The Race Paradigm

[Delvo]

the word race, as it's used in the media, in much scientific parlance and in everyday speech, includes behavioral and cultural traits which do not derive from any discrete geographic polymorphisms.

What would those included traits be? I can't think of any that I've ever seen included as part of what races are rather than just conditionally affiliated with it under certain circumstances. Nobody expects a Kenyan cattle-herder to buy gold teeth and play rap music about life in the streets and killing whitey. Nobody thinks that a rap-blasting authority-hating gold-toothed guy at age 20 who ends up with a PhD and wearing a business suit to his administrative job for the state government in his 40s has changed his race, or that a daughter of cattle-herders who moves to a city and works for a hospital is a different race from her parents. What behavioral pattern is ever attributed to an entire race in all of the different cultures where members of that race live?

I consider the debate a sidebar to my purpose in creating this thread... I remain firm in my intentions to disintegrate the idea of race. I want to tear it down in order to make a better, more inclusive, less restrictive society. Call it lofty or elitist or liberal or unrealistic; it remains my purpose here

If that's your goal, then the fact that races are real is not irrelevant to it. It's an obstacle and a sign that you're trying to walk down the wrong path for the destination you hope to reach, because no change of people's minds or hearts that I can think of has ever worked by eradicating a concept of something that is real according to all evidence. You can get people to drop concepts of things that there's no evidence for, but with things that definitely exist, all you can do is change their understanding of the details about them. So that's what you should be going for.

For example, macroscopic life was once in two groups: animals (things that move) and plants (things that are stuck to the ground). Mushrooms were plants. Later, people decided to treat mushrooms separately from other things that are stuck to the ground, whether because of discoveries in microbiology or because it was easy to see that they aren't green and don't have leaves. Did this change come from people "disintegrating the idea of" mushrooms? No, it came from people acknowledging that mushrooms were real but saying they should be looked at one way instead of another way. Similarly, there have also been people who thought the Earth was flat, and that the stars were small and close. Nobody changed their minds by telling them to forget about the Earth or stars completely; they did it by giving them another way to describe them and sound reasons to favor that description over the previous one.

To stick with ideas about categories of people, consider handedness. Once there was a "right" hand to use for all one-handed or asymmetrical tasks, and using the other hand was "sinister". Now nobody cares. That change didn't involve anybody saying the idea of handedness is bad and should be ended. We still have the idea, actually the observed fact, of handedness, and nobody could possibly ever have gotten anywhere by saying it wasn't real. All that happened was detaching another concept that was once unnecessarily associated with it.

It's also the same on the individual scale, not just the scale of things whole societies have changed about. For example, I was once under the impression that jet engines were supposed to work like rockets, with the continuous explosion out the back pushing the engine forward (just with one of the reactants being from the air instead of stored onboard). Since then, I've learned that that reaction actually is used as a power source to drive a turbine which drives a compressor and usually a big fan, which are actually what does most of the work by pulling the engine forward. Even when I didn't know as much about jets as I do now, anybody trying to tell me that there's no such thing--or even the more carefully phrased "jet engines, as you think of them, don't exist"--would have just made himself/herself look ridiculous. The way to correct me was to address the real things called "jet engines" that I was already perfectly aware of, and describe them better.

It gets even worse with a word that you've already seen can be defined in more than one way that have important differences from each other. If your fight is only against one of the definitions (one that has behavior built in), then the process you're imposing on yourself consists unnecessarily of two steps instead of one, and those two contradict each other: first, convincing people who use any other definition that their definition is invalid and they should all be using yours instead, and then, if they go along with that, convincing them that the definition you just convinced them to use is invalid and they shouldn't use it. They were already starting off where you wanted them to end up (not including behavior as part of race), so you don't need to try to get them to move at all in the first place! The other people, the ones actually using the definition you object to, are the ones you need to focus on. And you can point them to others who are already using the better definition.

 

[Vortigern99]

Note that all Hispanics and Latinos are of european descent regardless of their self-described color.

