Note: The following is mostly based on chapter 14 of “Race in North America” (2012) by Audrey and Brian D. Smedley.
Racism in the US is always changing but changes slowly. That means the near future will be pretty much the same, but the longer term it will bring change.
American racism will have to somehow adjust to:
- The rise of Japan as a country fully the equal of the US and Britain.
- The rise of the Black American middle-class and Blacks in important positions in the US.
- Immigration from Asia and Latin America pouring into the US, bringing millions of people who do not fit into the old black-and-white boxes.
- Multiracial identities, particularly those who are half White and half Asian or Latino. It not only challenges the idea that race determines culture and behaviour, but also makes one’s “race” harder to determine and therefore less useful.
- Barack Obama, whose very person goes against everything most Americans think they know about race. He is multiracial. He looks Black but culturally is like Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz”: a White person from Kansas. American racism is incapable of making sense of him – thus all the Birther and Secret Muslim stuff.
- The Human Genome Project – which left only 0.1% of the genome for scientific racism.
- Asian Americans scoring higher than Whites on IQ tests.
The election of President Obama shows that:
- Racism has weakened in some quarters: he got 43% of the White vote.
- Racism remains strong in others quarters: racial hatred is a big reason people oppose him.
Racism will most likely weaken over time: it is no longer backed by science or law and is becoming less useful as more and more Americans no longer fit into its old boxes.
It is even possible for racism to disappear. While ethnocentrism seems to be part of the human condition, racism is not. As the Smedleys point out, before the 1600s:
At no time were clusters of people homogenized into socially meaningful categories and ranked based on skin color or other physical features, regardless of ethnic affiliations.
The idea of identity being set in biological stone, making some not fully human, was strange and new. It was, for example, unknown to the Greeks, Romans and Moroccans, whose soldiers freely married native women. In most societies your identity followed that of your father, but could be changed through citizenship, religious conversion, cultural assimilation and so on. Who your mother was generally did not matter. That was true of Anglo American society too – till the rise of race-based slavery.
Racism will probably hang on for some time to come: it has so warped the way Americans think that they use it even where it is not necessary, like accounting for why Blacks seem to be so good at basketball.
One way for racism to hang on is to move from “race” to “ethnic group”. Since most people do not understand the difference between “race” (biological) and “ethnic group” (cultural), it would allow American racism to adjust to immigration while holding onto its scientifically unfounded beliefs about the relationship between biology, culture and behaviour.
See also:
- Other possible racial futures for the US:
- The future of racial stratification in the US – the US moves towards a Latin American model of race
- The Fourth Enlargement of American Whiteness – Whiteness enlarges to take in middle-class Blacks, Asians, Latinos and multiracials
- Other posts based on theSmedleys:
- ethnic
- Birthers
- The black president argument
- Anglo Americans
I always hold that if humanity sincerely desires & in fact needs to colonize other planets in the not – so – distant future, racism, sexism, & religious – based prejudice ( Homophobia ) are some of the things we’ll have to leave behind. That AND rampant nationalism.
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& when we EARNESTLY, SINCERELY establish a presence in orbital colonies, moon colonies, outposts on Mars,etc., the races WILL mix. It will be INEVITABLE.
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Not sure racism will really ever disappear. It’s become such a powerful and deep and yet fully illogical (thus adding to its power) ideology. People are so blinded by the ways in which EVERYONE is racialized.
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Another reason racism will hang on for awhile because of the material and psychological investment white americans have put into it. Its the way the world makes sense to them and tells them how they should react to it. And POC are to make necessary cultural ,mental and emotional adjustments.
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This series has left me deep in thought from time to time, wondering which way it will swing: an enlargement in the definition of Whiteness, a caste system, a class system, this concept, or a mixture of all of the above, which is technically the case in 2014.
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Subbed
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I guess many of us myself included need to learn the difference between “race” (biological) and “ethnic group” (cultural) I admit that this sometimes confusing for me and i am trying to learn the difference so as not to remain in ignorance.
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Abagond, you are after my very heart with these straightforward and informative posts on race in America. Kudos!
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As long as racial profiling exist and things like “high school prison pipeline” continue then racism is still going to be alive in America. Prisons are the new modern day plantations that are built to house black men.
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what a coincidence I was-am just rewatching wizard of oz – purely for entertainment – not black or brown people ,unless you count monster-villians.
In the future will white people have to watch a all black or brown film and be forced to identify with characters who look little like themselves?
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There’s a good book called “Racism without Racists” by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
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@With Love Glen@getgln: I will purchase this book trust your recommendation.
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[…] Note: The following is mostly based on chapter 14 of “Race in North America” (2012) by Audrey and Brian D. Smedley.Racism in the US is always changing but changes slowly. That means the near future will be pretty much the same, but the longer term it will bring change.American racism will have to somehow adjust to: Japan as a country fully the equal of the US and Britain.Asian Americans scoring higher on IQ tests.The Black middle-class and Blacks in important positions.Immigration from Asia and Latin America pouring into the US, bringing millions of people who do not fit into the old black-and-white boxes.Multiracial identities, particularly those who are half White and half Asian or Latino. It not only challenges the idea that race determines culture and behaviour, but also makes one’s “race” harder to determine and therefore less useful.Barack Obama, whose very person goes against everything most Americans think they know about race. He is multiracial. He looks Black but culturally is like Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz”: a White person from Kansas. American racism is incapable of making sense of him – thus all the Birther and Secret Muslim stuff.The Human Genome Project – which left only 0.1% of the genome for scientific racism.Click through to read more. […]
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[…] Source: abagond.wordpress.com […]
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@ Mary
I have that Bonilla-Silva book. Two posts on this blog are based on it:
Based on chapters two and eight respectively.
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@Abagond: I trust your recommendations as well. I have all the other books that you recommended from Good Reads.
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The rise of Japan as a country fully the equal of the US and Britain.
Japan is a nation with about half the population of the US. Moreover, in some important ways it is heavily influenced by the US. Not the other way around.
Meanwhile, Japan is a relatively homogeneous nation. It’s the only nation that speaks Japanese. It is technically advanced, but it has NO energy supplies. Therefore, it must trade with other nations. However, the Japanese economy has been in the doldrums for over 20 years.
Japan is not going to run circles around the US. It’s not even going to exert any influence over the US except in the realm of selling us high value-added products. Nothing to worry about.
7. Asian Americans scoring higher than Whites on IQ tests.
Why would Asian IQ scores matter to whites? If Asians have a higher average score — so what? Whites only care about Asian IQ scores in terms of the IQ figure representing a competitive benchmark. There’s no anger, resentment or animosity involved.
Meanwhile, the difference between the average white score and the average Asian-American score is about 5 points. It’s not enough to matter.
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The longevity of the illusion / delusion of white supremacy in America has mainly been sustained by an extremely aggressive campaign of indoctrination & disinformation against white people, combined with a constant war (physical, psychological, and philosophical) on anyone we can possibly perceive as the “other”.
As far as I can tell, we have the least educated, least healthy, and most complacent population of any so-called first world country. So far, this has served to reinforce the delusion. But here’s the problem with that: All our antiquated notions of cultural norms have been quickly unraveling for the better part of a century now. At this point in history, It takes a lot more work from everybody to maintain the hoax…Given this, how will white people who buy into this scam suddenly muster up a work ethic that rivals that of millions of immigrants & “others” who have no interest in white supremacy?
It’s the difference between “hungry for it” and “entitled to it” that will inevitably bite White America in the ass.
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um, this post is pretty silly. “R@cism” will get worse the more whites are forced to mix with NAMs. The most “r@cist” whites are supposedly in the South, where they interract with Blacks on a daily basis, and the least r@cist whites are supposedly in places like Seattle, which are pretty much all white. Coincidence? I think not.
Your comments re: r@cism being unscientific are also pretty ridiculous. It’s like someone saying that anyone who doesn’t believe the teachings of Muhammed is unscientific. You can keep saying it because you want to believe it, but it doesn’t make it true.
Also, Japan and not China? Just weird and off-based.
Here is a self-described black liberal HBD believer’s take on the future: http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/liberalism-hbd-population-and-solutions-for-the-future/ I disagree with him on a number of points, and I am not nearly as optimistic as he is, but it makes and interesting read, nonetheless.
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Are you pointing out that in places where there is no chance of White on Black interaction that racism does not occur… but in places where there is more White on Black interaction that more racism occurs? If so, this is pure genius. How did you come up with this brilliant idea?
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I have thought about the tone of most these blog entries – They concentrate on the negative, that which is divisive, more than on possible solutions directed towards healing such negativity & divisiveness. & they make it sound like bigotry is a concept invented by, & the exclusive province of, Caucasian European Americans, Canadians, etc. If you’re not a part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, people ! Working towards healing fissures that divide ethnic, religious groups & people w / different sexual orientations has NEVER, to my knowledge, been discussed in these blog entries & commentaries. I’m getting tired of reading about such injustices without addressing retroactive & proactive solutions. ( Which would be called ” Tikkun Olam ” in Hebrew – ” Repairing the world “, or at least a portion of it )
I’m out.
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Racism will never disappear,its a bleak reality but thats like saying negativity will be abolished,the fact is prejudices are a natural default of the human mind,all you have to do is look at Africa-a place where you’d expect black skin to not be an issue,and see the many Africans that bleach their skin.
Take a look at Brazil where its a melting pot of different races predominantly people of a mixed raced heritage and yet still racism is common ground amongst these ethnicities
As long as a group feel superior or more important,then the prejudices of that group will always be used to divide you.
In multicultural societies,coming together doesn’t work because people still harbour underground racism where its hidden,there are people that will be your freind but to date you or bring you home amongst their peers would be a step too far because of your skin color.
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I can’t help but believe that blacks dominate certain sports (like basketball) for reasons other than they practice those sports more. I think physical differences between the races play a part. No doubt that is a deeply racist thing to say in some quarters (indicated as much by Mr Abagond’s comment in reference to unnecessary white racism), but the domination of boxing by black boxers, for instance, seems to indicate something more than a greater dedication to the sport by black men in comparison to white men or any other racial group.
There does appear to be a physical superiority which is obviously what annoyed Hitler when he recognised it in Jesse Owens (although there is some debate as to whether Hitler actually did snub Owens or not). It doesn’t seem to apply in all sports, which would support the opposite theory, but it occurs in so many that I find it impossible to dismiss the idea, however ‘incorrect’ it might be.
I think we should be able to talk about the possibility of racial differences contributing to sporting success without the idea of it causing people to fling out accusations of racism, against blacks or other races.
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This post should probably be entitled “The Future of Global Racism”. There is too much of a tendency in the US to view the world from an American centric point of view. Racism is NOT a US phenomenon it is a global one with different degrees and specifities of manifestation.
@ Alli
Given, according to DNA research, we share 99.99% of the same genetics. The observed physical differences we see in various cultural and ethic groups CANNOT be accounted for by this spurious notion of ” race”. But those differences particularly the obvious ones in sports have to be accounted for from somewhere or something? Which is Melanin.
Its more than possible to eliminate beliefs in superiority of which racism is one. But for that to happen the full history and knowledge of humans on this planet needs to be known and revealed. People will also need to stop assuming they already know and have been told this by their governments and institutions – they haven’t! They will need to want to personally know this for themselves instead of exploiting this ignorance as a privilege from the perceived cultural status they just happen to be in.
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To Kwamla,
I understand you are arguing against the concept of race, I am less sure if you are arguing that there are physical differences, other than skin colour, which make black people dominate in so many sports. I am also unsure whether you are saying that melanin is linked to other physical differences which account for our success in sport.
For myself I would say that 0,001% probably makes all the difference. It certainly makes some groups of people different sizes than others. I think this is one area, like the differences between the sexes, where people seem curiously determined to explain away everything in terms of culture and not genetics.
You can say that there are no races, but our eyes tell us otherwise, that is why you can recognise the difference between a Japanese, a Nigerian and a Swede (on racial lines, not on national ones). It isn’t just how dark they are, there are differences in size and features as well. The people who have developed in different parts of the world are clearly different from one another, and race is as good a word to describe it as any other.
I do not believe blacks to be morally, ethically, intellectually or culturally superior than any other group of people. However, when it comes to certain sports, and a large number of them at that, the evidence of physical superiority seems overwhelming.
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[…] Note: The following is mostly based on chapter 14 of “Race in North America” (2012) by Audrey and Brian D. Smedley.Racism in the US is always changing but changes slowly. That means the near future will be pretty much the same, but the longer term it will bring change.American racism will have to somehow adjust to: Japan as a country fully the equal of the US and Britain.Asian Americans scoring higher on IQ tests.The Black middle-class and Blacks in important positions.Immigration from Asia and Latin America pouring into the US, bringing millions of people who do not fit into the old black-and-white boxes.Multiracial identities, particularly those who are half White and half Asian or Latino. It not only challenges the idea that race determines culture and behaviour, but also makes one’s “race” harder to determine and therefore less useful.Barack Obama, whose very person goes against everything most Americans think they know about race. He is multiracial. He looks Black but culturally is like Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz”: a White person from Kansas. American racism is incapable of making sense of him – thus all the Birther and Secret Muslim stuff.The Human Genome Project – which left only 0.1% of the genome for scientific racism.Click through to read more. […]
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[…] Source: abagond.wordpress.com […]
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Thank you for these posts Abagond. This was a really entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking series about the future of American society in regards to race and racism. At first, they came off as highly cynical, however I now see them as simply being realistic. Looking at history, culture, and psychology there really is no reason to believe that the social standing of black people will ever change for the better in the U.S. The only solution to this problem is using the opportunities through education in the West to move nations with majority black populaces.
Of course, I understand why many African Americans would be reluctant to do this. Immigrating would only solve the problems of racism, prejudice, discrimination, and race-based social immobility, meanwhile causing a whole host of issues around cultural integration.
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Sounds horrible, but I gotta say I don’t believe in multiculturalism. Disregarding, race and ethnicity, I honestly believe that like-minded people would be better suited living amongst each other and politically organizing together.
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@ Maxine
Your examples if how “natural” prejudice is comes from societies heavily affected by the West after it started practising Black slavery.
I think the ingroup/outgroup thing might be natural, but not to the degree that it would commonly lead to a dehumanizing racism. That bit comes from a West built on large-scale genocide and slavery.
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@abagond,
Maybe it should be the rise of China as opposed to Japan? It’s already happening, along with the rest of the BRICS countries, and the US/West is scrambling to try and contain it.
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Ally,
“…I do not believe blacks to be morally, ethically, intellectually or culturally superior than any other group of people…”
I would say the same about white people in general. But I would go further and say they have historically demonstrated the inherent ability to be morally, ethically, intellectually or culturally, even spiritually inferior to other indigenous peoples on this planet.
Of course this is not something generally agreed or accepted by the majority of white or Western educated people. For the simple reason they also most likely have been indoctrinated with the false ideology of racism (white supremacy)
I certainly believe the observed physical differences between the various ethnic groups of people can be explained (0.001%) by a serious study of the role and function of Melanin.Unfortunately what most people understand about this vitally important biological component is reflected in what you state about its determination of colour. While this is true. Its much, much more than this. Its about the quality and quantity of Melanin present as it resides in every cell of the human body. Its analogous to the central role Chlorophyll plays in ALL plant life. But there is another factor and component in our DNA here too…
It simple makes little sense to talk in terms of “races” for such observations since the science of 99.99% common DNA flatly refutes this But what is not general known or appreciated is that scientists can ONLY account for 3% of the functioning of of our total DNA in determining human physiology. The rest 97% is considered junk or more recently given way to the understanding it may be “Alien DNA”. Such a view would go along way to explaining those vastly observed physical differences in appearance between varied ethnic groups.
