What defines "race"?

[uppityperson]

Based on a few recent threads on the topic and my continual annoyance at the whole "must categorize people" thing. If we were all the same, what a wild thought. Embrace our differences because we each have them from each other.

[Demeter]

1. About 0.2% of Your Genetic Code, I Believe I Read Recently

You could trace mother's heritage through mitochodrial RNA, father's through the y-chromosone DNA, and then using bands of gene groups, locate migrations in time and space. Other than genetic defects, it is of historical interest, perhaps.

[loyalsister]

2. Race is not genetic

n\t

[ret5hd]

3. Well, if you are saying that the traits that society has labeled as...

racial attributes (hair texture, skin color, etc) aren't genetic, i believe you are wrong.

If you are saying that race is an artificial construct, i would agree with you.

[loyalsister]

8. Okay.......

But, are those traits limited to particular homogonous groups or are they actually spread out more than might be expected if there were such a thing?

[papau]

12. Your correct - race does not exist as science - village population characteristics are

declared a definer of race - and then you get same skin color but different lips, eras, face, etc and the racial experts go nuts.

The very precise Germans had over 100 "races" in the early 1900's - and US museums pushed the idea of 72 variations in the 50's.

The racial identity DNA tests actually do an interesting, valid, effort at pinpointing where you ancestors come from, but it is based on your DNA determining body features and that combination of features being common in certain parts of the world. Because we have broken the pattern of the last 5000 years of living, marrying and dying within 20 miles of our parents home, those ancestor pinpointing programs have to do a little guessing as to what mix of DNA could have produced your particular combination of features as expressed in your DNA - there being a whole lot of choices between what countries, what villages, to mix to so as to produce your profile.

"Race" is a way God has chosen to show us how stupid "science" and "scientists" can be on occasion - a sad revelation about a "concept" that has caused grief for many.

[loyalsister]

18. I saw another study

which pointed out that the more difference in appearance in some trait the more similarity one might find in other areas.
Thus invalidating the claim that appearance defines "race" altogether.

[mudesi]

19. Oh, those evil scientists!

It was not religious belief that dictated people to "stay with their own", it was those scientists who defined the term "race"! :sarcasm:

Like how Jews can only marry Jews, or Muslims can only marry Muslims, or some Christian denominations can only marry Christians. Add to that the fact that religious cults had their beginnings when human populations were separated, and thus had a common genetic pool with certain characteristics, and you end up with brown people only marrying brown people, and white people only marrying white people, which only perpetuated the separation.

But, no, you're right. "God" chose it to show how stupid the scientists are. :eyes:

[papau]

25. It was not religious belief that dictated people to "stay with their own", it was lack of transport

and social support at the destination for the newcomer without family.

But that is science and while I am sure God gave you a logical mind, your post does not indicate you are using it all that well - religious cults - belief systems - lead to concept of race ?? - right? - read any Greek or Latin lately? - see any religion and race being equated 2200 hundred years ago? No?- didn't think so.

Having a hard time with the concept of village and us against them - led by the local rich folks?

It was the religious guy talking about peace that caused on the trouble in this world - right?

Today the secular world is proud of their analysis that the West Bank problem is not about religion, but is about a land grab.

Guess what - conflict has always been tribal - a land grab - with a common religion only because the tribe had only one religion as you only survived if your loyalty to the tribe was solid - and an unusual religion put you on less solid ground for that loyalty test than you would otherwise have been. But the loyalty test did not prevent new religious interpretations - obviously since if it did we would not now have the range of religions WITHIN those tribal areas.

[mudesi]

34. Are you implying

Are you implying that many religious tenets do not explicitly state that one must marry and have offspring with another of the same religious belief? Because that would be news to me. Why must I convert to Islam is I am to marry a Muslim, or to Judaism if I am to marry a Jew?

[uppityperson]

36. You don't. I am proof. eom

[mudesi]

14. It's not?

So it's a coincidence that black parents have black offspring and white parents have white offspring? :eyes:

[uppityperson]

20. You seem to be saying that skin color=race and all kids skin color=their parents.

Is this right?

[mudesi]

33. Race

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/race

1. a group of persons related by common descent or heredity.
2. a population so related.
3. Anthropology. a. any of the traditional divisions of humankind, the commonest being the Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negro, characterized by supposedly distinctive and universal physical characteristics: no longer in technical use.
b. an arbitrary classification of modern humans, sometimes, esp. formerly, based on any or a combination of various physical characteristics, as skin color, facial form, or eye shape, and now frequently based on such genetic markers as blood groups.
c. a human population partially isolated reproductively from other populations, whose members share a greater degree of physical and genetic similarity with one another than with other humans.

