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Perhaps we're talking at cross purposes. I would say that politics is not something that can be separated from history and society. I'm struggling to think of a sphere of human interaction outside what you call the "influence of politics". When I say race is political, I don't mean that the Republicans or the Whigs invented it. I mean that race is related to human organisational and governmental structures.

Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that

These identities didn't just develop organically, they were created.

Sure, I absolutely get what you're saying. My point is simply that the statement 'white identity is a political construct' is obviously not the full story, race and identity goes a lot deeper socially and historically than that. It is my view that to place the problems we have on politics alone ignores the tendency for humans to self-identify, which can and certainly does happen without the influence of politics.

That politics, and more speculatively, political systems based on in-group and out-group discrimination, probably pre-date significant variation in phenotype across human populations.

You're saying: contemporary chimpanzee populations exhibit in-group and out-group behaviour; ergo human beings discriminated against one another before some lost the melanin in their skin. I don't buy that logic at all - of course I'm not arguing it is not true, but I'd be cautious with making comparisons with another species.

Edit
Also I would add that we're talking only about race here anyway, which evidence suggests chimpanzees do not possess in a physical way anyway*; and we're not talking about any of the quadrillions of other ways in which humans can divide themselves, as chimpanzees also do, even before our populations deviated morphologically.

*http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.0030066: 'there are no or only slight morphological or behavioral differences among the common chimpanzees'

I don't see the relevance of that, please expand.

racial identities are social and political constructs. Genetically, there's not much that separates different races, but culturally the differences are very significant - especially in the context of history.

Oh right of course, well there's no denying that. But what throws me is the use of the word 'creation' as if racial identities do not grow in a society organically as a matter of course. I would argue that politics may (or may not) employ preexisting racial identities but it does not create them. Warp them or change them certainly; but people were white and black and brown, and presumably identified and discriminated as such, many thousands of years before the invention of systems of politics.

So cheers to Foster's. Cheers to mediocracy.

With the right marketing execs they could make this work as a campaign

Affligem Tripel is easily the best beer I've ever tasted. Only seen it in one craft beer shop which has stopped stocking it now though



https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/affligem-tripel/3734/

Has anyone homebrewed before?

creation of the white identity, which is a political construct

What does this even mean?

Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam defined me in high school.

It's strange how you mention Nirvana not being one of the major bands of the Seattle set for you because for me it is Soundgarden. The trio that I started listening to when I was a teenager were Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam (drunk thread), and Nirvana (unfortunately though that was not during the 90s!).

Although I had heard of Chris Cornell his death recently got me to listen to Soundgarden. What a vocal range, I love it. I'd think one of the best things about being a musician is that you know your voice can be heard by people who didn't hear it when you were living. So here is to many happy years of enjoying it

Monsieur, why do you think races are not a thing? Do you mean scientifically? Culturally?

So far you've just said that races don't exist, because only in English it's used as a generic word for ethnic group. This is a nonsense argument.

The problem is that English speakers use the word "race" for pretty much anything (including humans!) whereas in every other languages this word is only for pets or farm animals. Race is not used in other languages because it doesn't mean anything scientifically.

The non-existence of a word in another language is not proof that something doesn't exist; this argument is fallacious. Secondly, I'd like to see a full index of all languages, past and present, to back up the claim that it doesn't exist in any other.

the closest thing to a "race" in the scientific world is a species.

Nope, the closest thing is a subspecies. These are at least two organisms within a species that can produce fertile offspring, but in reality do not. For example the Asian lion and African lion would not mate because they are allopatric (do not meet naturally in the same habitat), although they can produce fertile offspring when introduced by a candle-lit dinner. Now granted there are clearly no subspecies of humans by this definition.

And all human are the same species because genetic differences are tiny, tiny, tiny.

It is not the genetic difference that defines a species. Species are defined by how they propagate their genes, in a closed manner between generations, whether that be replicating, swapping, or fusing genetic material sexually. I would not put too much weight on the fact that genetic differences are statistically very small. Genetically there's only 4% difference between you and a chimpanzee, and given that the genome length of both animals is very substantial, this is not a lot at all, even when we compare different species.

Therefore, this debate "what is a race" is doomed from the beginning. Stahp it. Stahp.

No, I think it's an interesting and important one to have. As has been said, you cannot define a race scientifically because any method would use arbitrary quantifications. However, this doesn't mean that the cultural notion of race is not based on biological, phenotypic principles.

Atelier, is this a white man, a black man, or an orange man?

You're probably right, but I would not be so quick to assume it has to be of a cultural origin. Don't you think it's possible that genetics can predispose some people's brains to be more adept at certain things (such as humour)?

Correct, it is certainly possible, but an absolute scientific nightmare to prove. In fact, showing a discrete biological, evolutionary component for cultural behaviour is almost certainly impossible. For example, some chimpanzees 'dance' just before or during rain. These behaviours are non-adaptive and do not appear to have any functional relevance, so for all intents and purposes it is likely a learnt behaviour. A cultural behaviour even. As good scientists we cannot rule out that there is a genetic component behind these behaviours, but to prove this we would need a full pedigree of all chimpanzees over many many generations to get anything close to something scientifically rigorous. Even in mice we have not been able to study such non-adaptive behaviours.

Edit: basically there is a crucial distinction to be drawn between assuming post-hoc that cultural evolution has taken place (ie, a species has evolved the capacity for cultural behaviour), which is what we can do, but cannot prove; and attributing specific behaviours to a certain genetic component.

I think that the example of humour is not a good example to use in any case, because there is no objective reality of 'most funny', ' moderately funny', 'least funny'; so judging whether one race has more of this attribute over another is a non-starter.

Though I freely admit that I don't grasp the technical details, I'm pretty sure that the measures for genetic similarity between humans and apes are not the same as between different people, or groups of people.

Yes, the most common method is to extract the DNA from the nucleus of a cell; fragment it with enzymes; the fragments organise themselves; and you can read off the order of the bases to get the genetic sequence of the individual. You then compare certain loci to determine how similar the two things are. I am not certain either but I see no reason why this cannot also be done to compare two human individuals.

So race is a social construct built on top of real (though mostly superficial) biological differences.

Exactly. If there were no such broad biological differences, the cultural concept of different races would not come to exist.

Now, this helps us to think more deeply about the differences between racism and cultural discrimination. The difference between them arises because race has its roots in biology whereas culture does not. Culture is counterfactual. I don't have time to expand now but I might come back to it later.

since in aggregate some of their behaviour differs from both white and black people and other races (in aggregate). For example, they have a singular ability to come up with and say incredibly (intentionally) funny things.

This is exactly what I mean about people not severing race and culture. Scientifically it is ridiculous to attribute a subjective cultural concept like humour to one race or the other. I'm glad you agree that biologically distinctions can be drawn between groups of people, but those biological differences cannot be claimed to be causing the cultural differences. As I said, historically humans have developed cultures which appear to be almost inseparable from a certain ethnic group, but this does not mean that the two are contingent.

Babar you're demonstrating exactly what I mean about making assumptions in order to reach a coherent whole, so I'll happily play along: let's categorise him as black.

It's ok, spoken to Babar in PM. Just took objection to the fact that I used the term SJW multiple pages ago and it keeps cropping up as insinuating I have some kind of anti-liberal worldview.

The problem with race is that there are methodological problems in defining it. As I said in my earlier post it depends which characteristics we use to define it. From what I understand there is no biological definition of race because as we are one species, the parameters for categorisation are necessarily arbitrary. If one defined race by frequency of a certain allele for example, you make an arbitrary quantification of the frequency needed (as W Boyd says). And this leads to the logical conclusion that theoretically there can be equal races to people, if you set the parameters so.

Edit: I think the observation "that there is greater variation within 'racial' groups than between them" is somewhat pithy, considering we share 98% of our genes with chimpanzees.

I actually think the issues with defining race is parallel to that of cultures that we spoke of earlier. Again it tends to the problem of reductionism, because you will inevitably make wrong assumptions about some of the individuals you classify in order to reach a coherent treatment of the whole. Now in theory you couldn't make wrong assumptions using a genetic yardstick, allele frequency, because that is observable biologically. But then it brings us back to the problem of mathematical arbitrariness…

What I'm trying to get at is that although it may be impossible to define race biologically, you are still able to observe clear differences in human populations, differences which are genetic. One can sort white men from black men by looking at them, as you can sort red apples from green apples.

And this isn't some fancy new "SJW" "Politically correct" opinion.

I was going to give you a reasoned reply to what you said, as I have been doing all along, but you know what? Comments like this make it almost not worth opening your mouth on this forums these days. Say one tiny thing and people impute all sorts of meanings into what you have said.

Suppose I should take the advice and just 'fuck off', because I can't actually be bothered.

I agree with this:

[race] means absolutely nothing at all except by the imprinting of cultural significance onto it.

But I do not agree with this:

Races don't exist biologically

Skin colour is determined by alleles which in turn determine how much melanin you produce. Many East Asians experience alcohol flush because of a genetic metabolic deficiency. And there are countless other phenotypic differences between large groups of people (races). You cannot deny that it is possible to classify people into groups whether physiologically or genetically. The methodology of that of course defines what we may call a race.

Edit: I think you're both falling into a trap of thinking: race doesn't 'mean' anything outside of culture; therefore scientifically race does not exist either. No, that's wrong.

But considering the difference between discriminate and dislike (one is passive, the other is active), you can see my probing for clarification

Yes, I welcome the clarification but it's entirely irrelevant because we are talking about actual cultural discrimination (ban on Muslims).

I didn't say you had said that. I was just taking what you HAD said (or at least what I understood from what you wrote), that it is okay to discriminate based on religion, and shifting it to an extreme to give an example.

I saw your post pre-edit where you insinuated I'd be fine with that (something along the lines of 'if you think some cultures are better than others then I assume you'd be alright with people registering with the government... etc')

Heck, you know, there is no "black gene" or "white gene" or such, no combination of DNA that can give you "This person is black", so there is the idea that race as a whole is purely a social (or even cultural) construct!

What? That is literally how human genetics works. There are clear phenotypic and genetic differences between humans which we can classify as races relative to one another. If there weren't we would all be homogenous. These differences are biological, not cultural.

[Holistically]

You're absolutely right Problem; but now we are getting very theoretical. Holistically Muslims do think the same way, in that we can differentiate the aggregate group mindset from that of another culture or religion. If we would not be able to do this, the label Muslim could be said to not exist! I agree that there is a tension between 'tarring people with the same brush' but also being able to de-individualise to make statements about the whole. This problem of reductionism is as ancient as philosophy. But unjust sacrifices at the level of the individual are inescapable if you want to deal with the whole, which is where practicality requires our attentions to be directed.

And yes, one cannot change their religion like they change their clothes - especially not if they live in a country where this is culturally impossible. Do you see the circularity of these oppressions?

See how you switched the actions there? Discrimination based on what one genetically is is what racism is, sure. What is discrimination (not simply saying you dislike them) based on what religion the person was born into called? Or heck, even the religion they converted into? Is that as okay as "Saying you dislike them"?

Sorry yeah, I did switch the actions, but only accidentally. I don't think it matters because we are talking about a ban on Muslims which could be compared to a ban on blacks. Both are discriminatory but one is based on culture and one on race.

Edit: I don't want to get hung up on the distinction between discrimination and dislike, but just to add that if somebody said they 'disliked' blacks they would certainly be called a racist.

What about the idea of forcing people of a specific culture to have to register with the government, perhaps wear an patch on their clothes so they could be easily identified, and be forcefully interred in the case of a war with people of that culture?

Absolutely not what I've been saying - massive straw-man, par for the course in this thread. (I saw your post pre-edit where you insinuated I'd be fine with that).

As you yourself zeroed in on the point we are discussing at hand, the DISCRIMINATION of a people, so in that context, yes, "Muslim is not a race" isn't a valid counterclaim at all. That is the exact reason I mentioned the Christian convert (or heck, even born christian in a muslim country) point. Not because I was curious as to what would happen to them, but to show that in the end, it isn't their religion that is being targetted, rather their ethnic background. Another example: so far, all iterations of the "Muslim registry" idea I've read about are for immigrants, not the local population who may have converted. Not saying we won't get there, of course.

You're essentially saying a wholesale ban on people travelling from a country equates to a ban on the ethnic group, simply because that is where they live on the planet. But as I've said, the ethnic background and the culture of those people is an anthropological accident, and the two are linked only by virtue of how cultures develop and people settle. The Muslim registry is obviously going to be targeted at immigrants from Middle Eastern countries, because that is where the majority of the world's Muslims are from!

By the way, I'd just like to reiterate to everybody (because I know that someone will eventually claim this), I'm not at all condoning or wishing for such a ban. As usual I'm talking theory here, not making value judgments.

The problem here is that you can't "see" religion, so it is easier to go with alternates: colour of skin, type of clothes being worn, etc. Which is why you sometimes hear on islamophobic attacks on Sikhs as well. So essentially, it IS racism.

Oh for sure, I completely agree. That's the common uneducated racist that I described. I'm just saying that personally I'm able to sever race and culture absolutely, and wish more people did the same.