This is the type of study and recognition which is needed to over come nonsensical ideas of Racism and is what the future of American or global racism really holds in store.
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Scientific antiracism like the work of Lewontins, Stephen Jay Gould and so forth will get more and weakened as in the near future (the next 10-20 years) important genetic differences between the races will be found. The concept “race is a social construct” will be debunked in public. Actually the fact that races do actually exist in a biological manner will be the biggest scientific turnover in human history.
Social reality will not change anyway in the USA or anywhere else in the world. People of westafrican ancestry will go on to be the super race, who everybody looks up to, whites will go on to be somewhere in the middle and asians will go on to be the underdogs.
So men of westafrican ancestry will comtinue to be seen as the most attractive, black people in general will be continued to be seen as those who are entitled to everything. When it comes to interracial violence people of westafricanancestry will continue to be the winners, east asians will continue to be the loosers in this competition.
A very important aspect of global development will be the demographic explosion in subsharaafrica. Subsharaafrica will have for the first time in the last ten thousands of years and substantial part of the world population, more than the half of the world population by 2100. This will also mean, that immigration from subsgaraafrica to the rest or the world will rise and rise. So by 2100 there will be maybe more afrochinese than han chinese, more afropakistanis than pashtun pakistanis and so on. And of course more black british than white british or asian british. This demographic trend will even strenghten the position of westafrican supremacy.
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Though it may look a bit different, the future of American racism will be “fine” as long as it continues to do the two main things its really good at which is….
1 – Expand the concept of whiteness as needed to include people they formerly considered non-white and continue to indoctrinate the general society that whiteness is not just race but a set of positive “values” that are primarily white that others should aspire to in order to join “mainstream” society. My favorite one is the “valuing education” meme. The reality is that we Americans are getting fatter and dumber by the second and are actively destroying public education by turning it into a walled garden of charter school grifting rackets and zip code lotteries. Even now, I think only a 1/3 or so of us get college degrees.
2 – Mask class consciousness and differences by convincing marginal whites, like the race realists who post here, that they have more in common and some sort of racial solidarity with the white elites who run things rather than the blacks who are in the same economic class as them.
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At Ally
It makes no sense to talk about “blacks” when it comes to differences in sport ability. Black is colour not a race. Westafricans, (non-Bantu) East africans, south asians do all have a darker skin than e.g. Koreans, but they have nothing in common when it comes to sports, the simple reason for that being that they are not one race but different races who happen to have a rather dark skin tone.
Westafricans tend to have on average higher bone density, higher muscle tonus than pretty much everybody else. This gives them some advantages in boxing, but not so much, because the difference in muscle tonus and bone density to europeans is small, and thus europeans can also win boxing. East asians have no chance in this competation. But westafricans tend to be really superior when it comes to running fast for short distances, which has some anatomical reasons concering both hip/leg bones and muscles.
East Africans on contrast are on average the best ling distance runners, but they are bad at bith boxing and running fast for short distances.
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@Kiwi
I might agree with Hawaii, but I always wonder why you think California has much fewer whites than compared with other parts of the country.
When I take into consideration, say, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego, I find many parts of the country has a lower % of whites in comparison, eg,
East Coast (New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington)
South (Atlanta, Miami,New Orleans, Houston)
Midwest (Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis)
I never felt that California was particularly non-white compared to many of the main urban areas of the county, and even some of the rural areas.
The West Coast, particularly the upper northwest (Oregon), is about as lily white as they come.
100 years ago, California was exceedingly white – by design. The South was not. South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi were majority black statewide, and many counties across the South were over 90% black. It wasn’t until the Great Migrations that whites started to outnumber blacks in the South.
130-150 years ago, the West WAS NOT exceedingly white. The culture back then became to eradicate as many of the non-white population as possible.So I am trying to get a head around these 2 points:
If you go by the West Coast’s historical and cultural legacy, it had a series of very deliberate policies to eradicate itself of its non-white population. The South, on the other hand, had policies to control its non-white population, but not eradicate it. Is one history particularly more racist than the other?
Another point, if you look at the Sundown towns, most of them were in the Northeast, the Midwest and the West coast. Extremely few were in the South.
I am not trying to challenge or confront you, just trying to understand where you get your ideas about California and ex-California, because I have a very different impression, understanding and experience of the historical and cultural legacy of those places.
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@ Ally
You raked Cress-Welsing and Neely Fuller over the coals for reverse racism, but here you are a week later talking like a White racist. What gives?
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@ Ks
The Smedleys listed Japan, not China. I think that is because Japan’s rise is already an accomplished fact. The only thing the US has on Japan, and this has been true since at least 1942, is scale.
Whites look at non-Whites through a deficiency model. They can no longer do that with Japan.
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@ Kiwi
If you look at a map of majority-minority counties in the US, the country generally gets Whiter as you go from south to north, not west to east. Click to enlarge:
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a grudgingly disclosed glimmer of hope from abagond? no way, man! wow.
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To Abagond,
How the hell is saying that blacks appear to have a physical advantage in sport sounding like a white racist? I mean seriously, how do you come up with this stuff. Almost everything on earth is or sounds racist to you apparently.
How do you explain black dominance of a vast number of sports? Is the suggestion that men have the advantage over women in many sports sexist? Is saying that Dutch men are usually taller than Filipinos sounding like a white racist too?
The results are clear enough for everyone to see. I made it explicitly clear this was the only area I saw any differences between blacks and other races and I wasn’t denigrating blacks I was saying that we had a superiority in this one respect. I acknowledged that there is an argument for a difference in dedication but that I didn’t believe it sufficient to explain differences in achievement.
I am open to scientific evidence to disprove my ideas, I am not open to ridiculous accusations of racism. If you want true racism I would suggest that Kwamla’s post would warrant censure and not mine.
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To Erik Sieven,
I am aware that I am over generalising and that there isn’t a unified black race. However, the domination of black people in various different sports is very noticeable, even if those sports are quite different.
There might well be a purely cultural explanation for this phenomena I just don’t believe it sufficient without a lot of scientific data to prove that to be the case.
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I am dumbfounded. I don’t know what to say, reading these posts leave me laughably lost. I am multiracial -African-Native-Asian-Euro and my roots began in slavery in the delta of Mississippi. My inherited mindset is calm and strong in survival. I have worries, but the future of racism in American ain’t one of them
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To Kwamla,
I find it supremely ironic that Mr Abagond tries to censure me for ‘sounding’ like a white racist when you write like a black supremacist (and a pretty ignorant one at that) and apparently get a free pass from him.
The idea that any one race is morally inferior to another is an outrageous claim. it is also historically total nonsense. Do you dismiss every single atrocity, massacre and act of genocide conducted by everyone who was not white? Your reading of history is ludicrously selective. Do I really need to find examples of non white behaviour as depraved and as vicious as anything ever conducted by whites?
However, you go even further. White people are not just morally inferior, they are ‘ethically, intellectually or culturally, even spiritually inferior to other indigenous peoples on this planet’. How you prove spiritual inferiority is beyond me. Do you measure church, chapel and mosque attendances? What is the cultural inferiority? Are you intending to measure ‘indigenous’ writers, artists and musicians against Shakespeare, Raphael and Beethoven in a sort of racial Eurovision or Xfactctor? And as to intellect, are the achievements of white Europeans who advanced science and technology valueless in comparison to the achievements of these ‘indigenous peoples’, whomever they may be?
Have you any idea what a really stupid thing you have said? I guess not.
You don’t appear to have any alternative to showing the differences between what most of us call races. Whatever percentage of DNA accounts for it we are different and those differences are easily recognisable. I call those differences races and so do most people of all colours. That has nothing to do with superiority or inferiority, except with respect to sporting achievement, which was my original point.
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Ally,
I think the problem with your statement is twofold. One, you don’t define “sport” or, more accurately, you seem to define it too narrowly. Apparently, you just mean the major US sports and some track and field events.
Two, you seem to ascribe success in “sport” primarily to some inherent physical advantage rather than to talent and hard work when it takes a healthy dose of all three, along with a good deal of luck like avoiding serious injuries, to make it in sports.
It’s like those old school sports announcers who divided the sports world into the “smart, gritty, hard working” players (read: white) and the simply “naturally gifted” ones (read: black).
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To ks,
Well I didn’t make a profound or carefully researched declaration, merely an observation. It certainly doesn’t apply to polo or sailing and I don’t think Tiger Woods’ or Lewis Hamilton’s successes have anything to do with their racial makeup, nor yet the Williams sisters in tennis, given the number of successful white players. It is noticeable in athletics and boxing and as you point out in a lot of US sports.
I made it clear in my initial post that dedication and hard work is obviously a major factor, I just don’t think cultural factors and determination are enough to explain the dominance of black folks in a lot of sports, even if it is not all of them. I think being naturally gifted and working hard is the key, not one in preference to the other.
I still totally fail to see how my belief in the physical superiority of black people in this respect (be it right or wrong) is racist in any way, any more than my belief that men have a physical advantage over women is sexist. I am not saying that anyone is better or worse as a moral or intellectual being, merely stronger and more adept at certain physical activities.
If someone can disprove my belief with scientific evidence then I am happy to be shown to be wrong. Until then my suspicions will remain firmly in place regardless of Mr Abagond’s criticism.
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@ Ally
You seem to think that races are biologically real and that Blacks are better at certain sports due to genetic advantages. If I have that right, then you are a racist. By definition.
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“The most “r@cist” whites are supposedly in the South, where they interract with Blacks on a daily basis, and the least r@cist whites are supposedly in places like Seattle, which are pretty much all white. Coincidence? I think not.”—-I live in the south and have all my life and the only time I truly felt shunned or in a racist situation was when I was up north visiting my sister in law. In the area I live in the relationship between black and white is not perfect, but it is a far cry from people walking past you as if you don’t exist or having a cashier darn near ignore you while nearly breaking her back to help the previous white customer. So I am not truly sold on the idea that the south is the most racist. It may have been at one time, but I believe that is the myth people up north or tell each other.
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To Abagond,
Sometimes you could actually use some common sense, you appear to have precious little of it.
There are biological differences between people. Scandinavians are different from the Chinese and from Nigerians. There are differences in size, hair, noses, lips, eyes and skin colour among other things. To most people those are racial differences. What do you call those differences?
I believe that blacks have an advantage in certain physical activities due to their racial makeup. I may be wrong but the evidence is strong. If my belief in that advantage makes me a racist then I am also a sexist because I believe men are stronger than women. Again the evidence of that seems overwhelming.
Racism as most people mean it is the belief that some groups are inferior in their moral and intellectual capability. The belief that there are some genetic differences between groups of people is not racist in any pejorative sense. Those differences are hard to ignore unless you deliberately blind yourself to them. The belief that there are some genetic differences between men and women which affects their interests and behaviour does not make anyone a misandrist or misogynist. The idea that those have moral weight or you should treat people in an inferior way based on those beliefs does.
If you use terms like racist or sexist in that all encompassing way they will cease to have any meaning at all. Almost everyone will be a racist or sexist even if they treat others in the most humane way possible.
I wonder why you give Kwamla’s egregious anti white prejudice and more obvious racism a free pass and concentrate on my fairly mild ideas. If I were white I would be hard pressed not to see that as being unacceptably and offensively partisan. I think few people of any colour would be all that offended in my belief that blacks may have a physical advantage in some sports. If they watch those sports I am sure most of them (black, white and Asian) have a similar opinion. I think few women but the most ardent feminists would have much problem in my belief that there are very few sports in which women could compete on an equal footing with men. I know only certain equestrian events which have that equality in competition and that for the obvious reason that the horses do most of the work.
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To Ally,
Environment definitely shapes heredity. In most cases, people play their respected sport based on their environment. To say that black people appear to have a physical advantage in sports is like saying white people have a physical advantage in ruling people. Your comment would definitely fall under inferential racism. However, inferential racism is more subtle. It involves such things as unthinking acceptance of racial stereotypes – all blacks are good athletes, all whites are bad dancers, all Chinese and Japanese are good at math, that sort of thing. That kind of thinking is less blatant and less visible than overt racism, often because people don’t knowingly, deliberately adopt such beliefs; they just sort of absorb unspoken attitudes that are prevalent in the society around them.
Let us deal with race (ethnic groups) and sports. Geneticists do agree that people’s genetic differences play an important role in their athletic dominance or weakness. Consider white athletes first. Naturally, whites or Europeans (as a whole) have slow-twitch muscle fibers, which explains their dominance in stationary sports such as shot put or discus throwing. On the other hand, slow-twitch muscle fibers place whites at a disadvantage in mobile sports. This is why no white short-distance runner has ever sprinted under ten seconds in the 100 meter dash. Blacks or Africans (as a whole) have fast-twitch muscle fibers, which explains their dominance in mobile sports such as the 100 meter dash or basketball. The flip side to their fast-twitch muscle fibers is the genetic- disadvantage at slow-twitch power sports such as power throwing (shot put or discus) or strongman sports.
(Please note that slow-twitch muscle fibers produce muscle rigidity. Muscle rigidity is an involuntary tensing and stiffness of the muscles. In whites, there is an inability for muscles to relax normally.)
I’m quite sure many people (especially athletes) have heard of the whole fast and slow muscle fiber traits in athletes, but let me explain it much further. My profession is health and fitness. From my extensive research and studies I have learned that black and white athletes are, in many ways, different. According to neurologists, darker pigmented people transmit faster nerve signals than people with less or no melanin. (My information has nothing to do with the “melanin theory”.) Nerve signals involve the interaction of the neurons (sensory and muscle) and brain. This explains the superior hand-eye coordination, reaction time, speed, and leaping ability of black athletes, particularly black basketball players. Scientifically, white people’s sensory and muscle neurons are not as efficient as the sensory and muscle neurons of black people. This explains why the average white person is considered slow, rigid, and rhythmically uncoordinated.
Let’s study the black and white athletes of America’s three most dominating sports – baseball (“America’s sport”), basketball, and football. On average, black baseball players (African-American/Afro-Latino) are better short-stoppers and outfielders, which has a lot to do with faster reaction time. On average, white baseball players are better pitchers and infielders, which are typical stationary positions (made for players with slow-twitch muscles). On average, black basketball players (African-Americans/continental Africans) are better low-post players and slam-dunkers, which involve faster reaction time (refs give you three seconds to score or dunk in the paint). On average, white players are better free-throw and 3-point shooters (although black players are closing in on the 3-pointer gap). (Of course, the refs give a player twenty-four seconds to shoot from the arc and all day at the charity strike (free throw line), which heavily favor slow reaction players.) On average, black football players are better offensive and defensive backs, which involve faster reaction time. On average, white football players are better offensive and defensive linemen, which are typical stationary positions (made for players with slow-twitch muscles).
Genetics bred European/white dominance in power-lifting, strongman, football’s offensive and defensive line, wrestling, shot put, discus, hammer throwing, high striking, and tug-of-war (credit a traditional high protein diet in a climate that produced a meat diet and the blood type O). Genetics bred African/black dominance in sprinting, long-distance running, power running (seen in American football), long jumping, high jumping, vertical jumping (seen in basketball), and boxing (credit a traditional starch diet in a climate that produced a grain diet (for glycogen storage in the liver and muscles) and the blood type A). Genetic bred East Asian dominance in flexibility, gymnastics, diving, and martial arts (kung fu, karate, tae kwon do, ju-jitsu, kick boxing, etc.) (credit a traditional grain diet in a climate that produced a starch diet and the blood type A as well). There you have it!
