A Conversation About Race

[Argus]

I wonder., because I have a high tolerance to alcohol, does that make me superior to Asians or just a drunk?

A drunk is someone who only THINKS he has a high tolerance for alcohol.

[g_bambino]

An excellent example of not refuting an argument

He's quite good at that. Did you ever get the evidence from him that you asked for?

[Oleg Bach]

A drunk is someone who only THINKS he has a high tolerance for alcohol.

Reading a witness report a while back I noticed that the person said " I THINK this happened then I think that happened and he did this and that, I think....well thinking something does not make it so unless you are the all mighty himself...I can think that a deceased blonde hollywood starlette is going to crawl out of the grave and kiss my longing lips...It's not going to happen ever! It is better if you are making a statement to put it in terms of firm belief...eg. A drunk is someone who BELIEVES he has a high tolorance for alcohol...this commitment will eventually kill him...where as thinking and thought can be moderated.

[M.Dancer]

He's quite good at that. Did you ever get the evidence from him that you asked for?

The south shore cops?

No of course not. He made a lame assed attempt by linking to a bill that would curtail ethnic profilling...not even an attempt to twist a story from link of a tangential report.

His honesty is honestly suspect.

[GostHacked]

I think gnomes are the superior race. Dwarves aren't as smart, and Elves aren't as creative. As for those goofy Draenei, forget it! They have hooves! The Horde are even more inferior. Just look at the quality of their architecture!

I don't mind elves, they can be cute and they are pretty proficient at the bow/arrow. Elves are small, and they really suck in the tank role. Better keep them behind the hedgerows for a surprise attack.

[Oleg Bach]

Culturing profiling makes sense..certain families or extented families or nationalities have a certain set of values..and excepted codes of behavour. For instance to profile the Jamacan culture that excepts street justice as a way of life is wise --- But it is unwise when a person can not tell the difference between an African from the Congo or a Jamacian - or the difference between a Korean and a crimminally minded theif that exitis Tiwan because China my reclaim his pludered wealth - culure is culture - skin tone and scull structure is another matter.

[Pliny]

Our friend's dumbfounding opinions aside, giving minorities preferences is not racism. It is a practice protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

15. (1) Every individual is equal before the and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability.

(2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability.(5)

Of course he is wrong. Most racist are rarely right.

I'm sorry? "Giving minorities preference is not racism" It is discrimination. A great "law", sure to appeal to all. Ensconcing in law the idea that societies and cultures can exist within a common society???? A multicultural divisive hodgepodge pitting cultures in opposition rather than encouraging a common patriotic bond. I guess patriotism is a dirty word though since we are all citizens of the globe. Can you see where we are heading? There is nothing wrong with people wishing to maintain their connections with their historical and ancestral roots but they are participating in the creation of a new culture when they move to a different country. If laws are to be made regarding culture they should foster the common bond but even that would be a mistake by government. If people don't come here to assimilate in the population and already created society what are they coming here for? The good life? To escape wretched conditions in their own countries which somehow they are not responsible for whatsoever?

What happens when you take a man, any man, off the streets, put him in a suit and call him a CEO? Does he live up to the title CEO or could he even live up to the title of paper shuffler?

He is neither of those and will soon abandon his position and return to where he feels most comfortable - the streets.

No one can make someone else something that he does not consider himself to be. The new immigrant must consider himself to be a "Canadian". If he doesn't then he will always be his original natinality or at best a hyphenated Canadian.

Moving someone out of the ghetto and into comfortable HUD housing in the sixties and seventies just moved the ghetto and was an abject failure. All those nice white folks were "hepin' the po' Blacks." Fact is, they were massaging their egos and couldn't have destroyed the Blacks image of themselves any faster or more devastatingly than you could say KKK. The KKK are racists and racism is abominable to any fair-minded, decent person. The do-gooders of the sixties and seventies never looked at giving Blacks any self-respect or building their self image. They wanted them to live like white folk lived but who says they wanted to abandon their living quarters to live like white folk lived?

