The Death of Race

[Zor]

I was wondering, with racism becoming less prevelent and inter-ratial marrage on the rise how much longer until in the States/Canada there is an Inter-Racial Majority?

Zor

[LadyTevar]

Hell... there's spots in Appalchia where a black/white couples are *still* persecuted. It's just more subtle 'shunning' now, instead of tar and feathers.

[Thirdfain]

Eventually, there's probably going to be an Asian/Hispanic/Anglo ethnicity widely regarded as "American." That doesn't mean we'll see an end to racism or the concept of race...

[Mayabird]

It dpends. Are you counting the Hispanic population as a "race"? Many of them are descendants of Spaniards and American Indians with some African also. Counting them as inter-racial makes the timespan a lot shorter. Also, many "black" people aren't entirely descended from Africans; many of them have white ancestry also, so they may count as inter-racial.

These things just aren't that simple.

[Pablo Sanchez]

I think it will take perhaps a thousand years, if not more.

Are you counting the Hispanic population as a "race"? Many of them are descendants of Spaniards and American Indians with some African also. Counting them as inter-racial makes the timespan a lot shorter.

Mestizos are accounted as their own race and have been thought as such since the 16th century or so. They are neatly separated both from Amerindians and from Spaniards. This phenomenon could be a factor slowing the development of true interraciality--it is entirely possible that the various types of race-mixes will simply form a new race entirely.

[Chmee]

Bring on the Age of the Beige!

Couple centuries.

[Queeb Salaron]

I put it at about 150 years. Let's not forget the amount of interracial copulation that's happened since the Civil Rights movement. If we can bump the numbers that much in 60 years, imagine what we could do with more than twice that amount of time.

"Age of Beige" is a cute term. I'm stealing it.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I dont think it will happen. Not for a VERY long time. It isnt a racism thing it is a species recognition thing. it is called a pre-mating barrier. Basically we are more physically attracted to members of the same race because we dont view others as "one of us" on a subconcious level.

Usually

[Alyeska]

It would be so bland if we were all the same race. I enjoy variety.

[VT-16]

There´s no doubt in my mind interracial relationships will continue to flourish in the future, just as there´s no doubt in my mind different races will continue to exist due to different people having different preferences.

[Chmee]

I dont think it will happen. Not for a VERY long time. It isnt a racism thing it is a species recognition thing. it is called a pre-mating barrier. Basically we are more physically attracted to members of the same race because we dont view others as "one of us" on a subconcious level.

Usually

Well, interesting theory ... I'm not persuaded. Seems like there's a pretty strong spread-the-genes imperative that works against this.

I may be a tall, fair, Irish-Anglo-Saxon, but if there's a difference in the way my subconscious processes its sexual reaction to Lucy Liu, Jennifer Lopez, Halle Berry and Catherine Zeta-Jones, it's certainly buried too deep for me to find it.

Not that I would be averse to a long personal study of this topic ....

[RedImperator]

I'm an optimist about this. Without taking a long look at the demographics (the number of interracial children in this country is growing fast), I'll say that the majority of the population of this country will be interracial by the end of this century.

Part of the thing is, interracial people are damned attractive, all other things being equal. So once there's a large enough mixed race population, there's a good chance a lot of single race people who'd never consider a single race person from another race will take an interracial spouse.

Of course, it's possible we could fuck this up, and once a large enough interracial population forms, it will consider itself a new race and start breeding exclusively within its own population. But like I said, I'm an optimist on this.

[Lord Zentei]

Mestizos are accounted as their own race and have been thought as such since the 16th century or so. They are neatly separated both from Amerindians and from Spaniards. This phenomenon could be a factor slowing the development of true interraciality--it is entirely possible that the various types of race-mixes will simply form a new race entirely.

Of course, there are anthropologists who would disagree: Mestizos are a race in a social and cultural sense, but I understand that in classical anthropology the "races" are: Caucasoid (Europeans, Semites, Iranians, Indians and North Africans), Negroids (sub Saharan Africans), Mongoloid (east, southeast and central Asians) as well as native Oceanians, Khoisan (of whom the only remnant are the bushmen of the Kalahari) and Pygmies (tiny tribes in central Africa). This bears no relation to the classification of the authorities in various countries which are more political than scientific.

Of course, anthropology is a bitterly disputed subject, and recent genetic studies show that is no genetic basis for any such thing as "race" at all (browse www.sciam.com ), though "race" does have a social reality. Basically the genetic variance between races is on the average insignificant to the genetic variance between individuals of the same race. As SciAm put it: "sugar may ressemble salt, but it is in actuality closer to corn syrup", or words to that effect. Outward appearances are utterly trivial.

Think of it this way: on a table in fron of you there are three piles of 100 random cards (not standard decks, could omit/include multiple copies of some). You draw the top three cards of each pile. They are as follows: pile1: 4clubs, 7hearts, 2spades; pile2: 4clubs, 7hearts, 2spades; pile3: 10diamonds, Kclubs, Qdiamonds. Which two decks are most similar? Normally one would say #1 and #2, but this is a fallacy since you only know 3% of the cards. The other cards in #2 and #3 might be identical with #1 quite different. Out of the tens of thousands of genes in the human genome only a small minority determine cosmetic appearance. Though there is some correlation between race and certain genetic afflictions (such as africans and sicle cell anemia), there is no causality, since "race" is determined cosmetically (and culturally), and cosmetic appearance is determined by completely different genes and each gene is de facto an independant random variable (in the case of sicle cell disease, such people have a resistance to malaria, so there is a tradeoff in advantages there. IIRC, it is much rarer in black americans than in africans in africa).

