It is interesting, that while all humans are one species, Homo sapiens, and 99.9% structurally the same, there is so much interest and emphasis on our national and racial origins. In fact, all present H.sapiens have a common ancestry in Africa. There was a small input, in the distant past, of genes from Neanderthal and Denisovans, related human species, but contemporary humans have been the same species and interbreeding successfully for many thousands of generations. However, skin colour, stature and facial features, which constitute only 0.1% of what it means to be human, occupy most of our thinking about others. We concentrate on those differences which do not match our self image, make value judgments regarding mental abilities and motivations, and ignore the fact that we are all the same under the skin.

This is not rational – concentrating on the minor superficial differences in humans and ignoring the rest. Other species of animals do the opposite: a dog is a dog, no matter the breed and despite all the bizarre features we have bred into Canis familiaris. Furthermore, humans have been interbreeding for millenia, and often inbreeding within family and tribal groups. And more recently, given the lack of firm borders between nations in Europe, the Middle East, India and East Asia, there was much mixing of the inhabitants. Despite the claims of Hitler and his ilk, there is no such thing as a ‘pure race’. Even the separation between African slaves and their masters was fuzzy. The further we trace our ancestry back, the greater the number of antecedents which have contributed to our DNA. We humans are mongrels whether or not we would like to claim otherwise!

So to return to the concept of humans being a single species, instead of naming, blaming and shaming others on the basis of minor differences in appearance we should celebrate our diversity. This should also include diversity in gender. I was delighted to read recently that the skeletal remains of Cheddar Man, a long acclaimed ancestor of the British and someone who lived thousands of years before the slave trade could have brought him to England, was found, via analysis of his DNA, to have had a black skin!