Pride and Prejudice

I returned from vacation last Sunday just in time to see 70,000 human beings march through the streets of Los Angeles.

What these human beings were marching for was to rally opposition to a ballot measure that is detrimental to other human beings.

The marchers hit the streets with pride and determination, an angry species on a small, blue planet 93 million miles from the sun, trying to make a point on a ball in space whose inhabitants are always in a stew about something.

The human beings were marching against a Proposition called 187 that’s coming to a vote in a couple of weeks in a state called California that’s part of the ball bouncing through the void.

The proposition is aimed at people who somehow cross an arbitrary line, a border, in order to, of course, get to the other side.

This angers some other human beings who don’t want those from the other side of the line on their side of the line without getting approval. It’s kind of like asking “Mother, may I?” before you cross.

I realize that seems kind of silly in a cosmic sense, since they’re all part of the same species on the same planet and have a lot bigger things to worry about than lines on the ground, but that’s the way it is. They’re a primitive species.

To punish these human beings who cross the line without a mother-may-I, others have proposed the measure called 187, which, by the way, is the state’s numerical designation for murder. It doesn’t propose killing the Other-Siders, but it sure would make life unpleasant for them if it passes.

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Humans are good at making things miserable for one another. A quick trip through Earth’s history shows they’ve been hanging, burning, shooting, crucifying, stabbing, bombing and generally mutilating each other since they crawled out of the swamps.

They’ve gone to war over race, religion, culture, language, food, oil, gold, water, pieces of paper and all those arbitrary lines they draw on the ground, and sometimes even on the water and in the air.

There’s been enough hatred on that planet to fill hell, and every identifiable group in the race of human beings has felt its sting.

They killed 6 million of their own kind not too long ago, even children, for no reason; decent, loving, good people. And I can’t escape the feeling they’d kill 6 million more of any kind at all if they had half the chance.

They’re still not very far from the edge of the swamp, I guess; small creatures crawling angrily toward sunlight.

Getting back to the Proposition called 187, I’m not saying everyone who’s for it is a hater or a killer. They’re human beings who are worried and afraid about what’s happening to their world.

It used to be humans had moments of tranquillity between wars when they could walk the streets and do their shopping and sit on a park bench without being shot down for the pennies in their pockets. It used to be they could get jobs easily and rest assured they’d keep them.

That’s not true anymore and, just as they’ve always done, the humans are looking around for people to blame who, though members of the same species, aren’t quite like them. So they look to the other side of the line.

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I was impressed by the march last Sunday, but I’m an emotional kind of guy, easily moved when I see members of the same species celebrating their small differences by banding together for a common good.

So I took the time to talk to a lot of human beings who say they’re going to vote for 187, even though it will keep kids from going to school and sick people from going to hospitals.

I was right about them. Some are haters, sure, and will tell you there are just too damned many Mexicans in L.A., but most are humans worried about what’s happening to their little worlds.

They want to send a message to those on the other side of the line to stay there, to master their own destinies, so that both sides can prosper and everyone’ll be happy. Separate but equal, kind of.

I worry too. I worry for all of us humans and what’s going to happen not only to us, but to those around us we love so much.

But I’m going to tell you, one human being to another, that 187 isn’t an answer to anything. The message is all wrong. It’s mean and small-minded and punishes those most easily hurt, children and sick people.

I’ve tried to point this out in a cosmic sense, because maybe it’s about time we stopped blaming people who cross lines and start looking around for solutions that will benefit every member of the human race.

When you stop to think about it, we may not be much, but we’re all we’ve got. And we’re all on one planet together.