"Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race. It is certainly not restricted to melanin. With respect to a condition my wife has, a surgeon referred to her as "highly melanated." She is darker than some people who are classified as black which can be quite white. But a person who would…
"Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race. It is certainly not restricted to melanin. With respect to a condition my wife has, a surgeon referred to her as "highly melanated." She is darker than some people who are classified as black which can be quite white. But a person who would not call her Asian based upon her appearance would be rare since her DNA ancestry is a collection of Southeast Asian subgroups. She has been mistaken for a Navaho, possibly because we live in Arizona.
All of that quickly dilutes. When we lived in Saudi Arabia several people assumed our daughters were Arabs. A mixture of European and Asian ancestry makes them technically Eurasian. They heard plenty of "Where are you from?" growing up and when we lived in Georgia many black people referred to them as "half white."
All that to say race can be unambiguously observable, or diluted to the point that people can pass for a race that comes with less baggage. It tells you nothing of their character, intelligence or world view. Does some of my wife's behavior fit the Asian stereotype? Sure, but with 50+ years of marriage to her, so is some of mine.
I'm not transracial ;0), just because of my comfort with some of that. That's where people go off the rails. TV over the internet from Thailand is streaming as I write this. There are Thai speaking actors/actresses in her shows who look white and who look black. Are they a mix or immigrants who speak Thai like a native? Who knows? Who cares? Nobody is calling them farang or farang dam. They are just people who are a part of the landscape, which is the way things should be. We are a collection of ancestry and personal experiences. I suspect that my life experience shaped me more than my genes.
""Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race"
This is circular, no? Like saying that a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman? We've talked about this before, but I'm still not sure what you mean when you ay "race."
Interestingly enough, this conversation with Daniel three years ago evolved my thoughts on what race is. Until then I'd been quite happy thinking of "black" not only as a descriptor, but as a meaningful, cohesive category. Whereas I think a much better way to think of it is in the same way we think of brunette or redhead.
These too are generally related to other characteristics (dark eyes for brunettes, freckles and pale skin for redheads), and are unambiguously observable. But they're also so enormously diverse in genes and expression that it doesn't make much sense to think of them as much more than descriptors.
I don't buy into the idea that the concept of race is some evil shit invented by white people to oppress people. People notice observable features of appearance since it is a signal of someone of another tribe who may or may not be friendly or dangerous. When all is said and done, it is more a case of eye candy than knowledge of the person's character.
The fact that there is a concept, an absurd one, that there is "trans" gender, race, species, etc. indicates that those are commonly understood classifications. It doesn't define us that people see me as a white man or you as a black man. It's just something people see and may or may not attach importance to.
Could it indicate social views? It could but isn't necessarily so. If you adopt an infant Chinese girl (there are a bunch of them in America) thanks to one child and it needs to be a boy that happened for a number of years in China, is she a Chinese girl? What do people mean by that? Chinese DNA and appearance, culturally some subset of the American family who adopted her.
"I don't buy into the idea that the concept of race is some evil shit invented by white people to oppress people."
Yeah, I think this is why we're struggling to make progress on this point. It isn't a question of whether you buy into it, it's a fact. The concept of "black people" and "white people" as many think about it today is an invention of white slaveowners to justify keeping African Christians as lifelong slaves. It's a matter of historical record.
But that doesn't make race an invention of "white people" in the sense that I think you mean it. In fact, the sense that you mean it is the legacy of that same invention.
White people (or more accurately, people whose skin ranges from light pink to light beige) are not collectively responsible, in perpetuity, for every bad thing a person with similar coloured skin has ever done. But on some level, I think *this* is the concept you've bought into. So when you hear about something negative that a few white people did in the past, some part of you seems to feel a degree of defensiveness. Or at least an urge to reject the idea.
And to be clear, I understand this. One of the many reasons I spend so much time writing and talking about racial issues is that modern-day "antiracism" strongly encourages this mindset. In white people *and* black people. I think far fewer people thought this way 20 years ago than do today.
