What makes a country "racist"?

[Half-n-Half]

I am interested to read what you, Mars Man, define "race" as. Then, I think, it will be easier to debate this topic further.

As for getting back on topic, I do not believe you can say a country is racist. Only that a country's policies, majority opinions, or leaders lean towards racism. A country as a whole will never be racist IMHO, because the majority of people in the world are not racist.

 

[Mars Man]

First to get back to you, Half-n-Half san. Rather than define--because the English definition is given (as described as much as, if not more, than prescribed) in a good dictionary--I will attribute the term to a concept. That concept is a group. It's that easy.

The word 'racist' (as most commonly used) consistently has an inherent aversion content. That automatically demands a sharp distinction between any homo sapien in-group of certain features and an out-group without those relative features, inclusive of an emotional tag. THAT is simply a detriment to the progression of a more cohesive human social network. Besides, there is hardly any greatly convincing argument which at the same time explains as much as that which shows that there is no race, in the old sense.

I'm sorry, but once again I have to disagree. I'll be the first to admit that I am no scientist or geneticist but you don't have to be an expert to realize that the human race has evolved separately to the point where we cannot all be classified as the same group.

Here may the root cause to your not being able to consider further information. You may not understand evolutionary models well enough.

Also, here you use the term 'human race' which is used from time to time in its so loose a fashion, so what would that inform us as to the range of usage that the word race can be used in? Are humans, as a race, thus distinguished from chimpanzees by such usage? Of course not; here you use race to infer the whole group of human beings.

... 'race' [is] a term that clearly defines a difference between the human species and categorizes us based on thing such as coloring, bone structure, facial features, eye shape, build ect.

The homo sapien is a single species...though one can find some older writings using 3 sub-species (and only 3). I will go do a search tonight in my studio and pull out some information from those in the field who do know, who are up on the latest, to see if that can help clear up this misconception--because likely this is THE key.

Your statement above, by logical deduction, claims that two homo sapiens who have different facial structures make two distinct speices of humans, which we can in turn call two different races. That would make me and my children two different races of human, two distinct species of homo sapiens. Clearly, now, this is not the case.

There is even differences on a genetic level that make some races more prone to certain types of diseases or cancers that other races are more immune to.

Other than the misapplication of the word race, this observation is true. It is a point that some use to argue in favor of the general reality of the idea behind the word 'race.'

However, the reason for these several genetical extensions, is far most likely an evoluntionary selective process. What this means is that mutation that occurred was produced along with the offspring from that mutated source. That selection line then mulitplied as an offshoot from that point, and therefore can seldom be seen in other descent lines--only where there has been some mixing between lines. (and even then certain dominate patterns may over ride that trait even)

This is the same way animals are classified into species and sub-species. You can have penguins, then you can further break it down to classify the different types of penguins: Emperors, Rock Hoppers, Africans, Galapagos. You would not classify all those species into on group because they are just to different.

You may be familiar with the tendency to label biological entities with Latin names, right? What we find is that one name represents one species. There are always those slight differences that may cause wonder, but the species is different because there is, not just a formation difference, but a valid difference.

Now the homo sapien is only that animal which inhabits most of the land surface of the earth, and has overpopulated so much of it as to be on the point of causing enviornmental damage to its own habitat, and which has a brain capability that few other animals even come anywhere close to matching. The homo sapien , as best understood today, in the face of better knowledge than even 15 years ago, is seen as having no further species breakdowns.

This is how geneticists can take an African American and trace their roots almost to the exact village they originated from way back in Africa. This wouldn't be possible if there was no such thing as race.

This wouldn't be possible if it were not for the knowledge that up-to-date science has given us, and if it were not for nature. To reason that the ability to genetically trace RNA and DNA proves a concept of multi-species, thus a thing called 'race,' is in error.

I will quote from a work by Geoffrey Miller (who should need no introduction) here: The Mating Mind p180

At the end of the Pleistocene, just 10,000 years ago, our ancestors were already modern humans, identical to us in bodily appearance, brain structure, and psychology. The evolution that shaped human nature all took place in the Pleistocene.

