"Racism"

[*bfine32*]

(03-15-2018, 09:32 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Plenty of non-biological things are medically significant.

Absolutely, such as social construct. 

[Belsnickel]

(03-15-2018, 09:44 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Absolutely, such as social construct. 

Do you mean a social construct?

But yes, social factors can absolutely be medically significant. Same for economic, cultural, geographical, etc.

[*bfine32*]

(03-15-2018, 09:48 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Do you mean a social construct?

But yes, social factors can absolutely be medically significant. Same for economic, cultural, geographical, etc.

Yeah, I guess I meant a social construct. I can now see the huge difference between that and social construct. Just one quick question:

Why did you change social construct to social factors? 

Is that less of a difference than not putting a before Social Construct?

[fredtoast]

(03-15-2018, 08:16 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: And you again say I am claiming something I never claimed. Do you think that a biological construct of race is required for race to be a real thing? I've got news for you, it's not.

Sorry, I did not mean to claim anything.  I meant to ask you how you define "race" when you address "racial profiling".

[fredtoast]

(03-15-2018, 09:11 PM)Dill Wrote: But you could do ALL those things without thinking race was a biological category.

I still don't see how physical appearance or a charcteristic like height is not biological.

The fact that there has been some mixing does not mean the differences are not biological.

That is liek saying that the existence of purple means there is no difference between red and blue.

[Belsnickel]

(03-15-2018, 10:03 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Yeah, I guess I meant a social construct. I can now see the huge difference between that and social construct. Just one quick question:

Why did you change social construct to social factors? 

Is that less of a difference than not putting a before Social Construct?

I said social factor because a social construct would be a social factor.

[Belsnickel]

(03-15-2018, 10:55 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Sorry, I did not mean to claim anything.  I meant to ask you how you define "race" when you address "racial profiling".

I want to respond to this from my computer, not my phone. So I will get back to this, tomorrow.

[Dill]

(03-15-2018, 11:01 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I still don't see how physical appearance or a charcteristic like height is not biological.

The fact that there has been some mixing does not mean the differences are not biological.

That is liek saying that the existence of purple means there is no difference between red and blue.

It is biological.  The question is what can be inferred from physical characteristics on a scientific or genetic basis, what classification of characteristics is consistent with current knowledge, not whether such characteristics exist.

The issue is about classification systems. The system we now call "racist" was formed with the rise of early biology and social science--people looking at surface features and gathering them into bunches to be sorted out taxonomically. There was also a decided effort to sort them into "higher" and "lower" rankings, the ones who looked more like the sorters being, of course, higher.

Later biological advances do not support that earlier classification. So there are still white people and brown people and "yellow" people and "red," but grouping them as races is not helpful for biologists and geneticists.

Another analogy. Aristotle distinguished between animals that lived on land and animals that lived in the air and animals that lived in the sea. For him, going by surface characteristics of animals, a whale, living in the sea with fins, was a kind of fish.  With the advent of modern biology, which defined animals as organisms and looked into their "depth" (skeleton, circulatory and reproductive systems, etc.), a whole new range of characteristics and resemblances and groupings appeared. The whale was suddenly more like a dog or a human than a fish--a mammal.  Yet whales still had fins and lived in the ocean.

Modern biologists have gone even deeper, into the very building blocks of cells, and when they come back up, they don't think everything with fins is a fish anymore. But they aren't saying fins don't exist.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(03-15-2018, 11:05 PM)Dill Wrote: LOL who does this on a regular basis and is infamous for it?

Meanwhile, Fred continues civil discussion, pushing deeper into the subject.

You mean civil discussion by deliberately misstating his opponents position?  An odd definition of "civil discussion", Dill.  

[*bfine32*]

(03-15-2018, 11:10 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I said social factor because a social construct would be a social factor.

I guess I just found it strange that you point to a missing "a" yet chose to change a term.

I don't think even you believe the sentence you just typed made sense. But roll with it. A construct is a perception and has absolutely nothing to do with why race is required on a medical exam. 

[Bengalzona]

Please refrain from directing comments at individual members, particularly a member that has not called out anyone else by name.

Other individuals on the board are not the topic here.

[Belsnickel]

(03-16-2018, 12:07 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I guess I just found it strange that you point to a missing "a" yet chose to change a term.

