Green is the only colour that matters. The Human Race and the Human Genome Project. In the next couple of weeks, just like 60,000 other amazing souls have already done, I am sending in my personal DNA sample to the National Geographic www.nationalgeographic.com to contribute to their groundbreaking research on the origin of mankind.

Why would I do this? I know where my familial descendants lived, but what I don't know is how my family ended up where I am today. I want confirmation of where I came from - the same place we all came from. Yes, scientists now have irrefutable DNA proof that we are all descended from the same small tribe in East Africa.

Some will read this and reject it outright, but there it is. Science does not lie. You can call us all children of god, or whatever your spiritual philosophy espouses, but that does not change the fact that we all come from the same place and the same ancestors. We have taken on different physical characteristics as migration patterns, geographic survival, temperament, and adaptability changed our features and our cultures, but under the skin, folks - we are the same.

Let me repeat that. Not only are we the same, but we are all related. How do I know that? Read on.

Out of Africa. The words of the author, Spencer Wells, Vanity Fair, July 2007, in this superb article (and the concomitant national geographic website) literally takes your breath away. Here in an excerpt from this living documentary.

"Somewhere between 80,000 and 50,000 years ago, Africa saved Homo sapiens from extinction. Charting the DNA shared by more than six billion people, a population geneticist-and director of the Genographic Project-suggests what humanity "owes" its first home.

Do you think you know who you are? Maybe Irish, Italian, Jewish, Chinese, or one of the dozens of other hyphenated Americans that make up the United States melting pot? Think deeper-beyond the past few hundred years. Back beyond genealogy, where everyone loses track of his or her ancestry-back in that dark, mysterious realm we call prehistory. 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.

Here's how it works. The human genome, the blueprint that describes how to make another version of you, is huge. It is composed of billions of sub-units called nucleotides, repeated in a long, linear code that contains all of your biological information. Skin color, hair type, the way you metabolise milk: it is all in there. You got your DNA from your parents, who got it from theirs, and so on, for millions of generations to the very beginning of life on earth.

What about humanity, though? What about creatures you would recognise as being like you if they were peering over your shoulder right now?

It turns out that every person alive today can trace his or her ancestry back to Africa. Everyone's DNA tells a story of a journey from an African homeland to wherever you live.

We are all related. How did we come to live in stratified society with so many social, cultural and economic classifications?

We are all born with extraordinary innate capabilities and the propensity for equal opportunity intellectual equity. Watch any young child explore his/her world with wonder, delight and consummate curiosity. What happens to us afterwards as we mature is a combination of environment, culture, training, education, finances, value judgments, personal motivation, mentorship encouragement, and life accidents. When any of these contributors are lost or unreachable, the long road to financial success becomes very long, indeed.

The workforce equity act (it does not deserve a title frame reference) proposes to equalise financial success by categorising us into various ethnic group quotas.

With life so abstract and unpredictable, wherever did anyone decide that one can concisely define financial or personal success on the basis of any criteria whether background, culture, religion, or ethnicity?

Having an intense dislike of being defined by employment questionnaires including those above, along with age, and sex, etc., I have frequently opted to ignore these categorisations. I did not know what "race" I was (well, I do now) and sure feel (as many of my peers do) that intellectual age has nothing to do with physical age.

Where do women fit in? If I am a descendant of East Africans, how will I be categorised under the act? One certainly notices immediately that women do not rate a mention. With the swoop of a pen and meaningless rhetoric, we have been relegated to non-existence.

But then, for most of history (until recently) women have never really been acknowledged as counting for much of anything except as spoils of war, and nurturer of future generations. This proposed act has by implication of redress elevated some groups to stardom criteria and the rest of us to second-class status regardless of our demographics.

We live in a society full of multi-ethnic people and multi-cultural families. My extended family, for instance, is vitally comprised of many colours. Multi-ethnic, multi-cultural relationships happen; if those within them survive, they become strong at deflecting life's prejudices.

Strom Thurmond denied (and demeaned) his daughter's existence all his life, but he could not deny her intelligence and her ability - in the face of life long rejection - to raise her own incredibly successful family.

In Bermuda, what will one say in the future to a husband or wife, sister or brother, or two cousins within the same family, one classified under the act as white, and one as black? Hey, you on the left, step up, we want you! However, you, over there on the right, at some point, we'll take you under the quota.

Under this act, multi-ethnic families (aren't we all?) will be truncated and forever defined under someone else's terms, while inferred within this exercise is that some of us even with the same DNA will never measure up. How do you think successful professionals feel - those who have walked, talked and performed under their own initiative up the long rungs of success ladders?

What about the hopes and dreams of many parents, who have sacrificed so much, working two, three or more jobs to educate their children for the future, only to see them categorised into mediocrity by a quota? How humiliating, how demoralising, how diminishing to the human spirit!

Moreover, what of the initiators, the promoters, the signatories and the implementers of this inept affirmative action bill? What will happen to them if they apply into the exempt company industry?

Will they be hired on their merits, or will they never be able to eradicate the subliminal thoughts of others that they are there 'just to put bums on seats?' How can anyone feel self-respect under such imposed circumstances?

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has lobbied for most of his career to rescind affirmative action law in his own country. He has always wanted to be judged on his own strengths, but the lament through his newly-released autobiography is that he will never know if any goal that he aspired to, and succeeded at, was awarded to him on his own merits or as part of a quota balancing act.

By virtue of this act, that might be more aptly titled the Permanent Second Class Citizens Act, the powers that be have defined their own legacy and ours by informing us (and the rest of the world) that there are at least two groups of residents employed in Bermuda who do not quite measure up, second-class citizens and quota citizens. I wonder if anyone who had a hand in generating this ill-conceived legislation truly understands the psychological damage inflicted on us and on themselves, as well as on those for generations to come. This is truly a self-inflicted body blow to our community's emotional, financial and intellectual well-being.

Reject affirmative action rhetoric and categorisation. Long after her death, Eleanor Roosevelt's statement of human definition lives on: "Never, but never let anyone define who you are."

We know who we are. We know we are all related and we do not have to allow ourselves to categorised or stereotyped in this way. Is this the future that any resident, any parent, any spouse, anyone in a relationship in Bermuda would want to create for his or her family, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren? I think not.

If I could make one wish true, it would be that every man, woman, or child, makes their way through the financial success market based upon the merits of their intellectual attributes, their personal motivational drive, their social skills and their intuitive power - all selected under double blind screening where neither gender nor any other personal data is revealed. The only criteria should be - is this the most qualified candidate for this job? Will it happen? Perhaps, but not in my lifetime.

There is only one race, the human race.

There is only one color that equates with success = green.

The author is not a member of any political party. She votes her conscience.

Martha Harris Myron CPA -NH1929, CFP® -67184 (US licenses) is a dual citizen (US and Bermuda). She is a Senior Wealth Manager at Argus Financial Limited, specializing in comprehensive financial planning and investment advisory services for individual private clients and their families, business owners, endowments and trusts. DirectLine: 294 5709 Confidential email can be directed to mmyron[AT]argusfinancial.bm

The article expresses the opinion of the author alone. Under no circumstances is the content of this article to be taken as specific individual investment advice, nor as a recommendation to buy/ sell any investment product. The Editor of the Royal Gazette has final right of approval over headlines, content, and length/brevity of article.