In order to get rid of racism white people have to first of all recognize that Blacks are as fully capable of improving their lives as any other race. Give them a handout and they are as they have been in the past, the lessers and will remain the lessers as long as they are provided for, by what can only be construed as, their masters.

It's a great trick of government social engineers (government interventionists) to pretend they are helping everyone. They are in fact securing their positions as masters of the citizenry.

Government has it's place but it can't change the image of one's self by handing out doles or granting favours proclaiming they are only making things equal or - "leveling the playing field" as they like to say, or redistributing the wealth. In fact they are degrading and demoralizing those recipients of favour. The deplorable conditions of our native reservations are testimony to that.

As long as anyone is not oppressed and has security in the concept of the sanctity of person and property he can thrive - society will aid in that. Government will always attempt to do what it does - "govern", and given time and in the absence of any restraint will govern the lives of it's citizens completely. Changing political parties is not restraint, playing left and right politics is not a deterrent to big government. Only an understanding of governments role in society, simply overseeing that reason prevails over force by providing force enough to restore reason, and government should never be seen as reason.

In the famous words of George Washington -"Government is not reason, it is force and like a fire it is at best a reluctant servant and at worst a formidable tyrant." or close to that.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Pliny

[Pliny]

wow, finally someone who actually advocates for actual equality... and complete racial blindness... none of the radical leftists minded (Rue, Dancer, Tango, Charterrights et al) ever actually came out with such statements...

good word pliny, I don,t think anyone could disagree with your comment here. not even me...

Dissent, magnanimously encouraged by the left, is welcomed only as long as your position can be proven [that should read ("agreed upon")] to be idiotic.

I believe you are wrong in your position but its is only an opinion right? You wouldn't be advocating violence against other races, or heaven forbid, handouts that contribute to inferiority complexes?

Edited September 19, 2009 by Pliny

[Argus]

Government has it's place but it can't change the image of one's self by handing out doles or granting favours proclaiming they are only making things equal or - "leveling the playing field" as they like to say, or redistributing the wealth. In fact they are degrading and demoralizing those recipients of favour. The deplorable conditions of our native reservations are testimony to that.

As long as anyone is not oppressed and has security in the concept of the sanctity of person and property he can thrive - society will aid in that.

I agree completely with everything you've written above. The do-gooders always seem to screw things up with their paternalistic handouts, and no one can feel pride by being given jobs they aren't entitled to, homes they didn't have to pay for, or money they do not earn. Without pride what do you have? Things? Things don't make up for the sense of self-fulfillment you don't posses.

[Pliny]

I agree completely with everything you've written above. The do-gooders always seem to screw things up with their paternalistic handouts, and no one can feel pride by being given jobs they aren't entitled to, homes they didn't have to pay for, or money they do not earn. Without pride what do you have? Things? Things don't make up for the sense of self-fulfillment you don't posses.

Well, after that I have a sense of self-fulfillment.

"Things" are the whole thesis behind the leftist mentality. Morals and standards and values are not "things" so have no value. The "redistribution of wealth" is of the utmost importance to the left, and they have the audacity to call the capitalist "greedy".

I have absolutely nothing but scorn for the proponents of socialism. I will accept apologies from those who admit to being mislead by "good intentions".

[Griz]

Precedence

so when affirmative action selects a black person for a job because of racial quotas.... that's racism...

why is it our official policy then?

and why areN,t liberals (who are supposed to be the real egalitarians) opposing it?

[Griz]

Express your reservations!! Now you're telling us your indian and living on the reserve

no, because I would very much like my grand children to look like my ancestors... I don,t think there's anything wrong with being white... in fact I quite like our traits and aptitudes...

if the choice is between green eyes (such as I have) or blue eyes, porcelain skin, light brown or blond hair... or black kinky hair and 100% chance of black or brown eyes... I prefer the lighter hues...

why would I want them to be different?

now of course I wouldn't stop my children from marrying outside of their race, but I would express my reservations...

now I bet you'll use my answer to tell me there's something wrong with me ...

