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MODNOTE This thread has been split from here: Forum Tolerance of Racism. This thread is here to discuss the scientific issues surrounding race and racism, and the current consensus in anthropology. Although this is a valid topic I cannot stress enough how pertinent it is for all of you to avoid making racist comments. They will not be treated lightly. If you wish to avoid being sanctioned for racist bigotry then present scientific evidence for any unpopular positions you may have - whilst this may not be a foolproof form of protection, it will at least give the moderators here the impression that you are attempting to engage in serious discussion, rather than simply trolling the thread with racist nonsense. Now, play nice. Mr.Samsa

TMB wrote:
Are you saying that there are no material differences between people we might describe as ‘white’ or ‘black’. If so, how does this work?

I've never said anything of the kind. What I have pointed out, on literally thousands of occasions (the online ones being only a small portion of that total) is the FACT that these material differences don't come from, or work according to the premises of, racism.

Do you mean by this that sex can either be a social construct or one based upon physiology?

"Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina" is a perfectly reasonable factual observation corresponding to someone's "sex" (for the vast majority of humans). "Girls are 'emotional'" or "Boys are impatient", however, are blatantly sexist statements because they put the cart before the horse and presume causal attribution without warrant.

Me: Racism is not just attributing positive or negative traits to so-called "races," but the larger general practice of treating "race" as having causal power in its own right (as contrasted against the real effects of political fictions, which can be and are scientifically observable).

Do you hold the view that there is no such thing as race?

No. "Army of Darkness is the best movie of all time" is a view. "There is no such thing as 'race,' as popularly understood" is a FACT, not a view.

I accept that people make inferences based upon political agendas, ignorance etc, however does this mean that there are no causative factors at work?

Once again..."race" (as with other political fictions) may point to real effects, and real effects can be caused by people TREATING the fiction as if it were real, but race per se has no causal power in its own right because it ISN'T REAL.

Me: Santa Claus is a pile of made-up nonsense, but real people acting to participate in the Santa Claus charade produce real effects. So too with "race."

I disagree with this analogy. You are implying that ‘race’ is just a dress up with no basis in reality whatever just like Santa. Where is the evidence to support this assertion?

There's nothing to disagree with, because it's NOT an opinion. Do you also "disagree" with physics, biology, and chemistry?

I do NOT imply that "race" is just dress up. I state it plainly. As with other political fictions, it points to real things and misattributes those real things to fictional sources.

I do accept the political effect of this, but cannot see that race is just fiction, can you support your assertion?

It's not an assertion, but a factual observation. Heredity, culture, ideology, personal abilities, variance in aptitude...all of these things do NOT operate on the ridiculous mythological bases premised by racism. The casual superficial identification of people in everyday life as "white" or "black" or "Asian" is a completely different universe from the world of geneticists, epidemiologists, heredity studies, etc.

The fiction is found NOT in the concrete things pointed to, but in the misattribution of their sources. If you're still unclear on it, or still suffering from the delusion that "race" as popularly understood and pretended has even the slightest shred of basis, then fire up a thread on it and I'll see you there.


Me: Are there clear differences in outward appearance of human beings based upon descent? Of course there are...but they don't account for the things racism ascribes to them, nor do they operate in the manner asserted by racist doctrines.

That depends upon what you assert these to be and if there is evidence to support these.

No, it fucking doesn't. Popular "race" mythology, while necessarily shifting with the times and self-contradictory (since it is NOT AT ALL rigorous, let alonce scientific) is NOT any old idea. It is the widespread superstition which posits that one can make reliable inferences about someone's abilities and character based upon wildly inconsistent and arbitrary snap judgments of superficial outward appearance and presumptions of descent.

Ear wax shows racial differences, and while not definitive, East Asians and Native Americans tend to have dry ear wax and Africans and Caucasians have wet wax. I have chosen something trivial to differentiate because many people are not aware of this and are unlikely to offended if someone calls them a ‘dry ear wax person’. I am well aware of racist doctrines and the prejudices caused based upon ignorance, however this does not mean there are no racial differences.

Go reread the passages where I emphasized REAL things with FICTIONAL attribution. The point is that one does not have dry vs. wet ear wax BECAUSE of "being" a particular "race." Rather, "race" attribution is itself already after-the-fact. "Racial" assignment is a Frankensteinian mishmash of arbitrary judgments, completely separated from any genetic analysis (last I checked, casual observers on the street or in the office or pretty much anywhere outside of a genetic research lab do NOT go around collecting DNA samples...their assignment of various "races" to people they see is based upon superficial cues and inescapably so).


Me: So NO, there is absolutely NO evidence supporting racism, as racism is NOT the mere recognition of superficial differences, but the (mis)attribution of all manner of abilities and characteristics in a way which does NOT actually obtain.

Misattribution is something many people do, much of the time, and is not restricted to peoples approach to race. We do this in politics, in gender relations, to our children, in business and so on. This does not mean that there are no actual differences, or that these have implications in many important spheres of life.

The popularity of a fiction, and the availability of clear explanations for that fiction...don't make it any less fictional.

