I know this is the American usage, but unless your family is royalty, you have no idea whether or not your father is Anglo-Saxon.
Both sides of my family have actually kept fairly good records for a while. On my mother's side, the first person in my family to get to the new world was minor nobility. The only reason why I mentioned the Anglo-Saxon part for my father was that my half-brother explicitly said that from what he found, that we're Anglo-Saxon with some Viking, French and a very small amount of Celt mixed in. So I'm basing my statement on evidence that exist in my family records and from anecdotal statements from family members. Importantly, like most English, we're huge mutts.
English nobility are (were?) Norman stock though.
Besides which there's still lots of debate about whether English Anglo-Saxon people were mainly Celtic or Germanic or other. Plus everyone just uses mitochondrial DNA because it's easier to follow, despite it only showing where half your ancestors came from.
But yeah, milk is actually really good for you. Nutritious. The proteins are just not proteins we used to be able to break down.
You can break down milk protein. As far as I know you can happily digest any mammalian protein. Lactose is a disaccharide, a two-unit carbohydrate.
Besides which there's still lots of debate about whether English Anglo-Saxon people were mainly Celtic or Germanic or other. Plus everyone just uses mitochondrial DNA because it's easier to follow, despite it only showing where half your ancestors came from.
Yeah, like I said, I'm an English mutt, so I have bits of everything in me. Also, keep in mind I base about half of my evidence on information gained from relatives I rarely ever see, so I don't know how accurate their claims are. More specifically, my half-brother who says that my father was mostly anglo-saxon.
My mother's side of the family that has had a few self-published books written about it, and the lineage, and can trace our first ancestor in the US as a plantation owner with the last name "Shirley" who was the disowned son of minor English nobility. He settled in one of the Carolinas in the late 1600's, but I can't remember anything more specific than that. Hopefully that helps.
Besides which there's still lots of debate about whether English Anglo-Saxon people were mainly Celtic or Germanic or other. Plus everyone just uses mitochondrial DNA because it's easier to follow, despite it only showing where half your ancestors came from.
Yeah, like I said, I'm an English mutt, so I have bits of everything in me. Also, keep in mind I base about half of my evidence on information gained from relatives I rarely ever see, so I don't know how accurate their claims are.
The thing about ethnicity is that it's basically whatever you believe it to be. So your actual ancestors don't matter much.
Everyone who isn't a mutt is inbred anyway. English people of mixed heritage rock.
There's more genetic difference between some African race and another African race than there is between a Japanese guy and an African.
Yeah, that's not true. What you mean is that there's less genetic difference pertaining to those genes responsible for race between the asian and the black guy than there is genetic difference pertaining to all the other genes between two black guys. Given that the color of your skin is determined largely by genes, it's pretty obvious that a black guy and a white guy are going to have genetic differences revolving around race.
How about this: there is a genetic component to race. That genetic component is pretty irrelevant compared to everything else that goes into making a person.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
There's more genetic difference between some African race and another African race than there is between a Japanese guy and an African.
Yeah, that's not true. What you mean is that there's less genetic difference pertaining to those genes responsible for race between the asian and the black guy than there is genetic difference pertaining to all the other genes between two black guys. Given that the color of your skin is determined largely by genes, it's pretty obvious that a black guy and a white guy are going to have genetic differences revolving around race.
How about this: there is a genetic component to race. That genetic component is pretty irrelevant compared to everything else that goes into making a person.
Not quite. Skin color isn't the only thing that determines "race". Two people of identical skin tone could be, and often are, classified as different races depending on a variety of other characteristics.
There is no single genetic characteristic that defines any given race, which, I would argue, is the reason that race is a bogus categorization. We arbitrarily group traits like skin color, eye color, and hair color together with traits like a predisposition to alcoholism, athleticism, and sickle-cell anemia, when there's no evidence that these traits are correlated in any meaningful way, aside from the sheer accident of history.
Not quite. Skin color isn't the only thing that determines "race". Two people of identical skin tone could be, and often are, classified as different races depending on a variety of other characteristics.
I was oversimplifying to make a point - saying that two people with different physical characteristics have fewer genetic differences than two people with the same physical characteristics is misleading and stupid. Because all things equal, we know that there's a genetic difference right there.
There is no single genetic characteristic that defines any given race, which, I would argue, is the reason that race is a bogus categorization. We arbitrarily group traits like skin color, eye color, and hair color together with traits like a predisposition to alcoholism, athleticism, and sickle-cell anemia, when there's no evidence that these traits are correlated in any meaningful way, aside from the sheer accident of history.
I guess you can call it "accident of history," but that doesn't make the differences less there. If your ancestors came from certain areas, you are going to tend to have different physical characteristics, including your skin color, eye shape, eye color, nose shape, hair color, hair consistency, height, build, and so on. These differences are all correlated for whatever reason. I mean, if a couple of asian folks gave birth to a tall black kid, it would be pretty freaking weird, right?
Saying that race is purely a social construct with no genetic basis whatsoever is a ridiculous exaggeration designed to sound all post-modern and enlightened. The reality is that race is largely genetic, but that it doesn't fucking matter, because all those differences are purely superficial.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I know this is the American usage, but unless your family is royalty, you have no idea whether or not your father is Anglo-Saxon.
