Is Race A Myth, A Created Social Construct?

[wkmac]

There is currently one biological race in our species: Homo sapiens sapiens. However, that does not mean that what we call “races” (our society’s way of dividing people up) don’t exist. Societies, like the USA, construct racial classifications, not as units of biology, but as ways to lump together groups of people with varying historical, linguistic, ethnic, religious, or other backgrounds. These categories are not static, they change over time as societies grow and diversify and alter their social, political and historical make-ups. For example, in the USA the Irish were not always “white,” and despite our government’s legal definition, most Hispanics/Latinos are not seen as white today (by themselves or by others).

There is no genetic sequence unique to blacks or whites or Asians. In fact, these categories don’t reflect biological groupings at all. There is more genetic variation in the diverse populations from the continent of Africa (who some would lump into a “black” category) than exists in ALL populations from outside of Africa (the rest of the world) combined!

Race Is Real, but not in the way Many People Think

 

[wkmac]

If there are no pure races genetically speaking, are terms like white, black, red, yellow just social constructs we create to maintain tribal adhesion?

From the American Association of Physical Anthropologists

Published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol. 101, pp 569-570, 1996

As scientists who study human evolution and variation, we believe that we have an obligation to share with other scientists and the general public our current understanding of the structure of human variation from a biological perspective. Popular conceptualizations of race are derived from 19th and early 20th century scientific formulations. These old racial categories were based on externally visible traits, primarily skin color, features of the face, and the shape and size of the head and body, and the underlying skeleton. They were often imbued with nonbiological attributes, based on social constructions of race. These categories of race are rooted in the scientific traditions of the 19th century, and in even earlier philosophical traditions which presumed that immutable visible traits can predict the measure of all other traits in an individual or a population. Such notions have often been used to support racist doctrines. Yet old racial concepts persist as social conventions that foster institutional discrimination. The expression of prejudice may or may not undermine material well-being, but it does involve the mistreatment of people and thus it often is psychologically distressing and socially damaging. Scientists should try to keep the results of their research from being used in a biased way that would serve discriminatory ends.

1. All humans living today belong to a single species, Homo sapiens, and share a common descent. Although there are differences of opinion regarding how and where different human groups diverged or fused to form new ones from a common ancestral group, all living populations in each of the earth's geographic areas have evolved from that ancestral group over the same amount of time. Much of the biological variation among populations involves modest degrees of variation in the frequency of shared traits. Human populations have at times been isolated, but have never genetically diverged enough to produce any biological barriers to mating between members of different populations.

2. Biological differences between human beings reflect both hereditary factors and the influence of natural and social environments. In most cases, these differences are due to the interaction of both. The degree to which environment or heredity affects any particular trait varies greatly.

3. There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.

AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Race

 

[Indecisi0n]

Who's red?

 

[burrheadd]

Who's red?

 

[moreluck]

Who's red?

Redskins!

 

[oldngray]

If there is no race then I guess it is impossible to be racist.

 

[Indecisi0n]

View attachment 43412

In that case why not just say fire crotch?

 

[moreluck]

In that case why not just say fire crotch?

Because Lindsay Lohan had that name patented!!!

 

[BrownArmy]

Doesn't take long, does it?

 

[BrownArmy]

If there is no race then I guess it is impossible to be racist.

Is that what you took from the articles?

SMH.

 

[wkmac]

Is that what you took from the articles?

SMH.

Now you don't honestly think he or any of them read even one paragraph now do you?

 

[rod]

View attachment 43412

My twin Granddaughters have red hair and they are nothing but trouble-------and they are only 5

 

[BrownArmy]

Now you don't honestly think he or any of them read even one paragraph now do you?

No, but let's at least pretend.

 

[moreluck]

 

[moreluck]

 

[wkmac]

No, but let's at least pretend.

Regardless of the content of the 2 links, I figured the thread title alone was good for about 2 pages of cognitive dissonance responses. We're getting there!


Back to the issue, race is a very complex subject. In archeology, a factor of race is language as writings found in the same soil strata are used to identify the bones and to even help date the period when such language is known.

A million years from now when archeologists of that period unearth our historical era, they will classify us by our culture that they unearth and not so much by out individual racial make up. Many of the so-called great civilizations of the Middle East area/Fertile crescent/Northern Africa had racial diversity on some level as a result of trade and of conquest but when we hear of Sumeria, Babylon, Assyria, Hittite, Egypt and then later Greece and Rome the people themselves are associated with a culture as oppose to a purely genetic characteristic.

What skews the issue of race IMO is its politicization which creates false and meaningless events that we are seeing at present. Take the politics out and the woman's claim or the alleged claim with Elizabeth Warren becomes meaningless. And both sides of the political isle are guilty IMO. Should I inject the caveat, "Wait for it" about now?


As I've said before in regards to the women cartoonized above or to the recent events of Caitlyn Jenner, my light bill and rent are due on Monday and how does either one in any way affect that reality or its outcome? It doesn't, therefore.............

 

[moreluck]

 

[BigUnionGuy]