitism. Other than misogyny, it is probably the world's oldest prejudice. Nonetheless, that does not make it venerable. Any person who claims to be a worthy member of humankind must stand up, speak out, and stamp out prejudice in any of its guises and in any magnitude. Bigotry is wrong; prejudice is dangerous, bias is lethal! It must be driven from the face of the earth just as much as smallpox or any other blight upon the well-being of the human family!   

            Allegheny County, which much of the world knows as Pittsburgh, PA has been my home. I believe the people here are, in the main, good people and genuinely patriotic Americans. Now, one local resident has attacked other Pittsburghers, and my belief in my mates and my hometown will be put to the test.  The familiar quote by Howard Cosell couldn't explain Pittsburgh better. Whether it is sports or everyday life, Pittsburgh is a team – and Pittsburgh loves to win more than anything.

Now, Pittsburgh must show what winning genuinely looks like in the most crucial struggle human beings ever wage. No trophies will be awarded. Lucrative contracts and endorsement deals are not on offer. This contest is between the best, and the worst humankind is capable of. Irrationality underlies all varieties of prejudice; cruelty is the goal of all lynching whether it is done with a noose or an assault weapon. Malice is the message and intimidation the objective.

The shining city at the Point has been well served by the success gained and the spirit demonstrated by its professional sports teams especially the Steelers and the Penguins. The teams are winners, but they are not braggarts. Their fans are noted as among the most fair-minded and well-behaved in NFL and NHL. Now, this civility and character must come to the fore in a far graver contest. We must look around us. We can do this by heeding the advice of another Pittsburgh Champion [Fred Rogers who may be the best person to ever create and star in a TV program, and a one-time resident of Squirrel Hill..]:

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem. Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”

It doesn’t matter if we are or are not Jewish or were not members of any of the Tree of Life congregations. It doesn’t matter that we were miles or yards away. What matters is that we and those attacked are all members of the vast family of humankind. As humans, we must now prove again and again that we dare to be kind. That we will stand up, speak up, and call out any person anywhere who asserts that any one of us is less than human. That any one of us does not have the inherent and inalienable right to worship as we choose or not worship at all; that any one of us does not have the full and equal right to live in peace as long as we fully accord that same right to all others. That all who believe that some people, due to some incidental characteristic, are more human and thus superior to others are both factually and ethically wrong. That the only thing we will not tolerate is intolerance and its expression by slurs, smears, threats, or cruel and harmful actions.

We must read, heed, and act upon Robert F. Kennedy’s words from his Day of Affirmation speech on 6 June 1966:

"We must recognize the full human equality of all of our people before God, before the law, and in the councils of government. We must do this, not because it is economically advantageous, although it is; not because of the laws of God command it, although they do; not because people in other lands wish it so. We must do it for the single and fundamental reason that it is the right thing to do." [emphasis added]

It is the right thing to do because it is grounded in truth. For at least the last 10,000 years, every person born on Earth has been a member of the species - "anatomically modern humans." During the 18th-Century Enlightenment, human equality was a bold, philosophical assertion. Now, it is an authoritative scientific consensus and well-documented fact. Take all people alive today. Take all their mothers. This is a smaller set. Take all their grandmothers. This is a smaller set. And so on, until you get to 1 person - Slatkin, 1999, says you must get to 1 person since mathematically this is "a pure death process that has an absorbing state at 1."

       Our most recent female-female line ancestor is called "Mitochondrial Eve" since Mitochondrial DNA passes (almost) entirely through the female line and so may be used to estimate a date for her. Contrary to a lot of confused discussions, Mitochondrial Eve's existence is not in doubt. We can work it out from our armchair. What is in dispute is the date, which has been estimated at 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Similarly, by studying male-only DNA, we can try to get an estimate for "Y chromosome Adam." Here there is little to no variation and much controversy about why. Estimates range from 15,000 to 270,000 years ago, depending on the model used. The research emphasizes “the fact that the genetic ‘Adam and Eve’ are not the same as the biblical Adam and Eve. “They weren't the first modern humans on the planet,” reports LiveScience “but instead just the two out of thousands of people alive at the time with unbroken male or female lineages that continue on today.”

“In the journal Nature, three separate teams of geneticists surveyed DNA collected from cultures around the globe, many for the first time, and conclude that all non-Africans today trace their ancestry to a single population emerging from Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago. Early studies of bits of DNA also supported this idea. All non-Africans are closely related, geneticists found, and they all branch from a family tree rooted in Africa.  All three groups came to the same conclusion after examining their data separately, All non-Africans descend from a single migration of early humans from Africa somewhere between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago. Also, the teams led by Dr. Willerslev and Dr. Reich found no genetic evidence that there was an earlier migration giving rise to people in Australia and Papua New Guinea.” Finally, “The Simons Genome Diversity Project study, after analyzing DNA from 142 populations around the world, the researchers conclude that all modern humans living today can trace their ancestry back to a single group that emerged in Africa 200,000 years ago. This study also found that all non-Africans appear to be descended from a single group that split from the ancestors of African hunter-gatherers around 130,000 years ago.”

Thus, any belief in the ideas of segmentation and hierarchy among anatomically modern humans persist through willful ignorance and thrive by a twisted irrationality. The evidence is definitive: We are all one kind despite our various hues and attributes humankind is one interconnected group.  All thinking people of goodwill must realize that the truth, and nothing but the truth, will set us free to be the best we can possibly be. The phrase says, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Consider how much more horrendous it would be to waste the minds of millions because of some superficial difference in skin color, genitalia, sexual preference, sectarian creed, or cultural background. The challenges facing the Earth and humanity demand all-hands-on-deck anyone unwilling to be part of their solution is a factor in the creation and continuation of those threats.

Throughout the Burgh, throughout the State, the Nation, and around the globe. Humankind is a vast, extended family. Here in the Steel City, long ago we said this truth another way – “We are Family.” [with affection and admiration for Sister Sledge]

We’re all family

Long lost brothers and sisters are we

We’re all family

Stand up everybody and sing

We’re all family

Come on my sisters and brothers with me

We’re all family

Tell everyone we're together

As they walk on by

And we’ll stand beside one and another

That is not a lie

All the people around town or wherever

Can get this close

Once we all state for the record

We are all one is no idle boast

We’re all family

Brothers, sisters, and cousins are we

We’re all family

Stand up for everybody

Because we’re all family

Come on my sisters, brothers, and cousins with me

We’re all from the same family tree

Living life can be fun, or it can be a fight

We’ll stand up for what’s true and right

We have our sights set on the future

And with our goals in sight

We won't get depressed or cower

Because we have the courage and conviction

To defy every negative prediction

Despite those who’re against us

We’ll just keep on pushing forward

And keep the faith in everything we do

We won't go silent because we know it’s true

We’re all family!

        Most of us think of ourselves and our friends as good people; now, all of us have the chance to demonstrate that we are. It's right actions, not thinking about right actions, that matters. We may not be in positions of power, may not act on a grand scale. But that doesn't mean we should refrain from doing the right thing. Never forget: "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." Let us make ripples!     

Photo  reference -https://www.trendsmap.com/twitter/tweet/1056374628946460673