So: as long as we think of one another as different, there will be de facto differences, while "real" differences didn't exist to begin with. And after this long winded post, I'm sure that Admiral Valdemar or some other SD.Netter more knowledgable than I in all things genetic will want to correct a point or two.

[Lord Zentei]

Wow, seven votes for each of the options (except for #5, where there are 4 votes). That´s pretty even.

[Steven Snyder]

Humanity has a gift for finding new and creative differences between themselves to hate.

Racism is just a symptom of a darker problem that humanity has, and one that we will probably never be rid of.

[Morilore]

I think it will happen given a linear progression of more and more mobility and travel, but not for a while. I hadn't considered the notion that interracial individuals are more attractive, and so I voted +300, just for the sake of the omnipresent rural bumblefucks, who will probably end up their own "race" in not too long.

[tharkûn]

Everyone is interracial. The rate of "blacks" with non-African mitochondrial DNA, meaning a non-African patrimaternal ancestor or non-African Y chromosome is quite high. When genetic samples are taken it seems unlikely that genetic drift didn't happen in the last 50 generations; stastically it gets damn bloody low to be "racially pure" in the US.

Really it is only a short period of time where slavery was racially based and where Europe was exporting as well as importing slavery. Before the Islamic and Christian prohitions on intermarriage, gene flow from Africa to everywhere else and everywhere else to Africa was slow, but non-negligable. Even after that rape commonly brought gene flow between the populations.

Of course, anthropology is a bitterly disputed subject, and recent genetic studies show that is no genetic basis for any such thing as "race" at all

Eh, there are 7 or something genetic groupings one could choose to call "race"; however 6 of those would be located in Africa and the other would span the entire world. There is more genetic diversity within Africa than between Eskimos and Kiwi aborigines.

Though there is some correlation between race and certain genetic afflictions (such as africans and sicle cell anemia), there is no causality, since "race" is determined cosmetically (and culturally), and cosmetic appearance is determined by completely different genes and each gene is de facto an independant random variable (in the case of sicle cell disease, such people have a resistance to malaria, so there is a tradeoff in advantages there. IIRC, it is much rarer in black americans than in africans in africa).

Certain alleles affecting cosmetic appearance may have come about because they are more fit for a given climate or habitat; other alleles which could be benificial or detrimental today, may likewise have once been more fit for a given climate or habitat. For instance if blond hair is a disadvantage on the savannah but not a detriment on the snow capped fjords and the sickle cell allele is benificial in the malarial prone savannahs but detrimental on the snow capped fjords ... then black hair will correlate to some degree with sickle cell allele - by virtue of common 'cause'.

Other fun things can include blood type, certain insulin regulating alleles, etc.

Also when you have inbreeding populations, no not the Ptolomeys, just small isolated populations that only mate amongst their own; genetic diseases crop up based upon a mutation in few (or single) ancestor who is overrepresented in the family tree. For instance Ashkenazi Jews have 10% chance of being a carrier for Type 1 Gaucher and possibly as high as a 33% chance of being a carrier for Tay-Sachs. Likewise the highest echelons of European nobility were more likely carriers of hemophillia because they had overrepresented ancestors in the immediate family tree. Thus inbreeding within a larger population tends to give rise to divergences in genetic diseases; as Ashkenazi Jews are a subset of Europeans (aka "Caucasians"), their inflated incidence of Tay-Sachs increases the European baseline (now that the political and religious inhibitions on intermarriage have been largely removed).

Race can be a good predicter of several specific genetic disorders and even some general health outcomes. However culture utterly frigging dwarfs this predictive value. Ethiopian Jews now have more similar health outcomes to Ashkenazi Jews than to the Ethipian general population to whom they are more closely related - because they all live in Israel or the US with ever diminishing differences in cultural practices.

[General Brock]

What markers will be used to define race, and how will they be used and enforced? A lot of textbook caucasians by appearance define themselves as black or aboriginal, to qualify for minority social programs, to be fashionable, or because those are the people in their family they relate to. A lot of blacks have mixed ancestry, and some place status on blackness by darkness of pigmentation. Some Europeans and Asians define themselves racially by ethnicity more so than biology. A person of mixed race may or may not fill out the minority 'other' dot on a form, and instead choose a lineage. Race will always be here, but its not like its a system as rigourous as dog or cattle breeding; interracials may always be a 'minority' of sorts, unless there is a social advantage to being defined otherwise.

[Castor Troy]

It would be so bland if we were all the same race. I enjoy variety.

Definitely.

I'd give it at least three centuries.

[Col. Crackpot]

It would be so bland if we were all the same race. I enjoy variety.

agreed, how boring would it be if all the women are light brown with brown hair? I need blondes and i need some chocolate love.