I am not suggesting that racist policies make correct attributions, just that because these exist does not mean all differences are fiction. Once agin I would like to see something substantive to back your assertion.

Once again, you're completely missing the point, and it's not an assertion but an observation. It requires no special equipment, only access to mundane facts which can be and are easily reproduced and observed by anyone living in a society where "race" mythology has taken hold, in order to confirm and re-confirm.

For example, "race" mythology would have us believe in bullshit like blood quanta (i.e. as people being 1/4 This, 1/8 That, etc.). Go try and find any competent geneticist or biologist who's worked with any DNA to show you a "white" gene or a "Japanese" gene. There's no such thing, of course. Remeber: a "white" gene would NOT be some sequence coding for lighter complexion, but rather a distinct genetic marker, easily and clearly identifiable, which consistently corresponds to a human being who would be identified as "white" in daily life. A "Japanese" gene, similarly, would NOT mean identifying by certain markers a *probability* statement suggesting that the person in question had ancestors known to have lived in what is now marked off as Japan, but (again) a reliable sequence which corresponds to who is socially identified as "Japanese." We absolutely DO of course have genes, and we absolutely DO have obvious differences in outward appearance. They do not, however, cause or are caused by the factors pretended by "race" mythology.

Me: As I stated in my previous post, I don't see any clear or easy moderator solution for addressing racist posts which wouldn't threaten to undermine real discussion.

Real (do you mean rational?) discussion is not an issue around race, it is an issue of the way our brains are socially wired. We are capable of irrational discussion on any topic you choose to name. Just as we are capable of being bigoted and prejudiced based upon our social conditioning. On any subject. This does not mean that differences do not exist between races.

Correct, but not at all in the way you likely imagine. That people who have been socialized into sharing a common fictional frame of reference are able to (with relative consistency) make the same fictional identifications DOES NOT MAKE THOSE FRAMES OF REFERENCE ANY LESS FICTIONAL. So you are correct that the ability of humans to be irrational about all manner of subjects is not what accounts for there being no races (as popularly understood and pretended).

What DOES make it the case that there are no differences between "races" is the fact that "race" ISN'T REAL. Well-developed political fictions can be consistent, and deeply so, but they are absolutely incapable of being ACCURATE because (hello?!?) they are fictional. It may be grammatically sound to pose a statement like

"Some dragons are fire-breathing, and some are not"

but such statements can only (at best) be internally consistent (within a fiction). They can't be accurate because the subject of the sentence ("Some dragons") refers to something that doesn't actually exist in the first place.

Consistency aids in suspension of disbelief, and in shared pretense -- as when an audience is emotionally convinced by an excellent stage performance of various actors in character -- but this is never a replacement for basis in fact.

You have said that race is not real. I accept the baggage around the term, however you are implying that there are no physiological differences whatever aside from skin color (and you imply this is a construct). I don’t see the evidence to support this.

Complete and total bullshit. I have never claimed that humans per se don't display plenty of physiological differences. The point (and what makes "race" fictional) is that these REAL differences do NOT operate in the manner premised by "race" mythology. "Race" is nothing BUT baggage...take the baggage away and there's nothing left.

It is not at all racist to identify differences of physiology, culture, aptitude, actual performance, etc. among humans. What IS racist, and what is indeed the very heart of racism, is the arbitrary mythological assignment of "racial" identities to people based upon superficial outward traits and then the pretense that these after-the-fact group assignments actually cause ANYTHING in their own right.

Short version: look up the word "reify" and think about it...for a long time.

Chad Zichterman wrote:"There is no such thing as 'race,' as popularly understood" is a FACT, not a view.

You're awfully long winded for someone confused about the correct meaning of the simple word "fact".

I am undecided because there seems to be degrees of racism which governments regard as proper and other degrees which are not. So I find it impossible to feel anger against a person who goes to a job interview to find they are not looking for the most suitable, but the most likely to fill an ethnic quota. Same for the other tales you hear when one minority gets preference over another.

So I think there still needs to be a bit of tolerance in who is classed racist with a actual complaint regarding a situation forced on them which may or may not just be a local issue and the true racist who has no real complaint but just think they are some kind of superior being with imagined superior rights.

(to Tyrannical)
Your opinion about me being long-winded is off-topic. Clear identification of what constitutes racism is integral to contentions about how to implement the FUA re: racist bigotry. Since it is important, and since there is still lots of rabid make-belief with regards to this issue, it's not going to be articulated in tidy little short bits like a fucking essay outline. It's a messy subject. Get over it.

It seems to me that this issue is quite simple: if you are going to espouse a racist point of view then back it up with verifiable evidence, so that said evidence cna be interrogated.

This is what so many racists are unwilling to do, because they have nothing.

Chad Zichterman wrote:(to Tyrannical)
Your opinion about me being long-winded is off-topic. Clear identification of what constitutes racism is integral to contentions about how to implement the FUA re: racist bigotry. Since it is important, and since there is still lots of rabid make-belief with regards to this issue, it's not going to be articulated in tidy little short bits like a fucking essay outline. It's a messy subject. Get over it.

Yes, well in your previous post you kept incorrectly calling things facts that were not facts.
No matter how much you wish to call race a social construct, and no matter how many times you repeat it, it is still not a fact. It is an opinion.

Spearthrower wrote:

Tyrannical wrote:

Chad Zichterman wrote:(to Tyrannical)
Your opinion about me being long-winded is off-topic. Clear identification of what constitutes racism is integral to contentions about how to implement the FUA re: racist bigotry. Since it is important, and since there is still lots of rabid make-belief with regards to this issue, it's not going to be articulated in tidy little short bits like a fucking essay outline. It's a messy subject. Get over it.

Yes, well in your previous post you kept incorrectly calling things facts that were not facts.
No matter how much you wish to call race a social construct, and no matter how many times you repeat it, it is still not a fact. It is an opinion.

A consensus opinion based on genetic data, rather than political and social constructs.

It's still an opinion, and it isn't a consensus either. Definitely not a fact.
You may believe race to be a social construct, but you know full well that view is not held unanimously amongst physical anthropologists. Yes, they do a little dance around the language sometimes.

Tyrannical wrote:

Chad Zichterman wrote:
Yes, well in your previous post you kept incorrectly calling things facts that were not facts.
No matter how much you wish to call race a social construct, and no matter how many times you repeat it, it is still not a fact. It is an opinion.

You are flat out wrong.

The statement: "Race, as popularly understood, is a fiction" IS a fact.

"Race" mythology is premised upon empirical claims which have long since been disproven.

Any participation in the reification of "race," treating "race" as something actual rather than pretended, IS racism. Claims of "racial" superiority or inferiority are just a subset of forms of racism.

Firstly, the natives of Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea would be classified as a species if it were not for political correctness.

Chad Zichterman wrote:The statement: "Race, as popularly understood, is a fiction" IS a fact.

"Race" mythology is premised upon empirical claims which have long since been disproven.

Any participation in the reification of "race," treating "race" as something actual rather than pretended, IS racism. Claims of "racial" superiority or inferiority are just a subset of forms of racism.

Your backpedaling statement "The statement: "Race, as popularly understood, is a fiction" IS a fact." was good for a laugh though. Still not a fact. I suggest you look up the word "fact" in the dictionary, since you seem unfamiliar with it's meaning.


Spearthrower, though long worded is your argument, neither consensus nor unanimous opinion makes for a fact.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/mailbag/race-word-jettison-comment-2009.html

Mailbag: Race, words and definitions

I believe this problem with the word "race" which biologists have needs to
be handled as a communication problem. The way that biologists use the term
is, like the word "species" Darwinian, but that is not what "normal" people
mean. The flexible concept of an interbreeding population is fine and clear
to me, but it is not what most people think of when they read about
biologists proving the existence of races and species.

I think this is what prompted most anthropologists to jettison the word. But then there are two strains in anthropology that are hard to reconcile with each other. One strain rejects the word "race" with its unpleasant social correlates, but pretty much retains the nineteenth-century concept. Another strain rejects the concept of race entirely.
This of course becomes confusing because we can see statements like "anthropologists all agree there's no such thing as race," but in fact some really do believe there are no such groups, while others believe in such groups for all intents and purposes but refer to them only with Orwellian terms!
I don't have any answer, really, but you're certainly correct that it's a public communication nightmare. In my classes, I estimate half the students just assume that anthropologists are lying about race.

Spearthrower wrote:Tyrannical.

I am at a loss as to how you can so completely misconstrue a simple body of text.

One 'strain' of anthropologists are Cultural Anthropologists. They work in the social arena and see how race is a social construct. To them, the formation of social constructs, like in-grouping/out-grouping is interesting with regards to understanding that culture. No one has ever denied that there are people who use racist descriptors to categorise others; we have a violent history that shows very clearly that people do believe in these social constructs.

The other 'strain' of anthropologists are Physical Anthropologists who, as John Hawks says, reject the concept of race entirely on scientific grounds. They have found that race is an invalid concept with regards to genetics and population studies.

Are you equivocating, or is it just miscomprehension?

That's not what I understand the text to mean. Some Anthropologists don't believe in race, other Anthropologists do believe in race, but they call it something else so as to not be political incorrect.

They don't use the word "race" because it is politically incorrect (unpleasant social correlates)
But they keep the nineteenth century concept of race.

One strain rejects the word "race" with its unpleasant social correlates, but pretty much retains the nineteenth-century concept.

One strain rejects the word "race" with its unpleasant social correlates, but pretty much retains the nineteenth-century concept.

Explain to me what the nineteenth century concept they retain is.

Of course Anthropologists understand that racial determiners are social constructs in the groups they study, but they don't credit the term with any scientific validity.

Racial determiners? You mean trait values? The correlation structure of trait values/genes? I don't think your sentence is coherent.

Do anthropologists know how diagnosable sub-populations come about? I suspect they do but only pretend not to. Once we do know how diagnosable sub-populations come about we can easily see that the "arguments put forth by anthropologists are false.