The Race thread. How many races are there REALLY? Does race even exist?

Slightly misleading since the y-axis is cropped at 1240.

 

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Is this a joke? as if people can all be of the same appearance even in the same race?

Sure there are common skull types but thats never going to be 100% accurate. Measuring skulls in my opinion is pointless.

 

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These pictures taken from Wikipedia's article on craniofacial anthropometry are probably better than those taken from D'ster's racist website(s).

caucasoid:

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mongoloid:

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negroid:

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Think about what you wrote there for one second. Does it actually say anything of any substance? Does everything you write, if not being complete nonsensical bullshit, have to be fluff that doesn't say ANYTHING? Why not just say nothing?

That's because you're an idiot. Duh.

 

That bone study shit is bullshit. These guys are dead for one, and two, how can you take 3 samples, and turn it into races? You can take 3 skeletons from white people and get 3 different types too. I don't see your point.

 

2 cents:

1. Phrenology, the subject of this discourse, is a dead "science."

2. Race does not exist, although racism does.

 

The subject of the thread is not Phrenology, which had to do with links between skull irregularities and personality traits, it is Comparative Anatomy, which has to do with diffences between non inter-breeding populations within a species, or differences between separate species. And CA is not a dead science, it is a very healthy and informative one.

You need to back up your claim that race doesn't exist. You can't will it away just by hoping for it. I'm not saying you are wrong that race doesn't exist, only that you are wrong to think that saying something obviously wrong in your first point, and following that up with an unfounded claim, is not any way to win credence.

Let's pretend that race doesn't exist for a moment. You go on to admit that racism does exist. What does a racist use as a determinate factor when employing his misguided and intolerant beliefs? Skin color? Country of origin combined with skin color? Let's make up a name for whatever it is that a racist is using to guide their racism. Let's call it Mackihana. Mackihana is the word that describes the differences that a RACIST sees in various groups. Doesn't matter if it is scientific, only that it is a consistent grouping that reliably occurs with a large sample of RACISTS. Well, now it doesn't make sense to call these guys RACISTS, because we are pretending that race doesn't exist. Let's call them Mackihanists. And they think that there are differences in people that are innate, and can be pre-judged by noticing that people have Mackihanas.

Can't you race-denyers see that you are not going to rid the world of this trend by pretending something doesn't exist? The evil is not in the word or term, it is in the immoral behavior that is not going to be rid of you with your Politically Correct ignorance and state of denial.

You can call "genetic differences which exist due to populations spending time mutating and evolving without gene flow from one population to another either due to geographical constraints or social mores" whatever term you want. Race, Mackihana, doesn't matter. There is something there. Some people are going to justify their hate according to these traits. Sticking your head in the sand is not going to teach anyone morality, it will usually lead to extremism and do the opposite of what you hope to acheive with your ignorance.

 

It's simple, we race deniers simply understand that racists hate humans because they want to, and will come up with new reasons when the old ones wear out. Don't you see?

That's the point I make, and why I don't care about race, because this is a human problem, not a race problem, this is the sorta problem that will express itself until all of humanity is wiped out except for a small group of people who hate each other until only perhaps one family remains, and then they'll have no genetic diversity to avoid the diseases and other problems that would occur.

So race deniers simply see the big picture, that if you erase race, you can see what is really happening at a species level without the illusions of race. Look at it from the human perspective, what are humans doing to humans, and what is the psychology of it, and the ultimate outcome? What is the goal? If you love yourself how can you be racist?

How can you hate your fellow brothers and sisters of the human race? Well you can, if you simply stop caring about the human race.

 

You are having a moral argument when everyone else is trying to have an anatomical argument. When you let the two get as intertwined as you have, you start denying reality because it does not align with your ethics.

Let's assume that race doesn't exist and replace that idea with culture. People are proud of their culture, and dress and act in a way to make their allegience to their culture as obvious as possible. Whether it is the medical student who wears his scrubs and stethescope in public, or the gangster that wears his colors, or the racist with his wife-beater suspenders and combat boots. Whether it is the emo with their hair over their faces and black clothing, or the punk rocker, or the construction worker. People are proud of their culture, and wear markers to distinguish themselves.

When I see someone dressed as a skinhead, or a gangster, or a goth, or emo, or medical student, I make assumptions about that person. Some of these are negative and some are positive. This process is natural, even if it leads to some immoral behavior, or even if it is wrong a small percentage of the time. It would be foolish to discount past experiences and not let them prepare you for what is likely. It is also foolish to not use whatever knowledge you have at hand, however slight, as long as you are open to ammending that knowledge once more data is acquired.

Are there any differences in people that align with differences in race? Do humans create cultures based on similarities in skin color? If so, doesn't this mean that stereotypes have a use? A use that is self-created by the groups that celebrate their cultural differences and race differences?

I think these questions are open to debate without fearing the moral implications.

