Race in America is social, it is not biological or cultural. It is a “social construct” as the anti-racists say. Race does not come from your family tree, from how you were born or how you look; it does not come from how you act or talk or dress. It does not come from how much money or education you have – or do not have. It comes from a rule of American society, one that was made up to make some men into slaves and others free.
Here is the rule:
If someone looks “black”, like they are part black African, then there is something wrong with them. They are not quite fully human. They do not matter that much.
According to this rule being part black African is like a stain on a dress that does not wash out: the dress is no good and never will be. Though it might still be good for some lesser purpose. Likewise for other people of colour to different degrees.
So even if you are 90% European and 10% African, if that 10% shows up in your looks then you are “black”. In the old days that meant “whites” could make you into a slave. And even now, more than a hundred years after the slaves were freed, many whites still act towards you as if there truly is something wrong with being any part black African. And it is not just a few skinhead jerks either.
Race is like paper money. When I give you $20 from my pocket I give you a piece of green paper with the picture of a president and the number 20 on it. It is worth $20 not because the paper itself is worth that much but because everyone agrees that it is worth that much – and acts accordingly. Race is just like that: a useful fiction.
But useful for whom? For whites. Even now, long after slave days, they use it to hold on to their white privilege – the unfair advantages they get just for being white, like better schools, good police protection, more pay for the same education and experience, lower unemployment, etc.
And just like paper money, the “value” of black people – in this case a low one compared to that of whites – comes not from the people themselves – not from their brown skin or from some unseen fault inside them – but from the value that white people agree to give them and acting accordingly.
“Black” people and “white” people are completely the creation of racism, nothing more, nothing less. If the brains of white people were wiped clean of racism for a hundred years, then at the end of those hundred years there would be no more black people or white people left in the country – just people with skins of different colours, just like there are people with hair of different colours. There would be no races left in America.
Not that I believe in kumbaya anti-racism: racism runs far deeper than any song or feel-good words can wipe away.
See also:
- Posts I should not have to write:
- One Drop Rule
- racism is not natural
- The Wigger Fallacy – race is not cultural
- The white club
- Danzy Senna: Caucasia – a great book about an girl in America who can pass as either black or white. It shows you just how screwed up the whole idea of race is, how made-up it is, how it is a fiction. The picture at the top of the post is from the book.
I agree with most of the post, but I must say it isn’t “just in America”. There’s no place on Earth where human race is biological fact. It’s always (and everywhere) social category.
That’s why it isn’t the same thing in America, Brazil or Russia. Or anywhere for that matter. Just ask people from different countries (and cultures) about Obama’s race (or any other person’s) and you’ll get different answers.
Also, there were cultures that didn’t have race as a social construct at all, at least not in today’s sense of the word. Most of the Ancient cultures fall into this category (even if they knew about people with skin colour different than their own).
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Here’s proof of your point: many indigenous languages do not define black and whites in terms of simple skin color. Often (especially here in Brazil) they make no or little differentiation at all.
IIRC, the Lakota word for white people is “grubs” or “maggots” or “grease stealers”. It’s not due to their color, but to their greed, supposedly. For black people, it’s basically “darker colored maggots” (again, IIRC).
The distinction here is on the level of hair color, not one of race.
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I just can’t jump on the “race as a creation of the human imagination” argument. Sorry, I look at a Ghanian and a Norwegian and see completely different races that look completely distinguishable.
“Black” may be a construct as they are defined in the United States, but that doesn’t mean I can deny that there are differences between sub-Saharan Africans and European Caucasians.
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Yes. But there are also significant differences between red haired and black haired people; between those who are short and those who are tall…
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abagond,
Thanks for your excellent analysis of how “race”, in the context of American culture/society, is a social construct that dictates that those designated as “Black” be treated in a NEGATIVE, DISCRIMINATORY manner.
Of course there are obvious differences between different groups of human beings but attaching a NEGATIVE CONNOTATION (that has a long term detrimental effect on the quality of life of CERTAIN human beings) to these otherwise insignificant differences, is what makes “race” a social construct.
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I don’t think it has anything to do with attaching a negative or positive connotation to race. I think it has to do with attaching a connotation to race at all: the connotation that race is the primary determinant of one’s traits. This is ofcourse not true, it is constructed by the mind.
Ofcourse there are differences between a Norwegian and a Ghanian. The skin of the Norwegian has a different color than the skin of the Ghanian, they speak different languages, etc. But they do not have different qualities because of their race, just like someone with red hair isn’t lazier than someone with blonde hair because of hair-colour.
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Not just that. As I said, race doesn’t exist in biological terms.
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Of course the people in Ghana and Norway are different – physically, culturally, etc. But as I tried to make clear towards the end of the post, seeing physical differences is not the same thing as seeing race. No one makes a big deal out of hair colour, for example, but they do about skin colour.
In an alternative history of the world where West Africa got the jump on Europe, Africans could have raided the British Isles and Scandinavia for slaves and used their hair as an excuse and a social marker. I mean, their hair is wild – it does not stay in one place – and it comes in strange and unnatural colours, like brown, orange, red and yellow. So clearly there is something wild, strange and unnatural about them. Making them slaves would be an act of mercy. So there you go.
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Just reiterating what several people said above in another light:
To say there is no race is not the same thing as saying people are exactly the same. What is being said is that the characteristics you pay attention to when you see “race” are socially defined. You could make “races” out of big-footed and small-footed people if you wanted to. No one wants to because that particular characteristic has no historical or social weight to it.
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I think the whole concept of race today came from when the African slaves were brought to the New World. You also had the Indians and whites. As they began race mixing, a caste system was developed. Those that looked closer to white were seen as better. Those that looked Indian or black were seen as inferior. Whites were at the top of this scale. This also developed as colonization in other countries. It was used to justify enslavement and subjugation. In India, they have an older version of the caste system with light skin at the top. It’s sad but a lot of nonwhite people have also internalized racism.
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Exactly abagond. White people came up with silly excuses to kidnap and rape african people.
“oh their hair is fuzzy so that gives us the right to kidnap them and force them to be slaves!”
Or
“oh their skin is brown so that means they are inferior and its ok for us to kidnap them and treat them like dogs”
Actually, the original excuse was “Oh, they aren’t Christians, so that means we can capture them as slaves.”
This was, it should be noted, the same justification that allowed Western Europeans to capture white slavs and turn them into slaves.
The “they don’t look like us” argument came CENTURIES later and it was used precisely to drive a breach between the white wroking class and black slaves.
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Religion was the excuse used at first, true, but race came very soon after: in the 1660s. By 1700 marriage between blacks and whites was already being outlawed.
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@ Lucia
Most whites are the ones who are full of hate. She is just treating them the way they have always treated us. Why is it that white people can say terrible racist things about black people but when we defend ourselves then we are the racist?
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Religion was the excuse used at first, true, but race came very soon after: in the 1660s. By 1700 marriage between blacks and whites was already being outlawed.
Sure, Abagond, but blacks are being pulled out of subsaharan Africa in the 1400s already. So we’re talking 2-300 years before the color line really started consolidating.
That’s a long time.
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Amen!!!!
“DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another. There also is no genetic basis for divisions of human ethnicity. People who have lived in the same geographic region for many generations may have some alleles in common, but no allele will be found in all members of one population and in no members of any other. ”
http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/minorities.shtml
– Issues of Race, The Human Genome Project
The concept of race exist because we want it to, not because it is real. Race continues to exist because some want to think they are special, superior and unique. They have become invested in it. Some are invested in because of their unknown privilege others are invested in it because it justifies their continued victimization. Some will continue remain in denial and hold on to their fantasy others grow up while others see the people as individuals.
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Exactly and for that reason that’s why it’s so hard to be so darned open minded about whites being individuals(of course they are) when you constantly get knocked down and you’re powerless to do anything about it.
It seems wherever we go in the world we’re confronted with bigoted white people, it’s quite exhausting to constantly start afresh with treating each white as not as bad as the last racist one. White people don’t wear signs on their foreheads that they’re liberal and not prejudiced.
Heck I can’t even go into the neck of the English countryside without feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Not all are bad of course, but I say forewarned is forearmed. Experience has taught me from a very young age to be wary around whites. Not necessarily out of a fear of being attacked, but the narrow-minded attitudes of some quacks.
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Abagond said:
“If someone looks “black”, like they are part black African, then there is something wrong with them. They are not quite fully human. They do not matter that much.”
I agree 100%.
Mira said:
“Yes. But there are also significant differences between red haired and black haired people; between those who are short and those who are tall…”
Are you saying that black-haired people are more susceptible to certain diseases than are red-haired people? Or that they have different average IQ’s or propensities to commit violent crimes, especially rape? Because those are the differences between blacks and whites.
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Are you saying that black-haired people are more susceptible to certain diseases than are red-haired people? Or that they have different average IQ’s or propensities to commit violent crimes, especially rape? Because those are the differences between blacks and whites.
I don’t believe any of those things make differences between blacks and whites. It’s nonsense.
In any case, you can “look white” and have more African genes. You could still be susceptible to particular diseases. In cases such as that one (you look like white, but you’re actually mixed and most of your genes are common in African people)… What are you? Black or white?
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@Mira:
Peter Lerman is nothing but a smelly troll. He only drops by to stir up bs.
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Well, I’m (more or less) new here. On the other hand, I am often unable to tell who’s a troll and who’s just a general jerk.
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Excellent Post. Race is a social construct that is often times confounded by biological realities. For an example of the absurdity (and therefor destructiveness) of racial classifications, I encourage all to watch the movie “Skin” with the wonderful actress Sophie . It’s about a white couple that give birth to a darker skin child (we would call her black here in America) and all the wackiness that ensues (I’m being facetious of course). It’s based on a true story.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0964586/
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Recent news reports suggest that whites will be the minority in the U.S. in just a decade or a few from now.
How do you guys think this will affect how race is seen in the States? Do you think this will alter the racial hierarchies that they established?
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@mynameismyname
There is a post on Racialicious that discusses that very same topic. It suggests that whites will not be the minority because they will find a way to appropriate members of the Latino community and bring them under the umbrella of whiteness, so that they remain in the majority.
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I think it’s actually believed whites will not become minority, because more and more groups of people will be considered white. Mexicans, for example, or South Asians, or light skinned biracials…
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@ Mira
But do you really think that whites, especially in America will be willing to pull in Mexicans as whites? Considering the trouble that Mexicans have gone thru in this country concerning immigration etc and being treated as less than by whites mostly…. I just cannot see whites embracing Mexicans into their fold. But then again, never underestimate the power of whites. 🙂
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After thinking for another minute on my statement about Mexicans being considered white in the future. i can see it. The same thing happened with the Jews, Irish and Italians. so yeah…
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But do you really think that whites, especially in America will be willing to pull in Mexicans as whites?
I have no idea. To me, Mexicans are white. But then again, I am not an American and I don’t know that much about American “rules” on race.
But I’ve read about this problem… As far as I can see, many people consider this to be a general trend- more and more groups of people will be considered “white” and whites won’t become minority anytime soon.
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Mr Noface:
“Skin” is about Sandra Laing. I did a post on her:
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Mexican is not a “race” in the first place…you can be white, metizo, indigenous, black and still be Mexican.
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Abagond,
Race is simply a system of categorization. Just because race has been used for ill purposes in the past, does not make the categorizations and the distinctions associated with those categorizations any less real. Should we dispense with rocketry just because the Nazis invented it? Should we kick Darwin to the curb because eugenists abused the theory of evolution? Denying reality doesn’t change reality, unless you are a neoconservative. Ghanaians are clearly different than Norwegians. They have different propensities for disease. Their blood types are generally different, which means that organ transplants between Ghanaians and Norwegians are problematic. We are all human. The similarities between the various races of the Earth overwhelm the differences. The differences, nonetheless, are significant.
Your paper money analogy is woefully inapt. Race is more analogous to the gold standard. To get around problems associated with gold redemptions (i.e. balanced budget) the gold window was closed in 1971. I don’t think it is coincidental that the notion that race as a social construct gained ascendancy during the same time period. Because race causes problems for the liberal mind, liberals are inclined to engage in intellectual monetary inflation, hoping that devaluing troublesome words like race will make problems associated with the dreaded word go away. This effort is as futile as the US government’s effort to create wealth by printing lots of paper money. There is no substance backing paper currency and there is no substance to the notion that race is a social construct.
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I’ve heard a lot of people have say exactly what you guys are saying:
“White” America will just co-op current “minorities” into the white category. The majority of “Hispanics” already check off white on the Census even if they are never perceived as such in society.
