As of this writing, I’ve had well over 4000 conversations online. Most of them about “race.” Yet I’m painfully aware that race, as most people think of it, doesn’t exist. In my article, The Progressive Rebranding Of Racism, I pointed out that the concept of “race” is a lie that we’d all be better off abandoning and J had questions about what that would look like in practice. Specifically about whether defining himself by the “black” parts of his family tree could be a way of…abandoning the idea that the “black” parts of his family tree define him.
Just as very few people share the high quality of your brain/education, very few people will understand or appreciate the thoughts and ideas your brain produces. Your logic and empiricism are impeccable. Sadly, that will make almost no difference. I could count on the fingers of both hands the number of Medium writers who would even understand, much less internalize, these ideas.
Part of the reason for that, I fear, is that lots of people benefit from the twisted logic of race. It has become a social cudgel. "Race consciousness" is on a virtually vertical upward trajectory now. "White identity" is now a "thing" in the US. Division is growing by the day, fueled by anti-racism and white grievance.
So, what can we do? I honestly don't know, except help the people who need help regardless of what they look like
What I do know is that it is very valiant of you to be this lonely voice of reason. Stay safe.
"I could count on the fingers of both hands the number of Medium writers who would even understand, much less internalize, these ideas."
Yeah, I don't usually go too hard on the idea that race doesn't exist precisely because I know how strongly it conflicts with what most people have been taught to think. Popular culture spends so much time subtly and not-so-subtly dividing people into "blacks" and "whites" that it's not easy for some people to think outside those boxes.
In fact, J had already acknowledged that race isn't real in an earlier part the conversation. He just couldn't see how much the idea still dominated his thinking. And yes, today, "race consciousness" is reaching heights not seen since Jim Crow, all in the name of "anti-racism." It's incredibly frustrating.
The level that most people can wrap their heads around is that skin colour doesn't (or at least shouldn't) matter. So that's generally where I pitch things. It would be nice if more people fully understood *why* it doesn't matter, but changes in thinking always happen slowly.
This is fascinating. The first European humans had the same appearance as Africans. Lack of Vitamin D in early agricultural diets in Europe led to selection pressure for whiter skin. This is all really new stuff.
You can say that race doesn't really exist by equivocation. It's not a scientific term any more than "natural" is, but it is a societal distinction of extreme potency. It doesn't do an American black a lot of good to point out that "race is a social construct" as two men point guns at him while a third tosses a rope over a tree branch.
I've said all I care to say about "social constructs" and to continue arguing it would just make for bad blood, but I don't buy it. Find another way to express it and I may unbend a little but that phrase just offends me like crazy. So does "cis."
But what matters is that most bad people see race as a fundamental difference between people and a lot of them nurture murderous hatred over what you say doesn't exist. I leave it to the reader to decide which formulation matters more in daily life.
Jean Piaget developed a stage theory of cognitive development; Lawrence Kohlberg developed a stage theory of moral development (what he learned about humanity led him to take his own life). I have one of my own, for matters of bigotry, which I choose to express in terms of race since that's what this column is about, but it could as well apply to other bigotry. You needn't subscribe to either formulation to track my stages.
As with Piaget's and Kohlberg's, not all people begin lives at the lowest stage and not everyone progressed to the highest one.
1) plain old bigot. White supremacist, thoughtless, believes with complete conviction that one race is superior to the others, that the others are only fit for menial labor and are less than human.
2) woke. There are no races, any suggestion that there are any differences between people is bigotry, trans women are women, everyone has a 100 IQ, social constructs, Asians don't eat any more rice than anyone else, etc. etc. etc. Have a Coke and a smile.
3) biological or societal, there are such things as races again, unscientific, and there are differences between them. These differences are not inferiority or superiority, they just are, and we can accept them without looking down our noses Cultural differences, biological differences, who cares, move on and forget about it, in any metric you care to mention (melanin, intelligence, penis length) there is huge overlap in the bell curves and right now there are more important things to think about.
I have striven all my life to be at (3). I've mostly succeeded.
I don't have to say anything about (1) but I don't have a lot of esteem for (2) either.
Within the last few decades, there has developed a general consensus among geneticists that there exists vastly greater genetic diversity within the group of human beings colloquially referred to as "Black" than there is between Eurasians and Blacks or any other grouping. In other words, while there are genetic markers for dark skin, they do not meaningfully correspond with other genetic markers that are phenotypically expressed; rather, it is utterly self-referential.
So, the scientific view is that race, like religion, is a social construct and, like religion, an extremely powerful one at that. Check out the citations in the Wikipedia article I cut and pasted above. And there are lots more I can supply on request.
As you point out, views on "race" have been quite lethal, and far more influential in affecting most human behavior than mere scientific evidence will ever be.
But there is simply no equivalence between those trans ideologues who insist that transwomen are truly women and the other bullshit you mentioned on the one hand, and those who assert that "race" is not a scientifically meaningful grouping on the other.
And you will find less genetic difference between a randomly-chosen human and a randomly-chosen chimpanzee than you can find between two not so randomly selected humans. That there is enormous genetic heterogeneity within a nominal "race" is hardly surprising; otherwise they would all be the same height, look exactly alike, etc. And the human genome was fully sequenced, what, less than a generation ago, this is a fledgling science.
It seems to me that you are rebutting things I didn't say, arguing points I clearly conceded.