Both sides of my family have actually kept fairly good records for a while. On my mother's side, the first person in my family to get to the new world was minor nobility. The only reason why I mentioned the Anglo-Saxon part for my father was that my half-brother explicitly said that from what he found, that we're Anglo-Saxon with some Viking, French and a very small amount of Celt mixed in. So I'm basing my statement on evidence that exist in my family records and from anecdotal statements from family members. Importantly, like most English, we're huge mutts.
My genaeology-obsessed Mormon grandmother has managed to trace my family history all the way to the 12th century. She thinks that by baptising long-dead relatives she'll get to meet them all in Heaven, or something.
I know this is the American usage, but unless your family is royalty, you have no idea whether or not your father is Anglo-Saxon.
Both sides of my family have actually kept fairly good records for a while. On my mother's side, the first person in my family to get to the new world was minor nobility. The only reason why I mentioned the Anglo-Saxon part for my father was that my half-brother explicitly said that from what he found, that we're Anglo-Saxon with some Viking, French and a very small amount of Celt mixed in. So I'm basing my statement on evidence that exist in my family records and from anecdotal statements from family members. Importantly, like most English, we're huge mutts.
My genaeology-obsessed Mormon grandmother has managed to trace my family history all the way to the 12th century. She thinks that by baptising long-dead relatives she'll get to meet them all in Heaven, or something.
I know this is the American usage, but unless your family is royalty, you have no idea whether or not your father is Anglo-Saxon.
Both sides of my family have actually kept fairly good records for a while. On my mother's side, the first person in my family to get to the new world was minor nobility. The only reason why I mentioned the Anglo-Saxon part for my father was that my half-brother explicitly said that from what he found, that we're Anglo-Saxon with some Viking, French and a very small amount of Celt mixed in. So I'm basing my statement on evidence that exist in my family records and from anecdotal statements from family members. Importantly, like most English, we're huge mutts.
My genaeology-obsessed Mormon grandmother has managed to trace my family history all the way to the 12th century. She thinks that by baptising long-dead relatives she'll get to meet them all in Heaven, or something.
Why would you... want to?
Also does she have to dig them up?
I can only assume the Mormons have discovered some way of baptising dead people. It's ridiculous but it has the upshot of giving us a reliable source of family history. She even recently discovered that my mom is like a quarter French, who previously thought that she was 100% British
Not quite. Skin color isn't the only thing that determines "race". Two people of identical skin tone could be, and often are, classified as different races depending on a variety of other characteristics.
I was oversimplifying to make a point - saying that two people with different physical characteristics have fewer genetic differences than two people with the same physical characteristics is misleading and stupid. Because all things equal, we know that there's a genetic difference right there.
There is no single genetic characteristic that defines any given race, which, I would argue, is the reason that race is a bogus categorization. We arbitrarily group traits like skin color, eye color, and hair color together with traits like a predisposition to alcoholism, athleticism, and sickle-cell anemia, when there's no evidence that these traits are correlated in any meaningful way, aside from the sheer accident of history.
I guess you can call it "accident of history," but that doesn't make the differences less there. If your ancestors came from certain areas, you are going to tend to have different physical characteristics, including your skin color, eye shape, eye color, nose shape, hair color, hair consistency, height, build, and so on. These differences are all correlated for whatever reason. I mean, if a couple of asian folks gave birth to a tall black kid, it would be pretty freaking weird, right?
Saying that race is purely a social construct with no genetic basis whatsoever is a ridiculous exaggeration designed to sound all post-modern and enlightened. The reality is that race is largely genetic, but that it doesn't fucking matter, because all those differences are purely superficial.
Let me ask you, then: how do you determine which race a given person is? Is it by physical characteristics? Ancestry? Geographic origin? Can you even provide a means by which to concretely differentiate between the races? I challenge you to do so.
Saying that race is purely a social construct with no genetic basis whatsoever is a ridiculous exaggeration designed to sound all post-modern and enlightened. The reality is that race is largely genetic, but that it doesn't fucking matter, because all those differences are purely superficial.
Yep. Exactly.
The argument that "race is purely a social construct" is so far divorced from reality that I'm not even sure how to argue against it. Skin color is a social construct? Eye color is a social construct? Epicanthal folds are a social construct?
There are correlations between race and various diseases and genetic conditions. Most of these are well-known and have already been mentioned in the thread: Tay-Sachs, sickle cell anemia, lactose intolerance, certain forms of heart disease, etc. No, the correlations are not perfect, they're not 1 to 1, but few correlations are. And, no, these statements do not suggest that there's a such a thing as "subspecies." Nobody's suggesting that race is a set of discrete disparate categories. All people are saying is: certain genetic traits correlate with other genetic traits. That's not really an extreme position.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
There is no single genetic characteristic that defines any given race, which, I would argue, is the reason that race is a bogus categorization. We arbitrarily group traits like skin color, eye color, and hair color together with traits like a predisposition to alcoholism, athleticism, and sickle-cell anemia, when there's no evidence that these traits are correlated in any meaningful way, aside from the sheer accident of history.
