Race: Social Construct or Science?

[Rojava Free State]

There are genetics associated with certain groups but I would say it's near impossible to use genetics to classify race due to the significant overlap between populations.

Frankly racial constructs hide the diversity within alleged races. I have a friend who is Croatian and to call her a white girl would hide the fact that her culture is 110% different from your average white Anglo Saxon protestant. A croat and a Norwegian look somewhat different, and have very different cultures, so calling them both white always seemed weird to me. Meanwhile, Spanish people and Armenians look pretty similar but culturally are also different. When I use the term brown people, it is in my view a social category and not biological. After all, a dark skinned Sicilian is white in America while a person such as myself who looks Sicilian but is Latino is "brown." Sicilian people along with Irish and Greek folks were once "brown" as well and finns were once considered to be "Asiatic." Frankly the only brown people who truly fit that term are people with literally brown colored skin, which includes many black people as well as southeast Asians. And there are many people with almost white skin who aren't socially white such as Lebanese folks, Chechens, Pamiris, Bosnians, Georgians, Koreans, Chinese and Japanese folks. I never let race stand as a boundary between me and other human beings.

[Rojava Free State]

There's not even enough difference between most humans to qualify as being different breeds if we were dogs or cats in most cases. The differences really are mostly superficial.

Breeds are a result of primitive genetic engineering. No one forced us to breed for certain characteristics, so differences in human appearance kinda just came about naturally.

[Heloin]

Dog breed is a bit more akin to what race is. Human race is more like the difference between a black labrador and a chocolate labrador.

A breed is actually it's own biological concept and is almost solely unique to domesticated animals.

If we were to rate these concepts from most to least differences, it'd be: Race/Subspecies->Breeds->Polymorphy (What most people consider "Race").

I’m speaking in the very general terms of compared to dogs to explain Val’s point. Taxonomically yes, you’re right.

[Saiwania]

My stance is that race has a hard genetic basis at its core but that its partially a social construct.

If someone can pass as a specific race and the majority of their ancestry is of an ethnicity within that racial group, I'd say they are effectively that race. In today's era, if its impossible to find enough people who're 100% in terms of purity, we have to settle for those who're 90% or 80% and so on. But people who're below 70%, we can perhaps turn away if they can't pass as a specific race, as determined by skin color.

[New haven america]

Both, but only one of them is actually a real thing.

Race in biology denotes a subspecies or closely relate species, like the Neanderthals to Humans, Asian Elephant to African Elephant, Indian Rhino to White Rhino, etc... This is the only definition of race that is biologically a real thing.

Race as a social construct is an abuse of the concept of biological race made by and propagated by racist European conquers and colonialists starting around the 1500's. What we think of as race in humans is actually just morphology polymorphy, subtle differences within the same species that can cause physical differences and subtle physiological differences, but doesn't impeded procreation and can actually help it in most cases. Humans aren't the only ones like this either, Leopards (Tan and spotted fur) and Panthers (Black fur) are the exact same species for example and it's very common for a leopard to have panther cubs and panthers to have leopard cubs, because of course it is, they're the same species and the difference is literally only skin deep at best.

The former is a real biological concept, the latter is a social construct based on the idea of morphology polymorphy.

I think I mentioned this in the OP, but race wasn’t even considered by most as a thing until the colonial era

Yep, you did.

European conquerors and colonialists tried to come up with any idea possible to further disempower and subjugate those who were native to the areas they were colonizing, and they eventually invented the idea of (Social Construct) race as the main signifier of who's biologically inferior and deserving of being taken over, and even considering those of other "races" as completely different species. (With the idea of course being White is better than everything else)

And yeah, before then discrimination was based more on religion or nationality. For example, there have been several forms of old imperial China that banned marriage between Chinese subjects and Indian or Persian nationals, so if a Chinese family immigrated to Persia and had kids there, and those kids went back to live in China, they couldn't get married to any Chinese in China despite being mostly the same "Race". Then there's the religious divides in Europe between the Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox, and the huge mess they had in other areas like The Ottoman Empire, Al-Andalus, the Norse countries, and central/eastern Europe with its large Jewish population, etc...

[New haven america]

My stance is that race has a hard genetic basis at its core but that its partially a social construct.

