If this is true, what is racism?
If there is only one race, how can racism exist?
[quote=“Dr. Milker”]
Race being a cultural construct is something that’s pretty well accepted in anthropology and other social sciences. [/quote]
Well, that’s precisely why there’s such high regard for the “social sciences”.
The ugly product of lesser minds.
Lesser minds again.
I feel like I’m kind of teaching you. Maybe you should be paying me.
Why did you put social sciences in quotations? Are we going to have a problem?
Why did you put social sciences in quotations? Are we going to have a problem?[/quote]
Ohhh!! Fight! Fight! Fight!
The ugly product of lesser minds.
Lesser minds again.
I feel like I’m kind of teaching you. Maybe you should be paying me.[/quote]
Lesser minds? Please do edumacate me professor Gao.
Maybe everything I thought I knew about racism is completely way off base.
I was under the impression that racism is basically one race (simply put) hating on another race.
And for racism to exist, there would need to be more than ONE race.
Whites hating on Blacks…
Blacks people hating on Mexicans…
All Asians hating on each other…
The ugly product of lesser minds??? So I guess what you’re saying is the “less intelligent” of one race hating on the “more intelligent” of the same race and vice versa?
so you and I–we’re the same race?
Or maybe you are fixed on the term “human race”.
You’re filling out a survey and the survey asks you “What race are you?” You write “HUMAN”??? haha.
But for the sake of argument, lets change it to “nationality” then.
You DO recognize that there are different nationalities, right? Different nationalities being racist towards each other. Better?
Yes. As for the rest, well, I can’t fit a gallon into a thimble no matter how slowly I pour.
Yes. As for the rest, well, I can’t fit a gallon into a thimble no matter how slowly I pour.[/quote]
So you’re the guy who replies “Human” when they ask you what race you are…
Do you reply “Yes” when they ask you what sex you are as well?
In your world, racism cannot exist because there is only ONE race–a human race.
but seriously though…
Why would you make light of such a controversial topic of discussion?
Racism is real. Everyone harbors some form of racism in them.
For you to come out and state that there is only ONE race not only detracts from the actual discussion, but is kind of lame and stupid for such an intellectual as yourself.
Sure, we understand where you’re coming from. The HUMAN-race–as if you are familiar with any other races out there.
And like I said, just for your sake, lets swap “race” with “nationality” and keep the ball rolling.
That is, unless every minute you go back and forth with me is dumbing you down to my level. And in that case, maybe you should stop.
Yes. As for the rest, well, I can’t fit a gallon into a thimble no matter how slowly I pour.[/quote]
My 
We are all one species. But we have different “breeds” ( a dog analogy) which people have called races. Now, with DNA, we realize that the differences are usually very small.
But “race” just means “breed”. Subvariety. African descended people are more likely to get sickle cell anemia. Scottish people are more likely to get MS. Kalahari San have are shorter and have big butts. There ARE genetic differences. The question is, who deep do they go? Do they affect intelligence and other positive factors?
This is a big scary question.
Most human groups distinguish between the behavior due other members of the group, the behavior due outsiders, and the behavior due enemies. Picture primitive human bands say, 10,000 years ago, and how they would react to other groups not previously encountered. Civilization has meant combining more than one such group into a common social order, and consequently having to enforce rules that would rarely come up in smaller bands. Most of our “great” religions arose in this context, and contain rules aimed at promoting a certain social solidarity and law-abidingness (while also allowing collective war against outside enemies). Our modern notions of ethics simply universalize this a little more, and so we get rhetoric to the effect that “we” are all human, and deserve rights on that basis. Our tribal ancestors, by contrast, would have seen their own groups as “people,” and others as not quite deserving of the name.
Really, what difference does being “human” make? If aliens land, do they have human rights? What about other ape species? Is there some magic in human DNA that makes it wrong to kill each other? Tigers do not ask about ethics–why should we, other than the fact that we’ve been conditioned to think this way?
Of course, “racist” behavior (regardless of whether rational or irrational, right or wrong) comes on a kind of spectrum, with genocide on one end and a mild preference for people like oneself on the other. Often, discussion of “racism” touches on factual questions, such as whether some races are more intelligent than others, or whether they commit more violent crime. In theory these ought to be resolvable through science / social science (politics permitting), just as we research similar questions about gender. Whether it is ethical, or legal, to base socio-economic decisions (hiring, renting, picking up passengers in a taxi, marrying) on such considerations is a matter of opinion, but note that it is entirely possible (and indeed common) to display “racist” attitudes towards members of one’s own race. For example, black taxi drivers may hesitate to pick up single black men.
White racism is when a black guy faints in a train and they toss him out of the train, Asian racism is when a white guy faints in a train and they all run out of the train and leave him there.
That’s why you should leave it to big scary people to answer. Like those in the UKIP, or the National Front.
That doesn’t appear to make any real sense. What do you mean?
I have a feeling they would have left him there if he was one of their own.
Maybe they thought he had ebola?
If this is true, what is racism?
If there is only one race, how can racism exist?[/quote]
I’ve got nothing against Klingons, personally. It’s just that when they move in, the property values go down.
Race is indeed a “big scary question” when it comes to attitudes to it. That’s precisely why you should NOT leave it to “big scary people”, i.e., the thugs and skinheads of racist organisations, to answer for you.
I thought that was fairly obvious, BigScaryJohn.
The “social sciences” are not sciences in the sense that they make falsifiable hypotheses that are proven or disproven by experiment. They are making theories, sure, but they are not falsifiable, and they are not rooted in objective fact, but are merely published collections of culturally-determined thoughts drawn from observation, or in many cases just surmise and conjecture. Normal people call that “novel writing”.
People who say that race doesn’t exist should spend a day in an American prison! Of course this is a sociological observation rather than a biological one, and there are other regions and social contexts in which “race” is not the primary group identity. (Often it is language or religion.)
Biologically, it does make sense to distinguish Europids from East Asians from most black Africans (pygmies and khoi-san could be considered distinct “races” from other Africans), much as we distinguish different breeds of dogs (noting that we breed dogs for certain traits, whereas humans breed themselves to no clear purpose). Of course new blended populations periodically arise, just as new dog breeds do, and any number of people and their dogs are “mutts” who do not clearly fall into any single category.
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I realize that lots of people identify more closely with those of the same “race”, with prisons being an extreme but illustrative example. I also understand that medical researchers, physical anthropologists, and other academics, professionals, and politicians are interested in this concept for various reasons. I know that not all of those are selfish or sinister reasons.
But for me, focusing on racial differences is a divisive and useless exercise. I don’t consider myself a member of the white race. I consider myself a member of the human race. I realize that most people don’t think like me in this regards.