In other words, the blacks in america who are predisposed to greater athleticism, generally speaking, is the "accidental" result of selective breeding during slavery, and not some inherent genetic trait that has always been? Did I sum that up right?
There is no single genetic characteristic that defines any given race, which, I would argue, is the reason that race is a bogus categorization. We arbitrarily group traits like skin color, eye color, and hair color together with traits like a predisposition to alcoholism, athleticism, and sickle-cell anemia, when there's no evidence that these traits are correlated in any meaningful way, aside from the sheer accident of history.
In other words, the blacks in america who are predisposed to greater athleticism, generally speaking, is the "accidental" result of selective breeding during slavery, and not some inherent genetic trait that has always been? Did I sum that up right?
Fascinating discussion, BTW.
It's a historical accident. Consider the hypothetical possibility that, rather than importing slaves from Africa, the Europeans (later Americans) had chosen a different source - say China. The whole system of tenuous correlations between physical traits that we call "race" would be entirely different. And even that's assuming two things:
1) That blacks as a category (I'll ignore the problem with distinguishing who is who for the moment) are, in fact, genetically predisposed to athleticism.
2) That this phenomenon is the result of selective breeding over the last 400 years.
Both are fairly tenuous claims.
But in any case, it's not as though race is something we can clearly define anyway. I challenge anyone to come up with a set of objective rules or classifications to govern who belongs in which "race" that, even generally, fits our societal conception of race, and doesn't fail as a result of internal contradiction or infinite recursion.
Saying that race is purely a social construct with no genetic basis whatsoever is a ridiculous exaggeration designed to sound all post-modern and enlightened. The reality is that race is largely genetic, but that it doesn't fucking matter, because all those differences are purely superficial.
I think what he is thinking of is the grouping. How does one group a race? largely the grouping is arbitrary. It is like trying to put chairs into 4 or 5 groups. Any grouping you have will be whatever you make up.
JebusUD on
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
There are thirteen parts, so be sure to watch them all -- in order! And there's a corresponding book that delves much, much deeper, with the same title: The Journey of Man.
There's a follow-up book called "Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project" by the same author, Dr. Spencer Wells that just came out last year.
Cool... thanks. I'm gonna watch this tonight.
Ok, I wached it. It's good. There's some simplified things going on, and some leaps of scientific faith, but it's all very interesting. I did find it interesting that the one guy from Australia was really put out by the suggestion that his people had come from Africa. I also liked the Kazakh guy who acted as if he'd just been given the Publisher's Clearing House prize from Ed McMahon.
Saying that race is purely a social construct with no genetic basis whatsoever is a ridiculous exaggeration designed to sound all post-modern and enlightened. The reality is that race is largely genetic, but that it doesn't fucking matter, because all those differences are purely superficial.
Yep. Exactly.
The argument that "race is purely a social construct" is so far divorced from reality that I'm not even sure how to argue against it. Skin color is a social construct? Eye color is a social construct? Epicanthal folds are a social construct?
There are correlations between race and various diseases and genetic conditions. Most of these are well-known and have already been mentioned in the thread: Tay-Sachs, sickle cell anemia, lactose intolerance, certain forms of heart disease, etc. No, the correlations are not perfect, they're not 1 to 1, but few correlations are. And, no, these statements do not suggest that there's a such a thing as "subspecies." Nobody's suggesting that race is a set of discrete disparate categories. All people are saying is: certain genetic traits correlate with other genetic traits. That's not really an extreme position.
While it is undoubtedly true that certain genetic traits correlate with other genetic traits, that is not the position most people take when they talk about race. Most people, in fact, do take the position that race is a set of discrete categories.
Consider surveys. Surveys don't ask you about specific genetic traits. They don't ask you about your person appearance. They ask you to choose a specific, discrete category (White, Asian, Hispanic, and so on).
Consider politics. When breaking down polling data, most analysts separate voters by race - again, into discrete categories.
Consider the medical studies that discovered the correlations you mentioned. They asked people what race they were, out of a list of discrete categories. Not how they would describe their skin tone, hair color, or whatever else.
Almost every application of race that has any bearing on society employs race as a set of discrete categories. My contention is that this is inappropriate. At best, we can make statements about geographically-caused temporary correlations among a small number of genetic characteristics. We cannot divide people into discrete categories; it just doesn't make sense.
1) That blacks as a category (I'll ignore the problem with distinguishing who is who for the moment) are, in fact, genetically predisposed to athleticism.
2) That this phenomenon is the result of selective breeding over the last 400 years.
Both are fairly tenuous claims.
Indeed, I have never seen any evidence of such that is definitively divorced from environmental causes.
And 400 years at the very widest reckoning.
JebusUD on
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Consider surveys. Surveys don't ask you about specific genetic traits. They don't ask you about your person appearance. They ask you to choose a specific, discrete category (White, Asian, Hispanic, and so on).
Consider politics. When breaking down polling data, most analysts separate voters by race - again, into discrete categories.
I am given to not answering those questions. Or to answer them as Homo Sapien.
JebusUD on
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Most people, in fact, do take the position that race is a set of discrete categories.
Consider surveys. Surveys don't ask you about specific genetic traits. They don't ask you about your person appearance. They ask you to choose a specific, discrete category (White, Asian, Hispanic, and so on).
Consider politics. When breaking down polling data, most analysts separate voters by race - again, into discrete categories.
Consider the medical studies that discovered the correlations you mentioned. They asked people what race they were, out of a list of discrete categories. Not how they would describe their skin tone, hair color, or whatever else.
Most of the time, the categories provided make sense in the context. The reason surveys and polls break down by the common racial categories is because those racial categories tend to affect people's identities and values in predictable ways. Same with medical studies. If a study requires additional granularity, then the selection criteria will reflect that: in other words, a study on heart disease might ask whether you're white, black, or Asian; while a study on Tay-Sachs might ask whether you're of Jewish descent or not; or a study on the effectiveness of an HIV vaccine might ask whether you're Thai, Korean, Japanese, etc.
Race is an expedient way of categorizing people in certain contexts. That's all. If your argument is that race is a continuum of multiple factors including physical traits and national heritage, then sure I'll go with that. If your argument is that race is significantly less important than popularly or historically believed, then I'll go with that too. It's just that some of your comments could be construed to mean that race doesn't really "exist" outside of our minds, which is what I take issue with.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Aren't some of the predispositions we're talking about also geographical and environmental? Lactose intolerance in asians, for example, being directly linked to the fact that cows aren't native to the region?
Most people, in fact, do take the position that race is a set of discrete categories.
Consider surveys. Surveys don't ask you about specific genetic traits. They don't ask you about your person appearance. They ask you to choose a specific, discrete category (White, Asian, Hispanic, and so on).
Consider politics. When breaking down polling data, most analysts separate voters by race - again, into discrete categories.
Consider the medical studies that discovered the correlations you mentioned. They asked people what race they were, out of a list of discrete categories. Not how they would describe their skin tone, hair color, or whatever else.
Most of the time, the categories provided make sense in the context. The reason surveys and polls break down by the common racial categories is because those racial categories tend to affect people's identities and values in predictable ways. Same with medical studies. If a study requires additional granularity, then the selection criteria will reflect that: in other words, a study on heart disease might ask whether you're white, black, or Asian; while a study on Tay-Sachs might ask whether you're of Jewish descent or not; or a study on the effectiveness of an HIV vaccine might ask whether you're Thai, Korean, Japanese, etc.
Race is an expedient way of categorizing people in certain contexts. That's all. If your argument is that race is a continuum of multiple factors including physical traits and national heritage, then sure I'll go with that. If your argument is that race is significantly less important than popularly or historically believed, then I'll go with that too. It's just that some of your comments could be construed to mean that race doesn't really "exist" outside of our minds, which is what I take issue with.
Again, I would challenge you to demonstrate an objective classification scheme that derives from observable traits (not necessarily physically obvious, but we have to be able to distinguish at some level, if these categories are to be at all meaningful), and separates people into discrete racial categories. Unless and until that is done, race is a bogus categorization.
I won't deny the existence of genetic traits - that would be silly. I also won't deny the existence of certain geographic correlation effects involving those traits - that would also be silly. But I deny that these correlations can be simplified into meaningful categories.
Ok, I wached it. It's good. There's some simplified things going on, and some leaps of scientific faith, but it's all very interesting. I did find it interesting that the one guy from Australia was really put out by the suggestion that his people had come from Africa. I also liked the Kazakh guy who acted as if he'd just been given the Publisher's Clearing House prize from Ed McMahon.
that sounds interesting. But yeah, people get pretty defensive when you say their ancestors came from africa.
Or if you talk about evolution at all. "I didn't come from no damn monkeys!"
We get the anti evolution christian groups on my campus all the time. I can only describe them as willfuly ignorant.
And we get a guy who yells at people and tells them they are all going to hell, and he ismuchmoreentertaining.
The first link has him arguing with a stormtrooper!
JebusUD on
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
Aren't some of the predispositions we're talking about also geographical and environmental? Lactose intolerance in asians, for example, being directly linked to the fact that cows aren't native to the region?
Yeah, that's a popular theory right now. That the reason why most East Asian populations weren't that tall when compared to Europeans, North Indians, Middle Eastern people and the Maasai is because of the absence of cows (milk) in their cultures. And with the recent influx of dairy into East Asian cultures as a Western influence, children of the born-after-1980 crowd are around 2.5 inches taller than their parents.
If you compare lactose intolerance in regions around the world with the average height, you can see that not only do the Dutch have the highest tolerance rates for lactose, but they also have the highest average height. And vice-versa for a lot of the East Asian and Native American populations.
Or when comparing South and North Koreans, the South Koreans are a few inches taller because of a significant difference in quality of life.
I don't know if by slowly introducing milk products into a society, they will slowly become less and less lactose intolerant as the generations go by, but it seems to be working out fine for the East Asian populations. I wonder if the newer generation can produce the lactase enzyme for a longer period of time...?
There are thirteen parts, so be sure to watch them all -- in order! And there's a corresponding book that delves much, much deeper, with the same title: The Journey of Man.
