I had an experience some years back that made me have an epiphany. I read a story online about a pedophile who was abusing little children in his area. And while I was indeed disgusted at such a thing, I was more concerned about the name of the person.

Now you would think I was checking the name out of curiosity, or so I could associate the act with a name.

But no, I was checking to see the tribe he came from. And when I discovered he was my tribesman, I was sad.

All the vocabulary in the world could not capture how disheartened I was.

That was when I had the epiphany and it made me more disgusted with myself.

I couldn’t believe it.

Here was a story about a man that perpetrated an evil act in the lives of little girls, an act that would, without doubt, for years to come affect these girls in a way we are yet to understand, an act that is traumatic beyond imagination; and all I could think about was where the man was from.

All I could think about was something so trivial and superficial.

I thought about it and wondered when I started to think this way and it occurred to me that someone must have taught me to think that somehow only “my people” should matter to me.

After that experience, I was determined to treat everybody as first, human and, most importantly, I decided to teach that to my children.

I am sure I was not born this way and I can bet that I am not alone. Nelson Mandela was accredited to have said love comes more naturally to man then hate. And if people can be taught to hate, they can be taught to love (paraphrased).

Every child is born with a heart of gold and colour blind. They don’t see race or ethnicity, they only respond to love.

Let’s agree that our generation has been destroyed for love, but who says we have to teach our children what we have been taught? Who says we cannot let them know that we are all children of God and that is all that matters? Who says we cannot imbibe in them a heart that accepts all as one?

We all belong to one race; the human race. That is what we should be passing across to our children.