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@ Ally
Forget Kwamla. He is a long-time commenter. I know where he stands. We are talking about YOU, the one who is so strangely sensitive to cases of reverse racism.
Question: Would Hitler be racist if he expected the Berlin Olympics of 1936 to showcase Aryan superiority at sports? If so, then what is the difference between you and Hitler?
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@ Ally
So, in other words you are an HBD adherent. Let me ask you to apply some “common sense” of your own.
Anti-racism does not hold that there are no differences between people groups. It does hold that humans are much more alike than they are different.
There are differences in size, hair, noses, lips, eyes and skin colour among other things. To most people those are racial differences. What do you call those differences?”
Two needful questions to be asked of you:
1) What exactly defines a human race and how many human races are there?
2) What is a racial feature that defines admission within a given race?
Actually, let me just stop here… if you can answer these then I’d like to discuss further.
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Ally,
I see what you are saying now. It’s just that while sports are as easy example to reach for to illustrate your point, it can be a bit of a misleading example. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of looking at the end result and then work backwards.
I’m not sure that the physical traits that lead to black dominance in certain sports are normally distributed across blacks generally which is why a genetic argument may be problematic. You’re talking about a very small subset of exceptional black folks.
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Ally,
“You can say that there are no races, but our eyes tell us otherwise, that is why you can recognise the difference between a Japanese, a Nigerian and a Swede (on racial lines, not on national ones). It isn’t just how dark they are, there are differences in size and features as well. The people who have developed in different parts of the world are clearly different from one another, and race is as good a word to describe it as any other.”
How many races do you think there are? Is a swede the same race as a Greek or an Indian?
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To Abagond,
I have no intention of forgetting real instances of racism, nor your obvious lack of consistency in dealing with people who show prejudice. I really don’t care if you know where Kwamla stands. I know where he stands as well and it doesn’t look too pretty from where I am.
I am not ‘strangely sensitive’, I am consistent in my belief that no race has any moral or intellectual superiority over another. I will attack anyone who supports that view, be they Hitler (to use your example), someone from the KKK, Welsing or Kwamla. I think that the sort of behaviour you have tolerated here from Kwamla makes a mockery of your professed desire to stamp out racism. I genuinely don’t see any superiority between any group or gender, other than in physical ability. I am less sure you do.
You spend so long pondering on what whites think about everyone else, real or imagined, that you can’t see the ugliness of what non whites think about whites many times. As a gay black man I have put up with so much sh*t from other black people for my sexual preferences that any idea that blacks are better than whites is inherently ludicrous. Observation and reading history also shows few instances of one group of people being consistently more moral or ethical than any other. In addition one of my much loved grandparents was white so I have little interest in seeing white people maligned as an entire group. I can see the scum in my own race very clearly, just as I can see it in other races. Can you?
I see you have conveniently sidestepped the issue of races and how you define the differences between people without referring to some sort of concept of race.
Hitler was racist so he would have wanted his Aryan athletes to outperform everyone else. Had he not been prejudiced he may have been mistaken in a belief that ‘Aryan’ whites could outperform blacks based on their genetic physical ability. I would imagine he would have had less examples of black domination of many sports at that point in history, especially in Europe, so for this idea to form would suggest a tendency to prejudice. If he believed that women, Aryan or not, could outperform men then he would have been a great fool. Had he believed the opposite chances are he would have been correct. Neither view would have made him sexist.
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To King and Solasearch,
We are not talking of the similarities, we are talking of the differences. I too believe we have vastly more in common with each other than we have points of difference.
I have no precise definition of race nor any idea of the numbers, I am not a scientist. I would imagine like many things races are hard to define with any degree of precision or with absolutes, even though we can all see them plainly enough. I can identify a Japanese person in London and tell they are different from a red headed Scot. In my eyes (and in most people’s) these are racial differences.
Again I would ask you both what you call those differences.
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Michael Cooper,
Good information but, I just want to be clear on your post. I understand the fast twitch vs slow twitch thing but you’re not saying a general genetic potential means, in this case, a corresponding athletic result are you? I mean, while blacks have a higher percentage of fast twitch muscles, the genetic athletic traits and ability the separate me from a Lebron James or Usain Bolt, are immense.
Also a couple of quibbles – a shortstop is an infielder. And, are there any real low post players left in the NBA other than maybe Duncan? lol.
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To Michael Cooper,
You appear to be arguing against yourself. Possibly I have misread you but at one point you appear to say environment is all and that I am (a subtle) racist for believing there are physical differences which determine sporting achievements between different groups of people and then you go on to point out those racial differences (in great detail) and how they affect outcome.
The information you provide is welcome and fascinating, I just don’t see how it differs from my overall view that there are differences between races physically which give some an advantage over others and which seem on average to favour black people. Even if results were pretty much even, some races doing well in some sports, and others in different ones we are still discussing racial differences leading to different results independent of cultural and environmental factors.
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@ Ally
But that is just the point. You are pointing out these supposed “racial differences” without even being sure what a “race” even is. Does that not give you some pause?
Do you understand the differences between these two statements below? And do you understand why one does not logically lead to the other?
1) Most of the fastest sprinters in the world are in the Black race.
2) Blacks people are genetically faster runners than Whites..
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As I think about it some more, maybe this example will clarify the problem with the genetic sports argument.
As a black person, I assume I share genetic traits with LeBron James but, in terms of any genetic traits that relate to athletic ability, he is probably genetically closer, from an athletic standpoint, to a quality white player like say, Kevin Love, than he is to me.
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Sharina,
I’d say it’s pretty equal now though Southerners do a much better job of hiding it under an avalanche of “Yes Ma’am/Sirs, Thank you kindly, Thank you please” and other Southern hospitalities.
Don’t get me wrong, most of my relatives are from down home so I love Southern manners especially the infinitely variable “Bless his/her/your Heart” which, as you know, the meaning could range from a nice, kind verbal gesture to F…you! depending on the circumstances. Ha!
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Ally,
“I have no precise definition of race nor any idea of the numbers, I am not a scientist.”
Have you read what scientists have to say about race?
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To King,
You are sidestepping the issue. What do you call the differences which you can plainly see between what I (and almost everyone else) call races?
I call racial characteristics the physical differences between groups of people which developed over time in different geographic regions of the world independent of mass migration. That is how I can recognise an Inuit, an Australian Aborigine and a Finn simply by looking at them. That is how I know I am different from most Icelanders when I look in the mirror.
It seems supremely ironic that Mr Abagond regularly condemns ‘colour blind’ whites as racist and yet he and you appear to be advocating colour blindness on a grand scale. Am I to pretend that a Chinese man is identical to a Zulu in the name of fighting white supremacy?
Again what do you call those differences?
I understand the difference between the statements. The first does not specify whether the advantage is to do with cultural or environmental factors or genetics or a combination of both. The second is too broad. Not all blacks are faster than whites.
It is my belief that on average the advantage is with black people based on inherited physical attributes defined by race and you have not proved that not to be the case, just as I have not proved it to be the case. I simply have a suspicion that more than cultural and environmental factors are at work here and I refuse to accept that that is a racist belief. If it is then racism as a term loses much of its power.
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@ Ally
So you are saying Hitler was NOT being racist in expecting Aryans to do well, that he was just being ignorant?
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To Solasearch,
I see little agreement based on what I have read.
You still have not answered my question: what do you call the observable physical differences between groups of people?
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@ ks
I think you are beginning to see the issue more clearly. Not that you are necessarily genetically closer to a White sprinter overall… but you may very well share some genetic commonalities that help you to both to run faster. On the other hand you may also both run fast for entirely different reasons. The point is that a shared higher melanin content with LeBron James does not necessarily make you any more likely to be better at athletics than accounting.
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To ks,
I don’t think your argument is really consistent.
My belief is that on average blacks have a physical advantage over other races in certain sports. That doesn’t mean that all blacks are more able than all whites and that because you and I are black we can automatically beat any white athlete. It simply means that the best of the blacks will generally outperform the best of the whites, Asians or any other race all other things being equal. That appears to be the case when one looks at the medal count at the Olympics.
Environmental factors, determination, sponsorship, encouragement, poverty etc. will all have an effect too but when things are roughly equal I believe that blacks will outperform other races in a lot of sports. Again that appears to be the case, though as I repeat I have no scientific evidence for this just as no-one else appears to have any scientific evidence against it. It is my suspicion based on the results I see over and over again. I don’t think cultural and environmental explanations are really adequate to explain this phenomenon.
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@ Ally
What you (and almost everyone else) call “races” is based on a legacy European theory of division of the human world population into several rather large and arbitrary phenotypical camps.
– Caucasoid
– Mongoloid
– Negroid
Within those divisions there are smaller subdivisions and varying mixed peoples, but that is pretty much what your theories are base upon. What you have evidentally not examined is whether these divisions were were scientifically correct or simply politically motivated.
It's interesting how you arbitrarily mix ethnic labels, and nationalities as if they were the same thing. Do you think that they are?
As for your answer to my question
1) Most of the fastest sprinters in the world are in the Black race.
This statement allows for the fact that the top sprinters may be Black. But that is as far as it goes. It has no bearing on the genetics of ALL BLACKS. After all, these fastest sprinters may all come from a single region, a single tribe, or a single family. Trying to make it a broad “racial trait” is ridiculous.
2) Blacks people are genetically faster runners than Whites.
This statement doesn’t make sense because, as you say, all Blacks are not faster than all Whites. But it has also never been proven that most Blacks are faster than most Whites. In fact, all we know is that the fastest Black athletes are faster than the fastest White athletes. The rest is pure unscientific extrapolation.
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To Abagond,
Why should I answer your question when you answer none of mine?
Hitler is a known racist so it makes little difference what he thought about the various athletes at the Berlin Olympics. If he thought that ‘Aryans’ were physically superior it would hardly have made him a monster. Ordering the mass murder of millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and other ‘undesirables’ made him one, not whether he thought white people better athletes due to their God given physical prowess. I really don’t care either way about something so incredibly unimportant as his views on race and sporting ability.
You spend so much time concentrating on trivialities that you appear to be unable to tell the difference between real racism and discrimination and a badly written TV show or the observable physical differences between groups of people which it is impossible to explain away in some strange belief that race itself doesn’t exist.
Again I ask the question: If the difference between a Norwegian and a Thai cannot be explained in terms of a racial difference, by what term or concept can they be explained?
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Ally,
“I see little agreement based on what I have read.”
What have you read? What are the disagreements?
Based on this wouldn’t you say race isn’t plain at all.
“You still have not answered my question: what do you call the observable physical differences between groups of people?”
There are no physical differences between races since there are no biological races. What constitutes a group? What constitutes a physical difference?
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To King,
You are still, like everyone else on this thread arguing against me, carefully avoiding the issue of what you call the differences between people we can all see, however much some of us apparently don’t want to see them.
I am not mixing ethnic and racial groups. I am well aware that culture and nationality are not the same as race. When I mentioned a Finn I was talking about a white Northern European whose ancestors came from that part of the world in comparison to an Aboriginal Australian whose ancestors lived in Australia for thousands of years.
You are not scoring any points here, I have made that distinction very clear in other posts if you care to look. I am well aware that migration has made it difficult to talk of a race and country as the same thing. For the sake of convenience, when I say Thai or Ugandan I mean someone of the majority population of that country not affected by immigration or miscegenation.
My views on race have nothing to do with past European ideas of race and everything to do with what I can see with my own two eyes and which I would need a superhuman mental effort not to see. Never have I seen an argument more redolent of the emperor’s new clothes than yours.
I will once again repeat the question which I have repeated ad nauseam and which you all appear to be determined not to answer: what do you call the observable differences between groups of people, originally born of geographic locations which I and most others call racial differences?
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Ally,
I’m not sure why you think my argument lacks “consistency” but anyway, simply put, my point is that such black athletes are genetically and statistically outliers. While they may share common traits with other blacks, in terms of any genetically based athletic ability, they share more in common with white sprinters, basketball players, football players, etc., than they do me.
Again, I think you are working backwards and looking at things liked medal counts and applying a broad based genetic/racial explanation that may not be valid as you think it is and confusing a genetic predisposition with results though, you do mention the other factors.
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To Solasearch,
So (ignoring migration and miscegenation) you cannot tell a Thai man from a Somali and you easily get the two mixed up?
I would suggest a trip to the opticians for a new set of spectacles. Yours seem to be sadly inadequate.
One physical difference is hair. My hair is radically different than a blonde European because my black ancestors came from Africa and I have mainly inherited the features of that race based on a specific geographic location within Africa, even though I am mixed race with one white grandparent. My nose is broader than many white Europeans and my skin is a lot darker as well. I find few white English people whose ancestors are European have skin as dark as mine. I fact I go further, I know none who are as dark as me or who have ever been throughout history. That is how I can tell that I am different from them and I know where most of my ancestors came from.
Again I call those physical differences racial differences. What do you call them? Or is your eyesight so bad you just can’t see them and everyone is an indistinct blur?
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To ks,
My argument may indeed lack validity. It has yet to be proved it does. I wait for someone to do so.
I believe that the best of the blacks will beat the best of the whites (and other races) in many sports based on genetic racial inheritance. Obviously the worst of the blacks will have less in common with the best of their race than the more able whites. That isn’t comparing like with like. The best female soccer player in the world will outperform most men, even reasonably good ones, but that doesn’t mean that she and the best of her sex won’t get trounced by the best male players based on the inherited genetic physical advantages that men in general have over women in general. I believe the same to be true of race as it is of gender.
Anyway its far too late here and I’m off to bed where I will happily wallow in my ‘racism’ for a few hours.
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@ Ally
Scientists explain it in terms of genetics and gene frequencies. Unlike what most racists think, genes do not come in tidy packages called “races”. Instead there are gene frequencies. Type B blood varies not by race but east to west. Melanin does not vary by race but north to south. Not all East Asians have epicanthic folds (only about half do) nor is everyone with an epicanthic fold East Asian (some are African). Negritos look very much like Black Africans, yet they are more distantly related to Blacks genetically than White Europeans. The type of blood I have is most common among the natives of South America even though I do not look like them. Etc.
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ks
“Southern manners especially the infinitely variable “Bless his/her/your Heart” which, as you know, the meaning could range from a nice, kind verbal gesture to F…you! depending on the circumstances. Ha!”—LOL. Oh that darling southern Hospitality.
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Ally:
You said, “I believe that blacks have an advantage in certain physical activities due to their racial makeup. I may be wrong but the evidence is strong.”
Your observations are simply common sense to most neutral observers of all races who watch, e.g., the Olympics. However, the problem is that there is also “strong” evidence for whites having an advantage in certain mental activities due to their racial makeup. Literally tens or hundreds of millions of IQ type tests have been administered to Blacks in the U.S., Africa and elsewhere. Nowhere has anyone ever found a large group of blacks from the general population who had test scores that were, on average, anywhere close to the white average.
Of course it’s easier to say IQ tests are racially biased than to say a 100 yard dash is racially biased, but it’s pretty ridiculous to imagine that some white r@cists would have intentionally designed IQ tests (and SATs, etc.) so that East Asians would score better than whites (as Abagond so helpfully noted in the post above).
So there you have it, Ally. That is why you are not allowed to notice Black superiority (on average) in certain physical activities.
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@ Kiwi
Yet we are supposed to talk about something they cannot define!
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Sometimes it is better to thoroughly research a topic before taking an ignorant stance, whether ultimately right or wrong, on it. There is nothing wrong with simply saying, “I don’t know.”