I think the "not" in your last sentence is backward.
Yet you can lose your job if someone runs across your social media post insisting that "trans" women are not truly women.
I’m not sure I understand your response. All humans share well over 99% of their DNA--all genetic variation among humans is attributable to .01 or .02 percent. They share about 98.7% of their DNA with chimps. Also chimps have 48 chromosomes while humans have 46.
So humans are more like each other than they are like chimps. However, because chimps have been around longer than humans, there is much greater genetic diversity among chimps than among humans. Was this what you were referring to?
I was taking issue with your equating genetic reality with wacko transgender ideology. Your statement 2 to be specific. Did I misunderstand you?
What exactly did you think I meant when I said that race is not a scientific concept? And said twice how the significance of the concept is social and behavioral?
What I meant in (2) was a wanton denial of any and all objective reality masquerading as some sort of sagacity. People who say everything is a "social construct" regardless of the scientific truth, since they think that logical thought itself is "eurocentric cisnormativity" or whatthefuck ever. It does not advance scientific understanding of race or anything else by mixing it in with this pseudointellectual pot of mud. So when someone yaps that "race is a social construct" instead of, oh, "race is not a scientifically-founded concept" then it adulterates the argument.
Because "social construct" is part of the language of postemodernism, where "trans" looniness is right at home.
Right on. So well said, and I appreciate your brief discussion of reparations. It's helpful to bring that kind of "story problem" to the table to help make the abstract concept of oppression more tangible! I always love how kind and patient you are to your dialogue partners, but also bluntly honest about your terms of engagement. You should teach workshops about that!
"It's helpful to bring that kind of "story problem" to the table to help make the abstract concept of oppression more tangible!"
Yep, definitely. "Oppression" like pretty much every word the culture wars touches, has become next to meaningless today. I don't think J even knows what he means when he says it.
What I *think* he means is that he's internalised the views of the most ardent racists he's ever heard of, those views understandably make him feel "devalued", and he blames "oppression" for the doubts and insecurities those racist views cause instead of recognising that he's the one validating them. I should have pushed a little harder in asking him exactly *how* he thinks he's oppressed.
And yes, seeing past the fallacy of race means letting go of numerous other ideas like shared racial guilt or shared racial victimhood. The conversation around reparations very quickly stops making sense when you think in terms of race. Whereas if you think in terms of need, it's quite easy to figure out where money should be invested in order to help the maximum number of people.
The good news for reparations supporters is that black people *would* be disproportionately helped by any serious attempt to combat poverty. And rightly so in my opinion.
Again, so well articulated! A great question to ask - HOW are YOU oppressed - and also maybe WHAT have you done to address that in YOUR life? And YES, whatever we can collectively provide to reduce poverty and income inequality will help everyone live better lives. And maybe this is too Polyanna, but it could even begin to resolve the dangerous political animosity in the US that's partially fueled by the current confused paradigm around race that completely ignores the challenges of low-wealth white people.
Thanks for being one of the brave truth-tellers in our world community!
It's sad/wearying/frustrating/all the negative things, yet also somehow poignant, how often it is overlooked that "race" and for that matter "gender" are superficial constructs based on compartmentalizing people when either we are genetically basically the same (the lie of race) or each of us has our own unique way of acting out our biological sex (the essentialism inherent in discussions of gender). The poignancy comes from the all-too-human desire to cling to a label in the hopes that it will help determine and even perhaps justify identity. Alas!
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write this as it might be seen as me wanting to argue, I don’t. But I think you may be missing something. It has to do with what is race and what is being ascribed to it as meaningful.
A very small part of our genome carries physical characteristics common to subsets of humanity referred to a race.
When my wife first came to America I was stationed in the state of Georgia, my first experience living south of the Mason-Dickson line. A white woman in my presence said, “They all look alike to me” with reference to black people. She could be an ID witness in a trial! I mentioned it to my wife and she stunned me by saying, “White people look alike to me.” That seemed astonishing to me, but now I get it.
The white lady, at a time before black people commonly being on TV and in movies in the segregated south and my wife, fresh out of Southeast Asia had something in common. They were overwhelmed by the common physical (visual) characteristics of a group (race) that they had little exposure to. In my wife’s case, although she is very brown skinned, it wasn’t the whiteness. It was the lack of characteristics that were a part of her norm; straight black hair, high cheekbones, eye shape, smaller size, etc.
Just as she, and now I after 50+ years of close proximity to Asians see subdivision within the group called Asian; Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Indians have subset physical characteristics within the larger group. I grew up at a time when the subset differences in “white people” were more commonly thought of. The fair skinned blond, the freckled ginger, the olive-skinned Southern Mediterranean, etc. “Race” as a dominant set of physical characteristics is not as simple as black, white, or brown. The differenced are not exclusive. My wife was mistaken for Navajo by a Cherokee (the subset of interest to the American Indians (they call themselves that)). Since I have little exposure to Africans where “black” is a norm, I am not inclined to see the differences that I suspect that the racial subgroups there see other than Pigmy vs. Somali, etc.
There is no reason to assign a value upon any of that. A collection of physical appearance characteristics that are highly noticeable. The trouble starts when people notice cultural/subcultural differences which they choose to assign value (this superior/inferior to that) which is neither because of racial characteristics nor superior/inferior by a universal standard. But they try to make it about that.