If someone can pass as a specific race and the majority of their ancestry is of an ethnicity within that racial group, I'd say they are effectively that race. In today's era, if its impossible to find enough people who're 100% in terms of purity, we have to settle for those who're 90% or 80% and so on. But people who're below 70%, we can perhaps turn away if they can't pass as a specific race, as determined by skin color.

Hey, remember the time you had a near mental breakdown when presented with pictures of black people who had naturally blond hair?

[Cekoviu]

My stance is that race has a hard genetic basis at its core but that its partially a social construct.

If someone can pass as a specific race and the majority of their ancestry is of an ethnicity within that racial group, I'd say they are effectively that race. In today's era, if its impossible to find enough people who're 100% in terms of purity, we have to settle for those who're 90% or 80% and so on. But people who're below 70%, we can perhaps turn away if they can't pass as a specific race, as determined by skin color.

Hey, remember the time you had a near mental breakdown when presented with pictures of black people who had naturally blond hair?

Lynx?

[Rojava Free State]

I think I mentioned this in the OP, but race wasn’t even considered by most as a thing until the colonial era

Yep, you did.

European conquerors and colonialists tried to come up with any idea possible to further disempower and subjugate those who were native to the areas they were colonizing, and they eventually invented the idea of (Social Construct) race as the main signifier of who's biologically inferior and deserving of being taken over, and even considering those of other "races" as completely different species. (With the idea of course being White is better than everything else)

And yeah, before then discrimination was based more on religion or nationality. For example, there have been several forms of old imperial China that banned marriage between Chinese subjects and Indians/Persian nationals, so if a Chinese family immigrated to Persia and had kids there, and those kids went back to live in China, they couldn't get married to any Chinese in China despite being mostly the same "Race". Then there's the religious divides in Europe between the Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox, and the huge mess they had in other areas like The Ottoman Empire, Al-Andalus, the Norse countries, and central/eastern Europe with it's large Jewish population.

Someone recently pointed out that prevalence of racist attacks in Northern Ireland by unionist gangs, and said they were white supremacists. I thought that was weird because I really don't think these guys are thinking of things in racial contexts. They don't like Irish Catholics who are white like them, so clearly their thing is:

British
American
Dirt
Any other ethnicities

They're British nationalists. They don't even think other whites are equal to their once great civilization. Race doesn't hold the same power outside America.

It must suck living in Belfast honestly.

[New haven america]

Yep, you did.

European conquerors and colonialists tried to come up with any idea possible to further disempower and subjugate those who were native to the areas they were colonizing, and they eventually invented the idea of (Social Construct) race as the main signifier of who's biologically inferior and deserving of being taken over, and even considering those of other "races" as completely different species. (With the idea of course being White is better than everything else)

And yeah, before then discrimination was based more on religion or nationality. For example, there have been several forms of old imperial China that banned marriage between Chinese subjects and Indians/Persian nationals, so if a Chinese family immigrated to Persia and had kids there, and those kids went back to live in China, they couldn't get married to any Chinese in China despite being mostly the same "Race". Then there's the religious divides in Europe between the Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox, and the huge mess they had in other areas like The Ottoman Empire, Al-Andalus, the Norse countries, and central/eastern Europe with it's large Jewish population.

Someone recently pointed out that prevalence of racist attacks in Northern Ireland by unionist gangs, and said they were white supremacists. I thought that was weird because I really don't think these guys are thinking of things in racial contexts. They don't like Irish Catholics who are white like them, so clearly their thing is:

British
American
Dirt
Any other ethnicities

They're British nationalists. They don't even think other whites are equal to their once great civilization. Race doesn't hold the same power outside America.

It must suck living in Belfast honestly.

Well, you also have to consider that fact that racism evolved differently in different areas.

A lot of Europeans are racist against Poles or Greeks, mainly due to them moving around the EU and Greece's economic problems, despite the fact that they're all "White" people. And then you have the Roma, who are just as European as everyone else living on that peninsula pretending to be a continent, but it's not uncommon to hear Europeans say some downright genocidal things about them.

And then you have the Nordic countries basically pretending that the Sami don't exist, despite >1/2 of them looking just like the average Swede, Norwegian, or Finn.

[Ankenland]

So much strife and bad policy has been justified by absolute moral notions about race that no one wants to deal with it.

The academic understanding is that the average person is hugely liable to behave in a rude or uncivilized manner (see: history) if forced to ponder this question at any length, and it is of no use to pose scientific questions to ordinary people, and so it is best to just scold the lumpenprole away from thinking about this question by reminding them of all the trouble they have caused while failing to deal with it in a mature, respectful way.

This is most surely the correct position - you are all too brutish to possibly accept and respect differences between peoples, and so the best way to manage you is to force you all to pretend that everyone is the same.

That said,

Darwin was right about everything, and I encourage people to read his writing and understand the theory of evolution.

That is all.

Also, I fully disclaim this primitive meme, which is abhorrent and should not be viewed by anyone.

[Albrenia]

Except 'science' does not say human 'races' exist at all.

[The Emerald Legion]

Racism is stupid. And I mean that not in the sense of 'Discriminating against people because of race.' but rather 'Thinking Races exist.'

[Saiwania]

And then you have the Roma, who are just as European as everyone else living on that peninsula pretending to be a continent, but it's not uncommon to hear Europeans say some downright genocidal things about them.

The Roma aren't European in terms of origin, they're really from northern India but unlike with the Jews, Roma didn't consort with the Europeans to enough of an extent to have a real claim to European ancestry like Ashkenazi Jews do. From what I hear, more Europeans would be okay with Roma were it the case that they stopped being nomadic and respected private property rights more. It is often said that there are some other problems related to that such as theft, vandalism, or environmental pollution at the temporary camping grounds that're used.

[Bear Stearns]

If race isn't real how do we determine who has white privilege? Are we supposed to just look at someone and make judgements about their social standing and character based on their inherited phenotypes? :^)

[Kowani]

My stance is that race has a hard genetic basis at its core but that its partially a social construct.

If someone can pass as a specific race and the majority of their ancestry is of an ethnicity within that racial group, I'd say they are effectively that race. In today's era, if its impossible to find enough people who're 100% in terms of purity, we have to settle for those who're 90% or 80% and so on. But people who're below 70%, we can perhaps turn away if they can't pass as a specific race, as determined by skin color.

…This is so far beyond science, it’s like a flat earther at a NASA conference.

[Albrenia]

If race isn't real how do we determine who has white privilege? Are we supposed to just look at someone and make judgements about their social standing and character based on their inherited phenotypes? :^)

It's almost as if 'SJWs' are a bunch of dumbasses too, right?

[Shokpos]

Both, but only one of them is actually a real thing.

Race in biology denotes a subspecies or closely relate species, like the Neanderthals to Humans, Asian Elephant to African Elephant, Indian Rhino to White Rhino, etc... This is the only definition of race that is biologically a real thing.

Race as a social construct is an abuse of the concept of biological race made by and propagated by racist European conquerors and colonialists starting around the 1500's. What we think of as race in humans is actually just morphology polymorphy, subtle differences within the same species that can cause physical differences and subtle physiological differences, but doesn't impede procreation and can actually help it in most cases. Humans aren't the only ones like this either, Leopards (Tan and spotted fur) and Panthers (Black fur) are the exact same species for example and it's very common for a leopard to have panther cubs and panthers to have leopard cubs, because of course it is, they're the same species and the difference is literally only skin deep at best.

The former is a real biological concept, the latter is a social construct based on the idea of morphology polymorphy.

It wasn't that recent, racism became a thing in the west around 300 b.c, when Greeks first wrote anti-Semitic texts. And in the east not much after the Trung Rebellion

[Bear Stearns]

Both, but only one of them is actually a real thing.

Race in biology denotes a subspecies or closely relate species, like the Neanderthals to Humans, Asian Elephant to African Elephant, Indian Rhino to White Rhino, etc... This is the only definition of race that is biologically a real thing.

Race as a social construct is an abuse of the concept of biological race made by and propagated by racist European conquerors and colonialists starting around the 1500's. What we think of as race in humans is actually just morphology polymorphy, subtle differences within the same species that can cause physical differences and subtle physiological differences, but doesn't impede procreation and can actually help it in most cases. Humans aren't the only ones like this either, Leopards (Tan and spotted fur) and Panthers (Black fur) are the exact same species for example and it's very common for a leopard to have panther cubs and panthers to have leopard cubs, because of course it is, they're the same species and the difference is literally only skin deep at best.

The former is a real biological concept, the latter is a social construct based on the idea of morphology polymorphy.