You asked what defines "race". A dictionary is usually a good tool to determine the definition of a word. In the context of this definition, yes, hereditary characteristics come into play. Hereditary characteristics are genetic. A poster claimed no such genetic link and I corrected him/her.

This does not imply that I believe humans ought to be classified and separated in terms of their "race", as the definition which I quoted above explicitly states that the classification of "race" is arbitrary. But if you are going to talk about the definition of "race", then genetics cannot be discounted.

[uppityperson]

37. thank you for the dictionary definiton. How about #23 below?

Are they the same race? What race are they?

[uppityperson]

23. Are these 2 people the same race? What races are they?

[papau]

28. Race is not a scientific concept - so neither person has a race - but one is female

and the other male, one younger than the other, and one has darker skin than the other.

Does that answer your question?

[uppityperson]

30. I want to hear what l.s. has to say, I think of them a human race.

"lynyrd_skynyrd
So it's a coincidence that black parents have black offspring and white parents have white offspring?"

Others might say Middle eastern and White, or some such definitions.

[papau]

31. DU discussion on the invention of the "white race" in the 1700's in Virginia at link below

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=656001&mesg_id=656001

Good luck on getting an in depth response from L.S.

[uppityperson]

35. Thanks for posting that here, interesting article, and

I agree.

[mondo joe]

38. Is this your way of saying race = skin color?

If so, are you also saying there are neat little boundaries of skin color that define each person's race?

[uppityperson]

39. I guess, according to that poster, my pa and I are different races.

I like 3 legged, he does the egg carry. Actually, people used to look at us funny when I was a young child (pict #23), esp since we lived in a not very diverse skin color area.

[Nikia]

17. Only if you come from a homogenous group

If you are multiracial, this wouldn't be true.

[loyalsister]

4. good idea to discuss

It is my understanding that "race" is a more of a cultural "category" than anything else.

My personal feelings about it after a lot of discussions with friends from various cultural backgraounds is that culture is self identity. Therefore, race is self identity.

I also feel like it is important to recognize and embrace our difference so that we can share our backgrounds and histories with each other. It's a great way to learn how much we are alike.

[Totally Committed]

5. The only thing that should define "race" is...

a starting line and a finish line.

We are ALL one "race" -- The HUMAN race.

I honestly believe that and wish I were going to live to see the day when everyone believed it.

TC

[Chulanowa]

10. It would be nice, huh?

Unfortunately so long as there are differences, there are people who will make a big deal over those differences.

I say we all engage in a mass, planet-wide orgy, a few generations in length, until we're all a wonderful peanut-butter brown with fuzzy brown hair.

[hootinholler]

27. And everyone trying to get from sart to finish first...

I came in to say a nearly identical thought.

:greatmindsthinkalike:

-Hoot

[ixion]

6. well, considering we're all the same species that evolved from the same group of people

not a damn thing, beyond any subjective context.

[booley]

7. whatever society says it is.

It's all pretty much arbitrary in many respects.

Caucasians are called Caucasians becuase some guy decided that people from the Caucus mountains were the "ideal" Europeans. Then racism took over and people started defining "races" to make themselves distinct from the Others. That explains why the origen of the word racism dealth with the persecution of jews (who are not necessarily a distinct people on a biological level. And why people who are bi-racial are often considered a minority..half black, half asian..rather then half white. (If people could just marry into the "master race", then it would undermine the point of defining people by race)

What we think of as races today still bear that history. Sure, people of a certain group can be said to share physical charecteristics but they don't al share those charecteritics and many in other 'races' do have those traits but are considered a different race.

I have seen plenty of black people with light skin and white people with afros.

Sure, gentics and other biological markers can show ancestry. but if those markers define what race you are, then there are literraly thousands of human races.

[jody]

9. Wikipedia's discussion of race is a good starting point.

Race

[TahitiNut]

11. Class and distance.

:hide:

[bliss_eternal]

13. Race as defined by Webster's ....

...as swift progress, rapid motion--a contest involving speed.

Interesting. Personally, I choose not to be defined as part of
someone else's idea of some sort of human contest of sorts.