Hmm…someone said “light skinned biracials” have potential as “new whites” too. Eurasians, you mean? They already are generally seen as white as long as they don’t look TOO East/South Asian. I’m not sure if “whites” will ever allow anyone who is of significant African descent to legally be “white”. But you never know. What do you guys think?
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True, but as I understand, any Mexican wouldn’t be considered white in the US, right? Hey, half of Europe isn’t really considered “white” white, either. Or so I heard.
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I was the one who said “light skinned biracials”. To be honest, I don’t know what’s considered “light skinned biracial”, but whoever they are, they will be included… Eventually.
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A comment by RR just came out of moderation. Scroll up.
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If race isn’t a social construct, then how can I consider South Asians and people from Middle East to be white, while some (all?) Americans don’t?
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Here we go again with RR. [Roll eyes]
RR, there simply is no scientific basis for race – distinct biological subspecies – among human beings.
The American Anthropological Association rejects the concept.
The American Medical Association rejects the concept.
The Human Genome Project DECISIVELY rejects the concept.
EVERY single respectable professional associaiton in the world, bar none, that deals with human biology rejects the concept.
Who still supports the concept of race? A very tiny handful of politically motivated extremists who have very little data and sre heavily trashed everytime their work comes up for peer review.
Race is not the “gold standard” RR: it is conclusively junk bonds.
But hey, some people still believe in Amway and the flat Earth theory, too.
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@Mira,
What is your definiton of “white”?
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Thaddeus,
You wrote:
“EVERY single respectable professional associaiton in the world, bar none, that deals with human biology rejects the concept.”
This is obviously untrue. The AMA recognizes the biological reality of race:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/no-index/about-ama/13676.shtml
Here are a few of a choice sentences from the AMA on race:
Defining race and ethnicity
Race: Racial groups are generally defined in the physical and social sciences as any relatively large division of persons that can be distinguished from others on the basis of inherited physical characteristics. 2-3 Despite the obvious biological aspects of racial definition, there is growing recognition that racial classification schemes are variable and that race is more a social category than a biological one.
Note they say that “race is more a social category than a biological one”, but they do not deny that biology partly defines race.
And:
In contrast to the growing consensus that race is socially defined, biomedical sciences and public health continue to view race as accurately reflecting an underlying genetic homogeneity.6, 16-17 Medical dictionaries emphasize the primacy of biological distinctiveness (eg, blood type and gene frequencies) as the criteria for the classification of human populations.
Thaddeus, I hope you do not let your dogmatism regarding race overwhelm you good judgment. What if your mixed race daughter needed a bone marrow transplant? Would you insist that race not be used as a criterion in the search for a suitable donor because you believe race to be scientifically spurious? As you may or may not know, it is difficult to find matches for people of mixed race precisely because race is a biological reality:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-donor6-2009dec06,0,488526.story
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I think race would’ve developed even without slavery. At around this period, biological taxonomy was becoming a science. It led up to the theory of evolution. I think that race is nothing more than biological taxonomy applied to humans, which would’ve happened with or without slavery.
Someone also mentioned what would happen if whites became a minority. I think if whites become a minority and we started having a larger number of mixed race people, American racism would morph into Brazilian racism. People will still have the general feeling that whiter is better, smarter, pleasant, beautiful and purer and feel the opposite about the end of the spectrum. I don’t think that attitude would change regardless of how mixed society became. I don’t expect racism to disappear within my lifetime, if ever. It’s simply too powerful and self-perpetuating.
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As an Afrolatina who has been exposed to mixed race Indigenous-Spanish Mexicans and Indigenous Mexicans/Mexican culture for my entire life, I feel that reclassifying Mexicans as “White” would be a bogus racial construct.
Outside of Europeans born in Mexico (who may refer to themselves as Mexicans), mixed race Indigenous-Spanish Mexicans and Indigenous Mexicans are no more “White” than other mixed race Latinos, African Americans, Africans, Asians or East Indians.
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If whites classify Mexicans or South Asians as white, it would be only to give the illusion that they are large in numbers because they have a lower fertility rate than other races.
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Shani,
Mexicans and any other Latin Americans are not a race. As other posters have pointed out.
But I wonder, when (or if) “whites” become the American minority, will the whole Latino/Hispanic construction be erased? Would there be a need for it? If you’re an European descendant from Cuba or Argentina, can you just be white now? Without the “Hispanic” tag?
If East and South Asians become “white”, what will happen to the “Asian” tag? Will you have a look a certain way to be classified as such, then?
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Just to clarify I am not denying or downplaying the awful things whites did and (some still do) to blacks.
I am just saying not all whites are like this and that you don’t have to be white to be racist.
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“Most whites are the ones who are full of hate. She is just treating them the way they have always treated us. Why is it that white people can say terrible racist things about black people but when we defend ourselves then we are the racist?”
That’s a typical line from white people whenever you confront them about their racism and their beliefs of superiority.
They get upset because they expect black people to treat them special and kiss their butt.
Just like in the old days whites expected black people to shuck and jive and smile for them,
anything to make whites feel comfortable!
I’m not going to be kind to white people when they have been using me and other black people as their personal toilet for hundreds of years and counting.”
I Am NOT A RACIST OR A WHITE SUPREMACIST.
my great grandmother was a beautiful black women from a tribe in africa.
I don’t expect anyone to treat me special.
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“You must be delusional. Whites DID create racism and they are the cause of white supremacy!”
whites did create modern racism but the concept of one race/tribe being superior to the other has always been around.
please read some ancient history. it will benefit you.
I am not a Troll or a phony… and i’m not here to put blacks OR whites down.
I am person of mixed heritage who just wants equality for everyone.. why can you not understand this?
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“Its most whites that are racist and its rare that a white person is not racist.”
i’m sorry but from my personal exprience I don’t find it rare.
I grew up between Italy and Africa and i can’t remember really ever having racism directed at me or my family while i lived in italy (it only happen once- it was not flat out racism like being called a nasty name or something but once I had a stereotype of being black women being over sex applied to me. but it only happen once).
only when I started to travel in america etc. I saw lots of racism
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I guess I’ll be ignorant then. If you can’t see the contradictory things in those two quotes then there really isn’t anything left to say.
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I don’t know why it got deleted but just so you know I am not defending stormfront or anyother despciable crap like that as you stated in another post which seems to be gone(?).
my white ancestry is sephardi italian jew. Jews are hated possibly more or equally as much as blacks by them.
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* Accept may is not the correct word because this would imply i am forcing the view on her. perhaps the correct word is to comprehend.
sorry my english is poor choice at times.
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^
I would just like to you read a comment I wrote on the “why white men don’t marry black women II”
“where i grew up it was and still is very rare to see a black or dark man with a white or light woman but very common to see a black or dark women with a white or light man.
I guess this is partially due to the ‘precious’ white woman stereotype and the opposite stereotype of promiscuous over sexed black woman.
oh and i’m sure the old colonial stereotype of ‘white man can do whatever he wants, have sex with whoever he wants’ but women of any race and black men were not allowed that liberty because it would threaten dominance of white men.”
I am acknowledging the way that white men used to(and some still do) control women and anyone who wasn’t white.
I am not defending whites.. just saying that we are equal.
peace
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back on topic I do believe that race is a social construct.
Otherwise how can a person look at me call me white but then look at my family tree and call me black. its crazy.
race concept has been around since societies began albeit in a different forms.
as humans I think we should focus on similarites and not differences!
This blog is very interesting another great article.
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You know if whites do become the minority it on’t make a difference look at South Africa black country whites are there the minority and still had Aparteid and all that crap and discrimination. Or even look at some Latin American countries
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I think the meaning of white will be extended to bring in most assimliated Hispanics – just like they did for the Jews, Irish and Italians. But anyone with a clear mestizo or black background need not apply. That should keep whites in the majority probably till 2100 (a guess). And if it does not, there is always the good old divide and conquer trick.
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Divide and conquer always works!
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I think you’re confusing Caucasian with “white”. All whites are Caucasian, but not all Caucasians are white. Dravidians and Arabs are considered Caucasians, not because of skin color but because of things like face and skull structure. The original Caucasians are said to have originated in the Caucasus mountains as one group, some of them went north and became lighter and evolved different hair and eye colors, some went south developed darkin skin from the stronger sun. Within the Caucasian supergroup, it’s hard to say where “white” ends and “non-white” begins, it’s more of a continuum with Caucasians being less white as they move closer to the equator. I guess if there’s anthing that defines whites as a distinct racial group, it’s their variety in hair and eye colors combined with white skin. As you move toward the Mediterranean and eastward, that diversity gradually becomes less prominent until it disappears altogether with Dravidians on the “dark caucasian” extreme. This is also why some people fight over whether Italians are really white. As you move south in Italy, they become swarthy complexioned and you don’t see variety in hair and eye colors. If they retained their whiter skin color and various eye and hair colors like N. Italians, their “whiteness” would not be in question. S. Italians are sort of at the borders of whiteness, like Turks, Lebanese, Greeks, some Persians, etc.
How many whites exist or “who is white” is just a matter of where they decide to make the cutoff point somewhere between Nordic and Dravidian. Russians don’t think the immigrants from the Caucasus region are “white”, even though to me they look white. Yet some consider Persian and Lebanese white and even some Aryan Indians. That’s where “white” as a social construct comes into play — namely, defining exactly who in that Caucasian continuum gets to join the white club.
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True, true. I assumed all Caucasians are considered white. It looks like I was wrong.
(and it looks like I might not be white after all :D)
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One thing I was thinking as I went to bed last night is that white privilege in some way is similar to beauty privilege. Beautiful women look in the mirror and know they are superior to everyone else even though they might not come out and say it. Beautiful women tend to only socialize with other beautiful women and shun ugly women, whether they are consciously aware of it or not, which is why you don’t see models hanging around with “normal” looking women. They are always in the company of other beautiful people. They get all kinds of perks and advantages in life. People are friendlier to them, more doors open to them, they get paid more, trusted more, more people want to befriend them and have them in their lives. They probably got favorable treatment from teachers and adults, have higher self-esteem, get invited to more parties, have the best choice in mates, get seated in the front of restaurants more, get advantage in bypassing the long lines in front of clubs, get treated better in general. If they run for a public office, they will attract more votes and public adoration because of their looks, if they are climbing the corporate ladder, it will be easier. In the back of their mind, they know they are different from normal people and that having great beauty has its perks.
I think whiteness works in a similar way. Maybe not as clear-cut, but there are some parallels between beauty privilege and white privilege. And of course if you are white AND beautiful, well then you have super duper privilege.
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RR, I admire your ability to creatively cut and paste and I invite folks to carefully read the AMA report in its entirety so that they can see for themselves your inability to correctly assess even the simplest sort of scientific document regarding race.
The AMA article which you start is basically a DESCRIPTION of a state of affairs and that state of affairs is described as a disparity between accepted theory and medical practice. The AMA is QUITE clear in that article that they consider race-as-a biological construct to be unproven and, as stands, insufficiently scientific. Let’s just quote those snippets you placed in their full context, shall we?
Now, this is the part you quoted:
In contrast to the growing consensus that race is socially defined, biomedical sciences and public health continue to view race as accurately reflecting an underlying genetic homogeneity. Medical dictionaries emphasize the primacy of biological distinctiveness (eg, blood type and gene frequencies) as the criteria for the classification of human populations.
You quote this as if the AMA approved of this situation. The immediately following two paragraphs (which you unaccountably fail to quote) make it very clear that the AMA considers this sort of practice to be dangerous and unscientific. Here is what they have to say about medical personel’s use of race as if it were a biological construct:
Despite this emphasis, however, it remains common practice within biomedical research to assign race based on socially defined phenotypic traits such as skin color and facial features. Furthermore, individuals are usually classified into the same socially defined taxonomies used in the social and physical sciences.
This disparity between theory and practice in the biomedical use of race has generated numerous critiques within medicine and public health. Most note the numerous problems associated with socially defined racial taxonomies and conclude that, at present, race remains a social-biological construct with only limited scientific basis. This view is supported by studies showing phenotypic characteristics to be only weakly associated with genotypic variation. It is estimated that only 7 percent to 10 percent percent of all possible human genetic variation occurs between the so-called major races (eg, Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid). Thus, there is considerably more genetic variation within races than between them, making it difficult to meaningfully classify humans into discrete biological categories with rigid boundaries.
The disparity between theory and practice in the assignment of race can have a number of implications for biomedical research. For example, the uncritical use of race in medicine effectively legitimizes an unscientific construct. Once legitimized, assumptions about race are then free to influence diagnosis and treatment patterns, with potentially harmful consequences. Recent advances in molecular biology present opportunities to logically develop racial taxonomies and thus eliminate the disparity between theory and measurement. Theoretically, race as a scientific construct could be tested using genetic reference data or gene markers to calculate the probability of an individual falling into one or more genetically defined population subgroups. To date, however, no reports of attempts to assign racial identity by this means have been published.
The only positive nod the AMA gives to the idea of biological race is that recent advances in genetic technology may FINALLY make it possible to develop a reasonable taxonomy of human races. This is, indeed, a legitimate field of study but it is a hypothesis, not anything close to proven as of yet.
Furthermore, as the scientists of the Human Genome Project have been at some pains to point out (and I think we can agree that they are the current experts on this topic), due to the independent clinactic distribution of genetic traits, it is VERY unlikely that any perceivable patterns in the biology of human populations will correspond to the simplistic and reductionist qualities that you perceive as human race (i.e. “black” or “white”).
Now here’s the kicker, which comes in the paper’s conclusions:
This review of the literature highlights the continued use of sociological definitions of race and ethnicity in medicine. Furthermore, it demonstrates the need to be explicit in the conceptualization of both race and ethnicity in biomedical research.
The AMA thus emphasizes exactly that which I’ve been trying to hammer into your thick freshman skull for weeks now: race is only useful – and even then only potentially – if we make our definitions of it crystal clear and obvious. This, neither you nor Rushton nor Steve Sailer do. You make a vague and rather unscientific definition of race as “relatedness” when pushed about it on genetic grounds, then you use an explicitly simplistic social definition of it as “self-attribution” when quoting from those IQ studies you love so much. You are thus attempting to causally link two antagonic definitions of race by simply obfuscating the fact that they are NOT the same definition.
In other words, your logic regarding race and bioodeterminism only functions – and even then only as rhetoric – to the degree that you explicitly contradict the AMA’s advice by using race as if it were a self-explanatory concept. In other words, you eschew scientific methodology and use peoples’ prejudices and pre-conceived notions to give weight to your argument.
That is not science, RR: that is rhetoric and politics.
It should thus be blindingly obvious by now that you are in no position whatsoever to lecture me about “political blinders” when it comes to science.
As I’ve advised you many times, RR, Google and Wikipedia are not substitutes for a decent formal education in biology and race when it comes to this topic. Get your ass back to the classroom or kidly STFU.
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Tulio sez:
Dravidians and Arabs are considered Caucasians, not because of skin color but because of things like face and skull structure.
Tulio, I think you’re confusing “Aryan” with “Caucasian”.
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What’s the key difference Aryan and Caucasian?
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Well, I’d say (logically): all Aryans are Caucasian, but not all Caucasians are Aryans.
What’s the difference, though… I have no idea. “They” say the key to be Aryan is to be really really light skinned (as white as you can get), as well as having blue eyes and blond hair. Then again, there are various ethnic groups that were called “Aryan”, an not all of them fit this description.
Then again, we can wonder, what happens if some of your features fit the stereotype and not the others. For example, having dark hair and eyes, but really light skin.
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my friend who is iranian told me iran is the original land of the aryans.. apparently the went south to india too and thats why you find many indians with white skin and green eyes.
he reckons the term was stole by nazis.
anyway don’t know if its true because it could be my friend talking his own silliness lol
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I have not read all the posts, so do forgive me if this has already been stated.
I believe ‘race’ apart from being social is also ‘political’, something you allude to in your log but do not state unequivocally.
I think you will find that this may have been the case in history when two groups may have shared same the ‘phenotype’ (ie outward appearances etc) but viewed themselves as ‘different’ (ie tribes).
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“Aryan” has two meanings: one more-or-less scientific and the other looney toon.
The scientific view is that its a linguistic family and – very, very remotely – an ethnicity. In this sense, Dravidians and Iranians are Aryan.
The looney-toon version is Hitler’s view of an Aryan race. Dravidians and Iranians don’t enter here, for all that the nazis were willing to use them as allies in WWII.
“Caucasian” is a discredited racist term. Currently, it’s used as a pop term which is synonymous with “white”.
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mynameismyname says,
Shani,
Mexicans and any other Latin Americans are not a race. As other posters have pointed out.
laromana says,
I think there is too much focus on the word “latino” as referring to a ethnic race rather than an extremely broad cultural, historical, and regional identity that includes a range of ethnicities and (sometimes shared) cultures.
mynameismyname says,
But I wonder, when (or if) “whites” become the American minority, will the whole Latino/Hispanic construction be erased? Would there be a need for it? If you’re an European descendant from Cuba or Argentina, can you just be white now? Without the “Hispanic” tag?
laromana says,
European descendants from Latin American countries are already considered “white”. They just refer to themselves as Hispanics to identify with the regional Hispanic culture.
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With regard to:
“my friend who is iranian told me iran is the original land of the aryans.. apparently the went south to india too and thats why you find many indians with white skin and green eyes. he reckons the term was stole by nazis.
anyway don’t know if its true because it could be my friend talking his own silliness lol”
Permit me if I may, what your friend says in fact is very accurate. There are always different perspectives on these things, so if am being pernickity.
I would say:
1. The Aryans did not originate in Iran, some suggest they migrated from somewhere in Asia and settled in Iran as they did elsewher in parts of Europe.
2. I think most concede that the Aryans were primarily concentrated in the northern part of India (lighter/whiter), whereas those in the South were (darker/black) generally speaking
Perhaps you may want to put this to your friend and see what he thinks??
Touching upon some other thoughts Aryan language is thought of as being related to the Indo-European languages, whereas Dravidian languages (those of the South, though it can be found elsewhere on the Indian sub-continent) are viewed as completely different.
The emphasis has changed from dravidian just like its counterpart aryan as being a specific race of people, to one of different groups of people speaking (a) certain language(s).
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First of all on the comparison between a Ghanaian man and a Norwegian is clearly flawed. If you only look at two people you will not deduct any sort of meaningful data on race. But if you take let’s say 1000 random Ghanaians and 1000 random Norwegians there will be clear statistical differences in the abilities of the two groups. On the other side it’s true that in the USA race has a strong social aspect but that doesn’t completely undermine it’s biological aspect.
As for the “Whitey invented racism in the 1700’s” meme,we must remember that prior to that time there was only limited contact between races and it wasn’t usually undertaken by people of any education. The error is in the assumption that whites invented the idea of black inferiority to justify slavery, but it is also possible that the massive contact between blacks and whites led to the observance of certain trends which created the idea that blacks as a whole were inferior. It’s that the concept was crude and overly generalizing and usually applied to justify all kinds of cruelties.
The fact that a certain racial group has a history of being oppressed doesn’t actually mean that they didn’t fall prey to that oppression due to certain “statistical disadvantages”
The problem with admitting those “statistical disadvantages” is that admitting them would completely collapse the modern human equality frame of mind. It’s like saying to the black people of the world “sorry but the vast majority of you will be at the bottom of mankind’s social latter and you don’t have much chance of advancing due to your genes. Also whitey was mostly right” nOt going to happen.
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Thaddeus,
In your first post, you wrote the following:
“RR, there simply is no scientific basis for race
And:
“The American Medical Association rejects the concept
Clearly, the AMA DOES NOT REJECT THE CONCEPT OF RACE. They don’t reject the concept of race, which is why they devoted such a large amount of space on their website discussing race. Nowhere do they debunk the scientific concept of race. The AMA’s view of race is nuanced, as it should be. The following paragraph is definitive I think:
In contrast to the growing consensus that race is socially defined, biomedical sciences and public health continue to view race as accurately reflecting an underlying genetic homogeneity.
This is an unambiguous statement. Note, they didn’t include this statement to satisfy rubes like me, but for religious declaimers of race, such as you.
Also:
Medical dictionaries emphasize the primacy of biological distinctiveness (eg, blood type and gene frequencies) as the criteria for the classification of human populations.
This is also an unambiguous statement. They state that medical dictionaries use race in its scientific meaning. Medical dictionaries are used by doctors and researchers. Again, this language is not used to patronize the rube in the street, but rather to help doctors make better diagnoses. The people in the AMA use the word “race” in its scientific meaning among themselves because race exists as a scientific classification system.
Even given your own selective quoting of the document, the AMA does not reject the scientific basis of race:
Most note the numerous problems associated with socially defined racial taxonomies and conclude that, at present, race remains a social-biological construct with only limited scientific basis.
Here they are saying that problems do arise with racial classification (race is fuzzy and hard to define, as I stated previously). But they also state that race is a “social-biological construct”. Note that they don’t say: “there simply is no scientific basis for race”. Nor do they say that race is a wholly social construct. They say race has limited scientific basis, but a scientific basis nonetheless. This, coupled with the AMA ‘s other statements on race, can hardly be viewed as a rejection of the scientific concept of race as you so dogmatically and hysterically asserted in your first post. Yes, there are problems regarding racial categorization. There are problems with Special Relativity and Evolution too, but scientists haven’t junked those theories. The theories haven’t been junked but rather refined because the theories solve real world problems, as does the notion of race.
For example, the uncritical use of race in medicine effectively legitimizes an unscientific construct.
Read the statement above carefully. They are NOT saying that race is an unscientific construct, but that the uncritical use of race is unscientific.
Recent advances in molecular biology present opportunities to logically develop racial taxonomies and thus eliminate the disparity between theory and measurement. Theoretically, race as a scientific construct could be tested using genetic reference data or gene markers to calculate the probability of an individual falling into one or more genetically defined population subgroups.
Again, they are not denying that race is a legitimate scientific construct when used critically. They are saying that technology will make determination of race less of a guessing game (influenced by individual bias). Of course, they are not being quite accurate here. The disparity between theory and measurement has been narrowed significantly, as evidenced by the trouble many mixed race people have in finding genetic matches for their bone marrow transplants. The screening process has evolved to the point where unsuitable types are eliminated immediately through genetic testing.
This review of the literature highlights the continued use of sociological definitions of race and ethnicity in medicine. Furthermore, it demonstrates the need to be explicit in the conceptualization of both race and ethnicity in biomedical research.
The AMA thus emphasizes exactly that which I’ve been trying to hammer into your thick freshman skull for weeks now: race is only useful – and even then only potentially – if we make our definitions of it crystal clear and obvious.
This gets us to the heart of the matter. You have misunderstood this paragraph completely and are trying to fit your misunderstanding into the straw man argument (“you must define race in order to use it”) you have concocted for yourself. Note, the AMA says “explicit in the conceptualization of both race and ethnicity”. THEY DO NOT SAY IT HAS TO BE EXPLICIT IN TERMS OF DEFINING RACE. They do not say that “white” or “black” or “Asian” has to be defined to be scientifically useful. They are saying that race must be explicit in its conceptualization, similar to the conceptualization given near the beginning of the AMA’s discussion of race: “to view race as accurately reflecting an underlying genetic homogeneity”. That is racial conceptualization, not racial definition.
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Abagond,
Since you also have mixed race children, I will pose the same question to you as I have to Thaddeus:
“What if your mixed race child needed a bone marrow transplant? Would you insist that race not be used as a criterion in the search for a suitable donor because you believe race to be scientifically spurious? As you may or may not know, it is difficult to find matches for people of mixed race precisely because race is a biological reality:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-donor6-2009dec06,0,488526.story“
What is your response to the way many scientists, such as those in the AMA, use race as a biological attribute?
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davi,
You wrote:
” First of all on the comparison between a Ghanaian man and a Norwegian is clearly flawed. If you only look at two people you will not deduct any sort of meaningful data on race..
I’m not so sure the comparison is flawed. One would not necessarily need to have a significant sample of Norwegian and Ghanaian types to determine racial differences between them. But one would need to have a working idea of what race is. I am fond of Steve Sailer’s definition of race:
“Race is an extremely large extended family that inbreeds to some extent.”
Using this definition, one could examine the extended families of both the Ghanaian and Norwegian under question and determine the familial distance between them, in comparison to other races/ethnicities. One could get really funky and compare a native Ghanaian of full Norwegian stock (parents, grandparents and great grandparents are natives of Norway) who happened to have been born and raised in Ghana and a Norwegian of full Ghanaian stock born and raised in Norway (parents, grandparents and great grandparents are natives of Ghana). I’m sure the results of the exercise would turn out the same, but it would be kind of fun.
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Thaddeus,
They didn’t say race was “unscientific and unproven”! You are just making things up now, which I can understand because you are losing this argument. They very clearly said race was a “social-biological construct”. That doesn’t sound like they were asserting that race was unscientific or unproven. The AMA took great pains to explain their position on race. If their position was as clear as you claim it to be, that section on race would have been one sentence long. They would have stated: “Race is unscientific and unproven”. But they didn’t write that, now did they. They wrote:
“In contrast to the growing consensus that race is socially defined, biomedical sciences and public health continue to view race as accurately reflecting an underlying genetic homogeneity.”
This is what they wrote. What YOU should have written was:
“I don’t believe in race. I don’t care what the AMA or any other scientific body says because race makes me uncomfortable. I can’t deal with the concept of race.”
This would have been more honest and more accurate. I can respect a person with such a viewpoint.
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As for that little paragraph that you love quoting (“In contrast to the growing consensus that race is socially defined…”), it makes no sense whatsoever without its larger context, which I have given readers above. They can reference that if they like.
You would do your argument better if you tried to refute the point I made regarding that paragraph, rather than repeating it as if it were a magical talisman and showing all and sundry that you didn’t read a word I said about it.
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Thaddeus,
You have this exactly backward. Maya’s ancestory IS HER RACE. This is the point I have been making to you all along. Her ancestory defines her race. Race is relative. Race is a very large extended family that inbreeds to some extent. Maya is Hapa. Her race is defined by the lineages of both of her parents. I don’t understand why this concept is so difficult for you to grasp.
Neither the author nor I would ascribe her “race” as being Asian. Clearly if this were the case, Maya wouldn’t have a problem with finding suitable donors, which was the point of the article.
If my daughter were to be in a similar situation and I were to hear a doctor say he was going to use race to determine whether or not a donor was acceptable, I’d haul her out of his office as fast as possible and slap his ass with a malpractice suit.
And your daughter would die. Genetics is clearly related to race. You might shame the doctor for using the most efficient method possible in attempting to find a suitable donor for your daughter, but she would be just as dead. But you might be wealthy from the lawsuit. Would you really put your financial status ahead of your daughter’s well-being?
If we were to go on “race” we’d be presuming “black and white” would do the trick whereas both Ana and I have very specific ancestries which are simply not covered by or are reducible to those two terms.
It wouldn’t have to be reduced to those two terms. It would only have to be reduced to who you and your wife’s current extended family and ancestors are/were. Get it?
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Thaddeus,
Of course “In contrast to the growing consensus that race is socially defined…” doesn’t make sense to you because it refutes your assertion that the AMA rejects the concept of race. To us mere mortals however, it makes perfect sense. They are writing in English and their language is unequivical. You lack the capacity to admit that you are wrong. I have accepted this reality.
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Thaddeus,
Nowhere in the paragraph you cited did the AMA state that race was unscientific and unproven. You are just making stuff up. That’s cool, but I think you missed your calling. You would have made a better lawyer than scientist.
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Nowhere in the paragraph you cited did the AMA state that race was unscientific and unproven. You are just making stuff up. That’s cool, but I think you missed your calling. You would have made a better lawyer than scientist.
Well, Steve, it’s hard to argue with a man who’s grasp of English is apparently so rudimentary that he can’t understand this very simple sentence: “The uncritical use of race in medicine effectively legitimizes an unscientific construct.”
It’s also difficult to seriously believe that a man is arguing in good faith when he claims that he can’t see that the following paragraph quite clearly means that the “race as scientific construct” theory has not yet been tested and proven:
“Theoretically, race as a scientific construct could be tested using genetic reference data or gene markers to calculate the probability of an individual falling into one or more genetically defined population subgroups. To date, however, no reports of attempts to assign racial identity by this means have been published.”
Resuming, the AMA’s conclusions are the following:
Race, as it’s used by many doctors (i.e. according to social qualifies such as “black”) is not a scientific concept. Race may one day BE turned into a scientific, but that would take massive cross-checking and genetic mapping which has not yet been done. As of yet, such a concept is untested and unproven.
Now perhaps you’d like to tell us what YOU see in that paragraph, Steve? At the very least it would be good for lulz.
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Can race be BOTH a sociological concept AND at the same time a biological phenomena? Are the two mutually exclusive? I think they can simultaneously exist.
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Tulio asks:
Can race be BOTH a sociological concept AND at the same time a biological phenomena? Are the two mutually exclusive? I think they can simultaneously exist.
No, the two are not mutually exclusive, but that is not the point, Tulio.
The point is that race as a social phenomena has been proven time and time again while meannwhile, as the AMA articles point out, race as a biological phenomena has not been proven to exist.
And it’s not been for trying, Tulio. MANY scientists have tried to come up with taxonomies that adequately describe human genetic variability and, so far, all have failed. This is because in ANY human group which is sufficiently large to be declared a subspecies (or race), genetic diversity WITHIN the group is going to be greater than genetic diversity BETWEEN the group and another group.
This means that, like Oakland, there is simply no “there” there when we’re talking about human race. If I can classify 100,000 humans as a race and then discover that the genetic diversity between any two of them is as great or greater than the diversity between any one of them and any other random human on the planet, then NO, we don’t have a biological subspecies, no matter what those people look like.
Face it Tulio: race is not a biological artefact, at least as far as we can see.
Furthermore, every advance in biology over the last 100 years has moved us farther away from some unified theory of human biological diversity, such as race. Certain scientists might still hold out hope that we’ll find a relatively small set of underlying genetic patterns someday, but that looks increasingly unlikely.
What we know for sure is that even if these patterns eventually DO show up, they won’t be concurrent with “black”, “white”, “asian”, or anything you consider to be race.
And all the smart-ass rhetoric in the world by the likes of Steve Sailer isn’t going to change that one simple fact.
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Hey i just wanted to know (i dont know if you done a post about it already.)how you feel about ‘revolutionary black people’?
http://theblackchannel.net/radio.html
By the way i think alot of people here are trying to revert/twist/ignore/ certain chunks of history here. I mean race probably wouldn’t be such an issue if a white guy a black guy and an asian would’ve gotten together and said
‘hey im black, he’s white and you’re yellow, lets leave it at that.’
Then went thier own seperate ways, but we all know that wasn’t the case and due to the tribal nature of ‘man’, Probably never will be.’Race’ only became a serious issue after a certain segment of a certain ‘race’ decided they were going to try and ‘take over the world’ in all aspects (Cultural,social,physical etc.). The real-world-fact-of-the-matter-no-fantasies-included-don’t-give-a-damn-about-political-correctness-or-your-best-buddies-feelings-version is that thanks to this segment history took a massive turn for the worst (Thats right i said it)and there are still groups that are suffering (and for that matter benefiting.) from actions that were taken centuries ago.
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Head toucher sez:
Race only became a serious issue after a certain segment of a certain ‘race’ decided they were going to try and ‘take over the world’ in all aspects (Cultural,social,physical etc.).
Yep. That’s essentially correct.
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There is one aspect of race which I thought I would like to raise
Whether race is social, biological, or something else its effects are real.
Without stating the obvious there are phenotypical differences between and across populations, some more marked than others. It is these differences which race is socially constructed upon.
So from nature we have a biological imprint and from humanity we have an interpretation and/or classification of this biological imprint.This is what ‘race’ fundamentally is
Admittedly we could not choose to see any differences but I am not aware of any individual and/or group in history that has done this.
There are many would suggest that there is such a thing as race, and on one level it has not really changed.
However, because of the problem in particular of World War 2, ie the Nazi Holocaust and the rise of Nazism.
Society having seen the negative impact of the concept of race, had to do away with the construct in the mainstream.
Hence the mantra is ‘There is no such thing as race, etc that we often hear. Yet, however disingenuously, people, society, nations etc continue to act as if there is such a thing as race.
So in this context race is as ‘real’ as gender and class.
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Hi ya!!
Thanks!!
I understand your point even though when you say:
There is NO such thing as race= race IS a label white people came up with to judge and divide other people by their appearances.
is a kind of tautology – Its not that important really.
On a different tact, and much more importantly.
What groups of ‘White people’, or is it all of them, as being the creators and purveyors of racism are you specifically referring to and also what era in history??
Thank you!!
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So from nature we have a biological imprint and from humanity we have an interpretation and/or classification of this biological imprint.This is what ‘race’ fundamentally is.
Which of course makes race very REAL. what it doesn’t make it is a biological reality created by mother nature.
That’s an important distinction.
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Which of course makes race very REAL. what it doesn’t make it is a biological reality created by mother nature.
That’s an important distinction.
This can only be ‘true’ though if this is your perspective.
There are countless people who apply a human interpretation to the ‘biological reality’
And this is also done outside of the phenomenon of race as well ie ‘disability’. Hence the persecution of disabled peoplein Nazi Germany.
For some the idea that there need not be any biological basis to race can be viewed as a ‘metaphor’ for a new consciousness within humans – and unfortunately that is all it is.
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For some the idea that there need not be any biological basis to race can be viewed as a ‘metaphor’ for a new consciousness within humans – and unfortunately that is all it is.
That’s ALL…?! dude, what do you want? Dancing elephants with that? 😀
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The last time I poited out what I thought was a tautolgy…I had a rather painful experience ha ha ha ha
Here goes once again…he he
There were always terms used to define diferent COLOUR people (Tamahu, Eithiopian etc) =adding PHENOTYPE and FEATURES are not an issue of race, they are an issue of genetics.
Can I just add that some add pheneotype (ie all aspect of outward appearance) because that is the first thing any person will see (leaving aside humanity, sex ,disability if they see any of these things)is colour.
You will never see the genetic make up of an individual.
Indeed genetics does affect pheneotype but so also does the environment.
It is for the above reasons there are some who suggest reducing race to genetics is ‘artificial’ because we do not see the world this way.Since what matters in our society is the phenotype (outward appearance).
What do you think?
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(I’m confused as to whether you’re agreeing with me or not so i’m going on anyway.)
In order to have people see others by phenotype you would have to teach them about it. The human mind doesn’t like to think, so it has tapes that automatically play in order to react to a situation, if you see a black person with ‘caucasian’ features, as far as i (And the majority of others) am concerned they are black. If i see a white person with ‘negroid’ (for lack of a better term) features they are still white. people aren’t tuned to see ‘phenotype’ they are tuned to see ‘race’. Why, because its easier.May i remind you that thier are no such thing as caucasian features, just features that are predominant among caucasians, there are plenty of africans/blacks with straight hair,green to blue eyes and so on. The term ‘caucasoid’ is used by Europeans to confuse the issue of race, which again is strictly a case of whether you are black/white/yellow or anything else. It is confused such to the point where you’ve got certain ‘blacks’ saying thier ‘white’. Phenotypical issues (Features) are not to be confused with race, which is a selection of colours associated with a group (Tribe, Ethnicity) from a specific location (Europe, Africa). Features, culture and other things simply fog up the issue, complicating the discussion.
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Thanks!!
I Should have stated that I am in agreement with what you say, and also in this secondary post.
I think our only differnece is the emphasis we attach to the terms ‘race’ and ‘phenotype’.
I see race as being derived from the phenotype (ie outward appearance), and then from the outward appearance we construct what races people fall into.
I do not know if this will help. For the Greeks there were two types of Ethiopian groups ie one with straight/wooly hair – The Eastern Ethiopians of India and one with curly/kinky hair (ie Africa), – but both characterised by a Black skin.
So based on what the Greeks perceived as a commonality they created this category (I am not using the word race here) to distinguish what they recognised as differences between Ethiopians.
This was one of their classifications undertaken on the basis of appearance…
http://www.search.com/reference/Ethiopian
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And there we could get into debates about whether gentic studies into dravids would lead to them being classed as ‘black’.as i have stated before there are plenty of africans with ‘caucasiod’ features, this does not make them white or caucasian. Homer went on what he could see, and he straight up called them ethiopians, the same with herodotus. But these men were not trying to claim peoples in order to add validity to thier ethnic group. Also the average person doesn’t know what a phenotype is but they do know the difference between a white person and a black person. ANd thats what matters, the general populace is attuned to straight-forward thinking, even if you aren’t. You may question the features of an individual, but others won’t. Homer didn’t neither did herodotus. Neither did the aryans when they instituted dharma and the slavers when they instituted christianity. They weren’t trying to complicate the issue by slicing these groups up into different categories because they didn’t need to, if you were black, you were bad, simple as. The recent tactic of ‘adding genetics to the race issue’ is commonly used by (Mostly white)historians (Both ameteur and profesional) to make claim to antiquitous civilisation (Usually egypt). They seem to be willing to follow every word of people like herodotus and homer up until the point where they start talking about eithiopians north of the sahara. Race, to the common man will always be ‘the colour’ of a man and have little or nothing to do with his features. It really doesn’t matter if you think differently, because niether you nor me are the common man (Knowledge wise anyway).
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This is very well stated.
The line which really hit me is:
“Homer went on what he could see, and he straight up called them ethiopians, the same with herodotus. But these men were not trying to claim peoples in order to add validity to thier ethnic group”
since it bespeaks to so many things in our world.
Nice one
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I do not know about Homer being blind. Thanks for that! I did a brief search on the internet and it seems no-one can state for sure.
As for where Homer’s quote is taken from. I can only give you a secondary source that refers to the primary source of the Odyssey.
http://messagenetcommresearch.com/myths/ppt/Ethiopia_1.html.
However the important thing not to lose sight of is that – even if Homer was blind is
“this idea of eastern Ethiopians living in some area of India and resembling Indians (and/or Indians resembling Africans my emphasis) in appearance and customs persisted throughout antiquity”.
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/AncientWebPages/115mono.html paragraph 14, last sentence
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There is an unintentional pun in my last post – not very funny – but did you spot it??
“However the important thing NOT TO LOSE SIGHT OF is that – even if Homer was BLIND is…”
ha ha!!
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Well it’s obvious that antiquitous ‘white’ historians had no problem admitting that ‘blacks’ were in locations where today’s whites would bring up every excuse in the book to deny, thier existence
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Obviously You have little grasp of antiquity, History and for that matter society. What i’m talking about is RACE, too many black people get that confused with white racism/supremacy/bigotry. DON’T, they are 2 different things. How would all these different peoples have all these different names unless there wasn’t a simple, straight forward way to define them. I am not white. And there is no way i would attempt to justify white bigotry/idiocy because it doesn’t suit my agenda, let alone not making simple sense to me as a black person. Make no mistake. For most of its existence, white society has had a superiority complex of sorts. But that isn’t my point, Race is the name given to the grouping of peoples do to thier visual, cultural and physical similarities. White bigotry is, well white bigotry. But the emotion factor kicks in with most blacks when they hear the word ‘race’ because in american society it has become synonimous with white hatred on black people. THAT is not natural, and the only reason i can find for such a wide consensus is a deep seated social inferiority complex among them as a people. RACE is not the problem, RACISM (ISM!!!) is, and many will say that the problem with racism is white people (As a whole.).
Also on the ‘race is social’argument. SO WHAT!!! You get up, every day, pay taxes and live. Therefore you ARE PART OF ‘SOCIETY’. Saying ‘race is social’ shows that you are nothing but an escapist-minded individual who is hoping to wake up one morning and be able to walk down the street with your lilly white (For, Ahem;’lack of a better term’ lol.) boyfriend/girlfriend and not get looks from both sides of the court.
Race is ‘SOCIal’
You are part of ‘SOCIety’
If you don’t like it, change it.
Or go live in a cave somewhere.
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Here’s an interesting article that debunks this “race is social” nonsense:
Click to access Race.pdf
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Thanks. I will take a look at it.
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With regard to:
Here’s an interesting article that debunks this “race is social” nonsense:
Click to access Race.pdf
Its either I am having pc trouble….again…Or that link does not work??
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I had no trouble. It is a PDF so if your browser does not have Acrobat or an out-of-date version you might have trouble.n
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Look at what “Reggi Nytrid” spells backwards.
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Look at what “Reggi Nytrid” spells backwards
**************
Not surprised, just more evidence racism/white supremacy is alive and well in the world.
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Thanks!!
Can you do one of your summary of the link then ??
I have Acrobat and it produced this message in the Acrobat dialog box (one which I have never seen before):
“Error reading linearized hint data”
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Okay, I will do a post on it.
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Interesting lecture for people in the Atlanta area who are following this topic…
Clarence Gravlee is one of the best researchers in anthropology, race and medicine currently in the field.
Next Tuesday, January 19th, 2010, he’ll be at Emory in Atlanta (Psychology Building (PAIS), Room 290, at 4:00 p.m.) to give a talk as part of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Center Spring lecture series. The title of the talk is “Meaning and Measurement of Race in Health Research: Lessons from Hypertension in the African Diaspora.” Here’s the abstract:
Current debate over racial inequalities in health has reignited controversy over the relations between race, biology, and culture. Some researchers maintain that racial categories are useful proxies for genetic differences in susceptibility to disease. Others see race as a cultural construct and argue for the primacy of social determinants of health. Yet few studies include the kinds of data necessary to pit genetic and sociocultural explanations head-to-head. Here I draw on genetic and sociocultural data from fieldwork in Puerto Rico and the southern United States to evaluate competing explanations for excess hypertension in the African Diaspora. The key finding is that the cultural ascription of racial identity, but not genetic ancestry, is associated with blood pressure. This finding underscores the need to examine how race and racism become embodied in human biology.
There’s also some good and informative coorespondence from him in the latest Journal of the National Cancer Institute, here…
http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/djp506?ijkey=kzDPD2dNZsUCprZ&keytype=ref
…regarding racial links to disease (or the lack thereof).
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Interesting that our pal Reggi, who probably isn’t the sharpest knife in God’s cutlery drawer, links us to an article that can only be accessed via subscription.
This indicates one of two things:
1) Reggi is logging on from a university lab computer or some such other institution that subscribes to these journals
…or, much more likely, given his probable intellectual level…
2) Reggi read a brief abstract of the article and thinks it “proves” something because he has trouble actually reading scientific monographs.
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Head Toucher says….
Also on the ‘race is social’argument. SO WHAT!!! You get up, every day, pay taxes and live. Therefore you ARE PART OF ‘SOCIETY’. Saying ‘race is social’ shows that you are nothing but an escapist-minded individual who is hoping to wake up one morning and be able to walk down the street with your lilly white (For, Ahem;’lack of a better term’ lol.) boyfriend/girlfriend and not get looks from both sides of the court.
Race is ‘SOCIal’
You are part of ‘SOCIety’
If you don’t like it, change it.
Or go live in a cave somewhere.
Head Toucher, the “race is social” thing is INCREDIBLY important to the anti-racist argument. It is neither a minor point, nor a clandestine means to dismiss race (though many people try to usw it in that way).
If race is social, then it is eminently maleable, for good or bad, and the things that it creates can be manipulated by human will.
If it is “natural”, then it’s pretty much written in stone until we completely dominate the human genome.
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The fact that different groups of people look different due to thier place of origin is not.
Sure, but that’s not race. Chinese look different from Japanese, but I bet you classify them as the same race.
Bushmen look different from Watutsi, but you probably classify them as the same race.
On the flip side, certain African and certain Australian aboriginal peoples look pretty damned alike, but come from different places and do not have anything like identical genotypes.
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Mr Nytrid said:
“Here’s an interesting article that debunks this “race is social” nonsense:
Click to access Race.pdf
“
I had no trouble getting to this the other day but now I cannot. Can you please send me a copy so I can do a post on it?
Thanks.
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Methinks Mr. Nytrid mad a boo boo as the document now requires a password. Perhaps it wasn’t meant for the public?
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Collective Degradation: [Ancient] Slavery & The Construction of Race
Click to access Isaac.pdf
Notwithstanding:
“Even the Arabs, who were always a minority in the so called Arab culture of the Middle Ages, regarded a dark complextion as a badge of honor. One of the most learned of modern historians, Professor Arnold Toynbee, has noted that: “The primitive Arabs who were the ruling element of the Ommayad Caliphate called themselves ‘the swarthy people,’ with a connotation of racial superiority, and their Persian and Turkish subjects ‘the ruddy people’, with a connotation of racial inferiority, that is to say, they drew the distinction that we draw between blonds and brunets, but reversed the value.” (A Study of History, Vol 1. p. 226, by Arnold J. Toynbee.)”
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They’re charging for that article now…
http://philpapers.org/rec/SESRAS
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It would be very difficult to argue that race is not social, but it would be just as difficult to argue that race is not biological. By the very definition of “race”, it does come from your family tree. If your conspiracy theory of “a rule of American society” were correct, then logic would have it that there would be slaves today since racism exists today. Oh btw, race wasn’t produced by any rule of American society, the term started appearing as early as the late 16h Century in the UK.
The black rule you explain may have existed in the past, but I’m not sure where it’s stated, other than this blog.
What’s your personal rule for considering someone black or do you use the same rule?
And in actuality, the value of a human life is not based on race. How about you Abagond, do you think the value of a human life is based on race or the color of your skin? I’d be interested in knowing what you think.
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who gave his wife MS?
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FORWARD
I have studied the African and so-called white. African with Euro-Asian Y
chromosome, even though you maybe surprised, because they all looked African.
They could be classified as mixed race, but they weren’t, because result came out of perception they didn’t look any different from other Africans.
With the introduction of Y chromosome into the African population, after many generations, they all would look like Africans which is the dominant. If an African woman with Euro-Asian mtDNA has children with a African man with a Euro-Asian Y chromosome, they are white by classification, but only to someone who thinks halpogroups define race. To some so-called whites they are still African.
To put it another way… The so-called white can deny his or her *African DNA
some 15,000 to 20,000 thousand years ago, even thou it’s evident today.
The basic tribal concept, we are all still Africans, weather we are lack of color or have color. We are still hard-wired to tribes and use facial identity to foster that belief. Becoming so-called white has nothing to do with biology, but instead a
political category of people we like and people we dislike for various reasons.
Either a race is to be defined based on genetic information or race is a social construct that doesn’t exist. The motivating factor, promoting the idea that race is nothing more than a political classification. The word “Mixed-race” is moot.
It’s a word that do not have any real meaning. What do you compare it to.
“White is not a race”, and race is not pure…never was and never will be.
The racist puerile are using fuzzy logic trying to put a square peg into a round hole.
The word “Cauc-Asian” is a name of location or a place of origin, not skin color.
The word “Aryan” people of the Indo-Iranian languages (Indo-Euro-Asian).
It was idealized by un-scientic racist beliefs. DNA can prove a different concept,
that we all are the same with small variations. There are people who prefer to be
more of tradition than genetics to be classified as so-called white. Catering to a
desire to be like a tribe or extended family, by using an age old facial and language identification. (also skulls classification).
MUHAMMAD
E1b1a / Loa (Afri-Euro-Asian-Ashkenazi- American)
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Thanks for sharing MBA! Great stuff…
race is a contruct of the Human Mind, not of nature. We are all the same and share the same common ancester – which has been proven.
I posted a link on some genetic studies done tracing Human ancestry and demonstrating notions of “race” are false.
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From Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks on Race Consciousness by Carolyn Cusick, Vanderbilt University
To argue about whether or not to keep or eliminate the category of race is a mistaken argument for a few reasons: first, it misunderstands how categories are generated, function, and are destroyed; and second, it misunderstands that analyzing experience cannot be bounded by knowing what the eventual “right” experience must be.
We imagine that because we have evidence asserting that race is not a rigid biological truth, that race is not real
and should not be used as a category of analysis.
However, I think it is more often the case that
the biological reality is disproved only after one decides to eliminate the category for political and social reasons.
Surely we can conclude as misguided all those eighteenth, nineteenth, and even twentieth century studies from Buffon to Blumenbach to Darwin and everyone in between
who thought they had proven not only that there are varieties of mankind but also often that some are superior to others. As well we can accept that the human genome project claims that there is more genetic diversity inside each “race” as there is between them.
However, all this does not close the book on the use of race as a category of analysis, not even biologically.
Regardless of the above possibilities, to think that doing away with biological facts does away with racial categories grants legitimacy and power to Enlightenment rationalism and its belief that only scientific facts give us truths.
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cont.
The word “race” has had many meanings, often
seemingly contradictory, but each was a kind of category. Things and people have been grouped into races based on sex, nation, language, skin color (or other external physical characteristics), and religion to name a few. A cursory review of the Oxford English Dictionary’s twenty-nine
definitions of the noun “race” that relate to groups categorized by descent or common features reveals that race could refer to all humans, “the human race,” to one family, to one species, to a tribe, to a band of tribes which make up an ethnicity, to one class, and many more.
The birth of scientific racism did, somewhat successfully, reduce the meanings of “race” to only a few
possibilities all centering on inherited biological characteristics separating our subspecies of
humans, which supposedly also explained moral and cultural characteristics.
It is the attempt to explain those moral and cultural characteristics, especially insofar as they are ordered in
decreasing value, that leads us to want to eliminate racial categories altogether. But “race” can have many meanings, not all of which involve notions of superiority and inferiority and result in invidious racism. Insofar as all categorizations are in some sense arbitrary, some physical and cultural differences can be quite relevant in certain situations.
To demand now that we can no longer use these categories could do a serious disservice to many people.
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cont
There is value to studying biological differences between people that we take to be from different races. First, there’s the medical significance of race, i.e., different diseases and treatments correlate with different races. Recent studies in the New England Journal of Medicine
suggest African-American males respond differently from European-Americans to certain heart related drugs therapies. The National Human Genome Center at Howard University is collecting genetic data with racial classifications as well.
… Population geneticists, like Spencer Wells, are
rushing around the globe collecting DNA from various peoples, especially ethnic minorities, totrace the migration and evolution of humans for tens of thousands of years.
Kruks explains how these biological facts affect the social realm as well:
‘Of course, all group identities become fuzzy at the margins. But this is not to say they lack any basis. For example, black women still face higher mortality rates
from certain medical conditions, such as diabetes, than do white women. Thus race may affect how different groups of feminist activists prioritize health-related
demands.
So, race matters not only because the biological aspects cannot be accounted for by a simple social explanation but also because the social realities of race affect our biological realities. The most common explanation given for the meaningfulness of race is that it is not a
biological fact but a social one, i.e., race is a social construct.
This claim is made by both those who want to work for authentic race consciousness as well as those who argue for its elimination. The former explain that whether or not races are “real” they have been and continue
to be meaningful. The latter suggest that insofar as race is not some external fact but only an
idea, one which has been used exclusively to oppress, we can and must refuse to continue to validate the idea. Still, and this is especially true for the latter group of theorists, asserting that something is a social construct is the beginning, not the end, of coming to understand it.
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cont
Lewis Gordon, in Fanon and the Crisis of European Man, makes this point explicitly
‘Granting that certain conceptions of human reality, like race and racism, are unmasked as bogus claims—that they are, in contemporary parlance, social constructions—it is also important for us to understand that such a conclusion is not the end of the issue, but the beginning of a whole new set of problems. … We will find ourselves in a trap if we propose the purely natural or the physical as our
non-social alternative. For all we would show is that there is not extensional, prior-reality of race. But then, so what? We know that the importance of race is a function of racial and racist concern … The term ‘social construct’ only identifies society as a constitutor of race. But that tells us nothing if we do not understand how, in such an instance, a society can create anything. To construct society
suprastructurally (above or beyond human involvement) would manifest a failure to heed Fanon’s warning that “society, unlike biochemical processes, cannot
escape human influences. Man is what brings society into being (BSWM, 11)” …
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cont;
The concept of the social constructivity of race is of no value without a prior understanding of what is involved in the construction of any phenomena.”
So, essentially, everything is a social construct. Biology, as an organized investigation of living things, is itself a social construct…
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Race Under Fire:
Is being white something you can learn? What does it mean to be white? An explosive new book by an American academic argues that whiteness isn’t biological at all – in fact, it can be learned. Precious Williams disagrees
from The Independent newspaper (UK)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/race-under-fire-is-being-white-something-you-can-learn-1974929.html
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Race is a social construct and not a biological fact so in a way, it is possible to be learned, I guess. (Just think about all non-whites accuse of acting white). However, whatever you do, it won’t change the way OTHER people see you. So until a culture, as a whole, changes the “rules” on who is white and who isn’t, it’s impossible to learn to be white.
But these rules can change and they do change. As far as I understand, Italians, Greeks, Jews and Irish were not seen as white at the beginning, but they are now. Similar change is expected with Latinos.
As for the article you posted, I don’t agree. Race still matters and Obama is not white.
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The article is slightly convoluted, but still interesting in that it is a UK analysis, or more specifically one woman’s perception in the UK.
Just to say the woman who wrote the article does in fact agree with you that ‘race still matters’
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Natasha,
I’m replying to your comment from another thread.
Of the 0.1% of DNA that varies among individuals, what proportion varies among main populations? Consider an apportionment of Old World populations into three continents (Africa, Asia and Europe), a grouping that corresponds to a common view of three of the ‘major races’16, 17. Approximately 85−90% of genetic variation is found within these continental groups, and only an additional 10−15% of variation is found between them.
Ok, the way I understand this, what is seen as a “race” is genetically really, really diverse. Dare to say, the ways humans decided to group people into different races is random and not any better (genetically than dividing them based on eyes colour).
But that doesn’t mean that there are more genetic variations within a race than between them, right?
All in all, humans are way to different genetically to be grouped into 3-5 races we have (or 6,7… I don’t know how many of them are considered to exist, but it’s less than 10).
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Mira, the most genetic diversity is found within the social constructs that we call races. As per countless studies done on the subject. So, yes, in that sense of a social construction of race, there is more variation within than between. This also nullifies the human hybrid vigor theory that Adam was espousing in the previous post.
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Mira,
All in all, humans are way to different genetically to be grouped into 3-5 races we have (or 6,7… I don’t know how many of them are considered to exist, but it’s less than 10).
I’m not a scientist (not a biological one, at least), but it seems like your statement here backs up Natasha’s point. If we accept that we are too diverse to be grouped into 3 races, then it makes sense that within these groupings there are plenty of people who don’t fit–eventually you have too many exceptions to count as “exceptions” anymore. If all of the exceptions (who are really the majority in each group) are compared, you are bound to find some similarities…I feel like this is a really convoluted explanation, I’m trying to think of an example involving fruits or something. 🙂
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OK, maybe I’ve got it. 🙂
Let’s say I decide all foods can be grouped as either meats, grains, or fruits. So I put apples, broccoli, and bananas under “fruit”, then I add eggs because they are round, like many fruits, plus I can’t figure out another category. Later, someone comes around and says that the eggs I put in the fruit group have more in common with some things in the meat group, because they provide protein, something about enzymes, etc. (I’m not a food scientist, so forgive me for just making this up.) With such limited categories to start with, there are bound to be exceptions I toss into one category for an arbitrary reason, but someone else would come at it from another angle–an “egg” has so many properties in common with other foods that no category (other than the singular category of “egg”) will encompass all of it’s traits.
Hmm…must be dinner time. 🙂
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Jasmin,
“Hmm…must be dinner time.”
Lol.
Your example was right on.
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Natasha,
I am horrible at science (and I mean horrible), so that means a lot from a science genius like you. 🙂
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To Mira:
But these rules can change and they do change. As far as I understand, Italians, Greeks, Jews and Irish were not seen as white at the beginning, but they are now.
I can’t speak for the other groups but given that Judah P. Benjamin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_P._Benjamin was both secretary of State and Secretary of War for the Confederacy… (Do you really think the Confederacy would have placed someone in such positions if they thought the person wasn’t White..?) the notion that Jews were not considered White in the US is highly questionable. (Granted their are odd types who like to run around in sheets who say Jews aren’t White but they are a distinct minority…)
Noel Ignatiev likes to push this angle but I think it’s bunk.
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Hey, I’m no genius, science or otherwise. Just a biologixal researcher.
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To Natasha W:
This also nullifies the human hybrid vigor theory that Adam was espousing in the previous post.
I couldn’t find Adam’s original post on hybrid vigor ( Heterosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis ) but you could conceivably achieve heterosis between two people from relatively diverse population groups. Of course you could also get outbreeding depression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outbreeding_depression
Somewhat akin to the exchange between a young actress and George Bernard Shaw: “approached by a gorgeous young actress who suggested that with his brains and her beauty, the could produce a ‘wonder child’ to astound the world. He wrote to her, politely stating: ‘But alas madam, what if the child inherits my looks and your brains!'”
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Uncle Milton, his comment is on another post.
And thank you for mentioning outbreeding depression. People seem to forget there are two sides to that coin.
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Lol at the George Bernard Shaw quote!
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Uncle Milton,
I was just repeating what I heard. To be honest, my idea of race is a bit different than the western. To me, Greeks and Italians are as white as can get. I also see (many) Jews as white.
Jasmin,
Your example was excellent, and yes, it does make sense.
At the end of the day, one must never forget the fact there’s nothing natural about races: the way we divide people into different races is random (genetically speaking).
Also, when speaking about biracials and their attractiveness (or lack thereof), we should ask ourselves: what is considered attractive? Not on a personal level, it’s subjective. But as a beauty standard. What does “the best from both worlds mean”? What kind of “white” features are “the best”? And what about black, or Asian ones? I don’t have any proof for this, but I feel it’s all down to “looking white with an “exotic” feature or two”, such as full lips or darker skin, or Asian eyes, but no more than that. Like I said, I don’t have a proof for this, but that’s definitely what most of the celebrity biracials (who are praised for their looks look like).
And again, it’s all down to the stereotype of a powerful DNA and features that are “familiar, but exotic”.
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Mira,
I would agree with your last paragraphs and note that there’s a selection bias when it comes to noting who’s biracial and who’s not. When people are biracial and unattractive, the fact that they are biracial is downplayed, at least in my experience. It’s unfortunate, because I know quite a few ugly people who happen to be biracial, and I wonder how they deal with the whole–“You should be hot…what happened?” thing. My college roommate last year was half-Cuban and half-Jamaican, and I was complaining about her to one of my male friends (she had a horrible BO problem), and he asked me what she was. When I told him and he went the “Oh wow, she’s probably really hot” route, I decided to humor him and sent him a link to her Facebook. He changed his mind pretty quickly after that, but will he think of her as representative of the “beauty” of biracial people?* Doubt it.
Obviously, no one person represents the relative attractiveness of his/her group, but, at least where I’m from, I can find just as many “unfortunate mixes” (as young kids call them around here) as I can find good-looking people. In general, I expect people who have good-looking (i.e., average or above) parents to be good-looking (again, average or above). The race of the prospective parents doesn’t make a difference, but I’m already dreading the comments we’ll hear if the boyfriend and I get married and have kiddies.
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Mira,
“what is considered attractive? Not on a personal level, it’s subjective. But as a beauty standard. What does “the best from both worlds mean”? What kind of “white” features are “the best”? And what about black, or Asian ones? I don’t have any proof for this, but I feel it’s all down to “looking white with an “exotic” feature or two”, such as full lips or darker skin, or Asian eyes, but no more than that.”
You’re spot on.
But with the biracials/multiracials that aren’t part white, but are part black, it comes down to looking less “black.” With black and Asian biracials, the emphasis is on caramel or lighter skin and loosely curled hair (actually, some of them have kinky hair, but’s that’s never discussed). Both of which are valued by some (internally racist) blacks. I’ve noticed that Asian/black biracials aren’t revered to many Asians, not at all like Eurasians are.
Also, concerning Eurasians, you would be amazed at the amount of whites that think their child is going to be “exotically beautiful” if they are half Asian. My [white] friend married a Korean woman and their daughter is going to be two years old in a few months. I was talking to him the other day and he made a comment: “Gosh, [daughter] is looking more and more like her mother every day. She’s looks pure Asian!” He said it with a sound of annoyance in his voice. I replied: “Gee, wow, I didn’t know Asian women created Asian babies! Shocker!” I think he was hoping he would get a Kristin Kreuk look-a-like. Too many people forget that many times, biracial children don’t look that different from their monoracial counterparts.
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“Also, when speaking about biracials and their attractiveness (or lack thereof), we should ask ourselves: what is considered attractive? Not on a personal level, it’s subjective. But as a beauty standard. What does “the best from both worlds mean”? What kind of “white” features are “the best”? And what about black, or Asian ones? I don’t have any proof for this, but I feel it’s all down to “looking white with an “exotic” feature or two”, such as full lips or darker skin, or Asian eyes, but no more than that. Like I said, I don’t have a proof for this, but that’s definitely what most of the celebrity biracials (who are praised for their looks look like).”
I don’t this is the case. It seems to me that famous biracials who are considered attractive are on the whole pretty representative of biracials in general with respect to level of whiteness. There are several that look “white with an ‘exotic’ feature or two”, the so-called quadroons and and octoroons like Wentworth Miller, Jennifer Beals, and Rashida Jones. But they are only a minority of biracial celebrities just as their type is only a minority of the American black-white mixed population. Most of the mixed celebs who are widely considered beautiful (e.g. Halle, Paula Patton, Rosario Dawson, Thandie Newton, Alicia Keys, Leona Lewis) have visible African ancestry or at least dark features. It seems to me that in discussions among Americans about mixed race attractiveness, Halle is the most frequently cited example.
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Jasmin,
“I would agree with your last paragraphs and note that there’s a selection bias when it comes to noting who’s biracial and who’s not. When people are biracial and unattractive, the fact that they are biracial is downplayed, at least in my experience.”
So true. So very true. It’s like people pyschologically block out all the “misfits”. They just get swept under the rug. But then when an attractive one comes along they are all “I told you they’re the most beautiful!” [Cue eyeroll.]