 

From the Wikipedia's article on craniofacial anthropometry:

Racial Determination Example

That craniofacial anthropometry is not as replicable as other ways of tracking human variation makes its findings difficult to explain. Here is a trivial example: imagine that you are handed a U.S. skull and asked to determine whether the person was White, Black, or Asian (that is, Euro-American, African American, or Asian American). Place the skull face down on a tabletop. Now try to rock it from side to side. If it fails to rock, but instead sits high on its cheekbones, with a face too flat to let the nose portion touch the table, then the chances are that it is of east Asian ancestry. If it rocks from side to side because the midline of the face protrudes past the cheekbones like the bow of a boat, then it is probably of either African or European ancestry. Now stand the skull upright so that it rests on the neck opening. If the face slopes down and forwards because the mouth protrudes farther forward than the forehead, then it is likely Black. If the face is vertical, it is probably Caucasoid. In practice, many other tests are necessary in order to hazard a determination but, in the end, it works because there are consistent differences among U.S. endogamous groups. A skull that matches the group of features associated with African-American ancestry is called "Negroid." Skulls with traits suggesting European and Asian ancestry are called, respectively "Caucasoid" and "Mongoloid."
[edit]

Challenges

There are three challenges to using the technique. First, many of the measurements are exceedingly subtle and subjective. Some measurements regularly give four widely different results if four equally well-trained experts measure the same skull. Other measurements are more objective but unfortunately these do not vary among U.S. endogamous groups.

Second, such methods work less well on foreign populations. Most Ethiopians and Somalis, for example, along with almost all of the inhabitants of India have mainly or partially Caucasoid skulls, while the Khoisan people indigenous to southwestern Africa have partially Mongoloid skulls (Capoid). Hence, the skull designations of people outside the United States often fail to match their "race" as seen by some Americans.

Third, it is important to understand that the terminology reflects the skull, and not the ethnic group with which the person was affiliated in life. Many White Americans have partially Negroid or Mongoloid skulls, many Black Americans have partially Caucasoid or Mongoloid skulls, many Asian Americans have partially Caucasoid or Negroid skulls, and U.S. Hispanics have skulls that span the entire range of human variation. One can say that the "race" of a skull need not always match the "race" of its owner in life. The "race" of the skull is much less ambiguous. As Dr. Stan Rhine put it, "...it is clear that race does mean different things to different people. In the context of forensic anthropology, the term race is unambiguous."[2]

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According to Darwin, while the Caucasoid subspecies (the White race) was evolving in Europe, the Negro race was standing still on the evolutionary plane and is today no less than 200,000 years behind the European in skull and brain development.

The Negro skull, in addition to having a smaller brain volume and thicker cranial bones than that of the White, is prognathous; i.e., the lower face projects forward, rather in the manner of an animal's muzzle. In consequence, the Negro jaw is substantially longer, relative to its width, than the White jaw. A feature of the Negro lower jaw is its retention of a vestige of the "simian shelf," a bony region immediately behind the incisors. The simian shelf is a distinguishing characteristic of apes, and it is absent in Whites.

 

You missed this in my previous posting:


Third, it is important to understand that the terminology reflects the skull, and not the ethnic group with which the person was affiliated in life. Many White Americans have partially Negroid or Mongoloid skulls, many Black Americans have partially Caucasoid or Mongoloid skulls, many Asian Americans have partially Caucasoid or Negroid skulls, and U.S. Hispanics have skulls that span the entire range of human variation. One can say that the "race" of a skull need not always match the "race" of its owner in life. The "race" of the skull is much less ambiguous. As Dr. Stan Rhine put it, "...it is clear that race does mean different things to different people. In the context of forensic anthropology, the term race is unambiguous."[2]

 

In case that was not clear:

It is not clear that many Americans fully grasp the ludicrousness of the infamous ‘One Drop Rule.” For as long as any living American can remember, one drop of black blood placed one in the “black” racial category. Period. Waves of immigration of peoples from all over the world have forced the adoptions of increasingly broader (and therefore meaningless) definitions of both the terms “white” and “black” – as today, the former group includes black and mullato-looking Middle-Easterners and Latinos, while the latter group includes completely “white” –looking “blacks” - persons with no detectable traces of African ancestry whatsoever.
“We are all mixed. We always have been.” states Frank Sweet, author of several published books and essays on this and related topics, presenter of scholarly papers at historical conferences, and host of a popular online discussion group on the history of the U.S. “race” notion. “It turns out that about one-third of White Americans have between two and twenty percent recent African genetic admixture, as measured by the ancestry-informative markers in their DNA. This comes to about 74 million White Americans. Black Americans have European admixture averaging about 75 percent African and 25 percent European.”

 

It would seem that man can categorize animals, plants and rocks using physical measurements and superficial traits and form and color and a slew of other physical markers but with humans it says nothing at all, besides pointing to a hereditary past with no permanent, deeper effects.
Man is, after all, so reasonably free of his nature.
He’s overcome himself, at birth. Just add water and stir....