It wasn't that recent, racism became a thing in the west around 300 b.c, when Greeks first wrote anti-Semitic texts. And in the east not much after the Trung Rebellion

Racism became a thing paleolithic tribes people began competing for resources.

Tribalism has even been documented to exist in chimpanzees.

[Ayytaly]

So much strife and bad policy has been justified by absolute moral notions about race that no one wants to deal with it.

The academic understanding is that the average person is hugely liable to behave in a rude or uncivilized manner (see: history) if forced to ponder this question at any length, and it is of no use to pose scientific questions to ordinary people, and so it is best to just scold the lumpenprole away from thinking about this question by reminding them of all the trouble they have caused while failing to deal with it in a mature, respectful way.

This is most surely the correct position - you are all too brutish to possibly accept and respect differences between peoples, and so the best way to manage you is to force you all to pretend that everyone is the same.

That said,

Darwin was right about everything, and I encourage people to read his writing and understand the theory of evolution.

That is all.

Also, I fully disclaim this primitive meme, which is abhorrent and should not be viewed by anyone.

(Image)

The general rule of thumb is that blacks are faster, Nordics have superior upper body strength, Asians are more intelligent, and Mexicans are the most well-endowed and fertile on average.

This is what both U.S. media and life itself have taught me.

[Heloin]

Darwin was right about everything, and I encourage people to read his writing and understand the theory of evolution.

Because you clearly didn't.

My stance is that race has a hard genetic basis at its core but that its partially a social construct.

If someone can pass as a specific race and the majority of their ancestry is of an ethnicity within that racial group, I'd say they are effectively that race. In today's era, if its impossible to find enough people who're 100% in terms of purity, we have to settle for those who're 90% or 80% and so on. But people who're below 70%, we can perhaps turn away if they can't pass as a specific race, as determined by skin color.

…This is so far beyond science, it’s like a flat earther at a NASA conference.

It's all baby steps for Sai.

[New haven america]

Both, but only one of them is actually a real thing.

Race in biology denotes a subspecies or closely relate species, like the Neanderthals to Humans, Asian Elephant to African Elephant, Indian Rhino to White Rhino, etc... This is the only definition of race that is biologically a real thing.

Race as a social construct is an abuse of the concept of biological race made by and propagated by racist European conquerors and colonialists starting around the 1500's. What we think of as race in humans is actually just morphology polymorphy, subtle differences within the same species that can cause physical differences and subtle physiological differences, but doesn't impede procreation and can actually help it in most cases. Humans aren't the only ones like this either, Leopards (Tan and spotted fur) and Panthers (Black fur) are the exact same species for example and it's very common for a leopard to have panther cubs and panthers to have leopard cubs, because of course it is, they're the same species and the difference is literally only skin deep at best.

The former is a real biological concept, the latter is a social construct based on the idea of morphology polymorphy.

It wasn't that recent, racism became a thing in the west around 300 b.c, when Greeks first wrote anti-Semitic texts. And in the east not much after the Trung Rebellion

That wasn't based on "race" or close to modern day racism, that was religious and national discrimination.

We've already been over this, keep up.

[Cisairse]

The Roma aren't European in terms of origin, they're really from northern India

So are Europeans.

[New haven america]

And then you have the Roma, who are just as European as everyone else living on that peninsula pretending to be a continent, but it's not uncommon to hear Europeans say some downright genocidal things about them.

The Roma aren't European in terms of origin, they're really from northern India but unlike with the Jews, Roma didn't consort with the Europeans to enough of an extent to have a real claim to European ancestry like Ashkenazi Jews do. From what I hear, more Europeans would be okay with Roma were it the case that they stopped being nomadic and respected private property rights more. It is often said that there are some other problems related to that such as theft, vandalism, or environmental pollution at the temporary camping grounds that're used.

And Europeans came from Africa.

Try again.

[Aureumterra]

The Roma aren't European in terms of origin, they're really from northern India

So are Europeans.

Um… no? There’s two main theories, neither of which say Europeans are from Northern India

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

The physical and hereditary traits which often (but not always) occur together are genetic, but how exactly the lines are drawn to make them into races is totally social and/or pseudoscience. The traits are not very discrete, and more continuous. They almost approximate a unimodal distribution individually.

Still, genetically, if you randomly selected ten indigenous people of ten different areas far from each other, they would be more similar than most random selections of two wild chimps living 50 km apart.