The Mythology Of Race: a story to share with everyone

The Mythology Of Race

The Mythology Of Race: Mankinds Challenge to a Better World. By E.B. Gibson

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Posted by Eric b gibson on August 16, 2009 at 12:01pm

Hi Friends please excuse me sending out so many E-mails this one in particular brought tears to my eyes.Please share it with any on your email list.I hope it reaches the Gaza strip.

HI Eric,

Thank you for sharing this story from you book. I look forward to reading it in its entirety.
It reminded me of a recent personal story I wanted to share with you.

I have always had an open heart for all races, religions, and nationalities. I have always seen us all as one.
My family has not. My father is from Iran, and has generational instilled resentment towards the Jewish and Arabic nations based on generations of war and many deaths in our family.

Over the years I have made many friends of all backgrounds including Jewish and Arabic.
I recently invited my father and his wife to come visit with me for the weekend. I told them we were going
to a dinner party with my friends at a restaurant that we do most Friday nights. My father was very open to meeting my friends.

We all ate dinner and everyone was very kind to my father, there was lots of joking, laughing and bantering, and as we usually do after dinner, the restaurant turns up the music (arabic music) and my friend begins to sing in Arabic, and I break out my drum and we all dance and act silly.

My father was having such a great time he was even up on his chair dancing at some points.
He was laughing, and dancing and letting go in such a way that brought laughter to us all.
He was socializing and really enjoying my friends without any guards up.

That evening on our way home, my father, still glowing in the aftermath, said " I had such a fantastic night, your american friends are so amazing, what great people they are!!".

And I said dad I have something to tell you, "they are not American born, they are from Israel and Palestine. (Jewish & Arabic)

He sat stunned for a minute, as this information was processed through his pre-conceived walls that he has had up for a lifetime. All was quiet as we sat in stillness, nobody wanted to move a muscle, as we feared he might be angry, and after about 2 minutes, he began laughing and laughing, until tears came to his eyes.
We all felt such relief and joy, and began laughing ourselves.
To this day my dad is a changed man.
I could have argued with him for a lifetime regarding his prejudices, but I knew that would get me nowhere.
So instead I wanted to show him by example, that we are all the same at the core, we all eat, love, and laugh the same.
I believe he truly gets it now.

► Reply to This

Reply by Roshann 1 hour ago

Hi Eric,
Thanks for sharing this. Again let's be the change we want to see in the world.

I just wanted to follow up on this story. Three weeks ago I had my birthday and I decided to throw myself a party. I invited several of my father and friends and my stepmom said, "are you sure it is okay to invite all these different nationalities, don't you think there might be a problem?" And I knew confidently in my heart that NO there was not going to be a problem, because we were all there to have fun and enjoy the gift of friendship, which it turned out to be an amazingly loving, friendly dancing, singing night.

My party was definitely quite international, there were friends from Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Prague, Norway, Serbia, Iran, Israel, Greece, Spain, and of course America.
We played music from all over the world and everyone danced, sang, and ate together with love and harmony. My dad too had an amazing night! There was not one act of prejudice.
How many times can you get these opposing nationalities to come together? Well I say many times as long as we believe it will be great, it will be!

Again let's lead by example and be that change!!
As the world should be!