I don't think even you believe the sentence you just typed made sense. But roll with it. A construct is a perception and has absolutely nothing to do with why race is required on a medical exam. 

I do believe it, and constructs are absolutely factors that can affect you medically. Race is a social/cultural construct. Your culture is entirely perception, however it impacts how you live your life. It impacts your schedule, your eating habits, your social interactions, everything you do is guided by culture and race is a part of that. Race has huge implications with how you move through life and that affects your medical records.

Race is not biological or genetic. It is a cultural construct, but that cultural construct is as real as any biological construct. It can have tangible, physical effects on a person.

[Belsnickel]

(03-15-2018, 10:55 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Sorry, I did not mean to claim anything.  I meant to ask you how you define "race" when you address "racial profiling".

When I talk about a lack of a biological basis for race, I am basing that upon the lack of modern scientists being able to find one. Scientists want one, they are trying hard to find one, because that makes these things easier. It is much easier to categorize people by something biological or genetic because it is neat, tidy, and objective. The problem is that they have been searching ever since they discovered DNA and they have yet to find a way to do it. So I want to be clear that this is why I say there is no biological basis for race.

What creates race, or constructs it, is how people are perceived in a society. What is interesting about racial profiling is that it is like the chicken or the egg question. Is racial profiling truly based on race, or is racial profiling helping to create the culture that is the black race? The answer is both, because it is a self-perpetuating system. I know I'm not good at describing this. While I study the social sciences, anthropology and sociology aren't my specialties and so while I know enough to get me into trouble I am not the best at explaining them. But the way I see racial profiling manifest is that someone perceives another person as being a part of a racial group, not even that they necessarily are.

I'm going to stop, now, because I know I'm struggling to explain my thoughts so I know it isn't very coherent to read.

Addendum: Okay, I had a thought. We discuss how there is a difference between biological sex and your gender. That gender is a social construct that exists because of the expectations placed on you by society based upon how you present yourself based on masculinity of femininity. Race works in the same way as gender in that there are certain cultural expectations placed on a person by society based on how they appear. I hope that makes more sense and helps understand how I (and the scientific community) view race.

[BmorePat87]

(03-15-2018, 06:06 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Again, just because the range of black/brown is wide does not mean the range includes white.

How many white people have the sickle cell trait?

Again, you're falling into the same flawed line of thinking that Matt addressed before. You're equating an ethnic and regional trait to an entire race. Sickle cell isn't unique to black people, it's found in people whose ethnicity can be traced to areas that are highly affected by malaria. That's why you find it in the Middle East and India too. 

Within Africa, you are more likely to find the trait in the central coastal regions, but not in Northern or Southern Africa. 


Most black people in the US are descendants of slaves, so their gene pool is more closely related to those regions where slaves come from. When studies are done on the black population in the US, it's really focused on a specific group from one region. People have tried to point to bones as another thing that proves race. That is riddled with the same issue. These examples only work for specific African ethnicities are not not universal. 

The same thing goes with white people in the US. We're mostly German, Irish, and English. Patterns drawn from White Americans would not necessarily be relevant for other white groups like Greeks or Russians outside of the US.


All of this aside, there's no common gene cluster for race.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

(03-16-2018, 09:02 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: When I talk about a lack of a biological basis for race, I am basing that upon the lack of modern scientists being able to find one. Scientists want one, they are trying hard to find one, because that makes these things easier. It is much easier to categorize people by something biological or genetic because it is neat, tidy, and objective. The problem is that they have been searching ever since they discovered DNA and they have yet to find a way to do it. So I want to be clear that this is why I say there is no biological basis for race.

What creates race, or constructs it, is how people are perceived in a society. What is interesting about racial profiling is that it is like the chicken or the egg question. Is racial profiling truly based on race, or is racial profiling helping to create the culture that is the black race? The answer is both, because it is a self-perpetuating system. I know I'm not good at describing this. While I study the social sciences, anthropology and sociology aren't my specialties and so while I know enough to get me into trouble I am not the best at explaining them. But the way I see racial profiling manifest is that someone perceives another person as being a part of a racial group, not even that they necessarily are.

I'm going to stop, now, because I know I'm struggling to explain my thoughts so I know it isn't very coherent to read.

