The thread on racism

[warpus]

Of course it can. It's based on bad biology, but that's still where it's based.

What you're saying is like arguing that no gods exist, so religions can't be based on them. Well, to religious people they exist, just as to racists biological differences are quite real!

Here's the thing though, it isn't a biological classification at all. I mean, some of it is, some of it isn't, but as a whole it is not biological in nature.

Race is a classification system used to categorize humans into large and distinct populations or groups by anatomical, cultural, ethnic, genetic, geographical, historical, linguistic, religious, and/or social affiliation.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I think Americans tend to take their own national experience with slavery and oppression of minorities, which was of course very racial, and extrapolate it to the whole world, thus giving race and racism an importance it simply did not have, historically, for much else of the world. That's why Americans use the word so liberally in a way that baffles (and insults) most other people.

Every time the tooic of racism arises, you make essentially the very same inane comments about the US.

Then I remind you that you continue to deliberately ignore that your own country of Brazil is likely just as racist, and quite possibly even more so:

RIO DE JANEIRO — Many Brazilians cast their country as racial democracy where people of different groups long have intermarried, resulting in a large mixed-race population. But you need only turn on the TV, open the newspaper or stroll down the street to see clear evidence of segregation.

In Brazil, whites are at the top of the social pyramid, dominating professions of wealth, prestige and power. Dark-skinned people are at the bottom of the heap, left to clean up after others and take care of their children and the elderly.

The 2010 census marked the first time in which black and mixed-race people officially outnumbered whites, weighing in at just over 50 percent, compared with 47 percent for whites. Researchers suggest that Brazil actually may have been a majority-nonwhite country for some time, with the latest statistics reflecting a decreased social stigma that makes it easier for nonwhites to report their actual race.

It is a mix of anomalies in Brazil that offers lessons to a United States now in transition to a "majority-minority" nation: how racial integration in social life does not always translate to economic equality, and how centuries of racial mixing are no guaranteed route to a colorblind society.

Nearly all TV news anchors in Brazil are white, as are the vast majority of doctors, dentists, fashion models and lawyers. Most maids and doormen, street cleaners and garbage collectors are black. There is only one black senator and there never has been a black president, though a woman, Dilma Rousseff, leads the country now.

A decade of booming economic growth and wealth-redistribution schemes has narrowed the income gap between blacks and whites, but it remains pronounced. In 2011, the average black or mixed-race worker earned just 60 percent what the average white worker made. That was up from 2001, when black workers earned 50.5 percent what white workers made, according to Brazil's national statistics agency.

Nubia de Lima, a 29-year-old black producer for Globo television network, said she experiences racism on a daily basis, in the reactions and comments of strangers who are constantly taking her for a maid, a nanny or a cook, despite her flair for fashion and pricey wardrobe.

"People aren't used to seeing black people in positions of power," she said. "It doesn't exist. They see you are black and naturally assume that you live in a favela (hillside slum) and you work as a housekeeper."

She said upper middle-class black people like her are in a kind of limbo, too affluent and educated to live in favelas but still largely excluded from high-rent white neighborhoods.

"Here it's a racism of exclusion," de Lima said.

 

[carmen510]

I've heard race being described as the grouping of distinct averages of biological variance. As to whether or not that is a valid justification of race as a biological classification, I will leave to people more experienced in the natural sciences.

 

[classical_hero]

Human 'races' are not biological in nature - so racism can't be biological in nature either.

Yes they, you are just trying to change the facts afterwards. [wiki]Civic Biology[/wiki]

The Races of Man. -- At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; The American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America. ...

The main distinction used here is the colour of their skin, which is ruled by our biology via our genetics.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Are you really using a 1913 textbook, which even advocates eugenics, as the definitive source for what the definition of "race" is? One that claims that whites are the "highest" race which are "represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America"?

 

[Neverwonagame3]

To be fair, circa 1913 Europe and North America could rightly call themselves more civilised, if not for racial reasons.

 

[Traitorfish]

In what sense?

 

[Lillefix]

In what sense?

Because we could kill each other far more effectively than everyone else, obviously.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

There are various measures that can be used. In terms of standard of living, rule of law, capacity for technological advance (even those countries which had caught up to the West were adopting Western techs as they were made rather than making their own, mostly), government institutions (democracy tends to provide better results for common people), or economic institutions (circa 1913 there was no viable alternative to the style of capitalism of the day that could give better results), they were right.

I would also point out that although the Western civilisations did a lot of atrocious things, ANY civilisation with that kind of power disparity would do the same or worse. At least if we compare civilisations from 1913 or earlier, this is a non-issue.

 

[Tahuti]

1913 did have less travel and immigration restrictions compared to nowadays, as many of those were implemented in reaction to World War I and later, for eugenic purposes.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

1913 did have less travel and immigration restrictions compared to nowadays, as many of those were implemented in reaction to World War I and later, for eugenic purposes.

Yeah Incidentally I just read a piece on that. It also said that export rates were as high prior to WWI as they only again were in the 80s.

 

[Domen]

and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians

OMG - how old is this text you quoted? 1913? BTW - the "highest types" would be - if anything - the North-East Asians and Jews.

At the University of California, Berkeley, Mongoloids / Yellows are 40% - 50% of all students and beat all of Caucasian WASPs in achievements.

 

[Neverwonagame3]

I'm not claiming 1913 is superior to now- I'm saying that as of 1913 Europe and America could claim to be the most civilised in the world.