After the Pleistocene came the Holocene, occupying the last 10,000 years. The Holocene includes all of the recorded history, agriculture, money, and civilization, and grew from a populations of a few million to a few billion. The Holocene had been historically crucial but evolutionarily important. Ten thousand years . . . is plenty of time for runaway sexual selection to make populations diverge a bit in some aspects of body shape, facial appearance, and psychological traits. However this book is not concerned with such relatively minor differences between populations.​

Therefore, to simply quote yourself, without any backing from those who are in the field, or at least showing how an opinion is held to be validated against other and seemingly stronger evidence, is ill advised.

While this embedding appears to be off-topic, I am arguing to support my yet undeclared charge that unleashed emotion coupled with specific ignorance makes a country 'racist' in that there is a clinging to concepts which are (or at least ought to be considered) obsolete, unproductive, and negative-in-outcome to too far a degree to be worth clinging to any longer.

Thus, I reason that this is still quite on-topic. Mikawa Ossan, however, can offer input on that since he is the OP...although I know the thought probably didn't simply come up as a question of the terms which complete the idea, but rather as a reaction to charges made by some in other areas of the forum. Wordy? Yes, I agree, and apologize for that. I had simply hoped to be as concrete as possible, and touch on all the major points need to clarify the stance of understanding in the sciences.

 

[MadamePapillon]

The problem with this argument is that we are coming from two completely different mindsets when we speak of race.
You like to look deep and analyze, make sure you have the science (all the genetics and biology and physiology) in check before you can correctly make an assumption about whether or not we can truly, from a scientific point of view, be considered as separate races.
Me, on the other hand, I talk a walk down the street and see the different races with my own two eyes. Yes, from a genetic perspective there is really not much difference but, on the other hand, there is only a 98.8% difference between humans and chimps...one could argue that with a margin that small chimps should be considered to be another species of human.

I'll show you the problem I have with getting too caught up in the science of things...

The degree of human genetic variation is a little different depending upon the gene type studied, but in general it is common to claim that ~85% of genetic variation is found within groups, ~6-10% between groups within the same continent and ~6-10% is found between continental groups. For example The Human Genome Project states "two random individuals from any one group are almost as different [genetically] as any two random individuals from the entire world."[68] On the other hand Edwards (2003) claims in his essay "Lewontin's Fallacy" that: "It is not true, as Nature claimed, that 'two random individuals from any one group are almost as different as any two random individuals from the entire world'" and Risch et al. (2002) state "Two Caucasians are more similar to each other genetically than a Caucasian and an Asian." It should be noted that these statements are not the same. Risch et al. simply state that two indigenous individuals from the same geographical region are more similar to each other than either is to an indigenous individual from a different geographical region, a claim few would argue with. Jorde et al put it like this:

The picture that begins to emerge from this and other analyses of human genetic variation is that variation tends to be geographically structured, such that most individuals from the same geographic region will be more similar to one another than to individuals from a distant region.[57]

All that talk just to say "humans vary from place to place".

Yes......yes we do. I already knew this but thanks for going through all that trouble verifying what I already knew.

Common sense here, Mars Man, common sense. Scientists can and have argued for years over issues that amount to basically common sense for the rest of us, and for what? Does anyone really care if we are a race or a group? It's the same thing, isn't it? It's basically a non-issue to me, and about 98% of the rest of the human race. I see people of different races every day and we look dissimilar enough that I have no problem making distinctions between them or where they came from.
There comes a time when you just have to put the science aside and rely on your own eyes, intelligence and common sense to make sense of the world. It may not be on par to the logic of science, but, then again, science is far from infallible.

 

[Mars Man]

If it were actually a non-issue, this topic would never have come up. In fact, the term, 'racist' or 'racism' would never have developed to what it has become.

It is much more than a common sense matter too...detailed explanations or not...because accurate knowledge is based on a process of testing, and often enough, common sense is based on a matter of acquire schemas--that with which and of which we have been conditioned.

The difference, as I am still compelled to point out is in the emotional attachment that most have tagged onto the word 'race,' which will invariably get in the way of progress towards a more cohesive social network--as far as English speakers go.

With only two groups, you have greater distinction than with 2,ooo groups. With less distinction, you have more similarity. As you should know, then, the differences that we see spread across the human species count for a great multitude of differences, and we can generally catagorize them into different groups. To stick to the concept behind the term 'race,' however, we a quickly down to a 'us .vs. them' mentality, by conditioning. To dispose of that term, would be to dispose of the concept. It would in effect, therefore, raise the threshold on the matter of inclusion.

To consider that the difference between a bonobo...which is even closer than the other chimp...and a human is enough to make them the same species, is incorrect. The homo sapien is a distinct species from the bonobo even. The homo sapien is even a different species from the little lady from Indonesia. There should be no error here.

I would not doubt at all that some 98% per cent of humanity divides itself off so distinctly, so that, as regards speakers of English, at least, would feel right at home with the concept that has come down to us with little change. (Those of the Caucasian descent no longer consider those of the African descent to be innately inferior in intelligence, nor does the male of Caucasion descent consider the female to be a separate 'race' of innately lesser intelligence...so there has been some degree of change, in that arena) However, this is the very problem I am urging a change of attitude and education on. This is the matter which can cause the question of the OP to be meaningless...otherwise, it is as pointed out above, the majority (98%) cling to race, therefore entertain 'racism,' making the whole world 'racist.' That, I would declare, is a problem...one that we can overcome by adjusting our old world views...little by little.

 

[thatsme]

Agreeing or not to the above is not the actual point.
Just for the sake of argument let's say I'd agree to the above, and then?
Since I belong the the Human group I would eventually develope an agressive tendency to be protective of my group.

Anyway in the end I might be considered a bad groupist.
VICIOUS CIRCLE does sound very familiar.

 

[Half-n-Half]

Mars Man, I have become very confused and perplexed by what you have recently posted.

First to get back to you, Half-n-Half san. Rather than define--because the English definition is given (as described as much as, if not more, than prescribed) in a good dictionary--I will attribute the term to a concept. That concept is a group. It's that easy.

Ok, fair enough. The definition of race in the dictionary is: "a group of persons related by common descent or heredity." So you do not disagree that race IS the physical attributes, culture, and hereditary genes separating certain (to use your word) "groups" of people. Then the reason you do not like race is because:

I'll get back, but let me firstly point out, my choice and publishing of the word 'group' over 'race' is by no means to be politically correct--a thing that I also am not fund of--rather, this drive to eliminate misconceptions that people have.

The word 'racist' (as most commonly used) consistently has an inherent aversion content. That automatically demands a sharp distinction between any homo sapien in-group of certain features and an out-group without those relative features, inclusive of an emotional tag.

Not that it matters, but eliminating that "aversion content" or "emotional tag" would be making it politically correct. This is much like saying "vertically challenged" to not hurt the person's feelings, or the emotional tag associated with the word "short."
So the only beef you have with race is that it has a negative connotation. I do not see it like this, however. I think the majority of people in the world do not see another race as an "out-group", or not one of them. If that was true than there would not be interracial marriages. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your below post seems to state this.

I would not doubt at all that some 98% per cent of humanity divides itself off so distinctly, so that, as regards speakers of English, at least, would feel right at home with the concept that has come down to us with little change.

Please Mars Man, I really hate typing over the net as I cannot show inflection or emotion. Do not take any of my above remarks as an attack, they are simply my desperate attempts to better understand what you are trying to say.

 

[Mars Man]

I didn't plan to post on this tonight, actually, since I need to go to bed earlier, but will answer to the immediately above, firstly.

You have read well, and logically collocated ideas, Half-n-Half san, I am very pleased with that. Though I will present some information I have pulled out my filed magazines and journals tomorrow, please allow me to present what's in Webster's New World Dictionary-Second College Edition for the first entry under the word race; second catagory:

1. Any of the different varieties of mankind, distinguished by form of hair, color of skin and eyes, stature, bodily proportions, etc.: many anthropologists now consider that there are only three primary major groups, the Caucasoid, Negroid, and Mongoloid, each with various subdivisions (sometimes also called races [sic]): the term has acquired so many unscientific connotations that in this sense it is often replaced in scientific usage by ethnic stock or group​

Not that it matters, but eliminating that "aversion content" or "emotional tag" would be making it politically correct.

Good point, indeed, although I would respond by saying that though it could make it matter, my intention (which should be the decisive factor anyway, for my application) it is not to 'protect' or 'soften' per se, but (as far as it can be done) to put away older connotations due to schemas and/or usage, for newer ones.

I think the majority of people in the world do not see another race as an "out-group", or not one of them.

That would likely depend on how one sees the word 'race' in the above sentence. If were were to plug in the word 'group' there, then I would argue that the statement is largely false. If we were to plug in 'a homo sapiens' ① that had different descent lineage, then I would consider the possibility of the statement if we could determine that marriage between such groups of homo sapiens were more than 2% of any average, random sample space.