Addendum: Okay, I had a thought. We discuss how there is a difference between biological sex and your gender. That gender is a social construct that exists because of the expectations placed on you by society based upon how you present yourself based on masculinity of femininity. Race works in the same way as gender in that there are certain cultural expectations placed on a person by society based on how they appear. I hope that makes more sense and helps understand how I (and the scientific community) view race.

Think of that "Drivetime" commercial where the women of "Drivetime" go back two minutes into the past and meet another woman to tell her that she is already approved. In the commercial, the one woman in the passenger seat tells the woman getting approved, "You told us that you would be difficult" and the woman getting approved for a carloan says "I am difficult".

So, how did that start and it will always be on a continual loop for eternity in that reality?

[Belsnickel]

(03-16-2018, 09:20 AM)Nebuchadnezzar Wrote: Think of that "Drivetime" commercial where the women of "Drivetime" go back two minutes into the past and meet another woman to tell her that she is already approved. In the commercial, the one woman in the passenger seat tells the woman getting approved, "You told us that you would be difficult" and the woman getting approved for a carloan says "I am difficult".

So, how did that start and it will always be on a continual loop for eternity in that reality?

I have no idea what commercial this is, but loops like that are continual unless there is an external variable that interrupts them. This is why systemic racism is persistent in society, because we haven't found a good way to effectively interrupt the loop.

[fredtoast]

(03-15-2018, 11:22 PM)Dill Wrote: Modern biologists have gone even deeper, into the very building blocks of cells, and when they come back up, they don't think everything with fins is a fish anymore. But they aren't saying fins don't exist.

I am not trying to claim that a gorilla from Africa is the same as a man because they both have arms and legs.

What I am talking about is more like the different breeds of dogs.  There are all sort of mixed up mutts out there, but that does not mean that I can't tell the difference between a Beagle and a German Shepard.

[BmorePat87]

(03-16-2018, 10:39 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I am not trying to claim that a gorilla from Africa is the same as a man because they both have arms and legs.

What I am talking about is more like the different breeds of dogs.  There are all sort of mixed up mutts out there, but that does not mean that I can't tell the difference between a Beagle and a German Shepard.

But that example is more akin to ethnicity than race.

Race would be taking hundreds of breeds and declaring that they all fall into 3 groups based their coat color. 

[fredtoast]

(03-16-2018, 09:02 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Addendum: Okay, I had a thought. We discuss how there is a difference between biological sex and your gender. That gender is a social construct that exists because of the expectations placed on you by society based upon how you present yourself based on masculinity of femininity. Race works in the same way as gender in that there are certain cultural expectations placed on a person by society based on how they appear. I hope that makes more sense and helps understand how I (and the scientific community) view race.

A trans woman can dress however she wants, but it will not make it impossible for her to get prostate cancer.

I can get a tight perm and a dark spray tan, but I still do not have to worry about sickle-cell anemia.

The fact that it is complicated to divide people into a small number of races does not mean there are not biological differences between people that are generally determined by where their ancestors originated.

I am not saying that we have to pigeonhole every person into one of 4 or 5 broad categories, but at the same time it is silly to ignore the genetic differences.  The reason that an overwhelming majority of WRs, DBs, NBA players, and track stars are black is because on average they have a genetic advantage.  When you try to pretend it is cultural instead of biological you end up saying that white people just don't try as hard or some other silly bullshit like that.

If you really want to address racial issue you can't pretend that all the differences are just cultural.  No one wants to say that blacks on average have lower test score because they are genetically inferior, but if that is the truth we don't gain anything by denying the facts.  There are still plenty of black people who have very high test scores and there are some white WRs and NBA players.  As long as we don't judge the individual based on racial stereotypes then there is no problem. 

Instead of claiming there are no differences we need to get people to not judge individuals based on racial stereotypes.  We don't solve anything by denying the truth.

[fredtoast]

(03-16-2018, 10:43 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: But that example is more akin to ethnicity than race.

Race would be taking hundreds of breeds and declaring that they all fall into 3 groups based their coat color. 

Well there are "groups" that the specific breeds fall into.  There are lots of different breeds in the "hound" group.  They come in different sizes and colors, but they are all hunting dogs that can track and chase by scent.  They are genetically distinct from other groups like "sporting" which are genetically designed to help bird hunters by pointing, setting, or retrieving and "terriers" which are genetically designed to hunt animals underground.