Race, as a set of dominant physical characteristics of subsets of humanity does exist. Since there is no reason to rank them on a totem of superiority/inferiority, it should be, in my opinion, not be of importance in our view of each other. It is a real thing that only becomes a toxic issue when cultural tribalism rears its head.
𝐀𝐬 𝐈 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐢𝐭, 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐞, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐢𝐬. I agree with your thoughts with regard to Steve’s, but from a perspective that is a bit different. You don't need to pay good money to understand why my opinion is different from yours.
"Just as she, and now I after 50+ years of close proximity to Asians see subdivision within the group called Asian; Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Indians have subset physical characteristics within the larger group."
I don't want to argue either, but I can't resist asking, do you see these groups (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, etc) as distinct races? How about the Mongolians and the Nepalese and Thai? Or the Kazakh people, who it's difficult to describe as having typically Asian or European features. Is the race Asian? With these smaller subdivisions within that race? Or are they all different races?
You keep saying race exists, but I'm still not clear what you mean when you use the word. For example, you talk about people being unable to distinguish between different groups, this is obviously something that happens. But this is simply a failure of pattern recognition due to a lack of exposure, no? It's not evidence of racial categories, it's evidence that some people don't make nuanced observations if they're not used to seeing people who don't look like them.
I'll repeat myself though I think I've been quite clear. "𝘈 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦." Those subsets of humanity are not monolithic and can be divided into smaller subsets. The common features vary in proportion and there is intermixing dilution. Since you are a world traveler, I doubt that you would mistake the average appearance Korean for an average Thai, but you would see both as unmistakably Asian even if you know nothing else about them. That is race and racial distinction as a subset. It is not just a construct formed by governments drawing lines on maps.
My reference to "all look alike" was a reference to the unfamiliar being overwhelmed by the undeniable common racial look being such a large distractor. Physical genetic characteristics pertaining to what people observe. If that were not the case, there would be no issue or discussion.
Just my opinion, but I think your aversion to "race" is about the harm that comes from people assigning relative value or superiority/inferiority to the people within those groups. I share your concern, but don't think it helpful pretend that race does not exist because of the evils of racism. I doubt that there will be universal acceptance of your opinion that race is not real until we are so intermixed that what are known as racial differences are so small that they are not recognizable, and it will then actually not be a thing. People who look like you or me will be gone.
One last time, race is not evil, racism is. Denial will make neither of them go away.
***** I think that our impasse is that we are thinking of different things when the word race appears. I think I have clearly explained what I'm thinking of. Is that something different from what you are thinking of? And how, since I think that it must be? *****
"but you would see both as unmistakably Asian even if you know nothing else about them"
This is the point I was trying to make about Kazakh people. And, in fact, you made it too when you pointed out that your wife was mistaken for a Navajo woman. You seem to be assigning intrinsic value to the fact that we look at each other and make assumptions, even when those assumptions are wrong, and are then using those assumptions to conclude that racial categories are meaningful despite all scientific evidence to the contrary.
And yes, I know that racism is evil and not race. You don't need to say it "one last time." You didn't even need to say it the first time! I'm quite capable of telling the difference between the two and understand that the latter doesn't necessarily lead to the former. You're assuming that I'm in "denial" about race or "pretending" that it isn't real because I don't like racism (even though I've told you numerous times that's not the case). But the fact is simply that I've read the abundant scientific evidence on the topic.
I can only presume you haven't read the link I posted, because if I'm pretending, the people who wrote the papers referenced there are pretending too. Heck, the people who wrote the paper *you* linked would have to be pretending. I wouldn't be arguing this point at all, never mind for this long, if I was just pretending. I hope you know I have more intellectual integrity than that.
But yes, maybe we're still not hearing each other when we talk about what race is. And maybe the easiest way to clear that up is to ask; how many races are there? As I'm talking about it (and how I think the overwhelming majority of people talk about it) there are around five: White, Black, Asian, Native American, Hispanic, with some room to quibble about maybe Indian or Aboriginal people.
You seem to both use this definition of race, and an enormously more nuanced one that considers a wide array of genetic differentiation beyond skin tone (and would therefore lead to many, many more than five). That's why I'm still confused. For example, when you talk about the epicanthic fold, do you consider everybody who has this to be the same race? Because some African populations have high incidence of the epicanthic fold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold). Is the key racial determinant in these cases the fold or their skin colour?
"I can only presume you haven't read the link I posted"
Which link? You provide many and I usually read them.
"I hope you know I have more intellectual integrity than that."
I do and apologize for that.
"You seem to be assigning intrinsic value to the fact that we look at each other and make assumptions, even when those assumptions are wrong, and are then using those assumptions to conclude that racial categories are meaningful despite all scientific evidence to the contrary."
I assign no intrinsic value to it. As I go through my day the race or gender of the people that I interact with is unimportant to me, but it might be to them. Do people sometimes draw incorrect conclusions about the things they observe? Of course. I might be fuller of doubt about many things than most people, but it doesn't mean I should not think or form opinions about things.
If science (the most abused word in all of discussion) concludes that there are not observable dominant physical characteristics to commonly found in subsets of humanity known as race, the science is probably political science, an ever-changing set of opinions which conform to public opinion. At that point it is quibbling about evolving definitions of words. 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. Thanks to intermixing an increasing number of people fall into the overlap and become less classifiable. People categorize, an ancient survival instinct.
