Is 'race' real?

[Illuminatus Primus]

I suppose you think you know more than AV, a microbiologist, as well, on the subject. I guess he can't do his job because he doesn't adopt your racial model.

[Broomstick]

Clearly any excuse available to delineate a "them" from an "us" which is then used to apologize for exploiting the them is used by human societies. No shit.

Ah, so when the Japanese call me a "gaijin" they're using it to apologize for exploiting me? Oh, wait - I'm not exploited by the Japanese, nor were my ancestors. Distinguishing between groups does not automatically mean someone is being exploited, or apologizing, or using an euphenism. The fact that sometimes it does is what makes this such a hot-button issue.

You used an example about blacks in America; which has everything to do with how you were raised and cultural conception of blackness that have everything to do with American cultural traditions of "one-drop doctrine" and hypodescent. If you'd been born somewhere else, the people you'd readily identify as black wouldn't meet neat conventions.

OK, let's look at another category in the US - Native Americans. They have long be considered a separate race by those of other background, they are darker-skinned than the Euros, but here the "one drop" rule does not apply. Yes, there are people of purely native ancestry, but there are plenty of others considered either white or black who, nonetheless, are quite open about being part native. While the "pure" natives and the first generation past the first cross do suffer discrimination (although not always), when you get to 1/4 native they usually identify with the other race(s) that are part of them even though, as I said, their ancestry is seldom secret.

But its inherently unfair. A hundred years ago, the slightest hint of blackness would have given that person total descrimination before civil society.

So would being Chinese, female, or a lot of other things. Yes, blacks had it worse than most if not all others in the US but while in that case the concept of race was most certainly used in a bad manner that doesn't mean the distinctions made by others to distinguish groups were all inherently evil.

You keep acting like there's this "objective race" that people ignore

Nope, I'm saying that the subjective grouping of people has some basis in reality. There is no objective criteria for "beauty", but that doesn't mean the concept doesn't exit, or that we can't talk about traits beautiful people have in common.

And if that is NOT how race is actually used as a concept, who cares?

I care because I have to talk to and work with people who are not scientifically educated, whether I agree with their attitudes or not.

(relative to the judging group; typically within the judged group they see many difference - black Africans do not see themselves as homogenous) as sharing characteristics. In reality, race only means that the person seeing the race superficially notices those characteristics in common. It does not mean those supposedly belonging to the race agree.

Really? No black person in the US self-identifies as "black"? No one outside the evil whites considers Barak Obama to be black? Native Americans are unable to distinguish themselves from the invading Europeans? Asians can't tell if other people are of European or Aisan descent? ALL people lump other people into groups. While there are some considerable differences in their lumping and splitting there is also considerable overlap which implies some basis in reality for their groupings.

It is not the term used by geneticists or anthropologists or biologists.

Not now - but a few generations ago it was.

So what use is it?

To understand what non-scientifically educated people - the vast majority of the human population, I might point out - are talking about.

Okay, so I guess white people never lump me in stupid catagories because they think their perception of nationality is pefect.

Never said it was perfect, and I have repeatedly stated that it doesn't work well for mixed-background individuals. Geez, dud, you think other people never have that problem? In some parts of Chicago I get little Polish and Czech ladies start yelling at me in their native tongue, upset that someone so "obviously" in their group doesn't speak their language, never mind that I am neither Polish nor Czech. Does that mean they're exploiting me, or that that nationality doesn't exist because such mis-identification occurs?

Much as you might hate it, your ancestry is written in your bones. Forensic anthropologists can determine broad ancestry by skeletal characteristics which is used not only in historical anthropology but is also used for identification in criminal cases. It is NOT merely skin deep or superficial, even if not everyone fits the system perfectly. Distinguishing broad ancestry is as easily done from an intact skeleton as distinguishing gender - and sometimes as difficult. Gender can be very difficult to determine from immature skeletons, and without the pelvic bones small men and large women can be mis-identified - that doesn't mean gender doesn't exist or isn't important. "Race" is not as fixed, but even laymen can learn to identify skull features that occur more frequently on one continent as opposed to another in a short time period. The bones do not have skin color, but grouping by appearances is not done solely by skin color alone.