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Kiwi
LOL! I have to give him credit though…He tried. Sources and whatever bit of information he needed to make somewhat of a point. Half truth king DA JOKAH.
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The Pragmatist
“There is nothing wrong with simply saying, “I don’t know.”—True
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@ Kiwi
Right. Till at least the 1960s Asian Americans scored worse than Whites on both IQ tests and the SATs. Their scores have gone up since then, most likely because of the children of the Asian brain drain (and maybe some Flynn Effect action too).
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I don’t know, but could the increase of immigration maintain racial status, even by bringing there own cultural bias towards a particular group or groups. And multiracial with Black parentage would be Black. Because even foreigners think Obama is Black
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shazam
It really would depend on how black they look when it comes to multiracial and with so much mixing going on it is a matter of what will look “black.” My daughter looks more like her father and thus looks more Mexican. She is not as fair skinned as her father but looks tan. My son by most standards would be consider black, but my Filipino friend would constantly say he looks like a dark skinned Filipino.
I am curious on how racial status will change under such conditions. Though multiracial families will not be anything new. It happened in the past, so wonder what will be a big changing point in the future.
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To ks,
I’m speaking from a genetic standpoint. A black or white kid just doesn’t wake up one morning and out-do others (black or white) on the basketball or tennis court or football or track field. Genetics and proper training are an awesome combination. LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Julius Erving and countless of other pro-star athletes had to put in some dedicated work.
As a former athletic competitor-turned-fitness trainer and nutritionist I see or seen potential in all my clients (former and present). Of course, it’s my job to inform them of their abilities and cultivate the gifts that are within. However, from my 22 years years in the field of health and fitness I can honestly say that there’s a clear difference in the races, genders and age groups. No racism is involved in good or bad genetics.
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To Ally,
It’s no self-argument. I’m just informing you and others who read my comment on race and sports. If we’re on the same page of physical differences in sports just extract the unknown knowledge from my comment. That’s all.
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To biff,
IQ tests reflect only one aspect of intelligence, the one which seems most influential in gaining material success in Western societies (which we all know). In fact, different components of brain function – memory, association, extrapolation, intuition, and creativity – are all important, working separately and together. IQ tests only measure limited aspects of these diverse talents, and there is no doubt that cultural differences and familiarity with the contents of tests affect results.
In any case, the story of our African Exodus makes it unlikely there are significant structural or functional differences between the brains of the world’s various peoples. We came out of Africa as an already advanced species and those who remained on the continent retained that sophistication, just as much as the rest of Homo sapiens used it to conquer the world.
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My personal belief is that Latinos and Latinas will, in a few years be considered white. Also, Asians will be a separate group within the rest of the Americans, just like the Jews. That is, equal to but not white. However, the third group you named, middle class blacks won’t intergrate because the culturall differences between white Americans and middle class blacks are too much.
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Again, the position of and anti-racism is that there are not differences in groups of human beings, based on heredity and environment. I’ve already said that once. The rub comes in the *classification* of these differences.
1) Children born of the same nuclear family tend to look similar, but they are not seen as a “race.” Each family is not a separate race simply because they look alike.
3) On a higher level of observation, people from isolated villages tend to look a lot alike (not as much alike as nuclear family members, but still quite similar) yet they are not considered to be a separate race.
4) To some degree, even people who live in the same regions and who share broad heredity and similar environment may also look somewhat alike when compared to others in the same broad group (although not as alike as people from the exact same village.)
So then what exactly make a race? The answer is that at some point, someone walks in and declares: “All of these people here are now one race! —All of the Britons, and Saxons, and Visigoths and Romans, and Grecians, and Franks and Lombards are all WHITE now. They all share the same tendencies and intelligence, and degree of sophistication now.
And people like you just swallow it! “Yes… yes, they must all be one race and all the people who have darker skin are another race…” Science doesn’t say so, genetics don’t say so, but hey, it’s common sense!
it is common sense only to common fools,
Do you really have no understanding of the difference between simply following what certain people have said for a long time and listening to what is scientifically accurate?
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Sorry, correction Paragraph 1
“Again, the position of anti-racism is NOT that there aren’t differences between groups of human beings, based on heredity and environment”
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The problem I’m having with Abagond’s this is that racism is based on color. Nothing else. First, the majority of the world is “Black” by virtue of being “brown-skinned”. People get caught up on the color and apply it to a people that look nothing like it. That’s hard for many whites to understand, being that they “don’t see color” or whatever. The President is, therefore, “Black”. Not “half-white”. And all ” So a “Black” Hispanic will be treated as a “nigger/a” until he speaks Spanish (or Portuguese or whatever). Then he MIGHT get a pass, provided he doesn’t associate with Black Americans (primarily English-speaking ones) as the cultural propaganda machine distorts us ridiculously.
Therefore, Neely Fuller had it right when he said they were gonna “Brazilianize racism big time”.
The only way this ends is if other people’s of color don’t abandon their so-called “Black” relatives. Until then, the system of RWS will chug along in various different forms and people will still be using those lame ass excuses you pointed out, Aba.
Now…
As far as this “race” thing is concerned; man’s internality…that is the way we are constructed as creatures on this planet (human physiology vs a cat for example) is what makes the human “race”, the human “race”.
Muscle fiber twitch speed and the outer shell (pigmentation, hair texture, etc) aren’t enough to divide us into races. Different “tribes” (if you will) may have adapted to different climates when left to their own devices producing different outer shells, but that’s just the casing. The part that the light doesn’t hit, the insides, is the same. The eyes deceive those that believe in “race” as popularly defined.
My opinion, btw.
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@Kiwi,
Actually, no.
What is very clear from Abagond’s map is that the non-white / white gradation is South to North, not West to East, with some spread up on each of the coasts.
California is unique in that its Hispanic White and non-Hispanic white population are almost equal. A 40% non-Hispanic white population means about 79% total white (Hispanic and non-Hispanic combined). In Maryland and Georgia, the non-Hispanic white population is still slightly over 50%, but the total white population respectively are both now under 60% (58-59%) with at least 30% black in each state. It is very clear that whites in those states have to contend with living in close proximity to non-whites.
In Washington, DC, non-Hispanic whites dropped below 18% of the population in the 1970s and has actually risen back up to almost 35% as blacks moved to the suburbs. It is still less than CA.
Anyhow, that is all a moot point (which state has more non-whites) and distracts from my main question.
Followed by my question:
CA has considerably more people who identify as “white” compared to much of the South and East, but somewhat fewer people who identify as non-Hispanic white. OK. But how is this factoid tied into its racial attitudes based on an area’s history and culture, esp. given that California spent a whole century trying to eradicate its non-white population? If you go by its historical and cultural legacy, CA appears downright into genocide and ethnic cleansing. Native Americans were nearly wiped out or settled out in the desert. Chinese fled CA to the South and East in late 19th and early 20th century. Japanese-Americans were removed specifically from CA, and many later dispersed into the East, Midwest and South. Riots targeted Filipino Americans. Anti-immigrant sentiment, esp. re: non-white immigrants, is probably strongest in CA compared to anywhere else in the country.
Yet, you purport that CA’s history and culture causes it to be less than the rest of the country. I just don’t get it.
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@ Thetruenorth
Please list what these insurmountable cultural differences are.
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@Kiwi
No, I am not mistaken. There was no need to strikethrough the text as you did, as most of California;s Hispanic population tends to mark itself as white. It is true whether you strike out the text or not.
Data from US census (2012):
(http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html)
White: 73.7%
Non-hispanic white: 39.4%
White Hispanic: 34.3%
Total Hispanic:38.2%
Total Hispanic will exceed white non-Hispanic by this year; White hispanic will approach White non-hispanic in a few years. It does not matter too much whether you strike the text out or not as the point does not depend on that.
The population that marks “white” is a lot lower in many states than CA (including, like I said, GA, MD, DC, MS, SC, NJ, VA, etc.). Of course, if we count Hispanic whites as non-white (and there are some valid reasons to do so), then CA has somewhat less non-Hispanic whites than some other states, but it doesn’t mean that the other states are somehow, “a lot more white: compared to CA.
It is hard to say how much of CA is “functionally white”, probably somewhere intermediate between 40% and 73%, which makes it similar to a lot of other states.
The point was not about that anyhow. It was about how the history and culture of CA would make it “less racist” despite exposure to non-white groups living in close proximity (which, I hope we agree, is not limited to CA).
Feeling less guilty about racism (because, say, it was not taught in the schools) does not mean that they are less racist. And the examples you gave about Jews in Germany is probably partially explained because Germans do feel somewhat guilty about the Holocaust experience, so in some ways, it does not support, but contradicts your hypothesis.
In fact, deleting racist history from the educational system, perpetuation of the racialized Model minority stereotypes and anti-immigrant racialized attitudes show that racism is in full force in CA, which may even include the “colour-blind” variety. Every single person I know who has lived in both LA and NYC (which is quite a few) found Angelenos much more racist than New Yorkers. Your anecdotal experience might differ.
I really don’t want to debate about this, but I really don’t see CA as less racist than much as the rest of the country, and I didn’t understand why one might so strongly believe that. Is that what is taught in CA schools (that Californians are less racist?) or is that is what is printed in CA media? They might know to send out less tweets citing racial hatred, but then they move away from the coastal urbanized areas to join more white neighborhoods inland, or in other states.
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@abagond & Kiwi,
regarding the commenter above who stated
As you two know, I grew up in Prince George’s County, MD, which has had middle class black neighborhoods since the mid 20th century, and actually became wealthier AFTER whites left (similar to what is happening now in adjacent Charles county, which is even wealthier). I went to secondary school after desegregation, and middle-class blacks and middle-class whites went to school with each other. They started to socialize separately because whites plucked their kids out and sent them to white Christian academies in the 1970s-1980s. But even they are very rather integrated today in the 2010s.
Waldorf in Charles County, MD is largest shopping area in Southern MD, and has just become majority black in the past decade. Yet the stores and institutions there are similar to other parts of suburban MD and have both whites and blacks participating in the same organizations. I really don’t understand how it is more difficult for them, than say Asian or Latinos to integrate due to cultural differences, esp. middle class blacks.
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There used to be a Michael Cooper playing for the Los Angeles Lakers , is that you , Michael ?
The athletic thing is complex…in the 60 s , everyone thought the long distance runners could only be white , along with quarterbacks, the Japanese were better represented in track and feild in the 36 Olympics, a white Brazilian woman won an Olympic long jump , not long ago, wasnt there a Greek champion 200 meter sprinter before Bolt took over ?
Hasnt a dream team American basketball team been beaten in the Olympics by a white team from a country much smaller ? Or countries….Lê Bronze James?
Is hockey a slow muscle twitch sport ? Isnt the heavy weight champ a Russion ? Or was? Are swimming sprints a slow muscle twitch sport?
Is the fact whites arnt good rhythmicly more due to cultural reasons than muscle twitch ? There are top class white soloist drummers like Buddy Rich and Louis Bellison, but the cultural innovations belong to black American drummers in American culture…
Its very complex if you ask me…
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Jefe , I know you dont understand the cultural differances, I keep telling you that…
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In regard to genetics, IQ works exactly the same way height does. Our height is a polygenic trait, with influences from multiple genes. There is both an environmental and genetic component that contributes to the height difference between individuals. However, your environment can affect the heritability of this trait. Consider this,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-much-of-human-height/
“Peter M. Visscher of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research in Australia recently reported that the heritability of height is 80 percent, based on 3,375 pairs of Australian twins and siblings. This estimate is considered to be unbiased, as it was based on a large population of twins and siblings and a broad survey of genetic markers. In the U.S., the heritability of height was estimated as 80 percent for white men. These estimates are well supported by another study of 8,798 pairs of Finnish twins, in which the heritability was 78 percent for men and 75 percent for women. Other studies have shown height heritability among whites to be even higher than 80 percent.”
“In Asian populations, the heritability of height is much lower than 80 percent. For example, in 2004 Miao-Xin Li of Hunan Normal University in China and his colleagues estimated a height heritability of 65 percent, based on a Chinese population of 385 families. In African populations, height heritability is also lower: 65 percent for the population of western Africa, according to a 1978 study by D. F. Roberts, then at Newcastle University in England, and colleagues.”
The heritability of intelligence is also affected by the environment, so it wouldn’t be wrong to assume that the different environments of different populations are impeding on the heritability of their IQ.
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Also, when looking at genetic differences between groups, try splitting white Americans into two groups. One group is composed of white Americans born in 1900, the other is from white Americans born in 2014. If you were to measure the height of these two groups you would see drastic differences. It would be ridiculous to assume white Americans evolved that fast! The entire height difference between these groups can be entirely explained through environmental factors, like better nutrition.
Now imagine, we replace the generational categories and replaced them with racial categories. It is most certainly plausible that the 15 point IQ difference between white and black Americans is completely environmental.
Did you know that the average IQ of the marginalized Maori minority (indigenous New Zealanders) is 85 and that the average IQ of the majority, Euro-New Zealanders (whites), is 100? Wow.. that sounds mighty familiar -_-. Could it be a coincidence that the blacks and whites of America share this same IQ gap? I think it’s unlikely..
Whites and blacks in America, on average, do not grow up in the same environment at all and I am not simply talking about class differences either. Culturally and psychologically (self-hatred, anti-black biases and prejudices that even blacks hold about themselves), we see huge differences between these two groups as well.
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@ Ally
“…The idea that any one race is morally inferior to another is an outrageous claim. it is also historically total nonsense…
I have doubted your reading and comprehension skills before and now you have provided me with your own evidence, yet again!. Not only have you misquoted me. You have also misinterpreted me as well.
This is what I said in response to your initial assertion:
We can agree to differ on whether this is – historically total nonsense because like many white racists or HBD’s they probably wouldn’t see it too. But the evidence is there for those who choose to look for it. And it really isn’t that hard to find.
I am tending to agree with Abagond’s assessment of you Ally. You are sounding just like a typical white racist (HBD like biff) with you singular insistence in the exists of “races”.
Despite the FACT that KIng has already tried to point out the error in your thinking with many teasers and questions. You still seem unable to get it?
Maybe you are arithmetically challenged as well. You agree with the figure of 0.001% attributable to the physical characteristics of races. Yet you still want to insist that this small percentage in some way explains the wide, varied and diverse physical differences we observe in Human populations?
Even a child learning maths could tell you that 99.99% common DNA is more significant than 0.001 in differences! That difference is negligible and cannot account for the idea of separate Human races. At least this is what the latest science gnome project has told us.
So YES! Believing in the nonsensical view, based on what you subjectively observe that Humans can be divided into separate races. Can be classed at the very least as ignorant and misinformed or in the extreme as racist.
But I ‘ll be generous and place you in the former category
Because you probably didn’t read it or couldn’t fully appreciate it. I will refer you back again to what I said at the end of my last comment to you. Then you can remind me how what I am saying amounts to Black supremacist thinking
One last thing I would say is it is clear, from all your different responses to commentators here, you have inadequate or lazy definitions of “race” and “racism” which are typical of most white people or these people here:
http://cnsnews.com/video/cnsnews/morgan-freeman-sounds-racism-and-wealth-distribution
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B.R., the point was not whether or not there are cultural diferences. I acknowledge there are cultural differences (NEVER denied this; never said everyone was the same – you inplied that someone said that). The question is why it is assumed that everyone else can integrate easily because of less cultural differences, but middle class blacks have too wide a gulf to contemplate any sort of integregation. If that was the case why even consider desegegation of any occupation, institution or community?
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@sb
You missed the point about Japan. It’s not that Japan is the same society as the US, but that it has risen (since WW2) to be an industrial powerhouse, akin to industrialised US and UK, i.e., in terms of GDP per capita, exports per capita, and transformation to an industrialised and serivce-based economy.
@Ally
“How the hell is saying that blacks appear to have a physical advantage in sport sounding like a white racist”
Because it implies blacks are more genetically predisposed to sports, which is not only untrue, but a great demonstration of your ignorance.
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Why is Afro diasporic the most dismissed, banned and destroyed culture in the world? In America, black culture is leaned on more than any other culture in its history…these stratification and who is accepted as white theories have severe flaws in them…
For example, model minority is more like a Republican talking point than an over all white concept..the racist bigot whites dont like Asians also, you should know this…and, Ive never heard model minority arguments in the white people I have known…never…its a pop political talking point…underneath really , is prejudice against black culture
There are large enough whites who are bigoted against Jews and dont accept them as white, that you cant chalk it up that Jewish people are looked on as officialy white
mixed white kids are accepted into the white commuinity ? hogwash…if my son walks out the door, he is on his own, and , lately , if he has one of his samba drums with him, taxis will not take him.(talk about cultural implication)..and he gets scrutinised by security more in stores if he is alone or with his mother..
light skinned blacks being accepted by the white system more? what about people like Oprah or Clarence Thomas? This just sluffing it off as uncle toms is narrow minded…it gives people too much chance to scrutinise people just for being successful…”sucess offends”…sure there are some cases , but, there is too much room to implicate people if they are just succesful…if you see black success on some levals, its because the individuals either have figured out the game , or , some people just identify with playing the game more , they have affinity for the rules going down in the game…this is the other system ive talked about that is seperate from the real institutional and personal racist obstacles and discriminations going on in the racist white system
too many holes
Jefe, your latest answer to my speaking about your American cultural statement was that if you dropped three Americans into places like somewhere in China, they couldnt tell the differance..well, they cant tell the differance in the very real cultural differances those Americans would feel among each other, and , if you dropped three Chines of differant cultural backgrounds into the USA,Americans couldnt tell the differance also…so your point is not valid
In truth, you dont really know or understand black American culture and its histories…just like most other Americans…
what I ask is, just think a little more about a statement you make about culture in America…
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Is Afro diasporic the most dismissed, banned and destroyed culture in the world?
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Hmmm… i feel strangely compelled to comment here for some reason. First of all, basketball, imo is an american cultural phenomenon. Secondly it is extremely popular due to the facts a. Every american settlement almost without exception has a publicly subsidzied playing area for such sport ie basketball court, and b. You can ‘equip’ two opposing teams of up to ten players for under $30 ie however much a basketball costs, and c. The area of said playing field is significantly smaller than a baseball field etc so it fits in urban areas too. Im not sure why basketball has so many atheletes. Nor regarding average AA height vs white etc and have no desire for a stats war. What comes to mind, and im sure someones gonna let me hear about it, is that perhaps AA slaves, for field workers in particular, were known to have been bred for physical size, strength, etc? Circumventing natural selection in many if not all of those cases? Idk. Ally has some type of way of commenting…
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Ally,
How would I know theses individuals are Somalian or Thai just by looking at them? I’d see two people that look different but I wouldn’t be able to say this person is Somalian or thai without asking the person. Do you consider Somalian and Thai races?
Is European a race? Are blonde haired Europeans one race and black haired ones a different race? Are wide nose Europeans with dark curly hair a different race than blonde haired thin nose ones? What do you call those physical differences? My sisters and I have different skin tones, hair textures, and nose sizes. Are we different races? What do you call those physical differences?
I call physical differences physical differences, the issue isn’t eyesight. the issue has a lot to do with your warped and imprecise thinking. Is African a race? Are Somalians and Nigerians the same race? Or Indians or Somalians? Or Indians and Greeks?
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It’s interesting that we keep discussing the future of race relations in the United States as if it’s going to evolve smoothly but in the end we will reach an accommodation. Because history illustrates that different ethnic and tribal groups typically negotiate power through give and take.
For instance we get “American racism will have to somehow adjust to: x, y , z.”. That isn’t even an honest statement. An honest statement would be this: “American’s of white European decent will have to adjust to an increasing population of non-whites in the United States who have high IQ’s and seek political and economic power”. As if somehow that will just happen.
Isn’t it clear that white believe the United States is their country and everyone else is just visiting? They may decide that they have adjust to x, y and z by underfunding schools that serve non-whites, essentially evacuating certain cities/areas like Newark, Baltimore, Detroit, and non-coastal California to rot. They may decide to slowly increase voting restrictions to decrease non-white participation at the polls. They may decide to cut Federal power to enforce civil rights laws, such as the Voting Rights Act.
They may decide the best way to deal with immigration is to roll up the drawbridge lock most non-whites into underfunded no-way out ghettos where they don’t/can’t vote, don’t graduate from high school, go to jail and can’t get a job that doesn’t pay above minimum wage and so can’t accrue the wealth it takes to escape – a permanent underclass.
Wait, they already do all of the things I just listed. But they will stop and adjust in the future, because…why, because Japan has a strong economy, and Asian immigrants are good at tests…really?
The truth is, whites losing majority status isn’t a sign of a great awakening. Rather, whites losing majority status could be a sign of change and change is almost always bad unless you’ve got nothing to lose. For most people with a job and a family, change is scary. Scared people buy guns. Rather than a great awakening what we may see is a ramping up of a police state. I’m waiting on national ID’s and drones over south central.
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@ Biggiefriez
Right, “adjust” does not necessarily mean in a good way. Jim Crow was an “adjustment” to Emancipation and Reconstruction. The Chinese Exclusion Act and the anti-Asian violence that followed was an “adjustment” to Asian immigration in the late 1800s.
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[…] 58. The future of American racism […]
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@abagond
I see your point and that’s why I wrote what I did -adjustment can hurt. And being a cynic I assume the worst.
Regardless though of the adjustment by whites to immigration, all the books seem to agree that anyway you slice it, blacks will generally stay on the bottom. Of course the last author says that racism may someday disappear to be replaced by ethnocentrism (sounds great). Maybe immigration isn’t so good for blacks. How can it be good if all your doing is bringing in more racists?
Will immigration make America a fairer place for non-whites or just a more layered society with whites still on top? Your summaries (good job, thank you) seem to point to a layered society type model with opportunity dispensed based on skin tone – just like now.
Perhaps there’s some literature out there that discusses the impact of massive non-white immigration on millions of urban/rural working class and poor blacks.
We already know how whites will adjust to immigration. Los Angeles is the working model. What will blacks do, is there any literature?
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@BR,
Actually, I do not necessarily agree with the theory presented in the post either and think that some of it may be hogwash. I’m am sorry that you misread that I am defending the scenario in the post.
Again, that was not the point. Sorry, but I think (my opinion) you are deflecting by bringing in extraneous points.
You should present your own theory of the future of race and racism in the USA. But I am not going to discuss this with you anymore.
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@Bulanik
You found that interesting too, eh?
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Yes , Afro diasporic culture , most destroyed …
Start with ten million slaves in the Aráb. slave trade..or , surly you dont think the Arabs allowed them to keep their culture…
Ten million in the Atlantic slave trade….stripped of their culture…
Now think of all the centuries added up , since the Aráb. slave trade began , and then think of generation after generation of slaves in the Americas , who were forced to give up their cultures ,and the Arabs wouldnt let the sons of African mothers and Aráb. fathers practice their culture
And , in the last one hundred and seventy years or so, Afro diasporic cultures have been banned in so many places , and differant decades , Ive brought a whole bunch of links to prove it..you would be hard pressed to produce a culture in the world that has been put under scrutiny from so many varieties of countries , religions , through various eras…Im not talking genicide
Even genicide of native Americans didnt try to destroy their culture , when they were put on reservations , they still could practice their culture
I cant think of any culture that has faced that extensive , wide ranged represion as the history of the represion of the Afro diasporic culture…
Jewish people have been pursacuted for ages , but their culture hasnt been as banned and destroyed in so many varieties of other places as Afro diasporic culture
You can keep a slave alive and destroy his culture , but, for example of native Americans, commit genicide on them , but let them have their culture
Very interesting the lack of insight on this , the inability to understand the history and struggle of the Afro diasporic culture, and how it really is the underlying driving force with phenotype and religion , that is the primal source that feeds white racism against Afro descendants in America and the Americas
dealing with that will be the key of the future of racism in America…or not dealing with it…
There should be a thread on what is Afro diasporic culture, so maybe we can get an understanding from each other what each of us define it as being
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Aii yii yii
@ryder i just came up with that and was tryin to post before i lost 4g as the plane was takin off. I didnt read it in no damn book
@ally i was a good runner and swimmer bc i got my lily white ass to practice every day whether i wanted to or not
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@Kiwi,
Getting to your point above.
Yep, probably at least half of them. Many of those (at least in CA) which are half European or more mark themselves as “white”, even though they are seen as non-white by most “Anglo” whites. Given that they identify as “white” already, I don’t see why white people find them more difficult to “bring into the fold” compared to non-European Americans, such as Asians. (Not that I am advocating that model of future race relations).
I think back East (with the exception of Miami) you might find more Latinos identifying as “2 or more races” or “some other race” (e.g., Puerto Ricans).
I hope when Abagond does Hispanic Heritage month, he will have some post about the racialization of Latinos.
I’m not sure how this works vis-a-vis the example that you gave of Jewish in Germany.
White guilt –> where whites are aware of what whites did in the past, but wish somehow that that was behind them, so they become more colour-blind (trying to forget)?
Isn’t that similar to the example where Germans are aware of what non-Jewish (ie, Nazi) Germans did to Jews in the past, and wishing that it was now all behind them, causes them to be more respectful and accommodating of the Jews that are left. Isn’t that something to do with some kind of “guilt”?
In the former, you suggest that it made them MORE racist. In the latter, you suggest that it makes them LESS. I don’t think it is guilt that makes someone MORE racist. In fact, when the South (and the WEST for that matter) was unapologetically racist, they hardly did it out of guilt. No guilt was felt about overt racism.
But that is not what happened in CA – not guilt about the past. Unlike Germany, California has more or less ERASED its genocidal past (at least from public education). By not simply trying to forget, but actually forgetting it, they become LESS racist? If that is the case, should we erase past history to make people less racist? If we deleted the history of the coolie trade, the transpacific slave trade, the Native American genocide, the Chinese ethnic cleansing, Asian Exclusion acts, the history of Mexico in the SW USA, then we can erase (or at least mitigate / make less severe) racism?
If that is the model to make racism less severe for CA, should we simply forget about the transatlantic slave trade, the middle passage, chattel slavery, Jim Crow, etc. to make the South less racist? Should we forget about Sundown towns, blockbusting, etc. in the East and midwest?
I don’t mean to challenge you, it is just that I cannot follow your train of thought. You are so certain that CA is LESS racist than the rest of the USA, that you are trying to find rationalizations to explain that (but which don’t). Actually, I personally do not think CA is less racist than the rest of the country, so I would not seek those rationalizations myself. In some ways, CA is a lot worse than the rest of the country. That is why I asked you what you learned in school. But maybe Brain Drain families do see whites as the only real Americans, so only their history counts.
Yes, the white people you encounter are probably a small subset of those that were there before, or maybe still there (but elsewhere). You probably meet a lot who did not FLEE when Asians (or Latinos) started moving into their neighborhoods.
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Reblogged this on My World, Your World & Our World.
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@ Jefe. Yes, I noticed.
@ Kiwi
Among ones that survive among indigenous peoples throughout Asia, Latin America and Africa (not only NZ, Australia, etc), they suffer the worst health and are the poorest among the poor, ususally reflected in very high levels of infant mortality.
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^^There’s a fair amount of info available online about this.
Many of the world’s marginalized peoples have dwindled numbers, and the UN says that their marginalisation — or slow extinction — is not only due to their small sizes. In order to avoid discrimination and access government services to live on, they’re usually forced to give up the essential features of their cultures.
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To Abagond and Kwamla,
First, it would appear that I owe you both an apology.
To Kwamla,
Although you doubt my powers of comprehension they are in reality quite high. However, I do read quickly, often far too quickly, and in this instance I certainly misread what you wrote and made a too ready leap to believe you meant something far more offensive than you actually did. I did that largely because many black people have said what I thought you said. That is no excuse and I apologise without reservation.
The percentage point error was a typo. There is no point trying to score points from that.
To Abagond,
You were not wrong to defend Kwamla here and my branding you inconsistent to racists was incorrect in this instance and I apologise.
I also have a request to make from both of you.
It is time for you to stop trying to imply that I am white. You can think what you like, hold whatever suspicions you like about anyone on here, but until you can prove them a fraud it would be much more polite to assume they are what they say they are.
I am a black man, 75% black (having one white grandparent) and dark skinned. Please do not refer to me as anything other than black or mixed race. If you want to say I am making an argument which is dangerously close to that of a white racist, it is better to say that you I am ‘sounding like a white racist’ rather than you ‘sound like a white racist’ or more explicitly, ‘I think you are a white racist’. Mr Abagond you are guilty of the former and Mr Kwamla you are guilty of the latter.
Enough is enough. There are plenty of things I could call you both but why descend to that level?
So I don’t care if you think me as white as snow, I am black or biracial/mixed if you prefer. I don’t care if you think me Peruvian or from outer Mongolia, I am English or British if you prefer. I don’t care if you think me the straightest man on earth, I am gay, or bisexual if you prefer. I don’t care if you think I am from a different social class than I say I am and never had the advantages in education that I claim. I did attend an ‘elite’ school and mix with what are generally considered upper middle and upper class people.
Those are the facts of my life and I do not want them endlessly questioned when you have no grounds to do so other than you simply don’t like my arguments.
Judge the arguments all you like but don’t try to denigrate me and say I am something I am not to try to ‘win’ or ‘prove’ how right you are.
It is odd given that you must both be aware that there are plenty of black voices which stand in opposition to yours, the ‘rented blacks’ as you call them. Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, John McWhorter and Larry Elder all hold radically different opinions than you. Whatever you think of them personally they are all black or mixed. You don’t have to be white to disagree with the black conscious movement.
I would suggest that you look at this young lady if you want to see how far black people can stand in opposition to much of what you say and think. I trust she is dark skinned enough for you to call her ‘black’. You might not like what she has to say:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZWifn5ku0w&list=LL5jp15h2ssYxGBPNi3WWwkg&index=2)
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@ Ally
You are right. I am getting too hung up on your race. After all, when Randy or Biff say something racist, I do not waste my time pointing out to them that they sound like a White racist. I just get on with it and hopefully make it about what they said, which is the right way to go about it.
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To all those in opposition to me on ‘race’ issues we appear to be talking at cross purposes many times although there are fundamental differences as well.
I agree that there are no races as 19th century scientists frequently believed there were. Oscar Wilde called science a record of dead religions. We might say that modern science is the record of dead old science. Modern scientists don’t just stand on the shoulders of giants as Newton claimed to have done. Frequently they topple them over and kick them when they’re down. How many of today’s cherished and politically correct beliefs will be trampled underfoot by future generations I wonder?
The word ‘race’ hasn’t always meant what it means today and has a wide variety of uses. Those 19th century scientists we all disagree with now (those of us who are ‘enlightened’ anyway) are the ones that gave it the specific meaning that racists and anti racists fight over today, the idea that there are easily biologically defined races which can be ranked in terms of superiority or inferiority. However, in times past the word race could describe any group, be they religious, linguistic, ethnic or national in characteristics. The word appears to have been used to describe physical characteristics from the 17th century onward and in the taxonomic sense from the 19th century onward.
The problem remains of how you describe the very real and easily observable differences between groups of people which have grown up in different geographic locations. There may be more difference genetically between a black sub Saharan African in one African country and another African in a neighbouring country who looks quite similar in comparison to two white Europeans of two far flung European nations who look very different. That doesn’t mean those genetically different Africans don’t share something in common which makes them distinct from the white Europeans. Now the division may seem as arbitrary as dividing humans into blondes and brunettes, but it isn’t if those similarities in physical appearance have previously been determined by geographic location.
Some have wrongly accused me of muddling ideas of race, ethnicity and nationality. I have done no such thing. I am well aware of the difference. Like everything else ethnicity and nationality can be imprecise and hard to define absolutely. Nation states are often artificially created, like the subdivision of Ireland for instance or the former Yugoslavia, or countries in Africa which were divided along colonial and not ethnic/tribal lines. When I refer to the difference between a Somali and a Thai I am using shorthand. I mean someone whom we all mentally picture from that part of Africa and Asia, not someone whose ancestors may be from a different background and but is still of that nationality. Mass migration has muddled the problem of human categorisation to an enormous degree. I have made this clear several times but people have either missed this or chosen to ignore it.
Nowadays people often talk of people’s physical characteristics using terms derived from the different continents. People are ‘African American’ or ‘Asian’ or of ‘European’ descent. There are problems with those terms. An Asian can be white if you use the word simply to mean someone born and bred in an Asian country. An African can also be white and Europe is not even a continent in the strict sense of the word. A white Zim farmer and his family might escape persecution from Mugabe’s thugs and flee to the States. They might then acquire American citizenship. They could quite legitimately claim to be ‘African American’ even if they are nothing at all like the people who use that term normally or are described using it. The same can hold true of a typical Egyptian or Libyan.
If we use terms like black and white we are left with the awkward colour terms ‘yellow’ and ‘red’ which offend many Asians and Native Americans. And how do you define someone who is white or black? Is it simply how they look? Some people in the States claim to be ‘black’ and yet they are so pale that at first glance most people would not guess they had any African ancestry. Most Americans are probably mixed to some degree. ‘Black’ Americans I have read are generally held to be around 20% ‘white’. I don’t have the figures for white and black Europeans. It may be similar, it is probably slightly less, but there will be a mixture and in a generation or two it will be very much higher given the levels of miscegenation in the UK, for instance. Recently Mr Cobb famously got quite a surprise to learn that he had a decent amount of ‘black’ in him and he was 14% a ‘brother’.
The reality is that we have to have some way to describe the differences between people, the differences most people, black, non white and white, call racial differences. ‘Ethnic’ differences isn’t a good enough phrase as properly it means cultural and not physical differences. Race is the word used by default and in my view it is as good as any other. Even if ‘race’ comes with a lot of baggage and negative connotations, using an alternative word will make no difference. People have called stupid people different names over the years, idiot, cretin, slow, backward, educationally sub normal, remedial and now ‘special needs’. All that has meant is that every time there is a new official word to describe the intellectually challenged it becomes a term of abuse. To call someone ‘special’ has quite a different meaning now than it would have done once. Whatever word you use to replace race will immediately acquire all the negative stuff associated with ‘race’ at the moment.
What myself and most people define as race is quite obvious visually. I may not be able to tell the difference between a Japanese and Korean simply by looking at them but I can tell the difference between them and another Asian like a Pakistani or from a Nigerian or Norwegian. In different parts of the world people have developed different physical characteristics, different skin tones, face shapes, heights and hair types. Where mass migration and miscegenation play no part these groups remain very consistent and recognisable. Two Japanese people will not give birth to a Nigerian looking baby unless there is Nigerian blood in one of their backgrounds.
Now you may view some of these physical characteristics, such as the dark skin and kinky hair and broad noses which many Africans have as arbitrary and meaningless a way to subdivide people as dividing Europeans along hair colour or blue and brown eyes. Not all Africans have broad noses or the same hair. And yet these characteristics are originally based in specific locations and no doubt occurred for a specific reason, even if it is just a quirk of nature. It doesn’t matter if it was the weather or diet which caused Africans to be (or stay) dark skinned and Scandinavians to become very pale. All that matters in terms of identification is that we can recognise the difference and it developed in one particular place.
These differences can be extremely profound even if they are based on a tiny difference in genetic material. Height can vary enormously, so can skin tone, hair type, face shape etc. The proneness to certain diseases or disabilities can also vary hugely. I have not heard about a white person suffering from sickle cell (if any do they are certainly uncommon) and there is a higher degree of lactose intolerance in black people on average. DNA tests can also determine where your ancestors came from to reasonably precise locations.
Now given that these physical differences can be so great is it so totally unreasonable to muse that they may have an effect on sporting ability? Blacks may not be one unified race, there may be a huge variety between us, but we do dominate in many sports. The nature versus nurture debate always rears its head at this point and the ‘politically correct’ view now seems to be that you must say it is all nurture or you are a racist. Yet there is no proof either way here. There is evidence of both but no conclusive proof to rule one out of consideration.
I am simply suggesting that some black people probably have an advantage, a broad tendency to physical superiority in certain games, and that that is due to some sort of genetic principle. I have a good deal of evidence on my side from sports results and medal lists, even if it is only circumstantial. Now the gene that makes for a good boxer is might be very different than the one that makes a good sprinter or a good long distance runner. Then again it may not be. I don’t know and no-one else on here seems to either. Mr Cooper came up with a lot of interesting stuff, most of which went above my head, about muscle twitch and such stuff which indicates that there are real and measurable differences between blacks and other groups. I am sure the true answer is likely to be extremely complex if it is ever found.
Biff believes that black people on average have a lower IQ ‘naturally’ (I assume he means due to genetic factors and not cultural ones). I disagree being a black with a high IQ. He could counter than I am 25% white and that my better IQ comes from that side of my genetic inheritance. He may be right. Then again he might be wholly and entirely wrong. The only way to prove the matter is with science and as far as I am aware science is pointing in a direction away from Biff but it hasn’t proved in conclusively.
The same problems arise with sexuality, gender and homosexuality. Homophobes like Mr Abagond claim that homosexuality is a ‘sin’ and for it to be a sin it must necessarily be a matter of choice (forgive me if I misinterpret Catholic dogma). As a gay man I don’t believe I have a choice to be gay, I believe I am born that way and I’m not choosing to have sex with men simply to be ‘different’ or ‘awkward’. However, I might be wrong. Homophobes like Umar Johnson or Cress Welsing define gayness as a sexual perversion, operating in the same way a fetish does. I don’t believe them to be right but it is possible that something ‘made’ me gay which had nothing to do with biology. Of course that begs the question is there anything wrong with a fetish? Almost heterosexual men appear to fetishise women’s bodies to some degree, being ‘boob men’ or ‘booty men’ or to a lesser degree ‘leg men’.
I honestly don’t care whether people think homosexuality is biologically or environmentally determined. What I object to is the homophobia which defines having sex with the same gender a sin, perversion or pathology. That is why I find Mr Abagond’s views on the subject those of a bigot. The same principle holds for race. I don’t care whether there are real races in a hard scientific way or if the physical differences we see have no influence on sporting abilities. What I object to is being accused of racism to even think such a thing when the differences between us all are so very clear to see. I also object to anyone who sees physical differences between groups and uses them to denigrate and belittle some of those groups.
I am not a sexist for observing physical and psychological difference between men and women. I am not a snob for observing differences between social classes. I am not a racist for distinguishing between groups of people based on physical characteristics which are in turn based on geographic factors which certainly appear to have profound effects how people look and on the sporting outcomes between people whose ancestors came from different parts of the word.
To those throwing out ugly accusations, prove me wrong before you call me a racist. Show me absolute unanimity between modern day scientists across the various disciplines and I might accept you hold a monopoly on the truth. If racist simply means believing in some concept of race and biological difference between groups without value judgements necessarily being used then the majority of all people are racist and the word really doesn’t mean prejudice and discrimination any more.
Find a better and more precise and convenient word than race if you want to replace it altogether, just don’t expect it not to take on the old meaning fairly soon. Until then most people of all colours and types are going to use the word race and believe in the idea of differences between different groups of people whether you like it or not.
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To Abagond,
If you believe I am saying something dumb then criticise it as much as you want. Go to town and show me all the ways it is stupid and what I say plays into the hands of racists and supports racist institutions, knowingly or unknowingly. I will certainly try to call you out all the ways in which I think you (and others of the same opinion) make things worse for blacks with your ideas, so all is fair. Call me an Uncle Tom if you must, I am used to it by now. Just don’t use a phrase which seems, to me at least, to dismiss me as a white racist because only someone white could hold such awful views. My views, however appalling, are those of a black man, however misguided.
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@ Ally
Based on your most recent posting, I’d say you are not far from the mark. yes, we agree that there are differences between different groupings of humans, and we even agree that some of those are genetic. What we disagree with is the idea that the genetic differences between people groups in any way reflect racial boundaries such as Black, White or Yellow. There are some Black people groups who are good at certain athletics, there are others who are not, etc. etc.
As for homosexuality, I think you are a bit off topic there. It would probably be better to argue race as race, and sexuality as sexuality, without muddling the two together. I believe that approach will lend more clear discussion. Otherwise the two get all tangled and before long you’re off on one tangent or another.
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@kiwi
California was in no way the pioneer state to fight anti-miscegenation. In fact, it is not a very good example at all (of any state trying to be progressively anti-racist). It was only because the California Supreme Court declared their interracial marriage bans to be unconstitutional in Perez v. Sharp. They did not legalize miscegenation (or repeal the existing law) through any political process.
Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia never enacted anti-miscegenation laws. About 10 others repealed their anti-miscegenation laws way before CA. If you use lack of anti-miscegenation laws as a yardstick, one would think that these 20 states would be considered more “liberal” in this regard than CA.
Even Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Texas, South Carolina and Alabama legalized interracial marriage for some years during the Reconstruction period – CA did not. Of course those states reinstated them, but CA never legalized it via their legislatures.
Other states did actually repeal their laws before 1967. However, some states did not repeal their (invalid anti-miscegenation) laws until much later, eg, South Carolina in 1999 and Alabama in 2000.
Finally, is the date of the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws a good barometer to determine how less racist a place is? Is Iowa a lot more tolerant of same sex marriage than CA? Connecticut never had anti-miscegenation laws, but it is full of sundown towns. CA will always be famous for the Rodney King. The movie Crash (2004) was actually based on a real life incident in CA. Yet that movie, although attempting to humanize many of its characters, depicted its Asian characters in a rather dehumanizing manner, not unlike Hollywood in general.
I am not sure whether CA is indeed “less racist” than the rest of the country, but the timing and the method of the repeal of the anti-miscegenation law does not really support that. Can we really confidently state that CA has shed its racist past any better than the other states? Deleting it from the history books is itself a rather racist act.
I am not saying CA is worse, just that it is not in a very good position to judge the other states, and may not necessarily be a good model for future US race relations.
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@ King
Could you clarify something? I haven’t had time to read all comments, so excuse me in advance for repeating what others may have said upthread.
When I saw your last remark, I do agree that athletic prowess is genetic, but not “racial” as such. Is that what you mean, and has that been the general conclusion?
Climate, geography and training all conspire to create exceptional athletic performance. John Entine referred to this as the outcome of “bio-cultural hotspots”, and these hotspots are dotted around the globe (not just Africa) — producing athletes of extraoridinary skill, with different abilities in different sports, and not simply a question skin colour or racial classification.
The is quite different to the idea that a blacks, given opportunity and access to ANY sport, would dominate it.
That is something else: the over-reliance on folkloric racial beliefs based on stereotypes we are all too familiar with.
It’s just a question, though.
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@ Ally
I’ll accept that apology. Given that you at least are willing to show some sense of ownership, accountability and integrity for what you say and write. But equally as you also point out it is no excuse. Given your self rated high comprehension skills it should be something rarely expected to happen on your part. However, it does. And it still continues to happen.
First and foremost when dealing with any emotive or potentially personal subject. The person responding should at least have a clear understanding of their own personal feelings on the subject before they offer a viewpoint. I say this because – in order to allow for some form of objectivity – they need to be able to put their own impassioned view to one side while, at the same time, deal with another equally impassioned view in response.
Of course we can all attempt and say we do this. But in practice, if we are not totally clear about our own tightly held viewpoint it can start to appear to come unraveled in the face of one that seems more clearer or stronger.
This is why for the sake of clarity in any long or protracted discussion we begin to discard assumptions and seek more clearer definitions on the topics in question.
This, at least is the approach I, adopt and the type of clarity I look for. This, I have to say, has been sadly missing from a lot of your exchanges, not just with me, but with other commentators as well.
You make a big assumption in grouping myself and Abagond together. While it can be said we agree on many of the varied aspects of Racism he blogs about. It can equally to be said there are certain aspects of Racism and other areas we do not! (A Careful reading of past posts will tell you this)
However, if you were a more careful and attentive reader of Abagond’s many and detailed discussed blog posts you would know or have realized this.
Ally, It is obvious to me you spend more time responding and reacting to half – read comments than you do actively studying and reading them. If you did you would have realized by now that many of the varied and different Black view points, you are at pains to point out, already exist in past or present commentators here on Abagond’s blog right now!
I personally can say I am not hung up on what racial, gender or sexual background you say you have. I can go with what anyone wishes to state represents them. What I read are different mindsets. Not saying I know all the ones there are. But I do know and can identify certain types. Certainly by their level of knowledge and awareness.
And I can say yours (or the Black woman in the video you provided) is not one shrouded in mystery for me. Its one thing to express a desire to differentiate yourself from what you consider to be lower classes of Black people. Its another to not understand or properly articulate the group or class of people you consider yourself a part of. Because more often than not such people are nothing more than isolated individuals themselves. Even believing themselves to be one of a kind. When clearly history has shown they are not!
The key question for you is one of identity and origin. I put that in bold so you can easily find it again. We all have to, as Black people, grapple with this question at some stage in life. I say WE as Black people because it is something anyone who can be accepted and taken as a white person can take for granted. (Its properly called “white privilege”) simply because their identity or origin is not something continually being called into question in Western society.
This is why what you LOOK like, regardless of what you THINK is so important. If you are not clear about this one aspect in a white dominant society then it will speak volumes about you before anything else you might want to have known or say about you.
But you don’t even have to state this. Again, even as you have been at pains to address to in your comments. It comes out through the choice of words and views you express. The doubt or clarity in how you see yourself that is…
That key question is there for each one of us to resolve to our own level or degree of satisfaction. Certainly before we engage in dialogue with others in emotive subjects such as Racism because it will inevitably challenge or bring identity into question.
Neither you Ally (or the Black woman in the video) are EXEMPT from this. But of course you are free to pretend that you are and continue to encounter cyclic discussions around issues of “race” like this.
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Hi Bulanik!
Yes, I think you’ve narrowed down what I was saying quite handily. Of course, there are always other factors involved besides the genetics — interest & determination, free time availability, training, etc. But it does seem clear that there is a hereditary biological component that gives some a clear advantage in athletics above others. But, as you say, it’s just not “racial.”
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@ Ally
Dividing people into races based on physical differences and then ranking them, that is racist by definition.
It is also completely unnecessary. The ancient Greeks did not do it. Early Christians did not do it. Herodotus had seen and written about much of the known world – and yet he did not do it. Why is that? He knew perfectly well that Ethiopians had dark skin and woolly hair.
The idea of race can hardly count as an advance. It has made the world a worse place, killing and enslaving millions. Instead of deepening our knowledge and understanding of other people, it dehumanizes them in our eyes. It is a stupid pill, a dangerous one.
If the definition makes most people racist, so what? In the US most people are racist, no matter what their colour. I am racist. It is a chronic cultural disease. The US was built on racism, economically, militarily, intellectually, spiritually. Its culture is still soaked in it. Trying to define the word to give ourselves an out only helps to keep it in place, keeps the denial going.
For that reason I am suspicious of any genetic explanation that is not thoroughly grounded in science. You take the opposite approach – believe racist stuff unless science can disprove it. The burden of proof does NOT lie with anti-racists. It lies with the racists.
Also: as Biff pointed out, your seemingly innocent argument about sports can easily be turned into one about Blacks being naturally less intelligent or more violent.
/rant over.
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@ Ally
The huge irony of you arguing that Blacks are naturally faster runners is that people like Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis, Flo-Jo, Jesse Owens, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and so on are descended from the very people who were unable to run away from slave catchers. If it is all so genetical, then at the very least West African countries should be able to defeat the Diasporan ones.
The other irony is that Jesse Owens’s victories were, at the time, seen as a disproof of racist ideas like yours.
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Racism will not disappear until Black people collectively summon the will to fight for their place on earth so that others will take us seriously. What I mean is that Black people should have the goal of meeting white supremacy head to head by doing what Russia, China, and Japan did.
For those interested – I am posting a link to the below document:
Click to access Abuja%20paper%205A.pdf
I wish Abagond would take a look and maybe address the very important points there. I find that virtually all pro-black or anti-racist blogs and e-platforms fail to discuss the importance of developing a first world nation governed and run by Black people only.
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And (I am not saying this to offend Black people in America) mass repatriation of Black people in the US and many European countries to predominantly Black nations would do you A WORLD of good especially if these countries (in the Caribbean and in Africa) meet adequate standards of living. I don’t think there is anything more satisfying than living in a place where our kind is the majority, and where the essentials and comforts of life are adequately provided. Where you appreciated, treated fairly, where education represents our interests. Where quiet confidence in our place in life and security are guaranteed.
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Glen, I will order the “Racism Without Racists” book you recommended.
I just read this description of it:
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s acclaimed Racism without Racists documents how beneath our contemporary conversation about race lies a full-blown arsenal of arguments, phrases, and stories that whites use to account for—and ultimately justify—racial inequalities. This provocative book explodes the belief that America is now a color-blind society.
The fourth edition adds a chapter on what Bonilla-Silva calls “the new racism,” which provides the essential foundation to explore issues of race and ethnicity in more depth. This edition also updates Bonilla-Silva’s assessment of race in America after President Barack Obama’s re-election. Obama’s presidency, Bonilla-Silva argues, does not represent a sea change in race relations, but rather embodies disturbing racial trends of the past.
In this fourth edition, Racism without Racists will continue to challenge readers and stimulate discussion about the state of race in America today.
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[…] Note: The following is mostly based on chapter 14 of “Race in North America” (2012) by Audrey and Brian D. Smedley.Racism in the US is always changing but changes slowly. That means the near future will be pretty much the same, but the longer term it will bring change. American racism will have to somehow adjust to: Japan as a country fully the equal of the US and Britain.Asian Americans scoring higher on IQ tests.The Black middle-class and Blacks in important positions.Immigration from Asia and Latin America pouring into the US, bringing millions of people who do not fit into the old black-and-white boxes.Multiracial identities, particularly those who are half White and half Asian or Latino. It not only challenges the idea that race determines culture and behaviour, but also makes one’s “race” harder to determine and therefore less useful.Barack Obama, whose very person goes against everything most Americans think they know about race. He is multiracial. He looks Black but culturally is like Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz”: a White person from Kansas. American racism is incapable of making sense of him – thus all the Birther and Secret Muslim stuff.The Human Genome Project – which left only 0.1% of the genome for scientific racism. Click through to read more. […]
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Maybe I’m a little too farsighted but I see the END of racism and the end of anything that could be called of a race of whites. Whites have created an artificial environment in which the expression of deleterious mutations is advantageous. Have you seen how darker skin ages compared to pale skin? Dark skin is simply a better adaptation to natural life on planet earth (not even accounting for the significance of pigment beyond skin). Here’s some ‘peer-reviewed science’ on that – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6135975:
”
Melanin, the organizing molecule […]
Melanin’s [the dark pigment] role in embryological organization and tissue repair/regeneration via sustained or direct current is considered in addition to its possible control of the major homeostatic regulatory systems [the maintenance of constant bodily parameters eg. temperature] –autonomic [involuntary nervous system], neuroendocrine [brain hormone secretion], and immunological [disease fighting].
”
I know some black people don’t like to hear this. Having been on the receiving end of claims that they’re biologically inferior they’re not interested in going there. I understand and I’m not concerned with insulting whites either. If I were, I’d be trolling on a site intended primarily for whites. I just think it’s necessary to destroy A LIE. Humanity is dark/pigmented by default and that is the natural state. A white race is not viable in the long term yet that is their ambition and their angst is related to its impossibility. By definition, they cannot produce white offspring if both parents are not white yet they’re negative consequences to consistent white inbreeding.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121129093951.htm
“Over 86 percent of the harmful protein-coding mutations of this type [change of nucleotide base] arose in humans just during the past 5,000 to 10,000 years.”
“To place this discovery in the context of the prehistory and ancient history of people, humans have been around for roughly 100,000 years. In the Middle East, cities formed nearly 8,500 years ago, and writing was used in Mesopotamia at least 5,500 years ago.”
“His group found that, compared to Africans, people of European descent had an excess of harmful mutations in essential genes — those required to grow to adulthood and have offspring — and in genes linked to Mendelian, or single-mutation diseases.
The study team also observed that the older the genetic variant, the less likely it was to be deleterious. In addition, certain genes, they learned, harbored only younger, more damaging, mutations that surfaced less than 5,000 years ago. These include 12 genes linked to such diseases as premature ovarian failure, Alzheimer’s, hardening of the heart arteries, and an inherited form of paralysis.
Overall, the researchers predicted that about 81 percent of the single-nucleotide variants in their European samples, and 58 percent in their African samples, arose in the past 5,000 years. Older single- nucleotide variants — first appearing longer than 50,000 years ago — were more frequent in African samples.
”
So the ‘supreme race’ has more disease-causing genetic aberrations according to their own research. So if Europeans have more deleterious mutations the result of inbreeding should be sicker and less fertile populations. The latter has already become a concern in some circles. But, of course, due to the nature of genetics the precious whiteness is lost if whites do not have white mates. Oops! Catch 22! Somebody didn’t think through this whole supreme white master race thing (or they thought it through perfectly well to the conclusion…it all depends on perspective). By the way, I just read an article which claimed to have discerned through genetic analysis that Europeans were brown-skinned and blue-eyed up to ~7000 years ago. The ‘why’ of the relatively sudden and intense human mutagenesis between 5000-10000 years ago is interesting given the many myths which suggest that a more robust version of humanity experienced a decline. One well known story even suggests that the creation of man occurred ~6000 years ago? Creation of which man? Adam, they say, a word whose root suggests a pinkish to red hue. Where do they get this stuff…lol.
Anyway, I think white supremacy racism will come to an end because the perpetrators cannot ensure their own continued existence as a distinct group. It’s likely that the psychological effect of white supremacy on its victims will be more persistent than the ability of whites to suppress others directly. Like the cheshire cat’s grin, the ideology may remain implanted for a while and people may think in terms of white supremacist ideas even when they wouldn’t have been white according to whites’ definitions. Since it’s likely that we now exist near the conclusion of the nightmare it might be more important to practice self-love and self-respect than to worry excessively about how to become more acceptable to white supremacy.
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“yet they’re negative consequences”
Correction, I meant “there are”.
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@ Origin
Those are some interesting well informed comments. The scientific research, as you indicate, is there for people to look at. Its basically the indoctrination and confusions around definitions of racism which prevents this.
Viewing racism from the one way street perspective of white supremacy/Black & non-white inferiority eliminates this confusion. Which allows for an open mind to review such evidence.
If the origin of how white skin, blue eyes came about can be explained by a chance genetic mutation that surfaced 10,000 years ago – according to current scientific research. Then surely such traits would need to be spread throughout a divergent human population to ensure their survival?
Of course it also raises the question of what or who may have been responsible for this genetic intervention? Typical Evolutionary theories cannot account for this.
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@ George Ryder:
And did you actually read mine, or King’s, for that matter?
I am not sure what your interest is in what I say.
Then:
Basketball and American Football are not the only sports. There are so many sports. Think of archery, squash and pole vault, weightlifting, hammer and equestrian sports. I wouldn’t say these were sports that were black dominated.
Basketbal and American Football aren’t sports I would watch, or have watched. I’ve seen more cricket than basketball. There are and have been, some great black cricketers, but I’ve seen great Asian and white cricketers as well.
I am probably not alone in that perception:
http://sporteology.com/top-10-greatest-cricketers-time/
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Using and applying the same reasoning here George. How would you account for the unrivaled success of the Kenyan, Uganda and Ethiopian long distance Olympic runners?
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@ King & Bulanik
Agreed…Its not racial, (in terms of Black and white) but there does seem to be some hereditary biological component involved. So what is it?
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@ Geroge
Surviving the Middle Passage had little to do with running speed. It was more about resistance to disease, mental and physical. Slave owners themselves would hardly breed slaves for running speed.
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“…If our culture encouraged all of our best athletes to run at 10,000 feet all year round we’d dominate long distance running as well…
If that is all that it takes then why wouldn’t more prosperous countries.like the US make this investment too?
In the UK British Moe Farah has achieved a similar level of success…
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There is money in any Olympic event that can be dominated. It means Gold medals. That is obviously not true if the UK can do it. Particularly if white US athletes could be trained to this advantage. Are you saying this would not be worth investing in?
That argument does not stack up…!
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Ok George so what you are saying is the investment is really irrelevant because they do not think they would be able to compete anyway.
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@ George
Who are these scientists?
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George
You would do well to re-read your own comments for consistency. I actually do agree with part of your conclusion – sprinters. But not with how you have reached it. Simply because it cannot explain all the available evidence.
Clearly investment in training top potential athletes or motivation in financial reward is not the only requirement. This is why you mention the ACTN3 protein. But even this can only explain sprinting but not long distance endurance.
Past selective breeding in slavery cannot account for the dominance in long distance running by African top athletes. Neither can it be assumed that placing elite long distance white athletes in a similar environment would produce similar results. However, this does not preclude Black or those from the diaspora. Hence many other countries bids to make such investments. The UK being just one with. Mo Farah.
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George,
The olympic sprinter Michael Johnson even said so. It’s not like this is some crazy theory i just came up with.
Usain Bolt was born in Trelawny Parish, Jamaica, where British Olympic boss Lord Coe’s plantation-owning ancestor George Hyde Park had 297 slaves.”
Linda says,
Very Ignorant comment from you George… you retelling Michael Johnson’s ridiculousness, doesn’t make it true — it just shows both you and black American Michael Johnson know nothing about Jamaica.
As I stated to Biff in our discussion on the Bidil thread, there are too many other factors that go into any Ethnic group being successful at anything to just put it down to genetics.
Funny enough, when the Jamaicans started winning, Usains father made a joke that ‘Usain gets his speed due to the Yams that we eat in Jamaica’.
so you what a group of scientists start doing– testing sweet potatoes “yams” to see if there were any natural steroids that could have assisted Usain–but here was the problem… they were testing the WRONG yams
our Yams in Jamaica are not the same or related to the sweet potato “Yams” that are in America… whatever results they would have found would have been false
so once again, people applying their own cultural/stereotypical “logic” to other cultures/ethnic groups because they cannot understand the “hows” and “whys”
Here are Jamaican yams:
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20080825/lead/lead3.html
Here are the American “Yam” that the US media kept raving about
http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/sports/triumph-of-the-lowly-yam
so once again, environment versus genetics
Jamaican Yams are not sweet but they do have “steroidal” properties (precursors to anabolic steroids) but once again, no one can really prove it
Jamaica is a mountainous country… the Jamaicans have grown up and train in the mountains — running up and down the hillsides has to be beneficial when running on flat, low lands.
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Here is the article that George is talking about:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167996/Why-progeny-slaves-strike-gold-Olympics.html
“Clearly, such dominance cannot be gained without gruelling training regimes, specialised diets and expert coaching. But U.S. sprinter Michael Johnson, who is of West African descent, now believes that athletes like him have another weapon in their armoury: a unique genetic inheritance.
In a TV documentary, Johnson argues that descendants of slaves from West Africa (all Afro-Caribbean people owe their presence in the Caribbean to slavery dating from the 16th century) have a ‘superior athletic gene’. And it’s this that will put black Caribbean sprinters on the podium top spots at the London Games.
The theory speculates that this gene has been concentrated in these athletes because their ancestors journeyed from captivity in West Africa to slavery in the Caribbean under brutal conditions — Only the toughest survived.
Towards the end of the 1700s, another factor came into play: selective breeding. Where possible, parents were selected for their strength.
A white Jamaican sugar plantation owner’s wife, A. C. Carmichael, wrote a pamphlet on breeding one’s own slaves. It recommended separating babies early from their mothers, so freeing the women for menial labour while their children were raised by women too old to work on the fields.
The children were to be integrated into the workforce virtually as soon as they could walk — to do any light tasks around the plantation they were thought capable of performing. Such conditions would, understandably, work in favour of a physically stronger population.
It has led Jamaican scientists to propound the theory that Caribbean sprinters are athletically special because those tough enough to survive these awful rigours must have had genes which made them unusually resilient.”
So cruelty made the slaves “genetically” superior and this “special” gene got passed down to modern day sprinters — yeah, OK
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article continued:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167996/Why-progeny-slaves-strike-gold-Olympics.html
The controversial theory supporting these claims goes back to 2003, when Australian scientists discovered that a gene called ACTN3 has variants which may give performance advantage to the muscles of elite athletes.
In effect, it can give sprinters a boost because it gives extra power to muscle cells that are required for fast, forceful actions. Studies show that this ‘sprint’ version of the ACTN3 gene is more common in Jamaicans, for example, and others of West African descent than in people of European ancestry.
William Aiken, a Jamaican sports doctor, believes the fact that Jamaicans excel at sprinting is a legacy of being descended from the ‘fittest of the fit slaves’.
But can it all come down to something as basic as a variation of one gene — ACTN3?
While many commentators are happy to suggest it does, one of the scientists involved in originally discovering this gene’s powers is far more sceptical.
Daniel MacArthur, a researcher at the Institute for Neuromuscular Research at Sydney University, was part of the team that found how the ACTN3 gene helps stimulate the muscle cells which are needed for generating rapid, forceful contraction in activities such as sprinting.
His studies show that the ‘sprint’ version of ACTN3 is, indeed, more common in Jamaicans — 98 per cent of black Jamaicans have at least one copy, compared with 82 per cent in individuals of European ancestry. Yet he believes it plays only a ‘pretty small’ role in Jamaican sprinters’ success.
In the journal Genetic Future, he writes: ‘It is almost certainly true that Usain Bolt carries at least one “sprint” variant of the ACTN3 gene, but then so do I (along with around five billion other humans worldwide).
But that doesn’t mean you’ll see me in the 100m final in London. Unfortunately for me, it takes a lot more than one lucky gene to create an Olympian.