I dislike disagreeing with someone whose core ideology I share, but this is factually incorrect. Many Mexican nationals, for example, are descendants of the indigenous Nahua population, and remain largely unmixed with those of Spanish or other European descent. Here is an excellent starting point for educating oneself on Mexican demographics.

Also most (if not all) of those of "african descent" as well.

Citation? This is so far wrong I'm beginning to regret taking up your side.

I doubt you will find many US americans who are not of european descent.

Many of us have mixed ancestry, including Native, African and European.

 

[Vortigern99]

[snip; see two posts above this one for content]

Some constructive and thoughtful points here. I'll digest these and get back to you soon.

 

[Vortigern99]

What would those included [behavioral] traits [which partially define the word race] be? I can't think of any that I've ever seen included as part of what races are rather than just conditionally affiliated with it under certain circumstances. ... What behavioral pattern is ever attributed to an entire race in all of the different cultures where members of that race live?

It's a fair question. My response is that race is used irrationally and erroneously to attribute behavioral traits to genetically similar and/or national populations. And this is precisely my point! That the following assertions, for example, are false is crucial to my purpose here:

• Blacks are happy to live on welfare
• Whites are superior in intelligence
• Mexicans are lazy
• Jews are greedy
• Asians are inscrutable
• American Indians are alcoholics

These are behaviors falsely attributed to populations in order to support belief in ethnocentric supremacism and to defend majority privilege. You seem to be asking me to produce a correct instance of this practice, when in fact the very gist of my argument is that it's incorrect across the board.

If [disintegrating the idea of race is] your goal, then the fact that races are real is not irrelevant to it. It's an obstacle and a sign that you're trying to walk down the wrong path for the destination you hope to reach, because no change of people's minds or hearts that I can think of has ever worked by eradicating a concept of something that is real according to all evidence. You can get people to drop concepts of things that there's no evidence for, but with things that definitely exist, all you can do is change their understanding of the details about them. So that's what you should be going for.

We simply disagree in this. You conclude that race is "real according to all evidence". I stand firm in my interpretation of the same evidence, which accords with the scientific mainstream, in that race is not supported by the evidence. I appreciate your efforts at guidance, but I reject the position from which you are stating your case.

For example, macroscopic life was once in two groups: animals (things that move) and plants (things that are stuck to the ground). [snip for brevity] Similarly, there have also been people who thought the Earth was flat, and that the stars were small and close. Nobody changed their minds by telling them to forget about the Earth or stars completely; they did it by giving them another way to describe them and sound reasons to favor that description over the previous one.

[snip additional example]It's also the same on the individual scale, not just the scale of things whole societies have changed about. [snip additional example]

Once again, the distinction between our positions is that, from my perspective, race is not supported by evidence -- for all of the reasons that GnaGnaMan, other members and I have posted in this and the previously linked threads. You opine that race exists; I do not. Therefore your suggestions that I address race as something real and extant do not apply to my goals. You're welcome, of course, to continue disagreeing with this conclusion, but I stand by my assessment.

It gets even worse with a word that you've already seen can be defined in more than one way that have important differences from each other. If your fight is only against one of the definitions (one that has behavior built in), then the process you're imposing on yourself consists unnecessarily of two steps instead of one, and those two contradict each other: first, convincing people who use any other definition that their definition is invalid and they should all be using yours instead, and then, if they go along with that, convincing them that the definition you just convinced them to use is invalid and they shouldn't use it. They were already starting off where you wanted them to end up (not including behavior as part of race), so you don't need to try to get them to move at all in the first place! The other people, the ones actually using the definition you object to, are the ones you need to focus on. And you can point them to others who are already using the better definition.

It's a good thing, then, that I'm not performing either of those two steps! The usage of the word race in media, in scientific literature and in common parlance already includes behavioral traits. Argue against it all you like; I see it in every journalistic and biological article on the subject I've read, and I hear it in every conversation I've had about it with friends and strangers.