Nice appeal to authority. No respectible biologist has compared the historical "racial science" five color-races to real subspecies.

Not recently, no, but a hundred years ago that was the state of the science (such as it was) and some quite respectable scientists did just that -- although these days, if they did other work we still respect, that part of their lives tends to be simply ignored.

I couldn't walk through the streets of Nigeria and correctly identify who is and isn't at risk for sickle cell, even though that country has the highest incidence on the planet of such - all I can say is that, statistically, you'll find more carriers and sufferers in any given group in Nigeria than elsewhere.

Right, and Nigerians don't look different to you from Bantu. Thank you for proving my point.

Since most Nigerians are in a sub-set of Bantu of course they don't look different - that's like saying "Right, and the Welsh don't look different to you than the Celts"

No, I can't distinguish sub-groups of Nigerians by sight alone. Most Nigerians can't distinguish sub-groups of Europeans by sight alone, either, although Europeans can.

Likewise, statistically, you'll find more sickle cell among US people of African descent than among other US groups. That does NOT mean you can predict on an individual basis. A lot of preventive medicine is based on this sort of statistical information rather than definitive predictions. I can confidently say that in Rio those with African ancestry are more likely to have sickle cell than those without, but in truth for each individual the answer is either a definite yes or no. That doesn't mean the statistical information is irrelevant.

Except race in the U.S. is about mucking up that pristine white blood with mud people blood, not about the prevelence of sickle cell disease.

First of all, "mud people" is a term used by folks like Neo-Nazis and white supremacists - it is NOT a common term among white folks, even among the bigoted white folks I have to associate with. Second, those who use that term would tend to lump some people considered "white" by a large chunk of the population to fall into that category

Second, the fact that in the past there has been discrimination does not eliminate the fact that certain diseases follow ancestry because those diseases are based in the genes inherited from those ancestors. Jews do not suffer from Tay Sachs because they are oppressed by the white, anglo-saxon protestants running the country, they suffer from it because they inherited a particular gene from their ancestors that almost no one else does. Sub-Saharan Africans (although not all groups of them) do not carry sickle cell because of past oppression, it's because their ancestors lived in areas with malaria. Because those same areas tended to have intense solar radiation they also inherited darker skin. Both traits aided survival in the past even if today they cause problems. Past human stupidity does not erase that fact. And that's why race matters - because it is a clue to ancestry even if not 100% accurate.

As I said, the "three races" organization makes no allowances for people of mixed ancestry. Some of the systems with many more terms/groupings do, such as "mestizo" and many other Latin American terms. Which is not surprising, given the way ethnic mixing has occurred in those countries, particularly places like Brazil.

Okay, so I'm now the same as anyone who is 75% Indian to 5% or less.

Well, how the hell should I know? I don't have a picture of you - how do YOU identify? You're assuming that's how I would categorize you, despite the fact the ONLY information I have about you is in text. You could just as easily tell me you're of some other background and I have no way to dispute that, or even question it. I sort of got the idea you're of some Latin American background, but the former president of Peru, Fujimori, clearly shows that there are people south of Texas who are other than a mix of Spanish and native. I think YOU'RE making assumptions about my thinking which has no basis in reality.

The point is that if the scientists do not find it rigorous or useful, why perpetuate it, especially when virtually all race distinctions AS THEY ARE ACTUALLY USED are superficial, not rigorious, and culturally-based.

But they do have uses, usually in identification. As I pointed out, in describing people it's quite useful. When the police are asking the public to keep an eye out for a suspect race is frequently used, although sometimes with a qualifier. Saying "A lighter skinned black man" is different than saying "A dark skinned white man" even if their skin tones are somewhat close because it gives indication of such things jaw shape and hair type. Likewise, forensic anthropologists can often (although not always) reconstruct the appearance a skull had in life, including coloration, based on characteristics loosely described as "racial". A prognathic jaw is not "culturally-based", you inherit it from your relatives, likewise, cranium shape, nasal aperture width, and so on.