For success at the Olympic games, MacArthur believes there are going to be many other factors — cultural, social and economic — also at play. Indeed, Jamaican experts believe in this ‘combination’ theory of success.
For example, Dr Errol Morrison, an endocrinologist and the president of Jamaica’s University of Technology, says that diet may play a crucial role — particularly the staples of salt fish, yams and bananas which are rich in protein, carbohydrate and vital sources of energy.
Dr Morrison says Jamaican youngsters grow up on a diet that is so beneficial they might as well take a daily dose of steroids. And such nutrition may well boost any genetic advantage that Jamaican athletes are born with, he says.”
(Abagond, I didn’t want to post so much from the article but much would have been lost in translation if I posted it in summary.)
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Kwamla, George
I had this discussion with Biff about the east Africans and long distance running:
“The Kenyans are the current champs and their success is attributed to genetics but, what’s interesting, is that the top Kenyan runners come from one ethnic group: the Kalenjin (Nandi) —
“the Kalenjin number around 5 million, making them a small minority, even in Kenya, yet they dominate most of the world’s long-distance races.”
“Ethiopia’s most accomplished runners tend to hail from the Shewa and Arsi zones (Bekoji is in Arsi), while Kenya’s best are usually from Nandi county.
All these regions run along the steep edges of the Great Rift Valley, at elevations of 6,500 feet or more.
And if altitude helps build endurance, Bekoji has that going for it as well: It’s higher than many other towns in the Great Rift Valley, at more than 9,000 feet above sea level. Runners train in thin highland air (what some residents call “healing air”), which makes racing at lower altitudes relatively easy. The forest also serves as a natural training ground; runners zigzag between the trees and use their roots as an obstacle course.
Citing the work of researchers such as the University of Glasgow biologist Yannis Pitsiladis, Epstein wrote that the ethnic groups producing the region’s top distance runners are descended from tribes who lived in the Nile Valley, and, over generations, adapted to the hot, dry climate, which tends to produce people with long, thin limbs that cool down easily.
He noted that runners with slender calves and ankles expend less energy when racing, and that runners training at just the right high elevation—around 6,000 to 9,000 feet—use oxygen more efficiently by producing additional red blood cells.
Other theories credit these runners’ diets, or, as one study by Pitsiladis and another scholar put it, their “favorable skeletal-muscle-fiber composition and oxidative enzyme profile.”
http://www.wiyiyit.com/ethiopia-village-bekoji-highlands-ethiopia-produced-long-distance/
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George Ryder, you said:
King made the point better than I did: black sporting prowess is not a big area of interest for me, but I find what you are say IFFY, very IFFY..
What I believe is that elite athletic ability is combination of many factors, not least genetics AND environment — training AND trainability, nutrition, intelligence and so on, come into play. I mentioned Jon Entine earlier and said that “bio-cultural hotspots”, and these hotspots are dotted around the globe (not just Africa) — producing athletes of extraoridinary skill, with different abilities in different sports, and not simply a question skin colour or racial classification. Did you notice that or look it up?
I do not think it is simply a matter of skin colour or “West African”.
Frankie Fredericks wasn’t of West African heritage.
Nor was white Frenchman Christophe Lemaitre — nor a particular sprinter from Japan, or the Irish-Indigenous Australian sprinter (the latter 2 names don’t come to mind). There were other non-West Africans who could sprint a 100m at 10 seconds or under. They obviously had the right stuff, though, didn’t they?
Actually, I don’t particularly like what you are driving at.
It’s not that I can’t see that black men are over-represented in sports which require extraordinary sprinting ability.
I am cautious about the racialization of it.
I am cautious about this subject in a similar way that I uncomfortable when black men’s legendary penis size is discussed (as if it is true), along with their supposedly physical (or sexual) uncontrolled impulses AND black people’s allegedly low intelligence is wheeled out (as if it is true), too.
Do you follow me?
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contd: George Ryder
Yes, I am serious when I mentioned equestrian sports, archery, squash and crickets, as sports and their exponents as athletes.
I didn’t even mention diving, or winter sports that involve snow and ice, where black people do not dominate either. I didn’t mention motorcross, either.
Or sheer strength sports/athletes, like the World’s Strongest Men — who generally appear to be from Poland, Iceland, Finland, etc., rather than mostly men of recent African descent representing African countries or the USA.
Actually, I find your idea of what is “athletic” ability is quite narrow.
You mean, if someone doesn’t watch basketball, that means they’ve never seen True or Real athleticism?
You mean if sportsman isn’t running and jumping in an American league of some king, then they’re a not a serious athlete? That VERY narrow, isn’t it?
Hemmingway said there are only 3 sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games. Maybe he’s right!
He might think that moving for 5 seconds then getting 30 seconds of rest (NFL) isn’t much of anything, or hitting a ball, then running about 50 feet and then waiting around for 5 minutes until the next man hits another ball (baseball), isn’t much.
There are different abilities and situations that prove high level athletic ability.
You’re scornful of horse-riding, for example.
Have you ever looked at a jockey?
If you had, you’d know how that they are probably some of the strongest and toughest athletes around. They have to mentally and physically prepared to withstand being thrown and tramppled by an animal weighing at least 1,000lbs. But you think they just sit there, right, because the horse is the athlete, and top jockeys are paid millions for nothing.
A sport that started out as a way to train riders for mounted warfare isn’t easy to master. Have you ever ridden competitively, or known anyone who has?
Riders don’t just have to have stamina and a high level of fitness, they also have to control an animal with a mind of its own has the ability to maim and kill them. It’s something that started out as a military event: riders are riders AND coaches to the horse beneath them.
You think it isn’t a real sport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CAvjawFn3w
As for archery, apparently it “only requires enough strength to pull back the string on a bow and aim an arrow”?
Like all footballers (soccer players) do is kick an airfilled bag around, and Formula1 drivers just do is sit in a car….
Right. Obviously no strength, endurance and focus is required to draw on a “string” — as you call it, of about 40 or 50lbs — holding it indefinitely and firing it with absolute precision over 200 feet away time after time. Easy.
And squash? A country club activity? You mean like in Pakistan, where probably the best players come from…?
According to people who know a bit about squash: “… top players need to be able to sprint very fast for a few paces at a time, and keep it up for an hour or more. They need to be able to reach deep into the corners yet return quickly to the centre of the court after each shot. They must change direction in a heartbeat and demonstrate uncanny levels of dexterity…”
http://squash2016.info/the_squash_athlete
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“George,
one thing i can tell you for sure though, it would NOT matter how many yams a white guy ate or how many hills he ran in Jamaica, he’d still never be able to compete with Bolt just based on biology alone.”
Linda says,
The point that you are missing is that it is not “genetics” alone…Usain is currently beating both black and white Americans – Americans who share the same diets and grow up in the same country.
Jamaican athletes are winning based on environment and training and money… the country is finally getting the financial backing it needed to put into it’s athletic programs
prior to Usain, most of our athletes had to go to the UK, Canada, or America if they wanted to run professionally because Jamaica track and field did not have the finances or structure needed to nurture our athletes.
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Comment in moderation
What are you talking about George?
You are not going deny. You are not going to deny?
More to the point, what do YOU want to deny?
This isn’t about my discomfort or what I dislike.
AND, nor is it about A RACIAL BIAS you believe in, are fond of and want to have confirmed and believe utterly as FACTS.
That’s why you are lazily and predictably ignoring arguments that don’t back up your RACIAL BIAS…
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“Usain Bolt was born in Trelawny Parish, Jamaica, where British Olympic boss Lord Coe’s plantation-owning ancestor George Hyde Park had 297 slaves.”
That is a FACT, where have i said anything ignorant about Jamaica? Only thing i said about Jamaica was in reference to Usain Bolt.”
Linda says,
but what does Lord Coes slave-owning ancestors in Jamaica have to do with Usain… the fact that both Sebastian Coes ancestor and Usain come from the same parish means Nothing!
If you were trying to say that Sebastian Coes ancestors bred some of his 297 slaves and, because Sebastian was born from one of those slaves, and that’s why Sebastian Coe was such a dominant track runner, then your statement would make sense…because it would apply directly to Sebastian and his success as an athlete
but trying to tie Sebastian Coes relative to Usain Bolt makes no sense what-so-ever — the THEORY that black people in the Americas are better athletes because they come from the Africans that survived the f’cking journey from Africa, is a bunch of bullsh’t
If that’s the case, then black people from Brazil, Surinam and Guyana should also be dominating world athletics because their slave ancestors endured the same cruelty as Caribbean and north American African slaves.
you do know who Lord Sebastian Coe is, right?
here is “facts” about Sebastian that you are so desperately trying to apply to Usain:
Lord Sebastian Coe has discovered that he is descended from a Jamaican slave owner who fathered an illegitimate child with a member of his workforce.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/8711531/Sebastian-Coes-roots-go-back-to-sugar-cane-baron-who-kept-300-slaves.html
“The double Olympic gold medallist and London 2012 chief was dismayed to learn that his seven generations ago, George Hyde Clarke, was a sugar cane baron involved in the “horror” of slave labour.
Lord Coe had no idea that his family roots lay in the Caribbean until he was invited to take part in the BBC’s genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are?
“My whole career has been surrounded by extraordinary Jamaican athletes. I guess I’m going to find deeper and less attractive roots,” he said at the outset.
His suspicions were confirmed when records showed that his ancestor owned 297 slaves. Their names and ages were listed in an inventory, and together they were valued at £700,000 in today’s money.
As with many 18th century plantation owners, Hyde Clarke had sexual relationships with female slaves. One of them, Sarah Lee, gave birth to his daughter. The girl was named Elizabeth Lee Clarke and was, more unusually, listed as a beneficiary in Hyde Clarke’s will.
Lord Coe is descended from another of Hyde Clarke’s six illegitimate children, Captain Hyde John Clarke.
Prior to the programme, Lord Coe was aware only of his Anglo-Indian heritage. His maternal grandmother, Vera Swan, married Sardari Lal, a university student who hailed from the Punjab. The Hyde Clarkes are Mrs Swan’s forebears.”
So which part of George Hyde Clarke’s slave owning tactics have anything to do with Usain Bolt…
the possibility that George had a problem keeping his d’ck in his pants and could be Usain’s ancestor too because they come from the same county?
is that the breeding program you are referencing?…. passing along the white European gene into the African population…white slave owners excelled at that!
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“George,
Usain Bolt likely descended from slaves and was probably a product of 400 years of selective breeding & natural selection. Not to mention he descends from Africans who clearly have natural athletic traits the rest of the world lacks.
Natural selection & selective breeding seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation to me..”
Linda says,
and this is the reason I called you “Ignorant” George…
because the slaves and the FREE Jamaican maroons, who fought the British for 200 years, in Jamaica killed the white slave owners/soldiers more than they allowed themselves to be “selectively bred”
stick with USA history and why you believe your black Athletes are superior… your statements will appear less unintelligent then
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George, I am Jamaican but I have lived in Europe, Central and North America… I am currently in Florida.
I’m well aware of American slang but thanks anyway
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[…] Note: The following is mostly based on chapter 14 of “Race in North America” (2012) by Audrey and Brian D. Smedley.Racism in the US is always changing but changes slowly. That means the near future will be pretty much the same, but the longer term it will bring change.American racism will have to somehow adjust to: Japan as a country fully the equal of the US and Britain.Asian Americans scoring higher on IQ tests.The Black middle-class and Blacks in important positions.Immigration from Asia and Latin America pouring into the US, bringing millions of people who do not fit into the old black-and-white boxes.Multiracial identities, particularly those who are half White and half Asian or Latino. It not only challenges the idea that race determines culture and behaviour, but also makes one’s “race” harder to determine and therefore less useful.Barack Obama, whose very person goes against everything most Americans think they know about race. He is multiracial. He looks Black but culturally is like Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz”: a White person from Kansas. American racism is incapable of making sense of him – thus all the Birther and Secret Muslim stuff.The Human Genome Project – which left only 0.1% of the genome for scientific racism.Click through to read more. […]
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[…] Note: The following is mostly based on chapter 14 of “Race in North America” (2012) by Audrey and Brian D. Smedley.Racism in the US is always changing but changes slowly. That means the near future will be pretty much the same, but the longer term it will bring change.American racism will have to somehow adjust to: Japan as a country fully the equal of the US and Britain.Asian Americans scoring higher on IQ tests.The Black middle-class and Blacks in important positions.Immigration from Asia and Latin America pouring into the US, bringing millions of people who do not fit into the old black-and-white boxes.Multiracial identities, particularly those who are half White and half Asian or Latino. It not only challenges the idea that race determines culture and behaviour, but also makes one’s “race” harder to determine and therefore less useful.Barack Obama, whose very person goes against everything most Americans think they know about race. He is multiracial. He looks Black but culturally is like Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz”: a White person from Kansas. American racism is incapable of making sense of him – thus all the Birther and Secret Muslim stuff.The Human Genome Project – which left only 0.1% of the genome for scientific racism.Click through to read more. […]
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A movie, very likely destined for video: Dear White People
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[…] Note: The following is mostly based on chapter 14 of “Race in North America” (2012) by Audrey and Brian D. Smedley.Racism in the US is always changing but changes slowly. That means the near future will be pretty much the same, but the longer term it will bring change.American racism will have to somehow adjust to: Japan as a country fully the equal of the US and Britain.Asian Americans scoring higher on IQ tests.The Black middle-class and Blacks in important positions.Immigration from Asia and Latin America pouring into the US, bringing millions of people who do not fit into the old black-and-white boxes.Multiracial identities, particularly those who are half White and half Asian or Latino. It not only challenges the idea that race determines culture and behaviour, but also makes one’s “race” harder to determine and therefore less useful.Barack Obama, whose very person goes against everything most Americans think they know about race. He is multiracial. He looks Black but culturally is like Dorothy of “The Wizard of Oz”: a White person from Kansas. American racism is incapable of making sense of him – thus all the Birther and Secret Muslim stuff.The Human Genome Project – which left only 0.1% of the genome for scientific racism.Click through to read more. […]
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You’ve just described Brazilian society.
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I don’t agree with a lot in this article, but the part suggesting that diversity training just serves to make white elites feel more powerful around people of color in a POC majority U.S. I think is valuable.
“The Limits of Talking About Privilege to Teenagers: Getting private school kids outside of their bubbles is more valuable than introducing them to the elite academic subculture a few years early.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/the-limits-of-talking-about-privilege/386021/?utm_source=SFTwitter
“The New York Times headlined its article, “At New York Private Schools, Challenging White Privilege From the Inside.” But the story doesn’t describe people “challenging” unearned advantage so much as learning to discuss it, often with academic jargon that smuggles in a lot of contested claims via inadequately defined terms. When elite schools launch a campaign to end legacy preferences in college admissions, I’ll believe that they’re “challenge white privilege from the inside.”
As it stands, the schools seem to have recognized that being conversant in “white privilege theory” will give their students tools they need to excel in some subcultures populated by graduates of elite colleges. As the article puts it, “educators charged with preparing students for life inside these schools, in college, and beyond maintain that anti-racist thinking is a 21st-century skill and that social competency requires a sophisticated understanding of how race works in America.”
Finally, when it comes to building “social competency,” one wonders, among whom?
These educationally privileged students will become exquisitely adept at invoking privilege to signal moral sophistication and guard their status among similarly acculturated peers. But I fear that they’ll emerge from their formal schooling less able to coherently discuss race or privilege with anyone outside of their educational cohort, having been taught to deploy inaccessible buzzwords and abstract theory rather than plain language, discrete examples, and a focus on solutions.”
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