"how many races are there?" & "definition of race, and an enormously more nuanced one that considers a wide array of genetic differentiation beyond skin tone (and would therefore lead to many, many more than five)"
It depends upon which characteristics you use to make the determination. I've continuously stated that I see it as something more numerous than skin color which is an analog ranging from dark black thru shades of g̶r̶a̶y̶ brown to very white. To attempt absolute boundaries might reduce it to three (white, brown and black). Native American and Hispanic are more political than physical distinctions.
If the only thing you could see about my wife was the color of her skin, you could draw no conclusion about a racial category other than brown which is not the characteristic that jumps out at people first or leads to the one she associates with.
All those words to say that we are not thinking of the same things. Perhaps I should choose a less offensive word than race for the dominant physical characteristics of subsets of humanity which are not limited to skin color. With apologies to Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."
"Perhaps I should choose a less offensive word than race for the dominant physical characteristics of subsets of humanity which are not limited to skin color."
Dave, I'm not taking offence. The word "race" isn't offensive to me or to anybody I've ever come across. You seem absolutely convinced that my position is based on a desire to wish away the concept of race in the hope that racism will somehow die along with it. Please hear me when I say you couldn't be more wrong about that. My position is based purely on the data available (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics#Race_and_human_genetic_variation).
Despite my extensive writing on the topic, people often assume that somewhere, deep down, I'm unable to think critically and objectively about racial issues because I'm black. And so they assume I'm saying things I'm not saying. I'm not sure if it's what's happening here, but let me at least be clear that I'm not saying any of this because I think it will somehow end racism. If everybody on Earth understood that racial categories are meaningless tomorrow, almost exactly the same number of people would hate others almost exactly the same amount based on the colour of their skin.
But all that said, yes, I'd suggest that you choose a different word than "race" to describe the various characteristics that can be found in subsets of humanity *irrespective* of skin colour. Solely because not a single person or organisation I've ever come across uses the word "race" in that way, and I think you'll end up being misunderstood.
From "diversity" questionnaires to census data to government data sources, if you find the word "race" on a form, or you see a data point broken down by "race," what you'll find underneath it 100% of the time is a short list of categories that will include "Black, "White," "Asian," "Hispanic" etc.
No "Black but with an epicanthic fold," no "White but with sickle cell trait," no "Asian but with a high proportion of fast twitch muscle fibres." No differentiation between black people from Zimbabwe and Senegal. Or white people from Finland and Italy. Or Asians from Nepal and the Philippines.
Racial categories, as they're actually used, are so broad they're meaningless. Based entirely on a casual glance at an eye-catching physical characteristic. That's why I keep comparing them to grouping people by hair colour or height.
Anyway, I think I'll join you in quoting Forrest Gump here. Again, absolutely no offence was taken, so apologies if I came off aggressive at any point. My exasperation is in no way to be confused with animosity.
Glenn Loury recently featured Vincent Lloyd, a black, antiracist, and fairly 'woke' associate professor at Villanova University whose seminar was 'blown up' by a young black student crazy named Keisha and several other fellow student crazies who expelled two students with 'unorthodox' views and accused Lloyd of perpetuating 'anti-black racism'. The grand irony is that Lloyd was largely dismissive of critics of woke excesses and now has become a victim of them.
Race, and feeling oh-pressed by racism, is just too important to some black people to give up readily.
Students like Keisha have learned they can squeeze some power out of leveraging their victimhood. And while I sympathise with his position, professors like Lloyd are altogether too cowardly when it comes to challenging these students. Which, of course, is what the students are counting on.
It's exactly the same playbook the gender ideologues are using. Just as nobody in a progressive space dares point out how incoherent gender ideology is in case they get ostracised for being a transphobe, nobody in a progressive space dares question a black person's "lived experience," however improbable, in case they get pilloried as a racist.
In both cases, the Keishas of the world make life measurably worse for (and turn public opinion against) the trans or black or *insert identity here* people, just trying to live their lives. And completely ignore those who are genuinely marginalised.
Read the Compact article today. What shocked me was how easily the professor acquiesced to Keisha, *letting her get away with it for a month*, and how easily she corralled the others...who were different when she wasn't around, and who got cheated out of a great seminar because of Keisha's malignant narcissism. He needs to grow a pair. He needed to do what John McWhorter advised: Tell her to knock it off, he's running the class, and if she doesn't like it she could leave. He should have approached Telluride sooner too.
One "anti-blackness" obsessed child should not be allowed to ruin a very special group because she thinks she already knows it all. I wonder why she even bothered applying fir it unless she was hoping for nonstop "anti-blackness" drivel (taken to her extremes).
"What shocked me was how easily the professor acquiesced to Keisha"
Yep, as I said, this cowardliness is 90% of the problem. It's impossible to appease narcissists while playing their game. Set the ground rules early and give them the choice to leave if they don't like them.
Too many of these teachers don't understand the difference between being reasonable and letting students treat them like a doormat. And, of course, after the students have gone used to wielding power in this way, they come to expect it.
Steve,
Just as very few people share the high quality of your brain/education, very few people will understand or appreciate the thoughts and ideas your brain produces. Your logic and empiricism are impeccable. Sadly, that will make almost no difference. I could count on the fingers of both hands the number of Medium writers who would even understand, much less internalize, these ideas.