But again, this is not inevitable. Noticing difference doesn't equal tribalism. People notice, for example, that some people have blonde hair and others have brown hair. But nobody is tempted to say that all of those people are the same or have some sort of collective responsibility for each other's historical actions.
I have nothing to defend. I wasn't there in the days of trans-Atlantic slavery. I was in the racist south in the 70s, standing for and with black people though. The people who go on and on about white people this, systemic and supremist that can go F themselves. If it has done that to someone like me, and it has, the problem is much, much bigger than you think it is.
I don't reject the idea that white people did some awful stuff when they started buying black people from black people in Africa. The white people did X before we were born seems a bit like the Israel-Palestine rhetoric going on now and is just as unhelpful. "White [you name it]" and "holocaust" are seen as a wild card that makes hate at worst or negative attitudes at least OK.
I understand quite well that black people didn't like way it was which is why I stood with them, and still do, but they didn't openly make me their enemy. With that I can quote General James Mattis, "No better friend, no worse enemy..." Making a friend an enemy is a fool's errand.
"If it has done that to someone like me, and it has, the problem is much, much bigger than you think it is."
Yes, I absolutely agree. Again, this is exactly why I write and talk about these issues. The "antiracists" have created a monster and I don't think they even see it yet because they're too wrapped up in their own racism and self-righteousness. I see the size of the problem very clearly I think.
My entire thesis, in pretty much everything I write, is that you, and every other white person alive today, have nothing to defend when it comes to discussions of slavery or the invention of "race" or anything else other than your own actions. But that doesn't stop many white people from *feeling* defensive.I see it all the time. And as you hint at here, in a growing number of cases, that defensiveness is turning into something extremely worrying (obviously not talking about you here. I'm seeing some truly awful stuff elsewhere online).
There are many levers to pull in order to undo (or at least minimise) the damage that this "progressive" racism has caused. And one of those is to continue to pick apart this rancid idea of collectivism based on skin colour. That also means recognising that "black people" didn't make you their enemy. A small selection of idiots, many of them white, decided that picking at racial divisions could make them a lot of money.
I want to note that regarding your last sentence, while yes some want to make a lot of money (DiAngelo is now a millionaire, Kendi is doing well), I think that other psychological motives likely are more widely behind the spread of the movement. (If you were to counter that the handful having the most cultural influence were motivated by money more than anything, I have no knowledge either way on that; I'm talking about the second and third tier evangelists who are much more common).
Resentment, guilt, seeking a particular kind of redemption, the joys of feeling moral superiority, imagined solidarity with the oppressed, personal power seeking - all of these motives/payoffs are far more common among proponents and promoters of the ideology than is making a lot of money.
Critical Social Justice ideology has largely non-monetary payoffs for its adherents (who are commanded to also be its proselytizers).
Again, at the top of the influence chain, money could perhaps be a bigger factor than it is among the rank and file.
"I think that other psychological motives likely are more widely behind the spread of the movement."
Yes, absolutely true. I place most of the blame for this movement on the people (like Kendi and DiAngelo) who published and promoted these half-baked, openly racist ideas. As well as the media who sold false narratives about race-based shootings (for example) for profit.
But yes, I think many more people ran with these ideas for reasons that had less to do with profit and more to do with virtue signalling and protecting their careers.
Great comment. Yes, appearances will get increasingly confusing in places like Southern California where literally the whole world mixes its genes. My grandchildren are half mestizo Mexican and the other half a mix of Scots Irish, South Asian Indian and Ashkenazi Jew. By appearance my six year old grandson could be mistaken for dozen ethnicities.
Here’s hoping that all this racial stuff just becomes irrelevant because, as Obama once quipped, “we’re all beige.”
This trend of requiring everyone to believe what one says one is and not believe their lying eyes has a strong element of narcissistic entitlement.
There'll still be cultural differences and national ones, but hopefully we will get a day when one's skin color is the most salient thing about their identity.
"Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race. It is certainly not restricted to melanin. With respect to a condition my wife has, a surgeon referred to her as "highly melanated." She is darker than some people who are classified as black which can be quite white. But a person who would not call her Asian based upon her appearance would be rare since her DNA ancestry is a collection of Southeast Asian subgroups. She has been mistaken for a Navaho, possibly because we live in Arizona.
All of that quickly dilutes. When we lived in Saudi Arabia several people assumed our daughters were Arabs. A mixture of European and Asian ancestry makes them technically Eurasian. They heard plenty of "Where are you from?" growing up and when we lived in Georgia many black people referred to them as "half white."
All that to say race can be unambiguously observable, or diluted to the point that people can pass for a race that comes with less baggage. It tells you nothing of their character, intelligence or world view. Does some of my wife's behavior fit the Asian stereotype? Sure, but with 50+ years of marriage to her, so is some of mine.
I'm not transracial ;0), just because of my comfort with some of that. That's where people go off the rails. TV over the internet from Thailand is streaming as I write this. There are Thai speaking actors/actresses in her shows who look white and who look black. Are they a mix or immigrants who speak Thai like a native? Who knows? Who cares? Nobody is calling them farang or farang dam. They are just people who are a part of the landscape, which is the way things should be. We are a collection of ancestry and personal experiences. I suspect that my life experience shaped me more than my genes.
""Race" or whatever people wish to call it is a collection of characteristics associated with race"
This is circular, no? Like saying that a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman? We've talked about this before, but I'm still not sure what you mean when you ay "race."
Interestingly enough, this conversation with Daniel three years ago evolved my thoughts on what race is. Until then I'd been quite happy thinking of "black" not only as a descriptor, but as a meaningful, cohesive category. Whereas I think a much better way to think of it is in the same way we think of brunette or redhead.
These too are generally related to other characteristics (dark eyes for brunettes, freckles and pale skin for redheads), and are unambiguously observable. But they're also so enormously diverse in genes and expression that it doesn't make much sense to think of them as much more than descriptors.
I don't buy into the idea that the concept of race is some evil shit invented by white people to oppress people. People notice observable features of appearance since it is a signal of someone of another tribe who may or may not be friendly or dangerous. When all is said and done, it is more a case of eye candy than knowledge of the person's character.
The fact that there is a concept, an absurd one, that there is "trans" gender, race, species, etc. indicates that those are commonly understood classifications. It doesn't define us that people see me as a white man or you as a black man. It's just something people see and may or may not attach importance to.
Could it indicate social views? It could but isn't necessarily so. If you adopt an infant Chinese girl (there are a bunch of them in America) thanks to one child and it needs to be a boy that happened for a number of years in China, is she a Chinese girl? What do people mean by that? Chinese DNA and appearance, culturally some subset of the American family who adopted her.
https://youtu.be/crAv5ttax2I?si=ugN7YBJgn72Dsmyc
"I don't buy into the idea that the concept of race is some evil shit invented by white people to oppress people."
Yeah, I think this is why we're struggling to make progress on this point. It isn't a question of whether you buy into it, it's a fact. The concept of "black people" and "white people" as many think about it today is an invention of white slaveowners to justify keeping African Christians as lifelong slaves. It's a matter of historical record.
But that doesn't make race an invention of "white people" in the sense that I think you mean it. In fact, the sense that you mean it is the legacy of that same invention.
White people (or more accurately, people whose skin ranges from light pink to light beige) are not collectively responsible, in perpetuity, for every bad thing a person with similar coloured skin has ever done. But on some level, I think *this* is the concept you've bought into. So when you hear about something negative that a few white people did in the past, some part of you seems to feel a degree of defensiveness. Or at least an urge to reject the idea.
And to be clear, I understand this. One of the many reasons I spend so much time writing and talking about racial issues is that modern-day "antiracism" strongly encourages this mindset. In white people *and* black people. I think far fewer people thought this way 20 years ago than do today.
But again, this is not inevitable. Noticing difference doesn't equal tribalism. People notice, for example, that some people have blonde hair and others have brown hair. But nobody is tempted to say that all of those people are the same or have some sort of collective responsibility for each other's historical actions.