Your natural melinin content is the issue, NOT your ancestry.

But my natural melanin content is because of my ancestry!

Obviously, since many disparate genetic groups have had parallel evolution to adapt to tropical zones. Tying these specific aspects to race is MISLEADING because it implies "dark races" ought to be related. They are not, anymore than all "races" are. You really need more than a Google or Wiki search to understand these things, honey.

We are ALL related, dumbshit - that fact is how you distinguish the bigots from the rest of us. The bigots react in horror at the notion that way back we're ALL Africans, every single one of us. Non-bigots go "wow - that's interesting. How long did it take for everyone who left Africa to look so different from those who stayed put?"

As to the "tropical zone" factoid - not all tropical groups are as dark-skinned as others. The Khoi-san, for example, have lighter skins than their Bantu neighbors as well as epicanthal folds (which is why in the distant past their were sometimes separated out from the rest of southern Africa into their own group) Central Americans live on the equator without being as dark as Africans at the same lattitude. Jumping to other groups - some northern Asians are lighter skinned than some people lumped in as "Caucasian", but they are still called Asians. In fact, in the "three races" system people in India are lumped in with Caucasians even if they have very dark skin. YOU'RE focusing exclusively on skin color, not me and not a lot of other people.

Should we say "well, we're all one species everyone is at X risk for skin cancer" when clearly that is a false statement? In this case, risk for a disease DOES relate to the "three races" system. On the other hand, my friends with African ancestry worry less about skin cancer and more about high blood pressure causing illness. I have a half-Hawaiian friend who worries considerably about her ethinic tendencies towards obesity and diabetes. Should all of these people just ignore their vulnerabilities because they happen to be linked to ethnicity and it's not politically correct to do so? Bullshit.

Right, I'm sure Americans descended from slaves are in desperate need of that being pointed out to him. Your long-windedness might mean shit if this was actually a pressing problem of recognition, but it is not. As if somehow we couldn't tell people that heritage from sub-Saharan Africa is a risk factor for sickle-cell, we have to call people black and hire and accept applications on that basis and perpetuate the racism of hypodescent.

Yes, some people are still ignorant of that fact. I don't know how you leapt from medical facts to "accept applications on that basis and perpetuate racism of hypodescent". People with sickle cell have a medical condition that hinders them in many aspects of life, but carriers do not. Knowing if you're a carrier or not is important if you are planning a family - but the same can be said of the cystic fibrosis gene, which for a fatal genetic defect is very common in Caucasians. Informing white people about their risk of CF is not "perpetuating hypodescent", either. And a child who is half Irish and half Nigerian is possibly at risk of carrying both CF and sickle cell genes, though at extremely low risk of actually having either disease due to his/her parents being much less closely related than, say, two random Italians.

Ancestry is not race. How is it geneticists can work this out, but you apparently think without "race" as you see it, they'll be crippled into not being able to do any of their work. They seem to be doing fine. So you're just a bunch of hot air.

What, you're running out of counter-arguments?

I'm not even talking about race as I see it - Native Americans at first contact had no trouble distinguishing by sight US people who were of European as opposed to African descent even if "race doesn't exist" and it's all "culturally biased"

And I'm not talking about "geneticists" - a group that didn't exit until the 20th Century. Saying "race doesn't exist, we're all one species" is an unsupportably extreme position, just as saying "dachshaunds and greyhounds don't exist - dogs are all one species. Making distinctions between so-called breeds just perpetuates the myth of hypodescent".

I suppose you think you know more than AV, a microbiologist, as well, on the subject. I guess he can't do his job because he doesn't adopt your racial model.

Now who's appealing to authority? I'm not arguing with Admiral Valdemar, I'm arguing with YOU. If the Admiral has an opinion I trust he'll speak up for himself. I will also point out that we are discussing human beings here, not microbiology.