Part of the reason for that, I fear, is that lots of people benefit from the twisted logic of race. It has become a social cudgel. "Race consciousness" is on a virtually vertical upward trajectory now. "White identity" is now a "thing" in the US. Division is growing by the day, fueled by anti-racism and white grievance.
So, what can we do? I honestly don't know, except help the people who need help regardless of what they look like
What I do know is that it is very valiant of you to be this lonely voice of reason. Stay safe.
"I could count on the fingers of both hands the number of Medium writers who would even understand, much less internalize, these ideas."
Yeah, I don't usually go too hard on the idea that race doesn't exist precisely because I know how strongly it conflicts with what most people have been taught to think. Popular culture spends so much time subtly and not-so-subtly dividing people into "blacks" and "whites" that it's not easy for some people to think outside those boxes.
In fact, J had already acknowledged that race isn't real in an earlier part the conversation. He just couldn't see how much the idea still dominated his thinking. And yes, today, "race consciousness" is reaching heights not seen since Jim Crow, all in the name of "anti-racism." It's incredibly frustrating.
The level that most people can wrap their heads around is that skin colour doesn't (or at least shouldn't) matter. So that's generally where I pitch things. It would be nice if more people fully understood *why* it doesn't matter, but changes in thinking always happen slowly.
https://medium.com/alternative-perspectives/a-deep-history-of-white-people-daa3587148d
This is fascinating. The first European humans had the same appearance as Africans. Lack of Vitamin D in early agricultural diets in Europe led to selection pressure for whiter skin. This is all really new stuff.
You can say that race doesn't really exist by equivocation. It's not a scientific term any more than "natural" is, but it is a societal distinction of extreme potency. It doesn't do an American black a lot of good to point out that "race is a social construct" as two men point guns at him while a third tosses a rope over a tree branch.
I've said all I care to say about "social constructs" and to continue arguing it would just make for bad blood, but I don't buy it. Find another way to express it and I may unbend a little but that phrase just offends me like crazy. So does "cis."
But what matters is that most bad people see race as a fundamental difference between people and a lot of them nurture murderous hatred over what you say doesn't exist. I leave it to the reader to decide which formulation matters more in daily life.
Jean Piaget developed a stage theory of cognitive development; Lawrence Kohlberg developed a stage theory of moral development (what he learned about humanity led him to take his own life). I have one of my own, for matters of bigotry, which I choose to express in terms of race since that's what this column is about, but it could as well apply to other bigotry. You needn't subscribe to either formulation to track my stages.
As with Piaget's and Kohlberg's, not all people begin lives at the lowest stage and not everyone progressed to the highest one.
1) plain old bigot. White supremacist, thoughtless, believes with complete conviction that one race is superior to the others, that the others are only fit for menial labor and are less than human.
2) woke. There are no races, any suggestion that there are any differences between people is bigotry, trans women are women, everyone has a 100 IQ, social constructs, Asians don't eat any more rice than anyone else, etc. etc. etc. Have a Coke and a smile.
3) biological or societal, there are such things as races again, unscientific, and there are differences between them. These differences are not inferiority or superiority, they just are, and we can accept them without looking down our noses Cultural differences, biological differences, who cares, move on and forget about it, in any metric you care to mention (melanin, intelligence, penis length) there is huge overlap in the bell curves and right now there are more important things to think about.
I have striven all my life to be at (3). I've mostly succeeded.
I don't have to say anything about (1) but I don't have a lot of esteem for (2) either.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=race+and+genetics&form=ANNTH1&refig=47a79e38bf484d678bdcab291c138014
Within the last few decades, there has developed a general consensus among geneticists that there exists vastly greater genetic diversity within the group of human beings colloquially referred to as "Black" than there is between Eurasians and Blacks or any other grouping. In other words, while there are genetic markers for dark skin, they do not meaningfully correspond with other genetic markers that are phenotypically expressed; rather, it is utterly self-referential.
So, the scientific view is that race, like religion, is a social construct and, like religion, an extremely powerful one at that. Check out the citations in the Wikipedia article I cut and pasted above. And there are lots more I can supply on request.
As you point out, views on "race" have been quite lethal, and far more influential in affecting most human behavior than mere scientific evidence will ever be.
But there is simply no equivalence between those trans ideologues who insist that transwomen are truly women and the other bullshit you mentioned on the one hand, and those who assert that "race" is not a scientifically meaningful grouping on the other.
And you will find less genetic difference between a randomly-chosen human and a randomly-chosen chimpanzee than you can find between two not so randomly selected humans. That there is enormous genetic heterogeneity within a nominal "race" is hardly surprising; otherwise they would all be the same height, look exactly alike, etc. And the human genome was fully sequenced, what, less than a generation ago, this is a fledgling science.
It seems to me that you are rebutting things I didn't say, arguing points I clearly conceded.
I think the "not" in your last sentence is backward.
Yet you can lose your job if someone runs across your social media post insisting that "trans" women are not truly women.
https://www.facebook.com/1517954111/videos/1342557583254781/
I’m not sure I understand your response. All humans share well over 99% of their DNA--all genetic variation among humans is attributable to .01 or .02 percent. They share about 98.7% of their DNA with chimps. Also chimps have 48 chromosomes while humans have 46.
So humans are more like each other than they are like chimps. However, because chimps have been around longer than humans, there is much greater genetic diversity among chimps than among humans. Was this what you were referring to?
