"There is but one race: the human race. Everything else is just culture".

[Atticus]

I saw that quote on a young black man's tee shirt in 2007 at an anti-war March near the Lincoln Monument and it was sort of a head-slapping moment.

When you really think about it, we essentially separate the "different races" according to what color their skin is, PERIOD. Why?

Why are blondes and brunettes and redheads not characterized as different races?

Why is different eye color not a "race determinant"?

"Race" has no real scientific basis that I am aware of. Why do we do this to each other?

[NNadir]

1. I very much approve of this statement in the title and the text in the OP, K&R.

[EYESORE 9001]

2. Thing is, once race is taken out of the equation

Bigots will critique culture instead. There is no shortage of screed asserting cultural superiority, usually by the same crowd that will just as readily discriminate on the basis of race.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. It's long been a practice of humans to categorize by appearance. But it was the beginning of the

transatlantic trade in enslaved people that provided the foundation for the concepts of "whiteness" and "blackness" in the U.S.

[DBoon]

6. The Roman Empire, for all its brutality, did not categorize people by "race"

[cachukis]

4. We have gotten this far by using our senses. As we age,

as a society and individually, we establish habits exhibited in the myelin in our brains. Some are for protection, some are for domination. Sort of covid working its way. Empiricism rules. We live and die by our stupidity. Giving up stupidity requires effort if stupidity is forgiven. There are no living stupid cheetahs.
We all judge, all day, every day. Can you absorb a lot of evidence to be a good judge? Not a lot of good judges out there.

[Ocelot II]

5. I read an interesting analysis of this issue, and now I don't remember where,

but it was something to the effect that it wasn't until relatively recently that people defined "race" (or categories of people) by skin color - until maybe the 17th century the division between groups of people, at least as Europeans saw it, was religious and not physical. In other words, if you were a Christian you were OK and accepted, regardless of skin color; if you were not Christian you were a heathen and not OK, also regardless of skin color. During the Middle Ages, Jews and Muslims were "racialized" and therefore discriminated against on the basis of their non-Christian-ness rather than on account of their skin color. Black African slaves were brought to Europe (there were also white slaves brought from Russia and central Asia), but they were eventually freed when their owners died and ended up living ordinary lives and achieving social acceptance, although some artists emphasized the "exoticism" of African people. Here's a really interesting paper on the experiences of Africans in Europe during the Renaissance: https://thewalters.org/wp-content/uploads/revealing-the-african-presence-in-renaissance-europe.pdf

[Klaralven]

7. Until quite recently "race" was applied to sort of ethnic macro-groups, i.e. Germanic or Slavic race

[crickets]

22. Just flipping through is fascinating.

I've downloaded to read at leisure later. Thanks for that!

[TigressDem]

8. The "US" vs "Them" is lizard brain mentality and goes back to pre-neolithic clan societies.

Before when most of the world was tribal and hunter gatherer focused, the need to recognize a threat outside your own people was a big deal for your group's survival. Tribes would wipe one another out in order to dominate and get all the resources in a specific area.

When we began to farm and build cities, we needed to learn to trade with other groups.

Biologically we ARE one race with different ethnicities and cultures.

But MENTALLY we are in differing stages of evolving about when to trust and when to defend ourselves.

We still have a little bit of the lizard brain response that says ANY unknown is a threat, just in case it might be. Luckily if we put ourselves in positions to understand the unknown, it begins to be less of a threat. So much of society isn't upset about someone's skin color or religion or many other differences because we've learned to see past those to the person.


Psychologists like to say, "You can take Modern Man out of the Stone Age but you can't take the Stone Age out of Modern Man."


It's fear based thinking covered up with defiance and straw man reasoning*.


* Gotta be somebody's fault - not mine.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Race & religion always used to divide people for benefit of the rich, priests & politicians.nt

[TexasBushwhacker]

17. Like other animals, the races were once isolated geographically

But that hasn't been the case for a very long time for humans. The races of humans are no different than subspecies of other living things. Northern white rhinos are essentially extinct because the last male died in 2018 and there are only 2 females left. But Southern white rhinos aren't even endangered. Could they have interbred and produce fertile offspring? Absolutely, just like humans of different races.

[Klaralven]

9. It is easy to do DNA analysis and determine which of the several genetic clusters each belong to

There is considerable opinion that activities such as drug testing and approval should take racial diversity into account.

Therefore, there must be some reason for believing that there are racial differences in responses to diseases and drugs.

In particular, Europeans and Asians have different HLA (human leukocyte antigen) genes derived from Neanderthals.

Sex with Neanderthals Gave Humans Immunity Boost
https://www.livescience.com/15754-neanderthals-immunity-boost-humans.html

[paleotn]

18. We're a young species with limited genetic diversity

The genetics of any two humans on the planet vary by an average of maybe 1 in a 1000 base pairs. That's way less diversity than our fellow hominids. Just enough in humans to cause varying reactions to drugs between different sub-groups, but compared to virtually any other species we show really low diversity. In short, we're a bit inbred.

[Klaralven]

20. Golden-Winged And Blue-Winged Warblers Are 99.97 Percent Alike Genetically

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/mixed-wing-warblers-golden-wings-and-blue-wings-are-99-97-percent-alike-genetically/

Remember that the DNA is like a source program that is interpreted by the cellular machinery to make cellular components, allow the zygote to grow and divide, to cause stem cells to differentiate, and to allow the entire organism to grow and mature.

Small differences in source code for a program can cause vast differences when the program is run. There was a single bit error in a program that took down a substantial part of the long distance phone network.

So you cannot argue that because DNA sequences are largely the same that there will be no substantial differences in the phenotype.

A tiny change that disables a critical gene will cause a miscarriage.

[Skittles]

10. people separate themselves in many ways

religion is a prime example

[Bucky]

16. In Japan they sort personality types by blood types

https://www.tofugu.com/japan/japanese-blood-type/

[Dreampuff]

11. Very interesting questions and some really in-depth answers.

IMHO there will always be people who have some group to hate. It could be for various reasons, but I think they feel inferior themselves and it builds up their own self esteem if they can put others down. Honestly, what group of people haven't the white race singled out and tormented?

[keithbvadu2]

13. What race was Jesus? - for those who believe in 'race'.

[Bucky]

15. According to this thread, he was human.

According to ancient Roman slurs, he was a human-donkey hybrid

[LiberatedUSA]

14. That is one of the ways a species needs to think...

...if they want to conquer the space around their planet and explore the solar system. May be a while for us.

[paleotn]

19. Tribalism. Still haven't gotten that out of our system.

Fact is, there's vastly more genetic diversity between two randomly chosen chimpanzees than there is between the whitest northwest European and someone from Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet we don't talk about "races" separating different groups of chimpanzees. It's a cultural invention that's meaningless genetically. And should be meaningless in any context. Our cultures vary and that's a good thing. Otherwise the world would be pretty damn boring if all culture was south Alabama.

[roamer65]

21. We are all African.

We all come from one common African ancestor.

Period.