“In general, I expect people who have good-looking (i.e., average or above) parents to be good-looking (again, average or above). The race of the prospective parents doesn’t make a difference, but I’m already dreading the comments we’ll hear if the boyfriend and I get married and have kiddies.”
Genotypes can mix in such a way as to create a conventionally attractive person from two not-so-attractive parents. But that can happen regardless of the “race” of the parents. Some people seem to think that no matter what the parents look like, the child will be beautiful if they combine two or more races. I’ve actually heard people say that several times. I just think “I’m sure that’s what Richard Pryor thought too!” (Lol, I’ll stop picking on Rain Pryor now. She seems like a nice person…)
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“Some people seem to think that no matter what the parents look like, the child will be beautiful if they combine two or more races. I’ve actually heard people say that several times. I just think “I’m sure that’s what Richard Pryor thought too!” (Lol, I’ll stop picking on Rain Pryor now. She seems like a nice person…)”
You seem to be a wee bit obsessed with multiracial people. I never even heard of Rain Pryor before I read this comment, and I’m mixed myself! It’s stalkerific.
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FG, are you going to [significantly] add to the conversation or do you get your kicks from following me around in every post? What is your obsession with me? I happen to keep current with world events, so I come across people at times. But thanks for proving my point that conventionally unattractive biracials aren’t trumpeted in the media.
By the way, how old are you? I’m guessing not much over teenage. Not to discredit anything you’ve said here or in the past (that’s been done already), but your narrow, self-centered focus and identity crisis seem indicative of adolescence. The only one who is preoccupied with multiracial persons is you, quite obviously.
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” would agree with your last paragraphs and note that there’s a selection bias when it comes to noting who’s biracial and who’s not. When people are biracial and unattractive, the fact that they are biracial is downplayed, at least in my experience. It’s unfortunate, because I know quite a few ugly people who happen to be biracial, and I wonder how they deal with the whole–”You should be hot…what happened?” thing.”
Of course there will be ugly people and attractive people in every ancestrally-defined group. The question is whether the average attractiveness of some groups is greater than that of others. Anecdotes reflecting petty personal grievances aren’t much help in this regard. However, serious research is now being conducted on this question:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200512/mixed-race-pretty-face
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1265949/Mixed-race-people-attractive-finds-British-study.html
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^ “The only one who is preoccupied with multiracial persons is you, quite obviously.”
Bears repeating.
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“By the way, how old are you? I’m guessing not much over teenage. Not to discredit anything you’ve said here or in the past (that’s been done already), but your narrow, self-centered focus and identity crisis seem indicative of adolescence. The only one who is preoccupied with multiracial persons is you, quite obviously.”
I don’t have an identity crisis. I have just been thinking out loud on this site about issues of identity. And these issues don’t affect just me, but hundreds of thousands of others in the US (and growing). I’ve noticed that some other multiracials have been reading my comments and seem to appreciate them or at least find them interesting.
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That’s nice.
The blind leading the blind is clearly very effectual.
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Natasha,
I thought the same thing! I was wondering where most regular commenters would fall on an age number line, and how that influences what people say.
Rain Pryor looks kind of like my younger sisters’ BFF–I always describe her (the friend) as looking like a goose. She’s a sweet girl, but her gangly awkwardness shows so much right now (and I don’t feel too bad laughing since she has such horrible Facebook pictures).
FG,
To be honest, I just feel pity for you and other biracial/multiracial people who feel they need to spend so much time proving their self-worth to others. Obviously, someone (not necessarily you) who has to point out their attractiveness to others so much doesn’t feel very attractive. But I’m most sorry for young bi or multiracial people who seek out a “bi/multiracial community” and find themselves rejected for not being bi/multiracial enough. That must suck.
P.S. Your comments read as if you have an Internet crush on Natasha. Just sayin’.
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I won’t bother pointing out the numerous issues with the studies posted. It would take too much time. Scientific illiteracy abounds.
Jasmin,
“P.S. Your comments read as if you have an Internet crush on Natasha. Just sayin’
But my boyfriend’s the jealous type! Even internet crushes are not allowed (Seriously).
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Natasha,
And isn’t he a tall former athlete? Fall back, FG, fall back.
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I was just about to add — no one really wants a group of 6’3″ plus Swedish and Norwegian guys coming after them (his whole family is tall). He’s a bit on the thin side though. FG might be able to take him if he’s alone.
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In general, I expect people who have good-looking (i.e., average or above) parents to be good-looking (again, average or above). The race of the prospective parents doesn’t make a difference.
Jasmin,
I agree about the parents’ race: it’s not really significant. However, I don’t think it’s necessarily true that good looking people have good looking children, and the ugly ones have ugly kids. What is considered attractive for males and females is not the same, and since there are many people who look like their parent of the opposite sex… See the problem? What if a mother is very short (which is not seen as such a bad thing for a woman), and her son ends up shoritsh (which is seen unattractive for a man)? What if the father has a strong, manly jaw line or a long nose (which is not seen as ugly for a male), and his daughter ends up looking like him? You can never predict how a child would look like, or if the beauty ideal will match your child’s physical appearance (even if it matched yours). But I do agree that parents’ race is not significant here.
Natasha,
But with the biracials/multiracials that aren’t part white, but are part black, it comes down to looking less “black.”
Interesting. To be honest, biracials without white ancestry are not that popular in the media. I know they exist, of course, but for the unknown reason (ha! :D) they are not given that much of a spotlight. Actually, the only one I can think of right now is Will Demps, and the only reason I learned about him is because of a poll on this site. And btw, I thought he was part white. But that’s another story.
FG,
There are several that look “white with an ‘exotic’ feature or two”, the so-called quadroons and and octoroons like Wentworth Miller, Jennifer Beals, and Rashida Jones. …. Most of the mixed celebs who are widely considered beautiful (e.g. Halle, Paula Patton, Rosario Dawson, Thandie Newton, Alicia Keys, Leona Lewis) have visible African ancestry or at least dark features.
Actually, when talking about “looking familiar but exotic”, I wasn’t thinking about Wentworth Miller or Jennifer Beals- who look completely white to me (very attractive but white). I was actually referring to people such as Halle, or Alicia Keys, or Paula Patton. All of them are with visible black ancestry. However, their physical features fit the white idea of beauty: narrow nose, nostrils not too wide, lips full but not way too full, thin bodies (I think), etc. They are at the same time familiar and exotic (because of their darker skin tone, hair texture or eye shape).
I don’t have an identity crisis. I have just been thinking out loud on this site about issues of identity. And these issues don’t affect just me, but hundreds of thousands of others in the US (and growing). I’ve noticed that some other multiracials have been reading my comments and seem to appreciate them or at least find them interesting.
How old are you? I’m not asking this to discredit your opinion, but you do sound really young at times, not in a childish way, but in a young-adult way. You know, the times of discovering your own identity, figuring out who you really are and who you want to be, finding a group to identify with, etc.
FG, nobody can prevent you to identify yourself anyway you like.
Also, you do sound really ready to talk about being biracial, but you never really said how much black/white you are, which might be important for this conversation. Are you biracial like Alicia Keys, or Wentworth Miller, for example?
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Mira,
“Interesting. To be honest, biracials without white ancestry are not that popular in the media. I know they exist, of course, but for the unknown reason (ha!) they are not given that much of a spotlight.”
They are usually more popular in black media, but there are also less of them than black/white biracials, so you won’t see them around as much. But a popular one is Tiger Woods (technically more Asian than black), also Kimora Lee Simmons and Amerie (both of whom are more popular in black media).
“I was actually referring to people such as Halle, or Alicia Keys, or Paula Patton. All of them are with visible black ancestry. However, their physical features fit the white idea of beauty
I hear people often say that they fit the white ideal of beauty but for Halle, I’m just not getting it. She looks perfectly black. I mean, how different does she look from someone like Nia Long? Also, no one ever discusses the former two (Halle and Alicia) having plastic surgery to garner those “white” features. It’s relevant to the discussion.
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Well, actually, I think Nia Long could fit this stereotype. But she’s not biracial (is she?)
As for Halle, she does look black, maybe not even biracial, but I know plenty of white women who look like her, and she doesn’t have what whites consider to be “typically African features” (broad nose, full lips). But then again I might not be the best one to judge here (I know a white guy who looks like Wesley Snipes… at least if you ask me).
I think a great deal is celebrity’s image (and this might also apply to everyday people).
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Tiger Woods is a case on his own. As far as I know, he is always presented as being part white- this fact is always mentioned, at least in media I follow. So I never saw him as a mixed race person without white ancestry (although I have no idea how black, white or Asian he actually is).
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No, Nia Long is not biracial, she’s of Trinidadian descent (and there was/is miniscule amounts of Euro admixture there.) Halle has full lips…
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Right, right. I always forget that Tiger has some Euro ancestry, although his parents are classed as black and Asian; he looks so much like Thai people I know. But I usually don’t hear about it too much, unless in discussion of that “Cablinasian” term he made up.
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Mira,
The weird thing is, I don’t necessarily think the opposite of what I said is true, i.e., that ugly people have ugly children. I don’t know many combinations of ugly people–I think the vast majority of people are “average”, and those who are considered ugly just have a highly noticeable “unattractive” feature (e.g., being obese, being cross-eyed, having a snaggletooth). Those people aren’t necessarily made up of all ugly features, it’s just that people notice the “ugly” one first and generalize from that. I tend to look at the combination of facial features when judging someone’s attractiveness–if the features aren’t proportionate I tend to think it looks bad.
People talk about Tiger Woods being part White? I forget that he’s anything other than Black and Asian (Thai and….Vietnamese?). I thought his dad’s “Blackness” was that of your average American Black person–mostly African with possibly some European thrown in as the descendant of slaves.
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Jasmin,
“(e.g., being obese, being cross-eyed, having a snaggletooth).”
Lol. I found this list highly amusing for some reason.
“I forget that he’s anything other than Black and Asian (Thai and….Vietnamese?). I thought his dad’s “Blackness” was that of your average American Black person–mostly African with possibly some European thrown in as the descendant of slaves.”
Tiger Woods’ mother is a fourth Dutch, IIRC. Also, I don’t remember his father having any Euro ancestry; his father actually has Asian ancestry as well. Which makes him 1/16 White, which is negligible in my opinion, but clearly not in his opinion.
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@Mira,
“How old are you? I’m not asking this to discredit your opinion, but you do sound really young at times, not in a childish way, but in a young-adult way. You know, the times of discovering your own identity, figuring out who you really are and who you want to be, finding a group to identify with, etc.”
A few years younger than you.
“Also, you do sound really ready to talk about being biracial, but you never really said how much black/white you are, which might be important for this conversation. Are you biracial like Alicia Keys, or Wentworth Miller, for example?”
Well, when I look in the mirror I feel that I look pretty ethnic, but that may be just because I’m fully aware of my social background and it influences my judgment. Based on what other people say, it seems that I can pass for Mediterranean white or Hispanic white.
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Jasmin and Natasha,
I had no idea how white Tiger was. I wasn’t trying to make him whither than he really is, but I swear, he’s never presented as a black/Asian person- his white ancestry is always clearly stated. At least in those news and articles and stuff I’m familiar with (though I must admit I’m not into golf and I don’t know much about the guy. And that didn’t change after the cheating incident).
But the bottom line is, his white side is always mentioned, so I never thought of him as a black/Asian mix.
FG,
A few years younger than you.
Early to mid-twenties, then? Well, you’re not “that” old, but there are certainly people of your age who seem more mature. Not being sure in your identity and still figuring out who you are still relatively common thing in your (our?) age. I know my collective identity, especially when it comes to nation/ethnic is broken.
Still, you can’t blame others who are pass that stage or feel completely comfortable about who they are. I guess it’s not your intention, but I can sense the issue of biracials is so important to you that you sometimes force conversation into that direction.
Well, when I look in the mirror I feel that I look pretty ethnic, but that may be just because I’m fully aware of my social background and it influences my judgment. Based on what other people say, it seems that I can pass for Mediterranean white or Hispanic white.
What does “looking ethnic” really means? I look ethnic. A WASP person look ethnic. Every person has an ethnicity.
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“And even now, more than a hundred years after the slaves were freed, many whites still act towards you as if there truly is something wrong with being any part black African. And it is not just a few skinhead jerks either.”