[Griz]

WOW!! Someone who makes sense! My hat goes off to strangles!! In Canada there's a bunch of cranky arses complaining about indians all the times--some right on here in this forum--man some of you need to get a life...is it worth gettin old, crinkly and cranky over the indians? PLZ just go and drink your vodka in peace and harmony and quit whining about indians all the time

I'm going to add a little spiel to my past post (#30).

There is simply no such thing as an ethnically pure nation unless that nation is situated on a small island (i.e Sao Tome, New Zealand before Europeans arrived, etc).

Most nation states are generally formed by 1 major ethnic group, however expansions, wars, immigration, weather patterns and so on move people around. Even all mighty "white-russia" is actually less white than America. Russia has 20% oriental/asiatic peoples (Tartars, mongols, etc).

When it comes to race and ethnic origin things aren't always simple.

The world' largest population of whites in one nation state are in the USA, yet the USA is not a "white country" by any definition, its 220m (+) whites part of large intermixed and multi-ethnic society.

The world's 2nd largest population of blacks is in Brazil, and Brazil is not a black country!

Simply put, racial separation is impossible, unless we want to have some 3000 nations on this Earth. And even then, how do we classify the intermixed Puerto Ricans, multi-ethnic Chinese, or people from Madascar (a mixture of black and Austronesian)? The list is endless. The goal impractical. Quite impossible.

What we can do though, is learn to live together in harmony.

[lictor616]

I'm going to add a little spiel to my past post (#30).

There is simply no such thing as an ethnically pure nation unless that nation is situated on a small island (i.e Sao Tome, New Zealand before Europeans arrived, etc).

Most nation states are generally formed by 1 major ethnic group, however expansions, wars, immigration, weather patterns and so on move people around. Even all mighty "white-russia" is actually less white than America. Russia has 20% oriental/asiatic peoples (Tartars, mongols, etc).

When it comes to race and ethnic origin things aren't always simple.

The world' largest population of whites in one nation state are in the USA, yet the USA is not% homogenous. a "white country" by any definition, its 220m (+) whites part of large intermixed and multi-ethnic society.

The world's 2nd largest population of blacks is in Brazil, and Brazil is not a black country!

Simply put, racial separation is impossible, unless we want to have some 3000 nations on this Earth. And even then, how do we classify the intermixed Puerto Ricans, multi-ethnic Chinese, or people from Madascar (a mixture of black and Austronesian)? The list is endless. The goal impractical. Quite impossible.

What we can do though, is learn to live together in harmony.

First off, Russia is not 20% oriental/Asiatic... Russia is ethnically

Russian 79.8%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 2%, Bashkir 1.2%, Chuvash 1.1%, other or assorted eastern European and non identified at 12.1%

only the Bashkir and tiny slithers of half mongols are non-white... the rest of russia is about 95% homogeneous and is a "white country" if we have any reasonable definition of what that is.

Secondly no one even talked about "purity" anywhere in these posts... i'm not even sure how we would define that... but say you were talking to a a person who wanted to aim for a "pure" nation... what's your argument against that? that no nation will ever be 100% pure?

consider this analogy: when we shower, we are always left with small traces of dirt and bacteria (under our fingernails, between our feet, on our hair and scalp) so by your logic you would say ... what the point of cleaning yourself?... whats the point of showering? You'll never be 100% clean anyway so the whole thing is useless..

Also being "diverse" is not necessary to "living together in harmony"... A nation of 98% homogeneous people such as they have in japan can be harmonious without importing 1 million Nigerians... if living in harmony is the objective how is mixing people who think, act, look talk differently a good means to that end? Where is the evidence? In fact the evidence points out to the contrary, whenever people are killing themselves most violently and atrociously and often its usually because of issues of diversity...

none of what you say makes sense.

your argument is pretty feeble.

[GostHacked]

First off, Russia is not 20% oriental/Asiatic... Russia is ethnically

Russian 79.8%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 2%, Bashkir 1.2%, Chuvash 1.1%, other or assorted eastern European and non identified at 12.1%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians

The English term Russians is used to refer to the citizens of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity (see demographics of Russia for information on other ethnic groups inhabiting Russia); in Russian, the demonym Russian is translated as Rossiyanin (Россиянин, plural Rossiyane), while the ethnic Russians, again, are referred to as Russkiye (sg. Русский, Russkiy). According to the 2002 census, ethnic Russians make up about 80% of the population of Russia [30]

Russians are russians regardless of ethnicity, but ethnic russians are 80% of the population. I am sure this is correct, but it does not sound right to me when reading this paragraph. Can someone clear that up for me?