There's a follow-up book called "Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project" by the same author, Dr. Spencer Wells that just came out last year.
Cool... thanks. I'm gonna watch this tonight.
Ok, I wached it. It's good. There's some simplified things going on, and some leaps of scientific faith, but it's all very interesting. I did find it interesting that the one guy from Australia was really put out by the suggestion that his people had come from Africa. I also liked the Kazakh guy who acted as if he'd just been given the Publisher's Clearing House prize from Ed McMahon.
Yeah, it's great documentary. It's more for people who are just getting into the whole area, but nonetheless, it's awesome.
Yeah, the Kazakh guy was like, "Huh? Okay... thanks...?!" Loved that part.
Glad you watched it!
Animelee on
Pokeymanz: 4081 1995 6825 (If you add me, let me know! )
I dunno, reading the article, it seems like she thinks that anything other than a black man in a suit with a monocle reading a book is racist.
What a bullshit article.
The reason Lebron isn't wearing a suit is because you can't see his muscles through a suit. Did the writer miss the giant headline that says "Shape Issue: Secrets of the Best Bodies"? One of the things a well-tailored suit can do is mask how out of shape the wearer is. A sleeveless shirt doesn't mask anything.
The reason Nash isn't on the cover is because compared to Lebron he's 90-pound weaklings getting sand kicked on at the beach.
LOL @ focusing on Lebron's physical attributes somehow implies blacks have limited mental ones. Did the writer not notice that the "white representative" was a supermodel? Yeah, when I think of leading intellectuals the first image that pops into my mind is models. I guess Vogue is saying that all races are stupid.
Jay-Z comparison is stupid. Jay-Z said "I don't wear jerseys, I'm 30 plus." Lebron is 22.
So is the comparison to Ms. Brady. Each of them are wearing the uniforms of their respective professions. One of them has a job that entails wearing expensive designer clothes. The other has a jobe that entails wearing jerseys and sneakers.
I think her point is that, if you look at it in a vacuum, this one particular image isn't too bad . However, given the history of representation of Blacks, as well as the overwhelming majority of representation of Blacks in mass media in America, it's (yet another) representation of Black men as vicious and violent, threatening a porcelain White beauty.
I think her point is that, if you look at it in a vacuum, this one particular image isn't too bad . However, given the history of representation of Blacks, as well as the overwhelming majority of representation of Blacks in mass media in America, it's (yet another) representation of Black men as vicious and violent, threatening a porcelain White beauty.
Gisele's smiling.
Fay Wray was screaming in terror.
The issue also features white snowboarder Shaun White and Asian skater Apollo Anton Ohno posing with models. Just like Lebron, those athletes wear sports gear while the models wear designer fashion.
On a basketball note, the idea of anyone portraying Lebron as vicious is pretty weird. One of the major criticisms against him is that he's "too nice," and lacks the "killer instinct" of a Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods.
Earlier someone took offense to the 'race is a state of mind' thing. I'm just going to point out an example in my everyday life:
My cousin, who is white, had a son with a black man(who's is also half and half).
So at the VERY LEAST her kid is only 1/4 black, but due to his dark complexion, he is classified as black. He was raised by nothing but whites, so he has the 'white mentality' but when it comes time to apply for school, and jobs, guess which box he checks?
Other ways that race plays out in America: look at the way Reverend Wright has been demonized in the media. A friend of mine put it in much better words than I ever could:
At first, I almost bought it, I thought he was a hateful man, but I found some videos and saw what he had to say in context, and I just wanted to cry since it was so different from the scary man he's being painted as in media.
In this video he speaks kindly of Bill Clinton. That makes sense, since he was invited along with a number of other religious leaders to a breakfast at the white house.
The more I read about him the more I find out that he seems to be a pretty well respected person. Not a perfect person, but a person who has respect and who has done a lot of good. He seems to be too much of a left/socialist for my taste-- but, he seems like a good hearty rabble rouser. Not a "minister of hate." but then I took a look at the round of recent articles and political cartoons --
...and people are just buying this image hook line and sinker. Is this how white people see this part of black culture?
And there are not many white people, except those on the far left, who have said much against these kinds of attacks on Wright built on fears and sound bytes. Many white people just don't see that the kind of attention this is getting is out of proportion to the content and delivery of Wright's words. I don't agree with Wright's politics, and he's just plain wrong about some facts. He's provocative-- but not THAT provocative! It's not worthy of a week long orgy of mockery and huff-puffing indigence. Wright has become the whipping boy of the repressed racist fears and anger of some people in this country, and as they flog away they are trying to get people, who might have better sense, to join in. They almost got me. And not enough people are saying: STOP!
I feel like if I say "STOP" no one will even listen. I'll just get lumped in with the angry and therefore irrelevant black people of the world.
So, I read about Obama fighting back trying to turn the campaign from race, on to other topics, and I wonder where are his allies? The passport things isn't a big deal, neither are any of the other "scandals" I don't want to attack Clinton, I used to like her, she's an OK person, but, sometimes OK people do bad things when they want to win. I might still be able to get over that and vote for her.
