"Racism"

[Dill]

(03-23-2018, 10:33 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Just some reading on the idea of race:

Why Genes Don't Count (for Racial Differences in Health)

by Alan Goodman, PhD.
Published November 2000 in American Journal of Public Health

Mixed Blood: An analytical look at methods of classifying race

Yes. 

In terms of Americans' way of thinking about race, lanky people and rounded people are simply two kinds of whites or blacks. But it is equally reasonable to view light-skinned people and dark-skinned people as two kinds of"lankys" or "roundeds." In other words, our categories for the racial classification of people arbitrarily include certain dimensions (light versus dark skin) and exclude others (rounded versus elongated bodies).

There is no biological basis for classifying race according to skin color instead of body form-or according to any other variable, for that matter. All that exists is variability in what people look like -- and the arbitrary and culturally specific ways different societies classify that variability. There is nothing left over that can be called race. This is why race is a myth.

Some of my points above could be footnotes to this--like the classification of Asian GIs as "white" in WWII segregated Mississippi.
When we talk about/study race, we are studying a system of social/cultural classification based largely on skin color, sure, but not on any sound biological/scientific principles.

I had a friend from Okinawa who told that when she got her student visa to come to the US, she was asked to check a box marked "yellow" as a racial identifier.  She was totally surprised, as she had lived for 30 years without knowing that Japanese were "yellow."  And her skin was paler than my Northern European hide.