[absolutely entirely severable]

Throughout this entire thread I've had problems with people throwing around the word racist willy nilly as some kind of catch-all buzzword, so I'd like to share how I see it.

And yeah, plans for a muslim registry, which apparently are in discussion now would absolutely would be racist as well as xenophobic (and yes, racist, despite the "BUT MUSLIMS ARE NOT A RACE!" counterclaim that so often comes up. The registry would be for immigrants from muslim countries, so "brown people". And I don't think someone having converted to Christianity would suddenly make it okay for them to skip being registered)

I see the 'muslims are not a race' counterclaim as entirely valid. Far too often I see people unable to sever the race of a person and their culture and ideology. They are absolutely entirely severable. It astounds me how people continue to have problems with that concept - your race is biologically what you are, your culture is socially what you do. I am certainly not a racist but I am proudly a 'culturalist'. Some cultures and ways of thinking are simply better and more wholesome than others, and I will stubbornly never change my mind on that. (I'm subsuming religion within culture for these purposes).

Discrimination based on what one genetically is (I won't hire him because he's black) is what racism is. Saying you dislike Muslims is not, because specific instantiations of religion and culture is not genetic. Those systems are abstract counterfactuals and I think can therefore be legitimately scrutinised and discriminated against.

So, in theory we see that one's race and one's culture are completely separable. But obviously it rarely works this way - a white European is more likely to be a Christian than a Muslim; and if you're born in Saudi Arabia you're probably a Muslim. Yet this distribution is just an accident of history. After the invention of agriculture human populations have necessarily been relatively geographically static, meaning divergent cultures have grown in areas, which we attribute to the race of that area. But importantly the race is not the cause of the culture, and thus those claiming that an attack on the culture necessitates an attack on the race are mistaken.

Babar, you seem to have fallen for the same flawed thinking that we see in the uneducated racist (I know that you are not racist, obviously). Instead of seeing the ban on the 'Muslim country', you assume that that means 'country where brown people live'. I do not see it that way because I'm not fixated with race. Having said all that, I do agree with you up to the point that you can prove that there is some 'ulterior motive' for Trump's ban on people coming from Muslim countries; that he is not concerned with their faith, but the colour of their skin. False dichotomy flag: it is actually probable that Trump's reasons are both their faith and colour of their skin. However, we do not see him calling for a ban on sub-saharan Africans, Indians, Asians, etc. So I strongly suspect his primary motive is indeed what he says.

By the way, to preempt anyone who attacks me for saying that some cultures are simply better than others (that I need to "be more tolerant and open"), I'd like to quote dactylopus:

I don't think we need to be tolerant of other people's views if those views seek to discriminate based on race, gender, religion, sexual preference, or other such minority groups.  We can be tolerant of their other views, sure, but there should never be tolerance of discrimination.  It is abhorrent.

God forbid that some cultures openly discriminate on the basis of all of those things!

Edit:

Forgot to mention re the case of the 'Christian convert' coming from a Muslim country: if it is a wholesale ban on immigration or travel from a discrete list of countries (which I believe it what Trump called for, apologies if not) where Islam is the dominant religion and/or the law is based on sharia, then it leads me to believe the Christian also would not be allowed to enter the US from that country.

Again, "SJW" is used by the extreme/alt right to refer to "anyone left of me".

Seriously? The way I have been using it refers to someone who takes up any old liberal cause for their own self-satisfaction, rather than actually engaging or thinking about the issues properly. That is literally the definition and I personally know many people who it suits (invariably young, white middle-class people like me). I am not 'alt right' because I doubt the sincerity and permanency of some people's so-say convictions. Instead I've been sworn at and been called extreme right, it's quite ironic. Oh, and how about we say "alt right" is used by SJWs to refer to "anyone right of me".

Again, my comments were off-topic so please let's not get hung up on it here.

So Trump has announced that he will keep some key provisions of Obamacare and there won't be a wholesale repeal. Which brings me back to my point that what Trump said on the campaign trail isn't solely how we should judge how his presidency will actually turn out. He's a liar, he contradicts himself, he's bizarre - in practice what he said off the top of his head at a podium will be ameliorated by the realities of office.

Social JUSTICE Warrior. If that sounds like a bad thing to you, you can fuck right off. If you feel comforted by Trump's illiterate jingoism, you can fuck right off. If you think people have no reason to be frightened, you can fuck right off.

Yeah, in my post I was ranting about those people who pick up a cause just for the sake of picking it up. Nobody here is doing that. It was super off-topic so I apologise that you misunderstood me.