Alive on the Dot: More Demotions

Here is a list of the great demotions. I adapted this list from Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.

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• We were special until we learned the Earth is not the center of the Universe.
• We were special until we learned the Sun is not the center of the Universe.
• We were special until we learned the Milky Way is not the center of the Universe.
• We were special until we learned the Milky Way is not the center of the thousands of neighboring galaxies.
• We were special until we learned there are other solar systems with rocky, water planets.
• We were special until we learned there is life on other planets.
• We were special until we learned Humans are not the only intelligent life forms.
• We were special until we learned Humans are animals.
• We were special until we learned Humans are just another species of ape.

The great demotions are very helpful when we are trying to center how we are a species, but what about our species. I wrote the below list as an emulation of Saga’s demotions.

• We were special until we learned there were other civilizations outside of Europe.
• We were special until we learned some of the other civilizations outside of Europe were more significant than our own.
• We were special until we learned our notions of civilization were flawed.
• We were special until we gave our race a name: the white race.
• We were special until we learned we were not the most significant race within our species.
• We were special until we learned we, the white race, are currently the dangerous race.
• We were special until we learned we are not the most significant race within our civilization.
• We were special until we learned we are just people.

This list of demotions is incomplete. No matter the flaws within this list, it gets us to the stage where we can come to terms with who we white people are. This last demotion I list is not the last demotion. The problem now is what do we, as white people, do next.

Like many people in the United States and the rest of the world are not prepared to accept Sagan’s list of demotions, we white people in the United States and wherever European colonization took us are not ready to accept this second list of demotions.

Are all white people horrible? No, but we have been a bunch of shitheads. Many of us still are.

Once we white people recognize that we are just people of equitable significance to all others, we, a pluralistic people, can begin building a fair society devoid of nonsensical ideas about race and superiority.