The Tyranny of the Melanocytes is a disease of the mind. These microscopic manufacturers of melanin have, since the earliest incarnations of Man, cast us all in heterogeneous shades of light-reflecting epidermis. These tricks of light have then hypnotized the mind, causing each to view its variant as The Other.
It is difficult to imagine that there ever was a time, a terrible time, not so very long ago, when the inclination of an individual’s melanocytes had a tremendous bearing on what sort of life that individual could look forward to. That something as small as a human cell, invisible to the naked eye, could lie at the foundation of so much human suffering is such an absurdity that it would be laughable were it not also so true.
To suggest also that we live in an Edenic, post-racial world simply because this is the 21st century, America has a melanin-endowed man in the Oval Office and the Information Age has enlightened millions with its fingertip access to the equivalent of the Library of Alexandria is also absurd. Racism, sadly, still exists; it is a disease from which all of mankind, to one degree or another, suffers. Anyone who says they are immune or have somehow been inoculated against this pestilence is not being completely honest.
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that magnificent strides have been made over the span of but a few generations. The playing field, if not the human heart, is more level than ever before, and an individual who, say 100 years ago, was doomed to be born and die as a second-class citizen based entirely on the productivity of his or her melanocytes, today has the same opportunities in this country as one born with less productive melanocytes.
But melanocytes and their offspring, melanin, are ultimately only responsible for the reflection or absorption of light. If they absorb everything along the spectrum but red, that individual’s skin appears red. If they reflect only blue, then the individual appears blue. They are not, for example, responsible for construction projects or for running up a greater than $8 million bill with Fairfield County over the last four years. And when one runs up such a bill, producing the kind of work that makes one question the advent of the T-square, one must be prepared to take on a certain amount of accountability. Regardless of the productivity of one’s melanocytes.
There is a generation still among the living that continues to view the world through racial glasses, and for that they can be forgiven. They come from a time in the not so distant past where the Tyranny indeed kept them in virtual servitude long after the physical chains had been removed. Whether the County Councilman from District 3 actually views the world through those glasses, or if he is only grandstanding to garner votes or if he is making a rather embarrassing attempt at throwing critics off his trail is difficult to determine. His declaration that a full review of projects performed by S2 Engineering is motivated solely by melanin is disappointing at best.
At worst, it is an insult to the melanin-endowed who build walls that don’t fall over.