Secondly no one even talked about "purity" anywhere in these posts... i'm not even sure how we would define that... but say you were talking to a a person who wanted to aim for a "pure" nation... what's your argument against that? that no nation will ever be 100% pure?

Correct. No country will ever be 100% of a certain ethinc group. That simply can't happen in these modern time. Which makes defining race all that more difficult. You are better off using Ethnic groups to define people, because many different enthicities can have the same skin colour as well as ethnicities with different skin colours.

consider this analogy: when we shower, we are always left with small traces of dirt and bacteria (under our fingernails, between our feet, on our hair and scalp) so by your logic you would say ... what the point of cleaning yourself?... whats the point of showering? You'll never be 100% clean anyway so the whole thing is useless..

Not a very good analogy at all. Because if you don't shower, no one would want to sit next to you on the bus. And you are going to get quite sick eventually if you don't perform regular personal hygene. But go ahead and try that experiment if you want. Any poverish nation with populations living in squalor can atest to that.

Also being "diverse" is not necessary to "living together in harmony"... A nation of 98% homogeneous people such as they have in japan can be harmonious without importing 1 million Nigerians... if living in harmony is the objective how is mixing people who think, act, look talk differently a good means to that end? Where is the evidence? In fact the evidence points out to the contrary, whenever people are killing themselves most violently and atrociously and often its usually because of issues of diversity...

The Japanese are a horrible example. They are pretty xenophobic in many fashions. This is why the overall make up has remained somewhat homogenous/secular. Not to mention Japan is very small with a lare population. It's pretty crowded over there, and any kind of immigration would make it more cramped. And it is expensive to live there. Japan has had many issues of diversity over the years, you could call them 'racist' because they want to keep the overall make up Japanese. Koreans and other asians have not been treated very well over the years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/24/internat...?pagewanted=all

Mr. Komai's belief that Japan cannot absorb newcomers is free of the nativism that is common among members of the conservative political leadership. Rather, he insists, it grows out of a realistic appraisal of his country's social limitations, including those of its workplace culture and educational system.

They simply lack infrastructure to accomodate immigrants. Part of the reason why there is under 20,000 people immigrating to Japan each year.

none of what you say makes sense.

Most of what you have posted/claimed does not make sense to me either.

your argument is pretty feeble.

Your brain hurt yet?

[GostHacked]

"Things" are the whole thesis behind the leftist mentality. Morals and standards and values are not "things" so have no value. The "redistribution of wealth" is of the utmost importance to the left, and they have the audacity to call the capitalist "greedy".

Values are not things and have no value? I don't think redistribution of wealth is a proper word to describe soclialism. Canada's health care system is socialistic. If my money is put to good use to help another person get better or get proper care, then so be it. We all pay into this system, some get more out of it than others, because they need it. We are all in this together right?

Even when you pay into a health plan at work, it is socialistic. Because everyone pays into it, and everyone can get something out of it when they need it most. To me this is like saving for that rainy day.

I have absolutely nothing but scorn for the proponents of socialism. I will accept apologies from those who admit to being mislead by "good intentions".

If you pay taxes there is socialism. How else are your roads, communications and other public services going to get built? There is more socialism in your life than you really think.

Off topic I know ...

[Argus]

WOW!! Someone who makes sense! My hat goes off to strangles!! In Canada there's a bunch of cranky arses complaining about indians all the times--some right on here in this forum--man some of you need to get a life...is it worth gettin old, crinkly and cranky over the indians? PLZ just go and drink your vodka in peace and harmony and quit whining about indians all the time

I have no idea how you relate this to what strangles wrote. Nobody here complains about "indians" in the sense of their race. The only time the subject comes up is when some moronic native type or native lover posts something stupid and inflammable which annoys people, or when natives do something criminal and violent.