Please...no worry...as I believe the Mad magazine character, Alfred...whatever his name was...this is Serious Discussions, and I am simply exercising that feature. I take none of any above posts to be attacks, per se, but as argumentation and debate...all a process of learning.

You also have a good point there, thatsme san, but please allow me to get back to that tomorrow...along with some back-up information on some things that MadamePapillon suggested.



① In looking over some papers and articles on this tonight, I noticed that I had been using the wrong form. Singular or plural, the word was H. Sapiens...where H. is the abbreviated form for Homo. And just as foreshadowing and further support for what I have said before on this thread, the word homo of course means same.

 

[MadamePapillon]

But it's just like Half-n-Half said.
The only true reason to change the definition of 'race' to 'ethnic stock' (which actually sounds more derogatory to me than 'race') or 'group' is that a bunch of scientists decided it wasn't correct enough.

To remove a perfectly good word simply because someone finds it too emotionally charged and doesn't like the implication that we are not all one people is just utter madness to me. I don't see people of other races as an 'out-group', they just are. My niece and nephew are of another race than me (being dark-skinned and curly haired with rounded features, where as I am white skinned and straight haired with sharp features), they look completely different from me, do I not consider them to be a part of my 'in-group' simply because they are physically different from me? No, because I realize that race is just a word, not a standard by which I judge someone.

Correctness gets out of hand when a word has to be changed simply because it's implications might not be in complete agreement with scientific opinion. Wanting to give people a stronger sense of alikeness to each other despite the physical reality is a noble goal, but I don't believe it's going to be accomplished by changing our wording.
Opinions of racial difference are determined by education and experience, not by wording or scientific texts.

 

[Mars Man]

It is a bit rash, regardless of how comfortable one may be with status quo, to assert that the concept and schema which has come down to us packaged inside a word, which no longer has a clear standing in reality relative to that package, be allowed to prevent efforts to move on. There most likely is no reality which we can call 'race' as that has come down to us.

To say that referent for the word race is a difference in physical/genetical aspects of a species, is to practically say that every single human being is an individual race. If we were to acquiesce to that, the English word race, as its referent has come down to us, then, will have changed. That being so, it would again be better to use a different word to associate those lineages that split and went distinctly from each other.

There are many groups, and many overlaps, ones relatives will, by degrees, be in-group members in most cases. The matters of facial features, skin pigmentation, general appearance, life style, ideologies, belief-systems adhered to, lean in cognition, preferences in commodities, immediate and relatively extended line of descent, geographical position, immediate and relatively extended tradition formats, among others, will make group patterns. Those within any pattern, regardless of other patterns being present (because usually only one pattern is focused on at a time) represent an in-group.

The only true reason to change the definition of 'race' to 'ethnic stock' (which actually sounds more derogatory to me than 'race') or 'group' is that a bunch of scientists decided it wasn't correct enough. . . Correctness gets out of hand when a word has to be changed simply because it's implications might not be in complete agreement with scientific opinion. . .

It is not some derogative-like deciding, or simple opinion, rather, it is the conclusion of what testing and observation and measuring has lead us to understand.

Opinions of racial difference are determined by education and experience, not by wording or scientific texts.

There is no racial difference, in case you haven't understood, there is simply difference in the H. Sapiens; in fact there are quantity differences, be they are not so sharp in quality, even. This understanding is what education and experience will teach. In turn, it is by education and keen observation through testing and review which will cause norms to be altered, schemas to be weakend or strengthened. Language is the attachment to and of such schemas and norms, therefore to create a greater register, language must not and should not be so casually overlooked.

 

[Mars Man]

A little back-up embedding:

Here I will simply post some 'data' backing up my position and point of outlook. These reinforce claims which I have made regarding the 'what' of our general discussion related to answering the OP.