I was taking issue with your equating genetic reality with wacko transgender ideology. Your statement 2 to be specific. Did I misunderstand you?
The last part I don’t think I understand.
What exactly did you think I meant when I said that race is not a scientific concept? And said twice how the significance of the concept is social and behavioral?
What I meant in (2) was a wanton denial of any and all objective reality masquerading as some sort of sagacity. People who say everything is a "social construct" regardless of the scientific truth, since they think that logical thought itself is "eurocentric cisnormativity" or whatthefuck ever. It does not advance scientific understanding of race or anything else by mixing it in with this pseudointellectual pot of mud. So when someone yaps that "race is a social construct" instead of, oh, "race is not a scientifically-founded concept" then it adulterates the argument.
Because "social construct" is part of the language of postemodernism, where "trans" looniness is right at home.
Is that clearer?
Yes, it is clearer. Point taken. I think we actually agree---just both a bit ornery.
I meant 0.1 or 0.2 percent. Oops
Right on. So well said, and I appreciate your brief discussion of reparations. It's helpful to bring that kind of "story problem" to the table to help make the abstract concept of oppression more tangible! I always love how kind and patient you are to your dialogue partners, but also bluntly honest about your terms of engagement. You should teach workshops about that!
"It's helpful to bring that kind of "story problem" to the table to help make the abstract concept of oppression more tangible!"
Yep, definitely. "Oppression" like pretty much every word the culture wars touches, has become next to meaningless today. I don't think J even knows what he means when he says it.
What I *think* he means is that he's internalised the views of the most ardent racists he's ever heard of, those views understandably make him feel "devalued", and he blames "oppression" for the doubts and insecurities those racist views cause instead of recognising that he's the one validating them. I should have pushed a little harder in asking him exactly *how* he thinks he's oppressed.
And yes, seeing past the fallacy of race means letting go of numerous other ideas like shared racial guilt or shared racial victimhood. The conversation around reparations very quickly stops making sense when you think in terms of race. Whereas if you think in terms of need, it's quite easy to figure out where money should be invested in order to help the maximum number of people.
The good news for reparations supporters is that black people *would* be disproportionately helped by any serious attempt to combat poverty. And rightly so in my opinion.
Again, so well articulated! A great question to ask - HOW are YOU oppressed - and also maybe WHAT have you done to address that in YOUR life? And YES, whatever we can collectively provide to reduce poverty and income inequality will help everyone live better lives. And maybe this is too Polyanna, but it could even begin to resolve the dangerous political animosity in the US that's partially fueled by the current confused paradigm around race that completely ignores the challenges of low-wealth white people.
Thanks for being one of the brave truth-tellers in our world community!
It's sad/wearying/frustrating/all the negative things, yet also somehow poignant, how often it is overlooked that "race" and for that matter "gender" are superficial constructs based on compartmentalizing people when either we are genetically basically the same (the lie of race) or each of us has our own unique way of acting out our biological sex (the essentialism inherent in discussions of gender). The poignancy comes from the all-too-human desire to cling to a label in the hopes that it will help determine and even perhaps justify identity. Alas!
Steve, after reading this:
https://medium.com/comrade-morlocks-journal/barbara-j-fields-comments-on-the-racecraft-of-the-1619-project-59b3a18414dd
I thought to find this:
https://www.amazon.com/Racecraft-Soul-Inequality-American-Life/dp/1781683131
You may have already read them.
I’ve been a bit reluctant to write this as it might be seen as me wanting to argue, I don’t. But I think you may be missing something. It has to do with what is race and what is being ascribed to it as meaningful.
A very small part of our genome carries physical characteristics common to subsets of humanity referred to a race.
When my wife first came to America I was stationed in the state of Georgia, my first experience living south of the Mason-Dickson line. A white woman in my presence said, “They all look alike to me” with reference to black people. She could be an ID witness in a trial! I mentioned it to my wife and she stunned me by saying, “White people look alike to me.” That seemed astonishing to me, but now I get it.
The white lady, at a time before black people commonly being on TV and in movies in the segregated south and my wife, fresh out of Southeast Asia had something in common. They were overwhelmed by the common physical (visual) characteristics of a group (race) that they had little exposure to. In my wife’s case, although she is very brown skinned, it wasn’t the whiteness. It was the lack of characteristics that were a part of her norm; straight black hair, high cheekbones, eye shape, smaller size, etc.
Just as she, and now I after 50+ years of close proximity to Asians see subdivision within the group called Asian; Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Indians have subset physical characteristics within the larger group. I grew up at a time when the subset differences in “white people” were more commonly thought of. The fair skinned blond, the freckled ginger, the olive-skinned Southern Mediterranean, etc. “Race” as a dominant set of physical characteristics is not as simple as black, white, or brown. The differenced are not exclusive. My wife was mistaken for Navajo by a Cherokee (the subset of interest to the American Indians (they call themselves that)). Since I have little exposure to Africans where “black” is a norm, I am not inclined to see the differences that I suspect that the racial subgroups there see other than Pigmy vs. Somali, etc.
There is no reason to assign a value upon any of that. A collection of physical appearance characteristics that are highly noticeable. The trouble starts when people notice cultural/subcultural differences which they choose to assign value (this superior/inferior to that) which is neither because of racial characteristics nor superior/inferior by a universal standard. But they try to make it about that.