So the first step you erroneously ascribe to me -- "convincing people who use any other definition that their definition is invalid and they should all be using yours instead" is, from my point of view, exactly what you're trying to do. It is you who are attempting to foist a secondary definition on the rest of us: namely, a definition of race which is solely genetic and/or geographic. The second step you've conjured out of straw for me -- "convincing them that the definition you just convinced them to use is invalid and they shouldn't use it" is, again, exactly what you've been trying to do.

This is where I remind you, yet again, that our starting points are different. You believe race is real. I don't. Accept this and let's move on.

 

[GnaGnaMan]

I dislike disagreeing with someone whose core ideology I share, but this is factually incorrect. Many Mexican nationals, for example, are descendants of the indigenous Nahua population, and remain largely unmixed with those of Spanish or other European descent. Here is an excellent starting point for educating oneself on Mexican demographics.

I don't think that members of native american ethnic groups are considered hispanic or latino. Even so, I doubt if you would find many who do not have a few european ancestors, at least outside of the rainforests,
Ethnicity is, after all, not a biological category.

In the total [Mexican-Mestizo] population sample, paternal ancestry was predominately European (64.9%), followed by Native American (30.8%) and African (4.2%). However, the European ancestry was prevalent in the north and west (66.7–95%) and, conversely, Native American ancestry increased in the center and southeast (37–50%),[...]

http://www.nature.com/jhg/journal/v57/n9/full/jhg201267a.html

Here's a free paper. Different method, same conclusion.

Citation? This is so far wrong I'm beginning to regret taking up your side.

African american populations are estimated to have close to 20% european ancestry. (source)

On average, we inherit 25% of our genetic material from each single grand-parent and 12.5% from each single great-grand-parent. However, that is an average. It may be more or less, even none, depending on random chance.

The european genetic contribution to so-called african american contrbutions equals at least a great grand-parent, for example in Philadelphia, but is almost as high as a grand-parent in New Orleans.

Many of us have mixed ancestry, including Native, African and European.

Let's consider the math. Usually a person has 2 parents, 4 grand-parents, 8 great-grand-parents, for a total of 14 ancestors in the previous 3 generations. If only a single one of those is of a specific origin, then it is reasonable to claim ancestry of that geographic or ethnic origin.
One could argue about how much further it would be reasonable to go back. Some, particularly those with a weakness for european aristocracy, might say that any length of time is fine as long as it is documented and/or it is a direct male line.
If we assume one generation to take an average of 25 years, then 350 years is 14 generations, or a few ten thousand potential ancestors.

Much depends on what one is willing to consider as ancestry. If one is willing to consider even a single person among all those ancestors in the last few hundred years to make someone of X descent then you will probably only find mixed ancestry in the americas. Of course, such a small contribution may not necessarily be detectable, even in principle as the genetic material may have simply "dropped out".
Not the scale we are dealing with anyways.

 

[Vortigern99]

I don't think that members of native american ethnic groups are considered hispanic or latino.

This is a question of ethnicity, as you rightly point out below, but for the sake of a brief sidebar in this thread on race, I'll proceed. The terms Hispanic and Latino denote a racially diverse population, with roots in all continents. There is some disagreement over precise definitions, but in common parlance and in the US Census, Hispanic simply means "Spanish-speaking", while Latino may mean any resident of Mexico, Central and South America, Puerto Rico or Cuba.

One such group are Mexican immigrants to the US and their US-citizen descendants. Some of these are exclusively or mostly Indio, or they may have some European ancestry, but the precise percentages will be difficult to work out, since genetic testing is not available to the vast majority of them. In any case they almost universally self-identify as Latino or Hispanic, or both.

Even so, I doubt if you would find many who do not have a few european ancestors, at least outside of the rainforests,
Ethnicity is, after all, not a biological category.

In the total [Mexican-Mestizo] population sample, paternal ancestry was predominately European (64.9%), followed by Native American (30.8%) and African (4.2%). However, the European ancestry was prevalent in the north and west (66.7–95%) and, conversely, Native American ancestry increased in the center and southeast (37–50%),[...]

http://www.nature.com/jhg/journal/v57/n9/full/jhg201267a.html

Here's a free paper. Different method, same conclusion.