It would seem that man can use specifics to make general assumptions about the universe and about species and about trees but he cannot with his own kind.
Why?
Well, because we are all so wonderfully unique and special. Looking around me today I can see how the society I live in is so full of uniqueness and special exceptions.
Look around….See how much individuality there is?
It makes you wonder how politics or marketing could have any affect at all on such complicated, unique creatures as us.
I mean we dress differently, right?I wore my blue t-shirt with my jeans today and I think my neighbor wore his suit and tie.
I bet we order different food at the restaurant, also.
Man!!!! We are sooooo different.
Special in our own unique way.
How convenient that nature rewarded man with so many meaningless traits when it burdened other creatures with them possessing meaning and how convenient that environment caused such long-lasting, obvious physical differences but, remarkably, had no serious mental or psychological effects on humanity.
I mean a horse is no different than a zebra or an ass, right? - just coloration and size differences, accompanied by different behaviors but all that’s superficial and meaningless.
The basic fact is that they are all the same: Horse, Zebra, Ass, a brotherhood of …of…Hippocrasy

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I bet a short-tailed, male peacock would desperately want to convince the female that the long-tailed one’s tail is meaningless and just pretence – it’s just aesthetic excess with no purpose or symbolic resonance.
Enlighten a female peacock and even the short-tailed, bland-tailed ones can get some action, despite their outer shortcomings.
Why?
Well, because we all know how superfluous nature is.
Nature just creates and creates and creates whimsically, with no purpose.
A platypus…come on?!
Makes one wonder if man is affected by evolution at all and if he wasn’t created by a supreme-being. If our physical being doesn’t say something about us and our past and our potentials then we must surely be blessed.

I mean it’s all a social construct, right. It’s all nurture, baby.
If you can find one Gorilla that you can teach to sign, then how different could Gorilla’s be to man?
We, look alike, we even behave alike. What small differences there are, are purely superficial.

In nature sexual roles and physical markers, such as symmetry and shape and color, are regularly used and they mean something, but man has miraculously been exempted from this natural method of discernment.
How wonderful for us that beauty is so skin-deep, just like racial characteristics, and that we are so equally imbued with the same potentials and value.
We all matter, people. Don't let racists tell you differently.

We are, after all God’s favorite children. His ways are so mysterious.

 

We're all equal. Leonardo Da Vinci, Buddha, Terri Schiavo, Kobe Bryant. God loves us all.

 

Do we say there are no individual or group differences?

No we do not. There are people with high IQs, people who like science, people who make millions, people who are black, people who are incredibly attractive.

And we do use these cues to judge people. But our judgements are colored by assumptions; e.g. Would one automatically put all the above qualities together? Are they mutually exclusive? This is judgement. Opinion can be colored (pardon the pun) by facts that are NOT in evidence, as much as by facts that are. Hence the poor education and socio economic status of some individuals coupled by a history where they were socially disadvantaged and exploited gives them a severe disadvantage in the opinion of those who mix these up and arrive at conclusions which overlook these as causes and consider them as consequences.

So do we wish for a society where all are one shade of pale? No, but we would wish for an education that separates the fallacious from the factual and provides a more level playing ground for all. Is that so wrong?

 

Didn't somebody on this forum write a book or something that started off talking about caucasoid, negroid, and mongoloid?

 

Couldn't a world with zero racial discrimination work?

I haven't thought it through completely, but I kind of think it could. I don't think it's likely to ever happen, but I think if it did, it would work.

Of course, that would mean, ZERO racial discrimination -- not even affirmative action. Of course, we would still be judgmental. If we see thugs on the street listening to rap, wearing baggy clothes and speaking in Ebonics, if they are avoided, it doesn't mean they'd be avoided because they're black, if they ARE black. They'd be avoided because they look like no-good thugs.

You'd better believe if I saw a gang of thugs on the street listening to gangsta rap, wearing wallet-chains and mean faces, I'd avoid them, regardless of their color. Latino, black, white, whatever. Doesn't matter. The message does matter.

If I see a well-kempt person in a nice suit walking down the street, I'm not going to try to avoid him. Doesn't matter what he looks like, whether he looks Muslim, black, white, Asian. Doesn't matter, because of the message he gives when he carries himself as a business man or whatever he may be.

So if I avoid some black thugs on the street, it may seem to an outsider to be a racist move. But it's really not. In fact, it really pisses me off how quick people are to point and label people racist. They're so quick and they feel righteous and it actually makes them feel good and superior to say it. But they're simple-minded buffoons. If you avoid idiots, thugs or worthless people and they happen to be black, it does NOT make you a racist.

Skin color for the most part (and I haven't completely thought this through) does not have to be taken into account for ANYTHING really. If you don't have any black employees and it makes you look racist, fuck it -- it shouldn't make you favor black people any more than any other person type. I'm talking ZERO racial discrimination. Can you dig it?

As I see it, racism is unnecessary.

 

Ever? You realize that(at least in America) that "multicultural" children are the fastest growing segment of the population?

Edit: link

 

The antecedent of the word "it" I was referring to was

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Do you, fully comprehending what I mean about that, really believe it will ever happen?