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To the Editor:

Slavery has been around a long time … thousands of years. It’s even in the Bible. And we like to pretend that we are without remnants of it now. It would appear that subjugation of other people is in our DNA or at least in a cultural meme, which is sort of like a gene in the environmental sense.

So, we can decide whether we want to continue to subjugate a people … or perhaps multiple peoples and move on from there. If we decide to continue the subjugation, our ability to do so will eventually run out. Women already outnumber men and Americans of Color are projected to outnumber White Americans in the United States in 2045. However, if we decide to identify and address our genetic leanings toward subjugation, we will then have access to a whole tapestry of richness and diversity. There will be talents we need, allowed/encouraged to fully develop, and help address the other major ticking bomb on the table: climate change.

So, who do we want to be?

I have an ongoing interchange with my neighbor who is much more doom and gloom than I. I feel his conviction in the worst of us as a wall of air pushing me back. I am unable to stand in the face of that without taking time to reflect and settle back into my own more native hopefulness as in “hope springs eternal.”

I wonder, who do we want to be?

Jo Weaver

Zuni