Okay, it looks like the total Mestizo ("mixed") population of Mexico is larger than I thought. At 93% of the population that's obviously a very large chunk of the nation. I appreciate the link and the education. However, I find this bit and its ramifications noteworthy:

...this pattern [of European paternal ancestry] contrasts with the maternal ancestry, mainly of Native American origin, based on maternal lineages haplogroups. In agreement with historical records, these results confirm a strong gender-biased admixture history between European males and Native American females that gave rise to Mexican-Mestizos.

Given the centuries of on-going miscegenation since the settlement of Mexico by Spaniards, that distinctly European element of Mestizo ancestry has been heavily diluted. Example: In the year 1600, a 100% Spaniard man marrying a 100% Native (Indio) woman would have produced any number of 50%-Spaniard, 50%-Indio children, the males of which -- according to "historical records" cited in the free portion of that article -- went on to marry purely Indio women, and so on through time. Thus, while it's accurate to identify a high percentage of Mestizos as having some European ancestry, the actual amount of European genetic material remaining in a Mestizo of either sex today would be negligible.

African american populations are estimated to have close to 20% european ancestry. (source)

Okay, when you wrote "most (if not all) of those of 'african descent'", I thought you meant the Hispanics to whom you had referred in the previous sentence. I blame the intertoobz and the vagaries of text-based debate.

On average, we inherit 25% of our genetic material from each single grand-parent and 12.5% from each single great-grand-parent. However, that is an average. It may be more or less, even none, depending on random chance.

The european genetic contribution to so-called african american contrbutions equals at least a great grand-parent, for example in Philadelphia, but is almost as high as a grand-parent in New Orleans.

Let's consider the math. Usually a person has 2 parents, 4 grand-parents, 8 great-grand-parents, for a total of 14 ancestors in the previous 3 generations. If only a single one of those is of a specific origin, then it is reasonable to claim ancestry of that geographic or ethnic origin.
One could argue about how much further it would be reasonable to go back. Some, particularly those with a weakness for european aristocracy, might say that any length of time is fine as long as it is documented and/or it is a direct male line.

If we assume one generation to take an average of 25 years, then 350 years is 14 generations, or a few ten thousand potential ancestors.

Much depends on what one is willing to consider as ancestry. If one is willing to consider even a single person among all those ancestors in the last few hundred years to make someone of X descent then you will probably only find mixed ancestry in the americas. Of course, such a small contribution may not necessarily be detectable, even in principle as the genetic material may have simply "dropped out".
Not the scale we are dealing with anyways.

All fascinating and much appreciated reading material. I can't so much as quibble with a word of it.

 

[Delvo]

I consider the debate a sidebar to my purpose in creating this thread. There have been and remain other threads for the in-depth discussion on the legitimacy of race in this forum

I remain firm in my intentions to disintegrate the idea of race. I want to tear it down...

How can an idea's legitimacy be only a sidebar to the subject of trying to get rid of it? That sounds like you'd be just as interested in getting rid of it if it's legitimate as if it isn't.

These are behaviors falsely attributed to populations in order to support belief in ethnocentric supremacism and to defend majority privilege. You seem to be asking me to produce a correct instance of this practice

Not a matter of accuracy or inaccuracy; I'm just looking for one that's actually applied to a race, not just those members of one who happen to be in a particular sociolopolitical context.

We simply disagree in this. You conclude... I stand firm in my interpretation... I reject the position...

The issue is not what I think or what you think, but what the general populace thinks. That's a lot of people, which means a lot who have as much doubt that human races are real as they have that mushrooms, stars, jet engines, and human "handedness" are. For some, it will be because they're aware of the allele clusters and the fact that scientific studies offered as supposedly countering them actually do not do so. Others will not have looked into it to in that way but will still be aware of human races by plain observation of the real world they live in, which is harder to fight than articles about statistical algorithms supposedly run by some distant stranger. Imagine listening to someone trying to tell you that mushrooms, stars, jet engines, or human handedness don't exist; that's the position they are in on this subject.