Race, as a set of dominant physical characteristics of subsets of humanity does exist. Since there is no reason to rank them on a totem of superiority/inferiority, it should be, in my opinion, not be of importance in our view of each other. It is a real thing that only becomes a toxic issue when cultural tribalism rears its head.
𝐀𝐬 𝐈 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐢𝐭, 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚 𝐥𝐢𝐞, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐢𝐬. I agree with your thoughts with regard to Steve’s, but from a perspective that is a bit different. You don't need to pay good money to understand why my opinion is different from yours.
"Just as she, and now I after 50+ years of close proximity to Asians see subdivision within the group called Asian; Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Indians have subset physical characteristics within the larger group."
I don't want to argue either, but I can't resist asking, do you see these groups (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, etc) as distinct races? How about the Mongolians and the Nepalese and Thai? Or the Kazakh people, who it's difficult to describe as having typically Asian or European features. Is the race Asian? With these smaller subdivisions within that race? Or are they all different races?
You keep saying race exists, but I'm still not clear what you mean when you use the word. For example, you talk about people being unable to distinguish between different groups, this is obviously something that happens. But this is simply a failure of pattern recognition due to a lack of exposure, no? It's not evidence of racial categories, it's evidence that some people don't make nuanced observations if they're not used to seeing people who don't look like them.
I'll repeat myself though I think I've been quite clear. "𝘈 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦." Those subsets of humanity are not monolithic and can be divided into smaller subsets. The common features vary in proportion and there is intermixing dilution. Since you are a world traveler, I doubt that you would mistake the average appearance Korean for an average Thai, but you would see both as unmistakably Asian even if you know nothing else about them. That is race and racial distinction as a subset. It is not just a construct formed by governments drawing lines on maps.
My reference to "all look alike" was a reference to the unfamiliar being overwhelmed by the undeniable common racial look being such a large distractor. Physical genetic characteristics pertaining to what people observe. If that were not the case, there would be no issue or discussion.
Just my opinion, but I think your aversion to "race" is about the harm that comes from people assigning relative value or superiority/inferiority to the people within those groups. I share your concern, but don't think it helpful pretend that race does not exist because of the evils of racism. I doubt that there will be universal acceptance of your opinion that race is not real until we are so intermixed that what are known as racial differences are so small that they are not recognizable, and it will then actually not be a thing. People who look like you or me will be gone.
One last time, race is not evil, racism is. Denial will make neither of them go away.
One of my favorite video shorts:
https://youtu.be/DWynJkN5HbQ
***** I think that our impasse is that we are thinking of different things when the word race appears. I think I have clearly explained what I'm thinking of. Is that something different from what you are thinking of? And how, since I think that it must be? *****
"but you would see both as unmistakably Asian even if you know nothing else about them"
This is the point I was trying to make about Kazakh people. And, in fact, you made it too when you pointed out that your wife was mistaken for a Navajo woman. You seem to be assigning intrinsic value to the fact that we look at each other and make assumptions, even when those assumptions are wrong, and are then using those assumptions to conclude that racial categories are meaningful despite all scientific evidence to the contrary.
And yes, I know that racism is evil and not race. You don't need to say it "one last time." You didn't even need to say it the first time! I'm quite capable of telling the difference between the two and understand that the latter doesn't necessarily lead to the former. You're assuming that I'm in "denial" about race or "pretending" that it isn't real because I don't like racism (even though I've told you numerous times that's not the case). But the fact is simply that I've read the abundant scientific evidence on the topic.
I can only presume you haven't read the link I posted, because if I'm pretending, the people who wrote the papers referenced there are pretending too. Heck, the people who wrote the paper *you* linked would have to be pretending. I wouldn't be arguing this point at all, never mind for this long, if I was just pretending. I hope you know I have more intellectual integrity than that.
But yes, maybe we're still not hearing each other when we talk about what race is. And maybe the easiest way to clear that up is to ask; how many races are there? As I'm talking about it (and how I think the overwhelming majority of people talk about it) there are around five: White, Black, Asian, Native American, Hispanic, with some room to quibble about maybe Indian or Aboriginal people.
You seem to both use this definition of race, and an enormously more nuanced one that considers a wide array of genetic differentiation beyond skin tone (and would therefore lead to many, many more than five). That's why I'm still confused. For example, when you talk about the epicanthic fold, do you consider everybody who has this to be the same race? Because some African populations have high incidence of the epicanthic fold (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold). Is the key racial determinant in these cases the fold or their skin colour?
"I can only presume you haven't read the link I posted"
Which link? You provide many and I usually read them.
"I hope you know I have more intellectual integrity than that."
I do and apologize for that.
"You seem to be assigning intrinsic value to the fact that we look at each other and make assumptions, even when those assumptions are wrong, and are then using those assumptions to conclude that racial categories are meaningful despite all scientific evidence to the contrary."
I assign no intrinsic value to it. As I go through my day the race or gender of the people that I interact with is unimportant to me, but it might be to them. Do people sometimes draw incorrect conclusions about the things they observe? Of course. I might be fuller of doubt about many things than most people, but it doesn't mean I should not think or form opinions about things.
If science (the most abused word in all of discussion) concludes that there are not observable dominant physical characteristics to commonly found in subsets of humanity known as race, the science is probably political science, an ever-changing set of opinions which conform to public opinion. At that point it is quibbling about evolving definitions of words. 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐯𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬. Thanks to intermixing an increasing number of people fall into the overlap and become less classifiable. People categorize, an ancient survival instinct.