--But, what makes me wonder if I can still do that is the way that people are talking about if it's okay to "use" the race issue. I'm sorry, but, you're really just "using" black people if you even think that way.
...As a matter of strategy, top Clinton allies and advisers said Thursday they were treading carefully when it came to talking about Mr. Wright with superdelegates, the elected officials and party leaders whose votes could determine the Democratic nomination. They said they were aware of the potential repercussions of pressing the issue too directly but were convinced this was going to be a key factor in superdelegates’ making a judgment on Mr. Obama’s electability... Clinton Treats Obama Pastor With Extreme Caution Published: March 21, 2008, The NYT
All of this "shop talk" makes me sick. Does anyone even realize that when you activate racist ideas in people's minds, black people pay a price for it? I have white friends and family and, frankly, this whole thing has me thinking carefully about what they will think of me, and dreading the moment that they ever ask about it-- Will they think my church is filled with hate too? Will they trust me less? So, the idea that this is something that one "uses" in a campaign as a tool is pretty sickening.
And yeah, I know I'm being idealistic, and politics is ugly. And all of that. But, it's not going to stop me from saying that it is wrong. It's wrong. It's low. And this isn't even about Clinton or Obama. This is about what having this "race issue" tossed around is doing to my life, and the lives of other people in this country.
First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?
On the one hand it's Pat Buchanan and many people already know he has issues with race. On the other hand I doubt he's the only person that thinks this way. He's very careful to avoid talking about the realities of slavery, any historical context for black society in Africa or things like Jim Crow laws, lynching, and the destruction of black towns that were independent and thriving economically like Rosewood, and the black communities in Springfield and Tulsa. He completely ignores the fact that federal programs like food stamps, TANF, and student loans are all income based with no race specifications and that the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women. He also ignores the reality that it was black churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals that were funding soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
And it's this deliberate misinformation that bolsters the idea that black people are somehow magically getting ahead without merit or struggle and fosters the resentment you see so often from whites that argue so vociferously against the concept of white privilege. It doesn't help that even in school the history books skim over what Ida B. Wells, the NAACP, The Black Panthers, the NOI and others were doing in support of the black community aside from the actual Civil Rights Movement marches and demonstrations that are discussed. Nor do they talk about what happened after the Civil Rights Act was signed. There's this attitude that it fixed everything that is so far from true, but it is such a pervasive myth that I wonder how do we reach the people that secretly agree with Pat Buchanan. I'm sure he'll insist he's not racist and I know quite a few people that think this way would also insist they're not racist, that they're just speaking the truth as they see it while they conveniently ignore that their truth is based in lies and misinformation. Thoughts?
Stuff like this is so "you see what you want to see" IMO. So I'd be more concerned about the author's view of racism, not Vogue's or Lebron's
The picture might as well be a Rorshach test. The author's little comment that Lebron looks like he's about to join a pickup game of serial killers is equally damning for the author's apparent frame of mind.
Posts
English nobility are (were?) Norman stock though.
Besides which there's still lots of debate about whether English Anglo-Saxon people were mainly Celtic or Germanic or other. Plus everyone just uses mitochondrial DNA because it's easier to follow, despite it only showing where half your ancestors came from.
You can break down milk protein. As far as I know you can happily digest any mammalian protein. Lactose is a disaccharide, a two-unit carbohydrate.
Yeah, like I said, I'm an English mutt, so I have bits of everything in me. Also, keep in mind I base about half of my evidence on information gained from relatives I rarely ever see, so I don't know how accurate their claims are. More specifically, my half-brother who says that my father was mostly anglo-saxon.
My mother's side of the family that has had a few self-published books written about it, and the lineage, and can trace our first ancestor in the US as a plantation owner with the last name "Shirley" who was the disowned son of minor English nobility. He settled in one of the Carolinas in the late 1600's, but I can't remember anything more specific than that. Hopefully that helps.
Besides "WEN" is already taken by those womyn.
The thing about ethnicity is that it's basically whatever you believe it to be. So your actual ancestors don't matter much.
Everyone who isn't a mutt is inbred anyway. English people of mixed heritage rock.
Yeah, that's not true. What you mean is that there's less genetic difference pertaining to those genes responsible for race between the asian and the black guy than there is genetic difference pertaining to all the other genes between two black guys. Given that the color of your skin is determined largely by genes, it's pretty obvious that a black guy and a white guy are going to have genetic differences revolving around race.
How about this: there is a genetic component to race. That genetic component is pretty irrelevant compared to everything else that goes into making a person.
Not quite. Skin color isn't the only thing that determines "race". Two people of identical skin tone could be, and often are, classified as different races depending on a variety of other characteristics.
There is no single genetic characteristic that defines any given race, which, I would argue, is the reason that race is a bogus categorization. We arbitrarily group traits like skin color, eye color, and hair color together with traits like a predisposition to alcoholism, athleticism, and sickle-cell anemia, when there's no evidence that these traits are correlated in any meaningful way, aside from the sheer accident of history.
I was oversimplifying to make a point - saying that two people with different physical characteristics have fewer genetic differences than two people with the same physical characteristics is misleading and stupid. Because all things equal, we know that there's a genetic difference right there.
