Thousands of years ago, only trusting those who looked like you could have saved your life.
Strangers, people who looked different, might well kill you. Reasonable in light of how they too had been taught not to trust those who didn’t look like them. So with survival the foremost concern, humans had a good reason to distrust anyone first, outside their family; then, their clan; and, in time, their village.
Gradually, distrust embedded itself in our DNA and store consciousness. In dangerous times and circumstances, such distrust was understandable. But most of us now live in a very different world.
Distrusting others because they appear different doesn’t save us; it eviscerate us and crushes others. Why?
Differentiating arises from dualism: me vs. them. It personifies ego attachment: I’m right, so whatever they think and do is wrong. It shows ignorance of causality: if they gain, I lose. It robs others of happiness; gives fear, not fearlessness; kills hope.
It holds the ultimate power to destroy he who destroys.