"how many races are there?" & "definition of race, and an enormously more nuanced one that considers a wide array of genetic differentiation beyond skin tone (and would therefore lead to many, many more than five)"
It depends upon which characteristics you use to make the determination. I've continuously stated that I see it as something more numerous than skin color which is an analog ranging from dark black thru shades of g̶r̶a̶y̶ brown to very white. To attempt absolute boundaries might reduce it to three (white, brown and black). Native American and Hispanic are more political than physical distinctions.
If the only thing you could see about my wife was the color of her skin, you could draw no conclusion about a racial category other than brown which is not the characteristic that jumps out at people first or leads to the one she associates with.
All those words to say that we are not thinking of the same things. Perhaps I should choose a less offensive word than race for the dominant physical characteristics of subsets of humanity which are not limited to skin color. With apologies to Forrest Gump, "That's all I have to say about that."
"Perhaps I should choose a less offensive word than race for the dominant physical characteristics of subsets of humanity which are not limited to skin color."
Dave, I'm not taking offence. The word "race" isn't offensive to me or to anybody I've ever come across. You seem absolutely convinced that my position is based on a desire to wish away the concept of race in the hope that racism will somehow die along with it. Please hear me when I say you couldn't be more wrong about that. My position is based purely on the data available (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics#Race_and_human_genetic_variation).
Despite my extensive writing on the topic, people often assume that somewhere, deep down, I'm unable to think critically and objectively about racial issues because I'm black. And so they assume I'm saying things I'm not saying. I'm not sure if it's what's happening here, but let me at least be clear that I'm not saying any of this because I think it will somehow end racism. If everybody on Earth understood that racial categories are meaningless tomorrow, almost exactly the same number of people would hate others almost exactly the same amount based on the colour of their skin.
But all that said, yes, I'd suggest that you choose a different word than "race" to describe the various characteristics that can be found in subsets of humanity *irrespective* of skin colour. Solely because not a single person or organisation I've ever come across uses the word "race" in that way, and I think you'll end up being misunderstood.
From "diversity" questionnaires to census data to government data sources, if you find the word "race" on a form, or you see a data point broken down by "race," what you'll find underneath it 100% of the time is a short list of categories that will include "Black, "White," "Asian," "Hispanic" etc.
No "Black but with an epicanthic fold," no "White but with sickle cell trait," no "Asian but with a high proportion of fast twitch muscle fibres." No differentiation between black people from Zimbabwe and Senegal. Or white people from Finland and Italy. Or Asians from Nepal and the Philippines.
Racial categories, as they're actually used, are so broad they're meaningless. Based entirely on a casual glance at an eye-catching physical characteristic. That's why I keep comparing them to grouping people by hair colour or height.
Anyway, I think I'll join you in quoting Forrest Gump here. Again, absolutely no offence was taken, so apologies if I came off aggressive at any point. My exasperation is in no way to be confused with animosity.
Glenn Loury recently featured Vincent Lloyd, a black, antiracist, and fairly 'woke' associate professor at Villanova University whose seminar was 'blown up' by a young black student crazy named Keisha and several other fellow student crazies who expelled two students with 'unorthodox' views and accused Lloyd of perpetuating 'anti-black racism'. The grand irony is that Lloyd was largely dismissive of critics of woke excesses and now has become a victim of them.
Race, and feeling oh-pressed by racism, is just too important to some black people to give up readily.
Yes! I saw this story. Write-up here if you haven't seen it already: https://compactmag.com/article/a-black-professor-trapped-in-anti-racist-hell
Students like Keisha have learned they can squeeze some power out of leveraging their victimhood. And while I sympathise with his position, professors like Lloyd are altogether too cowardly when it comes to challenging these students. Which, of course, is what the students are counting on.
It's exactly the same playbook the gender ideologues are using. Just as nobody in a progressive space dares point out how incoherent gender ideology is in case they get ostracised for being a transphobe, nobody in a progressive space dares question a black person's "lived experience," however improbable, in case they get pilloried as a racist.
In both cases, the Keishas of the world make life measurably worse for (and turn public opinion against) the trans or black or *insert identity here* people, just trying to live their lives. And completely ignore those who are genuinely marginalised.
Read the Compact article today. What shocked me was how easily the professor acquiesced to Keisha, *letting her get away with it for a month*, and how easily she corralled the others...who were different when she wasn't around, and who got cheated out of a great seminar because of Keisha's malignant narcissism. He needs to grow a pair. He needed to do what John McWhorter advised: Tell her to knock it off, he's running the class, and if she doesn't like it she could leave. He should have approached Telluride sooner too.
One "anti-blackness" obsessed child should not be allowed to ruin a very special group because she thinks she already knows it all. I wonder why she even bothered applying fir it unless she was hoping for nonstop "anti-blackness" drivel (taken to her extremes).
"What shocked me was how easily the professor acquiesced to Keisha"
Yep, as I said, this cowardliness is 90% of the problem. It's impossible to appease narcissists while playing their game. Set the ground rules early and give them the choice to leave if they don't like them.
Too many of these teachers don't understand the difference between being reasonable and letting students treat them like a doormat. And, of course, after the students have gone used to wielding power in this way, they come to expect it.