...in order to make a better, more inclusive, less restrictive society.

That goal would be met just as well by people who don't deny races' existence, but just don't attach the harmful stuff to it, which already describes most people. Why try telling lots of people that something they know exists doesn't, when you can instead simply tell a few that it's somewhat different in nature from what they might think? Look at it from their point of view instead of your own.

your suggestions that I address race as something real and extant do not apply to my goals.

They do, because your goal requires addressing people who have that perspective, regardless of whether you do or not. The people you need to work on are not the ones who already think just like you; they're the ones who don't. That's where the two opposite steps came from: the need to preach to us sinners, not to your choir. I almost wrote that as "quire".

So the first step you erroneously ascribe to me -- "convincing people who use any other definition that their definition is invalid and they should all be using yours instead" is, from my point of view, exactly what you're trying to do.

Whether I am doing it or not, it's still the task you're assigning yourself. (The only way for that not to be the case is if you think everybody else already agrees with you, which you appear not to.)

The usage of the word race in media, in scientific literature and in common parlance already includes behavioral traits.

Examples of this? I know of none at all. (To start with, the list you made earlier in the post doesn't qualify; with "X people/things are Y description", you could take away Y, or even replace it with the opposite of Y, and X would still be X. For example, "elephants never forget" or "elephants sometimes forget" or "elephants always forget"... elephants are still elephants in any/all or none of the above cases, so the fact that someone can (accurately or inaccurately) describe elephants in any of those ways does not make any such description a built-in inherent part of elephanthood.)

 

[Vortigern99]

I consider the debate a sidebar to my purpose in creating this thread. There have been and remain other threads for the in-depth discussion on the legitimacy of race in this forum

I remain firm in my intentions to disintegrate the idea of race. I want to tear it down...

How can an idea's legitimacy be only a sidebar to the subject of trying to get rid of it? That sounds like you'd be just as interested in getting rid of it if it's legitimate as if it isn't.

I'm unconcerned with what it "sounds like" to you. You're forming your own opinions irrespective of my thoughts or intentions. I've examined the evidence and I conclude that the idea of race is not supported. You disagree. Let's move on.

These are behaviors falsely attributed to populations in order to support belief in ethnocentric supremacism and to defend majority privilege. You seem to be asking me to produce a correct instance of this practice

Not a matter of accuracy or inaccuracy; I'm just looking for one that's actually applied to a race, not just those members of one who happen to be in a particular sociolopolitical context.

Then you'll have to find one for yourself, since that is your goal and yours alone. I'm not interested in doing your research for you, or spending time answering your requests for data only you care about. Let us know what you find, or don't.

We simply disagree in this. You conclude... I stand firm in my interpretation... I reject the position...

The issue is not what I think or what you think, but what the general populace thinks. That's a lot of people, which means a lot who have as much doubt that human races are real as they have that mushrooms, stars, jet engines, and human "handedness" are. For some, it will be because they're aware of the allele clusters and the fact that scientific studies offered as supposedly countering them actually do not do so. Others will not have looked into it to in that way but will still be aware of human races by plain observation of the real world they live in, which is harder to fight than articles about statistical algorithms supposedly run by some distant stranger. Imagine listening to someone trying to tell you that mushrooms, stars, jet engines, or human handedness don't exist; that's the position they are in on this subject.

Points taken and considered. If I don't take your advice, the consequences will be mine to shoulder.

...in order to make a better, more inclusive, less restrictive society.

That goal would be met just as well by people who don't deny races' existence, but just don't attach the harmful stuff to it, which already describes most people. Why try telling lots of people that something they know exists doesn't, when you can instead simply tell a few that it's somewhat different in nature from what they might think? Look at it from their point of view instead of your own.

They don't "know" race exists, they believe it based on enculturation. Otherwise, points taken; if I ignore your advice any consequences will be mine to suffer.

your suggestions that I address race as something real and extant do not apply to my goals.

