Geneva- A group of global experts at the International University in Geneva made a stunning announcement this weekend following a two-and-a-half-year long study. Researchers tasked with investigating the origins and causes of modern racial tension determined the study had been pointless and a total waste of money.
Head researcher, Professor Anika Meijer, blamed the group's failure to meet their mandate on the simplicity of the task and overthinking.
"It took us two and a half years," said Meijer, chairwomen of the anthropology department at the Netherlands' University of Groningen. "We finally came to the conclusion that the answer was really quite simple. The very notion of racism is stupid in itself. And not from a sappy 'we're all the same on the inside' stuff they give you in preschool. It's really when you consider how much all human beings honestly just inherently suck, that's when the issue seems to get redundant."
"You see, all humans are pretty much awful regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation," added Harvard University Professor Bernard Scherzer. "Babylonians? Jerks. Persians? Jerks. Greeks? Jerks. Romans? C'mon here."
An excerpt from the official published report went into greater detail, stating:
Decent, peaceful people are rare, very rare. From the Mongols to the Moguls, the Egyptians to the Ethiopians, the British, the French, the Russians, the Ottomans, the Germans and the Romans, the Americans and the Chinese, the Sioux who killed Custer and the Chippewa who killed Sioux, the Spanish and Portuguese who conquered New World conquerors, the Creeks and the Greeks, we just all genuinely suck as a species.
Despite the simplicity of the report's overall thesis, even the research team doesn't expect the new findings to "have much of an impact on anything, ever."
"Yeah, overall it was a pointless study," said Oxford University Professor of Military History, Edmund Sewell. "I mean it was a good time. I'd have to say I enjoyed the experience. Made some lifelong friends and memories and what not, yeah. I told that to the nice lady with the form we had to fill out. What's her name? Sharon. Yeah, Sharon. But yeah, big picture speaking it was a lot of bloody money for such an obvious answer."
Sewell was the primary author of the official report along with Professor Angela Sardinas of the University of Milan who added, "It seems to me like this is a really easy issue. We're all the same, we all suck in very similar ways when you look at it. Probably should have had this sorted out a long time ago, you know?"
Professor Meijer noted that the study will likely go nowhere as far as solving racial tensions is concerned. Her entire team is skeptical of the public's ability to adjust to the new normal they now face.
"National Geographic published a scientific study about the fiction of race a little while ago," Meijer said. "But so far that doesn't seem to have solved racism. No, not yet. I don't think anyone actually reads these reports, do they? Guess we'll find out."
When asked if she was discouraged with the apparent futility of her team's long effort, Meijer texted me, "Oh well."
This piece and its is a work of satire. Any similarities to real life people are entirely coincidental.