Sharing a single landscape, four kinds of hominids lived abaout 1.8 million years ago in what is now part of northern Kenya. Although paleoanthropologists have no idea how-or if-these species interacted, they do know that Paranthropus boisei, H. rudolfensis, H. habilis, and H. ergaster forged in the same area around lake Turkana. (p39)

There are various ways of simplifying the picture, most of them involving the cop-out of stuffing all variants of Homo of the last half a million or even 2 million years into the species H. sapiens. (p43)​

We Were Not Alone, Scientific American Jan. 2000, pp 38-44​

With H. sapiens arriving in eastern asia by 35,000 ears ago, and relic populatins of H. erectus possibly persisting on nearby Java, three human species may have coexisted in this region. (my note--the third one being H. floresienis which more recently has been further upheld as in fact a different species, rather than us.)​

A Mini Human Species, Scientfic American Dec 2004, p16; also see Meet Our New Human RelativesNewScientist 30, Oct '04, pp 8, 9​

Only a few tens of thousand years ago human beings were nomadic, egalitarian hunter-gatherers, then, in the blink of an evolutionary eye, our species invented civilisation.​

Civilisation--Special Issue, Cover Story NewScientist 18 Sep '04, p24 (of 24-35)​

What will have been cleared here, is that the Homo sapiens is a single species. In that humans can all very much interbreed, it would be wrong to insinuate that there are 'sub-species' within this species.

The invading mitrochondra DNA could also help track human migration and evolution, because ethnic groups possess a unique mix of fragments. [addtional paraphrasing: Researchers at PaHomo sapiens and must have colonized the chromosomes since humans diverged from the rest of the primates[/u] in the past four to six million years.​

Invasion of the Sequences, Scientific American, Nov '04, p17​

The enduring success of sex is usually put down to the fact that it shuffles the genetic pack, introducing variation and allowing harmful mutations to be purged. (p32)​

Life's Greatest Inventions, NewScientist 9 April '05, pp 26-35​

The melanocortin 1 receptor is involved in the pathway that produces melanin and is a major determinant of skin color in humans. Lalueza-Fox, et al. analyzed Neandertal DNA corresponding to the human gene and found evidence of a novel allele unknown in modern humans. Functional analysis of this variant showed reduced function at a level similar to that seen in humans of European descent. Thus, some Neandertals may have had reduced pigmentatin levels, possibly leading to similar pale skin color or red hair in modern humans. [my note: while this will need further testing, the possiblity evidently cannot be denied at the moment. Also the one main reason for the connection is because of both H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis splitting off from H. heidelbergensis.]​

Neandertal Redheads, Science Vol 318, 30 Nov '07, p1347​

A number of physical attributes can now be inferred from DNA analysis, such as gender, blood type, approzimate skin pgmentation, and manifiestations of Mendelian disorders. Reliability of predictions will likely increase regarding height, or other aspects of skeletal build, hair color and texture, eye color, and even some craniofacial features. Soon many chronic disease susceptibilities will be predictable and, before long, some behavioral tendencies will be. (601)​

Identifiability in Genomic Research, Science, Vol 317, 3, Aug '07, pp 600-602​

As scientists have sequenced the human genome (the full set of nuclear DNA), they have also identified millions of polymorphisms. The distribution of these polymorphisms across populations reflects the history of those populations and the effects of natural selection. To distinguish among groups, the ideal genetic polymorphism would be one that is present in in all members of one group and absent in the members of all other groups. But the major human groups have separated from one another too recently and mixed too much for such differences to exist. (p53)

[An analysis done by M. Bamshad, et al.] yeilded four different groups. When we added the labels back to see whether each individual's group assignment correlated to common, pre-defined labels for race or ethnicity, we saw that two of the groups consisted only of individuals from sub-Saharan Africa, with one of those two made up almost entirely of Mbuti Pygmies. The other groups consisted only of individuals from Europe and East Asia, respectively. (p53)

Given that people can be sorted broadly into groups using genetic data, do common notions of race correspond to underlying genetic differences among populations? IN some cases they do, but often they do not. (p55)​

Does Race Exist?, Scientific American Dec 2003, pp50-57; also see The Hidden Genetic Program of Complex Organisims, Scientific American, Oct 2004, pp30-37 to see interconnections among even animal types, and, of course H. sapiens​

What will have been cleared here (and I could have put more), is that all humans living on the face of the earth today, go back to a rather small group of dark skinned beings coming out of, likely crossing back into, all along with an 'all points spread,' the Sub Saharan area. While lines of descent and mutations (not to be taken in a negative way necessarily) spit off and brought differences in features, the surface features themselves, even after having added in practically hard wired elements due to isolated cultures or sub-cultures, do not serve to destroy the single entity, Homo sapiens.