 

[Domen]

The main distinction used here is the colour of their skin, which is ruled by our biology via our genetics.

The skin colour is ruled by pigmentation. Races - if they do exist - are more about other antropological features than about skin colour. Anyway, the DNA similarity between any 2 random humans on this planet is no smaller than 99,5% (i.e. even the most different of all humans, do not differ from each other more than 0,5%). This is the same as in case of any two random dogs (of any random breeds). As we know, all dogs are descendants of domesticated wolfs.

The main difference is, that dog breeds are more separated from each other than even the most distant groups of humans.

In humans the difference between random individuals is up to 0,5%, but between entire groups it is even smaller.

To be fair, circa 1913 Europe and North America could rightly call themselves more civilised, if not for racial reasons.

In what sense?

You ask in what sense? But that's obvious. Europe invented gunpow... Oh, wait.

BTW - in 1913 Japan was already about as much "civilized" as Europe.

And in 2013 Japan was more "civilized" than Europe and the USA.

In 2113 perhaps the USA will be much less "civilized" than them.

And Japan started as a Medieval, Feudal country in 1813.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I don't know why you have such problems with Black people in the USA.

Whatever gave you that idea?

Hatred of strangers can be race or ethnic based hate though. If a group of subcontractors shows up in your nice white American or German or whatever town, and they're the same ethnicity, talk the same way, share the same sort of dress, are those "strangers" going to receive the same level of distrust as a group of subcontractors that look and speak and dress "black" or "Pakistani" or whatever? If the "stranger" in "strangers" there is translating correctly, it doesn't seem to grasp the issue broadly enough. "Racism" grabs it more firmly by the tail even if the "hatred" aspect of it is more targeted at the culture rather than double-helix differences.

What exactly is the "strangeness" worthy of hate is obviously up to the haters. I see no issues with that.
But okay, it is a fair point that group hatred often coincides with races and that hence you feel racism is up to the point.
However, race also correlates with cultural and social divides.

In the end - I simply don't feel fine with just sticking the most negative and convenient label on it to maximize and simplify shaming. It sacrifices nuance and acknowledgement of what is going on for the sake of vilification and reinforces racial notions in its own twisted way. See I also would not mind to say that bigotry / group-hostility has significant racial elements. It obviously does. But racism as such is just a different animal from where I stand.

Call me a crusader for nuance or of pedantry. But I feel this is important. I feel the "good guys" should try to not fight dirty.

 

[Domen]

In humans the difference between random individuals is up to 0,5%, but between entire groups it is even smaller.

Ok, two very isolated populations from opposite corners of the globe may differ by 0,5%.

For example I can imagine that the difference between South African Bushmen and Inuits of Alaska can be up to 0,5%.

Whatever gave you that idea?

Look at Detroit.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Look at Detroit.

Sorry, I thought the "you" addressed me rather than the US.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Well what I think of racism:

A moraly justifed way to exploit other human beings.

Racism has as far as I know allways been about getting some sort of economic advantage.

Third Reich for example made alot of money by stealing from jews and others, maybe that was the main reason for them to acctually wanting to hate jews and others.

Racism In my opinion should not exist on any level or for any reason, it destroys humanity.

 

[Traitorfish]

There are various measures that can be used. In terms of standard of living, rule of law, capacity for technological advance (even those countries which had caught up to the West were adopting Western techs as they were made rather than making their own, mostly), government institutions (democracy tends to provide better results for common people), or economic institutions (circa 1913 there was no viable alternative to the style of capitalism of the day that could give better results), they were right.

How are these qualities indicative of a society being more or less "civilised" than another?

 

[luiz]

Every time the tooic of racism arises, you make essentially the very same inane comments about the US.

Then I remind you that you continue to deliberately ignore that your own country of Brazil is likely just as racist, and quite possibly even more so:

Well, for starters, that article is a typical one written by people who don't know the first thing about Brazil. They're equating mixed race to black, which is ridiculous. Most garbage collectors, slum dwellers and etc are not black. They're mixed race, just like most Brazilians. Only about 10% of Brazilians self-describe as black. The racialists try to push down our throat the notion that there are only two races here, white and black (with a handful of indians who for all intents and purposes they consider black too), but that is to completely ignore our historic development. Mixed race Brazilians do not identify themselves as black, and have not been identified by society as black.

That's the first point. The second one is that I was arguing a historic point. There was no "drop of blood rule" in Brazil. Miscegenation was not only tolerated but encouraged by the government, completely the opposite of the US. There were never laws that limited the rights of blacks because of them being blacks, which is why we had black millionaires, slave-owners and high government officials even in colonial times. So while slavery was a very big part of our society, probably bigger than anywhere else, racism wasn't.

Which is not to say that it stayed that way forever. If you read my post you'll notice I said racism was largely absent of the institution of slavery until the mid 19th Century, when Brazil imported the "scientific" racist theories that were all the rage in Europe and the US. Then there were talks about the necessity of whitening Brazil, and it eventually became official policy under the early Republic. Whites were maybe 15% of the population during the Empire and reached a high of around 60% a few decades into the Republican period, a massive demographic shift. Curiously, many of the leading Brazilian abolitionists were racists who wanted to deport blacks back to Africa and import white European labor to civilize Brazil. The abolitionist Republicans were generally far more racist than the slave-owning Monarchists. It's no wonder some of the leading mulatto intellectuals of the late 19th Century actually joined the Emperor in exile.

So try not to see things in that naive black-and-white American way.