We homo sapiens cannot control our race at birth.

Genetic miracles, all.

We are what we are. Or, as Broadway croons, “I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses.”

We certainly can and do make social and ethnic choices as we age, but our race does not change.

Why, then, is racial discrimination so predominant among the human race?

A rhetorical question, obviously, but a question nonetheless.

On Tuesday, international leaders and ordinary citizens gathered in Johannesburg to honor the accomplished life of South African anti-apartheid revolutionary-turned-President Nelson Mandela.

The service was part mourning, part celebration and all adoring.

Mandela spent his entire life fighting for racial equality, revolting against the National Party’s forced segregation of blacks and whites. When apartheid finally ended, Mandela spent his life in forgiveness rather than hate, drawing the races together in shared national pride.

If the show of appreciation and respect at Tuesday’s service is any indication, the once-split nation of South Africa has enthusiastically embraced Mandela’s philosophy of equality as its own.

It is not a philosophy shared around the world, and even in places where equality is embraced by the majority, there is a small minority that discriminates.

In outer Lewiston, after Mandela died, an elderly man spray-painted a message in red on his garage door: “Good riddance Bo Bo Mandela! 1 Down 100 Mil 2 Follow.”

Asked about the message Wednesday, the man said, “I’m glad he’s dead.”

Asked why, the man said, “I’ve seen enough. Read enough. Know enough to know I don’t like the man.”

Asked if he hoped other black people would die, as the message suggests, the man said, “Everybody who lives dies.”

And, he said, he’s free to write whatever he wants on his garage and suggested that if people don’t like it, they can consider it akin to listening to the radio, and “just switch the channel” or look somewhere else. Just “don’t tell anybody else what to do.”

We won’t.

We’re struck, though, that such a message still exists in an age when minority births are outpacing births among whites in this country and when minority groups account for 49.7 percent of all children living here.

That’s a significant shift from a decade ago as Americans’ tolerance has grown, and it is a statistical reality that when these children grow up, the majority and minority races in this country will soon equalize. In fact, according to population projections of the Pew Research Center, whites are expected to be a 47 percent minority by 2050.

Isn’t that what this nation of immigrants wanted from the start? To be a haven of freedom and tolerance of our differences? That we lift that lamp of freedom up to the golden door in New York Harbor that is Liberty Island?

History tells us so.

Throughout civilization, in societies where people have been oppressed, revolutionaries have struggled for freedom, for equality and for tolerance of personal differences.

This nation was founded on that belief, and we have fought wars — political, cultural and actual —in defense of that belief.

That’s what makes it so curious that some people living here, and who enjoy the freedoms of living here, are not willing to extend the courtesy of tolerance to others.

Here’s a thought for every person who shares a notion, raises a voice, shakes a fist or brandishes a weapon while denigrating the race of another: What if, by happenstance, your genes dictated you were born to the race you hate. Who would hate you?

Who would hate your children?

jmeyer@sunjournal.com

The opinions expressed in this column reflect the views of the ownership and the editorial board.

“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” 

— Nelson Mandela