[uppityperson]

15. I think of "race" as an artificial construct designed to split people into groups. Us vs them

I think that we are all different and should be happy and enjoy and celebrate the fact that we are different rather than trying to turn into the same looking/acting/etc people. Has anyone read "The Giver" by Lois Lowry? It is about a future time when differences have been eliminated, "sameness" is cherished. It is kids "chapter book" but is very good, read it as an adult and am amazed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Giver

http://www.amazon.com/Giver-Lois-Lowry/dp/0440237688

In a world with no poverty, no crime, no sickness and no unemployment, and where every family is happy, 12-year-old Jonas is chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. Under the tutelage of the Elders and an old man known as the Giver, he discovers the disturbing truth about his utopian world and struggles against the weight of its hypocrisy. With echoes of Brave New World, in this 1994 Newbery Medal winner, Lowry examines the idea that people might freely choose to give up their humanity in order to create a more stable society. Gradually Jonas learns just how costly this ordered and pain-free society can be, and boldly decides he cannot pay the price. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
In the "ideal" world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children's adolescent sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community's Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are "released"--to great celebration--at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also "released," but with no fanfare. Lowry's development of this civilization is so deft that her readers, like the community's citizens, will be easily seduced by the chimera of this ordered, pain-free society. Until the time that Jonah begins training for his job assignment--the rigorous and prestigious position of Receiver of Memory--he, too, is a complacent model citizen. But as his near-mystical training progresses, and he is weighed down and enriched with society's collective memories of a world as stimulating as it was flawed, Jonas grows increasingly aware of the hypocrisy that rules his world. With a storyline that hints at Christian allegory and an eerie futuristic setting, this intriguing novel calls to mind John Christopher's Tripods trilogy and Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl. Lowry is once again in top form--raising many questions while answering few, and unwinding a tale fit for the most adventurous readers. Ages 12-14.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. -

[Igel]

22. "Race" is a late-comer to tribal boundaries.

Most of the genocides and "race" hatred have been between adjacent groups.

[uppityperson]

24. Hutus and Tutsis.

[JanMichael]

16. The status quo. Fact is that race is a myth.

There are indeed some surficial physical differences but we are all Human Beings capable of mating with each other no matter what "color" they are.

But oh so many wish to see the myth continue...

[H2O Man]

21. 300 yards n/t

[Igel]

26. Humans are very good at pattern recognition and

finding similarities. They're also good at being tribal. Mix them and you have a bad combination.

Read up on "prototype semantics." My usual response to those that say "race is a social construct" is to point out that "table" is also a social construct. Define a table by purpose, and I can find a table that can't serve that purpose and non-tables that serve the purpose; define one by morphology, and I'll find one that violates your definition--and if you include that particular table, you've also included distinctly non-table-like objects. In other words, the boundaries between what appear to be crystal-clear concepts is fuzzy.

Prototype semantics. Or, as wiki puts it, multilocus genetic data. After all, humans observe reality and then put language to it, so it's not surprising that language approximates the kind of fuzziness you get in nature sometimes.

One problem that doctors have found is that race *does* matter: not in an absolute sense, but if you're black, you're likely to be differently sensitive to a drug than if you're white. If you're Mesoamerican indio, you're more likely to suffer from diabetes than whites or blacks. All differences are statistical, and "at the edges" you get continua. The statistical nature of race can be used to deconstruct "race", but then you're left predicting that blacks and whites don't differ by incidence of hypertension or sickle cell anemia, and Latinos and Jews should suffer similarly from Tay-Sachs, that the Masai and Quechua should suffer from the same incidence of lactose intolerance. But people have a difficult time with stats.

[papau]

29. The key word is "likely" as to medicine - and it's regarding family location not

race.

In Medicine Sickle cell anemia is a "black" or "African" disease - so when white Europeans get sickle cell anemia they are told they have "Mediterranean" anemia - LOL - but sadly - :-(

[misanthrope]

40. What do they call it...

...when people from tropical Asia are diagnosed with sickle cell? After all, according to classic racial classification, they would be "caucasoid" but the incidences of sickle cell are bound to be high since the disease is actually tied to genetic resistance to malaria. India has to be ripe with folks who carry that gene.

[Cabcere]

32. In my biological anthropology class,

we were taught that race is primarily a social construct, and that genetic variation within one "race" is greater than the genetic variation between different races. :shrug: We also read Death's Acre by Dr. Bill Bass, a preeminent forensic anthropologist and founder of the "Body Farm" at the University of Tennessee, and if I recall correctly, he discussed several distinct physical characteristics associated with particular "races" and stated that it was a helpful way to determine the identity of the victim...so yeah, it's a complicated issue. :shrug: