These seven factors should not be used to compare our trauma with other people’s trauma, because other factors unrelated to the traumatic event and its aftermath (such as upbringing and personality traits) can make some people less resilient to trauma. Instead, these seven factors can help us understand the human condition, our shared humanity, and the nature of trauma.
Exploring trauma also offers additional evidence that humanity is not naturally violent. When a child is raised in a peaceful and loving environment, it is good for the human brain. That is a scientific fact. When a child is raised in a violent and abusive environment, it is not good for the human brain. That is also a scientific fact. But if human beings were naturally violent, why wouldn’t the opposite be true? Later in this book I will discuss why violence can have such a seductive scent, despite its traumatizing taste.
The suicide dream I had at age five gave me an early glimpse into the trauma that would later become both my fiercest opponent and greatest teacher. The dream contained metaphorical insights that have increased my understanding of trauma, the human condition, and the road to peace. In the language of metaphors and symbols, my dream seemed to be saying, “The parents who once protected you are dead. Now you must die with them, because life has become terrifying and confusing and no one can protect you anymore.”
In the suicide dream I stabbed myself in the chest with a pair of scissors, but I did not die. I woke up in my bed, surrounded by darkness, alone and afraid. The suicide dream had ended abruptly, but the real nightmare was being alive.
Two Ways to Drown
It was difficult being half Korean, a quarter black, a quarter white, and growing up in Alabama. As a child I felt like I was not Korean enough to be Korean, not black enough to be black, and not white enough to be white. Living in a world where so many people defined their identity by race, I felt like an outcast.
People have asked me, “What race do you see yourself as?” That’s a complex question, because is my race determined by how I look or how I think? My father conditioned me to think like a black man living before the civil rights movement, and my mother reinforced this view. My parents did this because they wanted to protect me from the racism that had harmed so many black men from my father’s generation. As a mixed race couple, they were not naive about racism in America.
During my childhood my mother frequently told me, “People will call you ‘Chinese-face,’ but when they find out your father is black they will treat you like you are black. When you buy something from the store always make sure you hold on to the receipt, because people often accuse black men of stealing. Be careful around women, because they often accuse black men of rape.” This was the reality for my father and other black men living during segregation, and although the civil rights movement achieved many important victories, much work remains to be done.
In the midst of these dark and painful experiences, I began to see light. After all, being an outcast can have its advantages. Because I did not belong to just one racial group, I taught myself to see beyond our differences and perceive the light of our shared humanity. As a young adult I realized that all people, regardless of their race, nationality, or religion, want purpose and meaning in life. And all people, no matter what their skin color, want to be around people they can trust.
Furthermore, although a broken leg can be caused by an accident, natural disaster, animal attack, or hateful human being, the greatest amount of psychological trauma will result if a hostile person assaults us, makes us feel helpless, and breaks our leg out of malice. This is true whether we are American, Vietnamese, Russian, Chinese, German, or Iranian.
Reading philosophy allowed me to find other thinkers who realized there is really only one race—the human race. Over two thousand years ago, Socrates said, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”15 Many religions also express the idea that we are part of one human family. Only recently has science caught up with Socrates, when geneticists found physical proof in our genetic code that all human beings are actually related.
Spencer Wells started contributing to this groundbreaking genetics research while earning his PhD at Harvard and doing his postdoctoral work at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Wells is currently the director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC.16 As Wells explains, countless people throughout history believed that some races were intellectually and morally inferior to others, but modern genetics research has proven there are no intellectual or moral differences between the races. The myth of racial inferiority was used to justify slavery, colonialism, and other oppressive systems, and many people still believe this myth today. Wells tells us:
The American pro-slavery lobby embraced an extreme form of the Linnean view [of racial division] in the nineteenth century. The view that human races were actually separate, inherently unequal entities made it easier to justify the brutal oppression practised in the United States. The theory that human races are distinct entities, created separately, is known as polygeny—from the Greek for “many origins.” This theory clearly contradicted the biblical story of the Garden of Eden, inhabited by a single Adam and a single Eve, and thus raised the hackles of the church. Most biologists also objected to the polygenist view, noting the extensive hybridization among human races.17
Genetic testing shows that all human beings on the planet today descended from a common ancestor who lived within the past several hundred thousand years in Africa. When I mentioned this genetics research during one of my talks, someone responded, “Why does it matter if human beings are all related? Family members fight with each other all the time, so the knowledge that human beings are one big extended family will not end human conflicts.”
I replied, “Great point, and I think you are right. Conflicts certainly exist within families, but I am not discussing the end of conflict. Martial arts and the military taught me to see conflict as an opportunity, because it can allow us to arrive at greater clarity and understanding. What causes so much harm is not really conflict, but destructive conflict resolution, where I try to solve our disagreement or misunderstanding by punching you in the face. When family members have a conflict, should they resolve it by massacring each other? Most people would say no. Looking at history allows us to see how war, genocide, slavery, and oppression rely heavily on propaganda that dehumanizes people as being inferior and subhuman. It’s harder to justify massacring or enslaving a group of people when we transform the knowledge of our shared humanity into empathy for all human beings.”
The person then agreed that although the knowledge of us being one human family will not end conflict, this knowledge makes it more difficult to dehumanize people just because they have a different skin color. We can move the world closer to peace if we combine the truth of our shared humanity with waging peace skills that allow us to effectively resolve conflict.
Science confirms the truth of our shared humanity. Stanford professor Marcus Feldman led an international genetics study, which showed that human beings share about 99.9 percent of the same DNA.18 When a baby is born anywhere on earth, even to people whose skin color differs from yours, about 99.9 percent of your DNA is passed on. In the ancient era of Socrates, our shared humanity was a philosophical idea. Today it is a scientific fact.
What else does modern genetics research reveal about the truth of our shared humanity? In an article for Vanity Fair, Spencer Wells explains that because all people on the planet today share a common ancestor who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago in Africa, we are all technically African: “What if I told you every single person in America—every single person on earth—is African? With a small scrape of cells from the inside of anyone’s cheek, the science of genetics can even prove it.”19
Genetic evidence shows that humanity almost went extinct during the past several hundred thousand years. The reason