Homo Europaeus
After reading The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant, I really felt something had to be done. So I went out to the nearest grocery, purchased a large tub of bleach, and dropped the book right on there. This is what you wanted Mr. Grant, right?
It seemed so, at least initially. However as the hours progressed, I began to grow rather concerned. Instead of turning the Great Race a nice pure parchment color as I had hoped, the bleach seemed to be causing its paper and general texture to quickly deteriorate.
Oh no! The words… Think of the children!!!
Hoping that this was just the first stage of the ink removal process, I let the Great Race bask for a few more days. Unfortunately though, this extended bleaching also failed to remove the impurities and instead left the book a sort of jelly-like blob. Whatever the Great Race may once have been, this could hardly be it.
Meta: although the weakhearted may find the destruction of any book to be suspect, I argue that my bleaching was not a senseless act but a scientific pursuit aimed at improving the fitness of this individual copy and increasing the purity of literary stock more broadly.
Yet not all was lost! To bring the Great Race back to greatness again, I dispensed with the pretense of book form and instead used the ancient nordic art of papier-mâché to craft the fragments into an epitome of Mr. Grant’s “Homo Europaeus, the white man par excellence.”
This visage, with its long skull and highly evolved philtrum, surely does Mr. Grant’s theories justice. I also must admit that I’m rather taken with it, although some care is required in handling as it is also rather fragile. In fact, whenever I’m feeling beaten down by the world, I find that I just slip it on to see the glorious and noble Homo Europaeus reflected back.
Now about that hair color…
Yes, being great has never been easier, and the Great Race has never looked better either, all thanks to shining luminaries such as Mr. Grant and bit a bleach. So if you too believe that some humans are born special, and you also just totally coincidentally happen to be one of those humans, then pour yourself another glass of Clorox’s finest and join Mr. Grant in toasting your own greatness.