Quote.. I said it!

"We are all humans until race disconnected us, religions separated us, politics divided us and wealth classified us."

On Facebook yesterday I saw a picture of a hand-written quote, without naming who they were quoting. 

This wound me up – as usual – so I decided to do some investigation. Different “authors” have said that they said this or they know who said it. 

Albert Sinnick says it’s from an Iranian atheist. 

Syed Mafiz Kamal says from Russell John - Bangladeshi Twitter activist. 

"Sketches of my Life" put the picture up and didn’t name whoever originally said this.

A user on Pinterest quoted the saying without any name or acknowledgment. 

The Human First website printed a longer quote: "We were all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us, wealth classified us, gender isolated us and reductionist science compartmentalized and degenerated us." Apparently this was said by Beyond Industrial Civilization. 

Whisper, Sun-Gazing (also on Pinterest), "Banksy" allegedly quoted on Twitter by Tim Fargo, ConsciousLifeNews (also on Pinterest) and SpiritScience (the usual Pinterest, *yawn*) each put their own name on their quote pic.  Far too many who stuffed up for me to copy.

Good sites such as Humanist which has quoted "unknown", and EnchantedMinds which has quoted "anonymous", are good by realizing that the original speaker is not known. So many people who have claimed they have said this don’t figure out that it can or can’t be proven. 

Goodreads, on one page, listed this quote as "unknown" – very good - but on a Goodreads different page Pravinee Hurbungs appears to say it’s his own. 

QuotePix says that who posted it was "Anonymous" (Perhaps that’s the best…)!

I found a paper "’Race’and the Construction of Human Identity" written by Audrey Smedley in 1998, which didn’t say exactly these words, but I think that whoever wrote the quoted words could possibly have read this before they wrote “their” words. 

Still, I haven’t found who really said it, so my own opinion is that every unknown quote should ALWAYS be marked as “unknown” and should NOT be claimed by someone else!

I’d love you if you thought this too.