I guess you can call it "accident of history," but that doesn't make the differences less there. If your ancestors came from certain areas, you are going to tend to have different physical characteristics, including your skin color, eye shape, eye color, nose shape, hair color, hair consistency, height, build, and so on. These differences are all correlated for whatever reason. I mean, if a couple of asian folks gave birth to a tall black kid, it would be pretty freaking weird, right?
Saying that race is purely a social construct with no genetic basis whatsoever is a ridiculous exaggeration designed to sound all post-modern and enlightened. The reality is that race is largely genetic, but that it doesn't fucking matter, because all those differences are purely superficial.
Why would you... want to?
Also does she have to dig them up?
Let me ask you, then: how do you determine which race a given person is? Is it by physical characteristics? Ancestry? Geographic origin? Can you even provide a means by which to concretely differentiate between the races? I challenge you to do so.
Yep. Exactly.
The argument that "race is purely a social construct" is so far divorced from reality that I'm not even sure how to argue against it. Skin color is a social construct? Eye color is a social construct? Epicanthal folds are a social construct?
There are correlations between race and various diseases and genetic conditions. Most of these are well-known and have already been mentioned in the thread: Tay-Sachs, sickle cell anemia, lactose intolerance, certain forms of heart disease, etc. No, the correlations are not perfect, they're not 1 to 1, but few correlations are. And, no, these statements do not suggest that there's a such a thing as "subspecies." Nobody's suggesting that race is a set of discrete disparate categories. All people are saying is: certain genetic traits correlate with other genetic traits. That's not really an extreme position.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Fascinating discussion, BTW.
It's a historical accident. Consider the hypothetical possibility that, rather than importing slaves from Africa, the Europeans (later Americans) had chosen a different source - say China. The whole system of tenuous correlations between physical traits that we call "race" would be entirely different. And even that's assuming two things:
1) That blacks as a category (I'll ignore the problem with distinguishing who is who for the moment) are, in fact, genetically predisposed to athleticism.
2) That this phenomenon is the result of selective breeding over the last 400 years.
Both are fairly tenuous claims.
But in any case, it's not as though race is something we can clearly define anyway. I challenge anyone to come up with a set of objective rules or classifications to govern who belongs in which "race" that, even generally, fits our societal conception of race, and doesn't fail as a result of internal contradiction or infinite recursion.
I think what he is thinking of is the grouping. How does one group a race? largely the grouping is arbitrary. It is like trying to put chairs into 4 or 5 groups. Any grouping you have will be whatever you make up.
but they're listening to every word I say
While it is undoubtedly true that certain genetic traits correlate with other genetic traits, that is not the position most people take when they talk about race. Most people, in fact, do take the position that race is a set of discrete categories.
Consider surveys. Surveys don't ask you about specific genetic traits. They don't ask you about your person appearance. They ask you to choose a specific, discrete category (White, Asian, Hispanic, and so on).
Consider politics. When breaking down polling data, most analysts separate voters by race - again, into discrete categories.
Consider the medical studies that discovered the correlations you mentioned. They asked people what race they were, out of a list of discrete categories. Not how they would describe their skin tone, hair color, or whatever else.
Almost every application of race that has any bearing on society employs race as a set of discrete categories. My contention is that this is inappropriate. At best, we can make statements about geographically-caused temporary correlations among a small number of genetic characteristics. We cannot divide people into discrete categories; it just doesn't make sense.
Sorry if I acted a bit hostile. The consensus in this thread so far seems to be that I am totally wrong, and it's a bit frustrating. :P
Indeed, I have never seen any evidence of such that is definitively divorced from environmental causes.
And 400 years at the very widest reckoning.
but they're listening to every word I say
I am given to not answering those questions. Or to answer them as Homo Sapien.
but they're listening to every word I say
Most of the time, the categories provided make sense in the context. The reason surveys and polls break down by the common racial categories is because those racial categories tend to affect people's identities and values in predictable ways. Same with medical studies. If a study requires additional granularity, then the selection criteria will reflect that: in other words, a study on heart disease might ask whether you're white, black, or Asian; while a study on Tay-Sachs might ask whether you're of Jewish descent or not; or a study on the effectiveness of an HIV vaccine might ask whether you're Thai, Korean, Japanese, etc.
Race is an expedient way of categorizing people in certain contexts. That's all. If your argument is that race is a continuum of multiple factors including physical traits and national heritage, then sure I'll go with that. If your argument is that race is significantly less important than popularly or historically believed, then I'll go with that too. It's just that some of your comments could be construed to mean that race doesn't really "exist" outside of our minds, which is what I take issue with.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Again, I would challenge you to demonstrate an objective classification scheme that derives from observable traits (not necessarily physically obvious, but we have to be able to distinguish at some level, if these categories are to be at all meaningful), and separates people into discrete racial categories. Unless and until that is done, race is a bogus categorization.
I won't deny the existence of genetic traits - that would be silly. I also won't deny the existence of certain geographic correlation effects involving those traits - that would also be silly. But I deny that these correlations can be simplified into meaningful categories.
that sounds interesting. But yeah, people get pretty defensive when you say their ancestors came from africa.