They do, because your goal requires addressing people who have that perspective, regardless of whether you do or not. The people you need to work on are not the ones who already think just like you; they're the ones who don't. That's where the two opposite steps came from: the need to preach to us sinners, not to your choir. [....]

'Kay. Consider your mission fulfilled: you got that off your chest, I read it and thought about it, and now we can both move on with our lives.

So the first step you erroneously ascribe to me -- "convincing people who use any other definition that their definition is invalid and they should all be using yours instead" is, from my point of view, exactly what you're trying to do.

Whether I am doing it or not, it's still the task you're assigning yourself. (The only way for that not to be the case is if you think everybody else already agrees with you, which you appear not to.)

See above.

The usage of the word race in media, in scientific literature and in common parlance already includes behavioral traits.

Examples of this? I know of none at all. (To start with, the list you made earlier in the post doesn't qualify; with "X people/things are Y description", you could take away Y, or even replace it with the opposite of Y, and X would still be X. For example, "elephants never forget" or "elephants sometimes forget" or "elephants always forget"... elephants are still elephants in any/all or none of the above cases, so the fact that someone can (accurately or inaccurately) describe elephants in any of those ways does not make any such description a built-in inherent part of elephanthood.)

I'm finished with your tortured analogies, and browbeating me with what amounts to a different interpretation of the evidence. If you're quite done (or even if you are not), I'm going to proceed with the original purpose behind this thread.

 

[Vortigern99]

Misguided Caucasian self-flagellation

Many so-called white people suffer under a burden of misplaced, personal guilt that derives from their self-affiliation with the heinous misdeeds of other, long-dead people who are also called "white".

Case in point: A few weeks ago I was having a discussion on race with some close friends of mine. We were talking about the old Houston-area convenience store called U-Totem, the name and signage of which, R. and S. opined, was racist against Native Americans. I asserted that while I deeply value my Native heritage, using a totem pole -- or any otherwise innocuous Native iconography -- as a marketing tool was not, IMO, racist. Steve pulled up an image he had saved of an older U-Totem icon, a cartoon of a goofy-looking, pot-bellied Native man (which had disappeared by the time I became aware of the store chain, in the late 70s). S. was visibly triumphant in his demonstration of this icon, as though it proved his point: U-Totem and its signage were racist against American Indians. That said, he confided that he thought the cartoon was pretty funny.

So long as we agreed that it was racist, in other words, he was prepared to laugh at it.

I countered that any company or individual should be free to use the iconography of any so-called race, human population, cultural group or ethnicity without being accused of racism, so long as the icon(s) in question were not demeaning, dehumanizing or suppressive. I said that restricting the presumably white people who owned U-Totem from using Native iconography in a harmless manner (IE. marketing with a name and cartoon) was itself racist, in that it restricted liberty based on the skin color ("white" or pink) and geographic ancestry of the store chain owners.

I went on something of a rant at this point, decrying the general lack of cultural acknowledgement of the horrors our non-Native forebears inflicted on our Native ancestors; S. for example did not know what the Trail of Tears was, and did not know that Natives had been enslaved in this country. I told him he was replacing a deep and valuable experience of coming to terms with true racism with a pretend offense at cartoons and store signage. I said that while the suffering of those of African descent was widely recognized and talked about -- that films and literature and conversations addressing the black experience and the horrors of black slavery were becoming more mainstream and ubiquitous -- a similar acknowledgement of Native genocide and slavery was/is undergoing an opposite development.

At this point R., thinking he was agreeing with me, stepped up and acknowledged that "we" had enslaved blacks and Indians and that "we" had to shoulder a burden of blame, fault, complicity for this. I told him no, he was mistaken. I explained that "we" -- he and I, his living relatives and mine -- had done nothing of the sort. We had not committed those heinous acts. We could be held no more liable for the crimes of our "white" ancestors than we could be for any wars between Native tribes, or that any "black" person could be held accountable for being descended from an African slaver who once captured and sold other Africans to the Portuguese or to the English. For all we knew, our ancestors were abolitionists, or never owned slaves, or were Indian sympathizers, or lived in non-slave states... and even if they weren't, how can it matter now? They're long dead and their ideologies with them.