"𝘚𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘧𝘦𝘸 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴. 𝘖𝘳 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘯 𝘶𝘳𝘨𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢."
I have nothing to defend. I wasn't there in the days of trans-Atlantic slavery. I was in the racist south in the 70s, standing for and with black people though. The people who go on and on about white people this, systemic and supremist that can go F themselves. If it has done that to someone like me, and it has, the problem is much, much bigger than you think it is.
I don't reject the idea that white people did some awful stuff when they started buying black people from black people in Africa. The white people did X before we were born seems a bit like the Israel-Palestine rhetoric going on now and is just as unhelpful. "White [you name it]" and "holocaust" are seen as a wild card that makes hate at worst or negative attitudes at least OK.
I understand quite well that black people didn't like way it was which is why I stood with them, and still do, but they didn't openly make me their enemy. With that I can quote General James Mattis, "No better friend, no worse enemy..." Making a friend an enemy is a fool's errand.
Sorry, you caught me on a bad day.
"If it has done that to someone like me, and it has, the problem is much, much bigger than you think it is."
Yes, I absolutely agree. Again, this is exactly why I write and talk about these issues. The "antiracists" have created a monster and I don't think they even see it yet because they're too wrapped up in their own racism and self-righteousness. I see the size of the problem very clearly I think.
My entire thesis, in pretty much everything I write, is that you, and every other white person alive today, have nothing to defend when it comes to discussions of slavery or the invention of "race" or anything else other than your own actions. But that doesn't stop many white people from *feeling* defensive.I see it all the time. And as you hint at here, in a growing number of cases, that defensiveness is turning into something extremely worrying (obviously not talking about you here. I'm seeing some truly awful stuff elsewhere online).
There are many levers to pull in order to undo (or at least minimise) the damage that this "progressive" racism has caused. And one of those is to continue to pick apart this rancid idea of collectivism based on skin colour. That also means recognising that "black people" didn't make you their enemy. A small selection of idiots, many of them white, decided that picking at racial divisions could make them a lot of money.
I am in general strong agreement as usual.
I want to note that regarding your last sentence, while yes some want to make a lot of money (DiAngelo is now a millionaire, Kendi is doing well), I think that other psychological motives likely are more widely behind the spread of the movement. (If you were to counter that the handful having the most cultural influence were motivated by money more than anything, I have no knowledge either way on that; I'm talking about the second and third tier evangelists who are much more common).
Resentment, guilt, seeking a particular kind of redemption, the joys of feeling moral superiority, imagined solidarity with the oppressed, personal power seeking - all of these motives/payoffs are far more common among proponents and promoters of the ideology than is making a lot of money.
Critical Social Justice ideology has largely non-monetary payoffs for its adherents (who are commanded to also be its proselytizers).
Again, at the top of the influence chain, money could perhaps be a bigger factor than it is among the rank and file.
"I think that other psychological motives likely are more widely behind the spread of the movement."
Yes, absolutely true. I place most of the blame for this movement on the people (like Kendi and DiAngelo) who published and promoted these half-baked, openly racist ideas. As well as the media who sold false narratives about race-based shootings (for example) for profit.
But yes, I think many more people ran with these ideas for reasons that had less to do with profit and more to do with virtue signalling and protecting their careers.
Great comment. Yes, appearances will get increasingly confusing in places like Southern California where literally the whole world mixes its genes. My grandchildren are half mestizo Mexican and the other half a mix of Scots Irish, South Asian Indian and Ashkenazi Jew. By appearance my six year old grandson could be mistaken for dozen ethnicities.
Here’s hoping that all this racial stuff just becomes irrelevant because, as Obama once quipped, “we’re all beige.”
This trend of requiring everyone to believe what one says one is and not believe their lying eyes has a strong element of narcissistic entitlement.
There'll still be cultural differences and national ones, but hopefully we will get a day when one's skin color is the most salient thing about their identity.
Is there a missing "not" in your sentence?