Just a question. I fight very hard against my racism, for instance. Thank you.
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Just a question. I fight very hard against my racism, for instance. Thank you.
Good question, but I think you need to define racism first.Quote:
Originally Posted by G L Wilson
Wikipedia says:Vocabulary.com says:Quote:
Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in people's traits and capacities that are entirely due to their race, however defined, and that, as a consequence, justify the different treatment of those people, both socially and legally.
Merriam-Webster says:Quote:
Racism is the practice of discriminating against people based on their race, national or ethnic background.
So, if we go by those descriptions, which all contain an element of action - believing a race is superior - then no, everyone is not racist.Quote:
a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
However, according to those criteria, if I dislike someone because of their race, as long as I don't think that person is inferior, then it isn't racism, while if I make a statement that "Maori have the highest rate of infanticide in the OECD", even though it's true, it's racist.
Not a straightforward subject.
Race is a social construct anyway, there is no biological basis for dividing humans along the traditionally defined racial lines. Statistically there is a very good chance that you are genetically more similar to several people of a different racial group than your own. Visual markers are a superficial determinant of genetic difference that are only reliable for a select few phenotypes.
Wow, G.L., a question that actually seems to have the potential for interesting discussion. Good job!
I don't think everyone's "racist." Like Atheist said, when someone says a person is racist, that means that person will actually take actions to show that racism, whether it's burning a cross in someone's yard, or something as small as the guy working at the cash register not saying "Have a good day" to a certain person because that person's black/Muslim, etc. So, no, of course not everyone is racist.
I think prejudice may be a better word. Here's the definition (at least what my Mac's dictionary gives me):
I'm willing to bet almost anybody has prejudicial thoughts. I do. I hate to say it, but when I see a group of black guys dressed like rappers walking down the street, I think, "There's trouble." Now, I know that thought is without merit, but it's there. Growing up in the town I've grown up in makes it nearly impossible for it not to be there.Quote:
1. preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience
I think that idea is over-simplistic, and practical examples can show how.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
While there is no part of DNA we can look at and say, "Oh, that person is a ........" there are unquestionably genetic characteristics that very much conform to being racial characteristics.
West Africans are my favourite example, because they are faster than white men. No white man has yet been able to run 100m in under 10 seconds, while hundreds of men of West African extraction have blitzed it. Their genes create a different type of muscle mass, with more fast-twitch fibre than others. That is a racial characteristic.
Another one, and much closer to my home, is Pacifika People. They have a specific set of health needs, which our medical scientists acknowledge as being due to them being Pacific Islanders and their unique set of genes.
If race is nothing more than social construct, those things would not be true.
Much better idea and example.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
I had much the same thing recently - one of my kids was out playing in the street and a large group of exuberant youths were headed his way. Once I noticed it was a group of Asian teenagers, I automatically assumed they'd be friendly.
:D
That must be prejudice as well!
Meh, if you actually look at the genetics the variance within a population accounts for 98% of differences that occur between human beings. There is only a likelyhood of a small set of genes being present in one population that are not in another. Moreover, delineating between interbreeding populations becomes a process of arbitrary line marking. All you are doing is locating a group of people, who may be better suited to running, and then drawing a line around them and calling them a race off the basis of a small number of genes. If we chose a different gene and level of prevalence of such gene to delineate a race we would get a totally different line. Race is entirely meaningless as a scientific classification. It tells us next to nothing. And though racial indexes are used in medicine, they are recognized as only moderately useful and only for a select few traits.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Also, there have been white men who have done the 100m under ten seconds. If we wanted to use sprinting ability as a racial marker apparently Christophe Lemaire would be West African. The fact of the matter is that prevalence of a few traits in any population does not a race make beyond arbitrary classification.
Clearly different frequencies of genes occur between populations, but that doesn't mean anything meaningful at all.
If you use enough genetic markers you can differentiate any population, down to the family unit. The point becomes that where we decide to draw a line is socially motivated rather than meaningful in any scientific way.
I may be stupid but I'm not blind.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
I'm not debating Pip on this one, lol. Genetics is his thing. Though, I do think that just because their is little genetic difference in races is a poor argument for saying there aren't different races. There are obvious cultural differences between people with different colored skin--cultures I find it a crime not to pay attention to just because we want to avoid racism (i.e., the whole "ignore it and it will go away" argument). As per usual, the problem arises as a semantical one--"race" is probably the wrong word.