S. and R. are punishing themselves inside, psychologically and emotionally, for the presumed guilt of being white. I submit it's time to move on from this, to free ourselves from some perceived complicity in slavery and genocide, which may or may nor have been committed by our personal ancestors. Read about it, study it, understand it, consider it, take it to heart... and move on.

 

[Delvo]

the word race, as it's used in the media, in much scientific parlance and in everyday speech, includes behavioral and cultural traits which do not derive from any discrete geographic polymorphisms.

What would those included traits be? I can't think of any that I've ever seen included as part of what races are rather than just conditionally affiliated with it under certain circumstances... What behavioral pattern is ever attributed to an entire race in all of the different cultures where members of that race live?

It's a fair question. My response is that race is used irrationally and erroneously to attribute behavioral traits to genetically similar and/or national populations. And this is precisely my point! That the following assertions, for example, are false is crucial to my purpose here:

• Blacks are happy to live on welfare
• Whites are superior in intelligence
• Mexicans are lazy
• Jews are greedy
• Asians are inscrutable
• American Indians are alcoholics

These are behaviors falsely attributed to populations in order to support belief in ethnocentric supremacism and to defend majority privilege. You seem to be asking me to produce a correct instance of this practice

Not a matter of accuracy or inaccuracy; I'm just looking for one that's actually applied to a race, not just those members of one who happen to be in a particular sociolopolitical context.

Then you'll have to find one for yourself, since that is your goal and yours alone. I'm not interested in doing your research for you, or spending time answering your requests for data only you care about.

It's your definition that I was looking for some support for.

You said the word "race" is defined by ideas like those prejudices in your list. If the defining ideas you're talking about are not applied to a race (for example, all black people verywhere, not just black people in the USA on welfare), then they can not be part of the word's definition. So a definition based on behaviors relies on there being some behaviors that are actually attributed to whole races, not just to sociopolitical fragments of them, which your list didn't include. Alternatively, to just stick with that list, those items are so narrow and specific that the only way for them to be part of what the word means is if, for example, "black people in the USA on welfare" is said to be one race, "black people in the USA not on welfare" is another, and "black people not in the USA" is at least one more. Either way, your definition remains something I've seen no sign of in the word's real-world use or in any dictionary, but I'm not the one claiming it's the definition in the first place. You are. If you don't support your definition, then it will remain unsupported here, because I can't.

But, based on this next bit, nevermind, because I guess what definition you're using and how you came up with it doesn't matter under these circumstances:

I consider the debate a sidebar to my purpose in creating this thread. There have been and remain other threads for the in-depth discussion on the legitimacy of race in this forum... I remain firm in my intentions to disintegrate the idea of race. I want to tear it down

How can an idea's legitimacy be only a sidebar to the subject of trying to get rid of it? That sounds like you'd be just as interested in getting rid of it if it's legitimate as if it isn't.

I'm unconcerned with what it "sounds like" to you. You're forming your own opinions irrespective of my thoughts or intentions. I've examined the evidence and I conclude that the idea of race is not supported. You disagree. Let's move on.

I wasn't continuing the discussion of whether races are real or not. I was asking how that issue can be just a "sidebar" to the cultural advocacy that is your primary interest here. If whether a given proposition is true or not is a "sidebar" with no effect on the goal of getting people to accept that proposition anyway, then it's a simple case of "the facts don't matter". I asked for some other way to interpret this because that's not a conclusion I wanted to take lightly, but you gave me no correction/alternative, so I have no choice, no way to avoid concluding that that's what it really was: you saying that the facts just don't matter. (You could have said so a long time ago.)

Not only is that the standard approach of Creationists and other faithies, but even the reason for it--to uphold a claimed moral imperative--is the same. I have seen this similarity in race deniers before, but to see one actually admit it is rare, probably because most are aware that it discredits their own case more thoroughly than anything anybody else could say.