Vin Diesel and Wentworth Miller are two of America’s more racially ambiguous actors. Diesel has even gone so far as to say that he identifies himself as a black man, and I’m not sure about Miller, though he did grace the cover of an issue JET magazine. Yet, when browsing forums and fansites, there are always a group of people declaring that these men shouldn’t be considered black because they don’t look black. I have a problem with this because it’s usually whites who have a problem with it, as though racially ambiguous celebrities are so talented or so attractive that they just can’t handle accepting that they admire a black person. I don’t understand it.
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“Early to mid-twenties, then? Well, you’re not “that” old, but there are certainly people of your age who seem more mature. Not being sure in your identity and still figuring out who you are still relatively common thing in your (our?) age. I know my collective identity, especially when it comes to nation/ethnic is broken.
Still, you can’t blame others who are pass that stage or feel completely comfortable about who they are. I guess it’s not your intention, but I can sense the issue of biracials is so important to you that you sometimes force conversation into that direction.”
Well, regardless of what anyone else has to say about it, I identify as white. And I’ve never blamed others for identifying as they so choose. Actually, other people have been criticizing me for my self-identification.
You may not have been paying attention, but many of the comments I’ve been making over the past few months have related to the difficulty many mixed people (especially those who are close to white) have in establishing a strong racial identity. There is criticism leveled at them no matter what they identify as (white, black, or mixed). That tends to be the case in countries with sharp racial divisions like the US.
“What does “looking ethnic” really means? I look ethnic. A WASP person look ethnic. Every person has an ethnicity.”
In the US, looking ethnic means not looking like a WASP.
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Well, regardless of what anyone else has to say about it, I identify as white.
Ok. So, why are you so interested in biracial/mixed identities? Of course, you may be interested in anything you like, but I thought you identified as biracial, not white. Especially since you (as I remember) referred to mixed people as “us”, and since you often present studies that “prove” biracials are considered more attractive. I got the feeling this issue hits close to home for you.
And I’ve never blamed others for identifying as they so choose. Actually, other people have been criticizing me for my self-identification.
Well, you are a big guy; I’m sure you can handle it.
That’s how things go, FG. You see yourself as X . If others share your opinion, good for you! If not, well, what can I say: you can still see yourself as X, but be ready to be treated the way people see you.
In other words: you can see yourself as white, you can fully adopt white culture, etc- but if people around you don’t see you as white, you can’t force them. I’m not saying you must adopt the identity others think that “suits” you- but you must be realistic to realize how others see you and be prepared to be treated as such.
You may not have been paying attention, but many of the comments I’ve been making over the past few months have related to the difficulty many mixed people (especially those who are close to white) have in establishing a strong racial identity. There is criticism leveled at them no matter what they identify as (white, black, or mixed). That tends to be the case in countries with sharp racial divisions like the US.
Well, that’s just how it is. That is one of the reasons everybody, even whites, should fight against racism. The true post-racial world would make the end of problems like this one. But don’t expect it to happen any time soon.
Also, nobody says you HAVE TO have a strong racial identity.
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“Ok. So, why are you so interested in biracial/mixed identities? Of course, you may be interested in anything you like, but I thought you identified as biracial, not white. Especially since you (as I remember) referred to mixed people as “us”, and since you often present studies that “prove” biracials are considered more attractive. I got the feeling this issue hits close to home for you.”
Well, the thing is that there is mixed ethnicity in the US. The population is too small and scattered to form one. When I’m talking about identying as white, I’m talking about ethnic identification.
“Also, nobody says you HAVE TO have a strong racial identity.”
You have to keep in mind, though, that racial group membership is quite important in that it shapes patterns of social interaction. If you’re not considered white and not considered black and not considered anything else, then no one will consider you “one of us” and therefore possessing a claim to inclusion.
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Well, the thing is that there is mixed ethnicity in the US.
One, or more? How similar are black/Asian biracials and Native/white ones?
The population is too small and scattered to form one. When I’m talking about identying as white, I’m talking about ethnic identification.
Yes, I got that. In the US, “ethnicity” means “race”. So are you saying you can be both mixed and white? Or that you’d love to identify as mixed, but since the population is too small, you are forced to see yourself as white?
And how black are you anyway, since you seem to try to distance yourself from your black side.
If you’re not considered white and not considered black and not considered anything else, then no one will consider you “one of us” and therefore possessing a claim to inclusion.
Yes, I know that. So? It still doesn’t mean you MUST have a strong racial identity. It still doesn’t mean you must have a strong collective identity of any kind. I understand you want to belong somewhere, but learning to love yourself as an individual is the first step, not any group’s acceptance.
Also, you can say you can pass for white. So, what seems to be the problem?
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“One, or more? How similar are black/Asian biracials and Native/white ones? ”
What I meant to say was that there is no mixed ethnicity or ethnicities in the US.
“Yes, I got that. In the US, “ethnicity” means “race”. So are you saying you can be both mixed and white? Or that you’d love to identify as mixed, but since the population is too small, you are forced to see yourself as white?”
Americans have tended to view possession of any amount of African ancestry as incompatible with white social status since the late 19th century. However, this seems to be changing.
“And how black are you anyway, since you seem to try to distance yourself from your black side.”
Ah, “distance!” That’s another one of those great anti-mixed codewords. Perchance have you and Jasmin been exchanging notes?
“Yes, I know that. So? It still doesn’t mean you MUST have a strong racial identity. It still doesn’t mean you must have a strong collective identity of any kind. I understand you want to belong somewhere, but learning to love yourself as an individual is the first step, not any group’s acceptance. ”
But humans exist in collectivities. Most people need friends, family, a love life, and a community. That’s why group acceptance are important. Was that social science program you attended fully accredited?
“Also, you can say you can pass for white. So, what seems to be the problem?”
I don’t experience many problems actually.
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What I meant to say was that there is no mixed ethnicity or ethnicities in the US.
I get that. But the way I see it, historical reasons are not the only problem here: great differences between different mixes are also something that should be taken into an account.
Americans have tended to view possession of any amount of African ancestry as incompatible with white social status since the late 19th century. However, this seems to be changing.
So, to you, being mixed means acknowledging your African ancestry, but with gaining white social status?
Ah, “distance!” That’s another one of those great anti-mixed codewords. Perchance have you and Jasmin been exchanging notes?
How did you know? I can’t hide it, can I?
But humans exist in collectivities. Most people need friends, family, a love life, and a community. That’s why group acceptance are important.
And I thought Americans were the ones who highly valued individuality against collectives.
Look, it’s possible to have friends, family and a love life without a collective identity such as racial, ethnic, nation, or religious. It’s not easy but it’s possible.
I’m doing it the best I can and while it sucks sometimes, it does have its advantages.
Was that social science program you attended fully accredited?
Yup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Belgrade_Faculty_of_Philosophy
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@Mira,
And I’m not the one who has “pushed” this issue, at least not recently. You and Natasha were the ones asking how old I am and what I look like. And yesterday you guys brought up claims that biracials are more attractive (which I never said has been proven).
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And I’m not the one who has “pushed” this issue, at least not recently.
Fair enough.
You and Natasha were the ones asking how old I am and what I look like.
I hope you didn’t misunderstood our motives… Sorry about the personal questions.
And yesterday you guys brought up claims that biracials are more attractive (which I never said has been proven).
That is another stereotype that needs to be talked about.
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FG,
Aw, now you have a crush on me too? Sorry, I’m way out of your league. (Any my boyfriend is the jealous type too.) 🙂
The reason people say you seem younger is not to disparage you (hell, you might be older than I am–that’s a real headscratcher), but because you seem to care a lot about what people you don’t know think of you, a tendency many younger people who’ve missed out on “the big picture” seem to have. Mira’s questions make a lot of sense, if you want to be White, consider yourself White, and others consider you White, then what’s the problem? Unless one of your relatives, either in words or appearance, constantly “outs” you as non-White, it seems like you’re good to go. It makes even less sense that you are trying to convince random strangers on the Internet who a) have no idea what you look like, b) wouldn’t know you if they tripped over you in the street, and c) probably don’t care about (a) or (b). I think once you figure out whose approval you are looking for, things might clear up a bit.
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FG,
“And I’m not the one who has “pushed” this issue, at least not recently. You and Natasha were the ones asking how old I am and what I look like.”
Asking how old you were: that was a legit question. I never asked what you look like because I don’t care what people on the Internet look like.
And yesterday you guys brought up claims that biracials are more attractive (which I never said has been proven).”
Wrong, wrong, as usual. I was responding to someone else’s comment, and we decided to move the conversation over to this post because it was getting off-topic on the other post.
I would never make that claim because I don’t believe it. My experience shows me that biracials fall into a normal distribution with a small amount of very attractive people, a large amount of average-looking people, and a small amount of not so attractive people (which of course is based on my assessment). Like every other group of people. But people have a skewed view of them because (a) there are less of them and any good researcher knows how small samples sizes can wreak havoc on results, (b) they may look unusual and that causes people to assess them as more beautiful than they are and (c)the media is the main source for viewing them; (c) being the main reason. And another obvious point that people seem to be missing is that there are already populations where people are very mixed. Like Mexico, where people are nearly half and half Native American and European. Now, how many people would say Mexicans are better looking than others? …Same can be said for other mixed regions.
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“So, to you, being mixed means acknowledging your African ancestry, but with gaining white social status? ”
What a weasel question. Jeez, I need to stop saying things to people here that tap into their insecurities and lead to passive aggressive remarks on their part.
I suppose there’s no escaping being mixed. Furthermore, there must be some value to being considered mixed. After all, you and several other commentators who are not multiracial have either referred to yourself as “mixed” or claimed that you look mixed or did so in the past.
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So if people ask me what I am, that’s what I’ll say (as I’ve always done).
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@Mira,
“Actually, when talking about “looking familiar but exotic”, I wasn’t thinking about Wentworth Miller or Jennifer Beals- who look completely white to me (very attractive but white). I was actually referring to people such as Halle, or Alicia Keys, or Paula Patton. All of them are with visible black ancestry. However, their physical features fit the white idea of beauty: narrow nose, nostrils not too wide, lips full but not way too full, thin bodies (I think), etc. They are at the same time familiar and exotic (because of their darker skin tone, hair texture or eye shape). ”
See, I think it has to do with the mixture of features rather than the whiteness of the features. For example, Rihanna (whose family is part of the Barbados mulatto elite) is considered attractive by many in the US but her features deviate from the ideal you describe above. She has an African nose and African lips, but her cheeks and jaw structure strike me as very European.
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^Oh boy more clearly false dichotomies. 🙄
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FG,
Just for the record, I was the one who asked about your age and appearance. Not Natasha or Jasmin. They have nothing to do with this. Sorry if I crossed the line and asked a too personal question(s). I didn’t want to violate your privacy or to flirt.
What a weasel question. Jeez, I need to stop saying things to people here that tap into their insecurities and lead to passive aggressive remarks on their part.
Don’t be sarcastic. I really wanted to know. And what insecurities? Why would I be insecure about mixed people and their identity? In case you didn’t read all of my messages, I support interracial relationships and mixed (biracial) people.
I suppose there’s no escaping being mixed. Furthermore, there must be some value to being considered mixed. After all, you and several other commentators who are not multiracial have either referred to yourself as “mixed” or claimed that you look mixed or did so in the past.
I am not mixed in a way you are. I am 100% white, for all I know. But I am mixed in a way I’m a mix of different ethnicities (all white, though). These ethnic groups don’t really like each other these days. So while this might be a case of “that happens to me too!” trope (which we can discuss), I do have some experience of not being enough A to be accepted by A, or enough B to be accepted by B to discuss this issue in more personal terms. I guess that could be a reason for my more personal questions. Again, sorry for that.
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I just read this article. Could it be considered as a model for the USA?
(http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1030142/1/.html)
Prior to 2010, Singaporeans could only designate one race on their ID card. Normally, the default would be the designated race of the father. Any attempt to change your racial designation afterwards was very difficult. Now parents can choose any of the following (and “race” means racial designation — may not correspond to actual racial composition or racial identity)
– the race of the father
– the race of the mother
– one primary race and one secondary race (eg, Chinese – Indian, Malay – Caucasian)
– one of the designated “mixed” races (eg, Eurasian)
The parents may choose to change the racial designation in the future, or the individual may choose to change it himself / herself.
I don’t know if this wreaks havoc on the demographic statistics, or what they will do in the next generation. Certainly historical racial groups such as “Eurasian” were not happy about this, as they see themselves as a separate cultural and social group. Now, children of mixed marriages (Chinese and Asian) can call themselves Eurasian even if they have no family connection to the traditional “Eurasian” community.
Singapore had a patrilineal racial classification system and found that they had to change it to meet new social realities. The USA has historically practiced a hypodescent rule. Will it need to redefine itself to recognize changing social realities?
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