No, there isn't a small likelihood at all - I gave two specific examples, and I can add East Africans and distance running/stamina and many well-documented medical problems that beset people of a specific race more frequently than other races.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
This is science, not fantasy.
Jordanians twice as likely as Palestinians to develop multiple sclerosis.
Ashkenazi Jews are predisposed to several genetic abnormalities.
Asian and Pacific Islanders' predisposition to kidney diseases.
Also, I think your "98%" is a lot higher than genetic studies show, but I'm open to correction. I understood the variance in a population was around 85%.
That's not right either. We know for certain that West African people have more fast-twitch fibre mass than people who don't come from that region.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
I'm not arguing it's only minor differences, but you contradict yourself. Unless medical science doesn't count as science?Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Sorry, you are correct - the first one was last month - by Lemaitre.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
He is still half a second behind the West African runners and is now running times that would have had him competitive with Africans in 1963.
Sure it is, but almost everything we do is socially constructed.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
I'm most amused by the fact that arguing against race is actually becomes racist itself, because it clearly disadvantages races with known medical issues.
sociologically, discrimination to racism assists to not only know who to group with most alike but also who not to group with.
The 85% figure comes from the famous comparison of 16 genes across racial groups. That was looking at 16 genes which are typically associated with racial classification, rather than at the overall genome.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Onto your examples, I don't dispute that certain genes correlate with breeding populations, what I dispute is that this means absolutely anything meaningful in the grander scheme of things. Moreover, it obscures the fact that isolated breeding populations are practically non-existant amongst humans. These groupings break down when we start to actually look at the genetics involved. There are very few genes that exist only in some populations and not in others.
No, this is wrong. There are simply a greater frequency of people with such genetic traits within those populations. It is just mere line marking and arbitrary picking of whatever genes one feels are important that is being used to reinforce the notion of race. It doesn't matter because we can break down breeding populations and find difference at any level, it doesn't make race a meaningful concept in any way.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Racial classification in medicine is done as an expedient indicator of frequency of certain traits. It does not mean those racial classifications actually mean anything in a larger scale of things. Moreover, it is generally recognized in the medical field that these indicators are not highly reliable.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
There are less than a 100 people ever who have broken the 10 second mark, you are exaggerating the difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Nonsense, I'm merely pointing out that different frequencies of genes amongst different populations are a given under any population set one examines. Which means you can construct a race out of any group of people you want. Meaning that our conventional notions of racial categories are largely arbitrary reflections of our superficial overemphasis of visible phenotypes.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Atheist
Yes, we agreed that it's a social construct, and while I agree with with what you say from a personal perspective, I think the concept of race has moved on to embrace culture to an extent that if we try to suppress the very notion, we run the risk of inadvertent racism anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
The health examples I gave provide evidence for that. There is no question that if medical science didn't indulge in racial typing, it would cost lives.
NZ Maori are an excellent example from the socio-political perspective - removal of race as an indicator would cost them 8 seats in Parliament and billions of dollars in assets. Their entire race has invested in the concept of race to the extent that they would be destroying their own culture if they went along with the notion.
/Tangent/ I'm going to keep on this African runner stuff as well. Yes, there have only been ~70 runners to have beaten 10 seconds, but take a look at sprinting races worldwide, and you will find that there are no white men in the contest from the semifinal onwards. Even though the numbers are small, 70:1 is pretty good odds, and even better when you look at the number of participants, the disadvantages Africans have had on both sides of the Atlantic and the mega-funding white men have had to try to go faster.
:D
Surely seeing a group of white guys dressed like rappers walking down the street would make you think "trouble" (potential trouble) - or Asian guys, or a mixed group? A gang of any kind makes me "wary".Quote:
Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi
If I see a group of white guys dressed like rappers, I think, "What a bunch of douchebags." Normal white kids, I see mischief. A group of Asian kids . . . well, I haven't seen that yet. I'd probably just be puzzled.Quote:
Originally Posted by Panglossian
I think the question is why is political correctness so pervasive?
I have little time for self-flagellation on racism. It's gotten tiresome to see blasted down our throats by most of the mainstream media, in most western countries.