 

[Vortigern99]

You continue to twist logic and cherry-pick my posts in order to present a distorted view of my ideology. I have zero interest in spending my precious time arguing semantics with you. My conclusions agree with and are supported by mainstream biology. You're free to disagree.

 

[quixotecoyote]

You continue to twist logic and cherry-pick my posts in order to present a distorted view of my ideology. I have zero interest in spending my precious time arguing semantics with you. My conclusions agree with and are supported by mainstream biology. You're free to disagree.

The biggest objection you've run into is trying to include stereotypical behaviors under the definition of race.

That's about as far away from biology as you can get.

 

[Jono]

I don't think that members of native american ethnic groups are considered hispanic or latino. Even so, I doubt if you would find many who do not have a few european ancestors, at least outside of the rainforests,
Ethnicity is, after all, not a biological category.

How is the above not a contradictive statement? You clarify the genetic ancestry of said groups as inclusive for one identity, but not for others due to being of biologically different heritage (and not just socio-economic).

 

[Vortigern99]

Pursuant to the goal of tearing down the divisive and socially destructive practice of automatic racial affiliation, so endemic in current American culture (I cannot speak to the phenomenon as it exists in the rest of the world), I offer the following anecdotes, and invite others to do the same.

My great uncle (my mother's father's brother) was murdered by "black" men on a roadway in Houston, Texas in the 1940s. My young-at-the-time grandfather and he had pulled over to help two stranded motorists, black males who then proceeded, for reasons unknown, to murder my great uncle. I don't know any more details than that of the story, though it bears noting that Johnny was, according to all sources, the light of the family, well-loved by his fiancee (who decades later still pined over losing him) and held in adoration by his friends and brother. I am said to look something like him -- strikingly tall and dark-haired, with "boyish" features.

When I was a child I attributed the events of that story to the anti-black, racist ideology which I knew my grandfather to hold. When I repeated this impression to my mother, she assured me that "Paw-paw" had already been racist, and that John's murder had only cemented his uncharitable feelings towards those of African descent.

Years later, I learned the rest of the story. My grandfather had sought out and murdered the perpetrators; the Houston police, aware of the crime, had done nothing to pursue a case against my grandfather. It's possible that, had my grandfather gone to jail or even stood trial, my mother would never have been conceived (she was born in 1948) and that, ergo, I would not be here telling you this story.

Frankly, all of this boggles my brain. Why did the men kill Uncle John by the roadside? Was it a mugging gone wrong? Was there anti-white racism behind the act? (The event occurred on "Juneteenth", which is the day in Texas in which blacks celebrate emancipation.) How could my grandfather have been sure he was killing the actual perpetrators? How did he know their names, their addresses? Did he in fact murder two innocent black men in the name of vengeance? It's all so horrifying to contemplate.

More later.

 

[blutoski]

I am curious, so I scanned the digitized version of the current edition for comparison. The chapter on race and ethnicity has been chopped down quite a bit. I expect there has been a trend to head off complaints by removing controversial content from introductory courses, and the authors responded. Anthropology always walks a political tightrope.

And ethnocline was problematic due to what you indicate above: are we talking about ethnicity or biological racial features? Perhaps the term was too vague to be useful, but yes, it described a gradual change of ethnicity (cultural and physiological) across a geography. As opposed to abrupt changes, such as geographic/geologic borders or unoccupied regions like a desert, mountain range, or ocean.

Long gap in this discussion, but I just had a conversation with an anthro prof at UBC and of all things 'ethnocline' came up. She described its drop in popularity as pretty much what I hypothesized above: too vague - does not distinguish between race versus culture.

The correct anthropological word to describe biological gradient across time or geography, she teaches to students today, is now simply the same as that used in biology: "Cline^WP" See also Race (human classification) / Cline.^WP

Ethnocline would have a very explicit use describing strictly cultural gradients across time or geography.

 

[Delvo]

.....