Or if you talk about evolution at all. "I didn't come from no damn monkeys!"
We get the anti evolution christian groups on my campus all the time. I can only describe them as willfuly ignorant.
And we get a guy who yells at people and tells them they are all going to hell, and he is much more entertaining.
The first link has him arguing with a stormtrooper!
but they're listening to every word I say
Yeah, that's a popular theory right now. That the reason why most East Asian populations weren't that tall when compared to Europeans, North Indians, Middle Eastern people and the Maasai is because of the absence of cows (milk) in their cultures. And with the recent influx of dairy into East Asian cultures as a Western influence, children of the born-after-1980 crowd are around 2.5 inches taller than their parents.
If you compare lactose intolerance in regions around the world with the average height, you can see that not only do the Dutch have the highest tolerance rates for lactose, but they also have the highest average height. And vice-versa for a lot of the East Asian and Native American populations.
Or when comparing South and North Koreans, the South Koreans are a few inches taller because of a significant difference in quality of life.
I don't know if by slowly introducing milk products into a society, they will slowly become less and less lactose intolerant as the generations go by, but it seems to be working out fine for the East Asian populations. I wonder if the newer generation can produce the lactase enzyme for a longer period of time...?
Yeah, it's great documentary. It's more for people who are just getting into the whole area, but nonetheless, it's awesome.
Yeah, the Kazakh guy was like, "Huh? Okay... thanks...?!" Loved that part.
Glad you watched it!
Pokeymanz: 4081 1995 6825 (If you add me, let me know!
Whew, it seemed for a while he was going to perscribe atheletics to genetics and ignore environment, and then my brain was going to explode.
but they're listening to every word I say
a racist image?
Because it is causing a bit of a stink, as seen here:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=hill/080320&sportCat=nba
I dunno, reading the article, it seems like she thinks that anything other than a black man in a suit with a monocle reading a book is racist.
* courtesy of one of my college friends.
What a bullshit article.
The reason Lebron isn't wearing a suit is because you can't see his muscles through a suit. Did the writer miss the giant headline that says "Shape Issue: Secrets of the Best Bodies"? One of the things a well-tailored suit can do is mask how out of shape the wearer is. A sleeveless shirt doesn't mask anything.
The reason Nash isn't on the cover is because compared to Lebron he's 90-pound weaklings getting sand kicked on at the beach.
LOL @ focusing on Lebron's physical attributes somehow implies blacks have limited mental ones. Did the writer not notice that the "white representative" was a supermodel? Yeah, when I think of leading intellectuals the first image that pops into my mind is models. I guess Vogue is saying that all races are stupid.
Jay-Z comparison is stupid. Jay-Z said "I don't wear jerseys, I'm 30 plus." Lebron is 22.
So is the comparison to Ms. Brady. Each of them are wearing the uniforms of their respective professions. One of them has a job that entails wearing expensive designer clothes. The other has a jobe that entails wearing jerseys and sneakers.
Gisele's smiling.
Fay Wray was screaming in terror.
The issue also features white snowboarder Shaun White and Asian skater Apollo Anton Ohno posing with models. Just like Lebron, those athletes wear sports gear while the models wear designer fashion.
On a basketball note, the idea of anyone portraying Lebron as vicious is pretty weird. One of the major criticisms against him is that he's "too nice," and lacks the "killer instinct" of a Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods.
My cousin, who is white, had a son with a black man(who's is also half and half).
So at the VERY LEAST her kid is only 1/4 black, but due to his dark complexion, he is classified as black. He was raised by nothing but whites, so he has the 'white mentality' but when it comes time to apply for school, and jobs, guess which box he checks?
[/quote]
On the one hand it's Pat Buchanan and many people already know he has issues with race. On the other hand I doubt he's the only person that thinks this way. He's very careful to avoid talking about the realities of slavery, any historical context for black society in Africa or things like Jim Crow laws, lynching, and the destruction of black towns that were independent and thriving economically like Rosewood, and the black communities in Springfield and Tulsa. He completely ignores the fact that federal programs like food stamps, TANF, and student loans are all income based with no race specifications and that the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women. He also ignores the reality that it was black churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals that were funding soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
And it's this deliberate misinformation that bolsters the idea that black people are somehow magically getting ahead without merit or struggle and fosters the resentment you see so often from whites that argue so vociferously against the concept of white privilege. It doesn't help that even in school the history books skim over what Ida B. Wells, the NAACP, The Black Panthers, the NOI and others were doing in support of the black community aside from the actual Civil Rights Movement marches and demonstrations that are discussed. Nor do they talk about what happened after the Civil Rights Act was signed. There's this attitude that it fixed everything that is so far from true, but it is such a pervasive myth that I wonder how do we reach the people that secretly agree with Pat Buchanan. I'm sure he'll insist he's not racist and I know quite a few people that think this way would also insist they're not racist, that they're just speaking the truth as they see it while they conveniently ignore that their truth is based in lies and misinformation. Thoughts?
The picture might as well be a Rorshach test. The author's little comment that Lebron looks like he's about to join a pickup game of serial killers is equally damning for the author's apparent frame of mind.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!