The most I can say about natives, using a broad brush, is that it's sad how so many people's lives have been reduced to shuffling around a rural reservation between one shack and another, getting drunk or sniffing glue while waiting for their next government cheque. Native's lives are wasted because however many cheques are sent to them they have no purpose to their lives. Thus the high suicide rate. Thus the high alcoholism and drug rates. Thus the high crime rates.

[Argus]

Values are not things and have no value? I don't think redistribution of wealth is a proper word to describe soclialism. Canada's health care system is socialistic. If my money is put to good use to help another person get better or get proper care, then so be it. We all pay into this system, some get more out of it than others, because they need it. We are all in this together right

Schools and hospitals weren't developed to help people, they were developed to help WORKERS. Business wanted their workers healthy and educated. It wasn't done out of nobility or generosity, but because business needed a pool of healthy, educated workers. And businessmen used to pay most of the taxes.

If you pay taxes there is socialism. How else are your roads, communications and other public services going to get built? There is more socialism in your life than you really think.

The ancient Romans paid taxes. I don't think we can ascribe taxation to build roads as a Socialist scheme.

[Rue]

Lictor this is in specific response to your comments to me.

When you came on this board the context for which you used the word “superior” was not enunciated in limited reference to suggesting one identified group’s reported lower rates of disease were preferable to another’s with a higher rate of that same disease.

In fact it was and remains referenced to suggesting blacks are less intelligent then whites and uglier in physical appearance. Your words and the context in which you used superiority in regards to comparisons between blacks and whites are there for anyone to see.

So your attempt now in response to me to try suggest you only meant to refer to superiority in a limited context is about as subtle as an elephant with an erection

As you now would have me believe you are confused, i.e., “huh Rue come again”, just for you and to show I care, I have obtained for you the words of Alan Goodman, Professor of Biological Anthropology at Hampshire College who is co-editor of Genetic Nature/Cultural Anthropology and Science Beyond the Cultural Divide and Building a New Bio-Cultural Synthesis and whose words I quote can be found at the following web-site: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-b...round-01-07.htm.

In this post I will provide excerpts that specifically repudiate your attempt to suggest race is a biological entity. In the next post, I will provide excerpts that specifically repudiate your attempt to suggest high or lower medical rates of illness in certain groups proves biological race. In my third post I will provide his excepts that specifically repudiate your suggestions "blacks" are less intelligent than "whites".

I will also state this Lictor. Your previous attempt to simply label any view you do not agree with as “sociological” and therefore invalid is nonsensical. First off you did not provide a definition of “sociological”. Therefore that lends to the appearance it is something you fabricated as a device to assign a negative label to anything you disagree with and then to be used to dismiss anything you disagree with, without having to provide a rational basis for your rejection other than to call it “sociological”. No Lictor, you don’t get to fabricate subjective negative lables and get to throw them out to summarily dismiss anyone’s words that you do not agree with-all that does Lictor is show you are unable to respond with an objective basis to establish your grounds for repudiation-that exercise is I would mention about as subtle as Paris Hilton’s cold sores that break out on her mouth.

“To understand why the idea of race is a biological myth requires a major paradigm shift - an absolutely paradigm shift, a shift in perspective. And for me, it's like seeing what it must have been like to understand that the world isn't flat. The world looks flat to our eyes. And perhaps I can invite you to a mountaintop or to a plain, and you can look out the window at the horizon, and see, "Oh, what I thought was flat I can see a curve in now." And that race is not based on biology, but race is rather an idea that we ascribe to biology.

That's quite shocking to a lot of individuals. When you look and you think you see race, to be told that no, you don't see race, you just think you see race, you know, it's based on your cultural lens - that's extremely challenging. “

“Scientists have actually been saying for quite a while that race, as biology, doesn't exist - that there's no biological basis for race. And that is in the facts of biology, the facts of non-concordance, the facts of continuous variation, the recentness of our evolution, the way that we all commingle and come together, how genes flow, and perhaps especially in the fact that most variation occurs within race versus between races or among races, suggesting that there's no generalizability to race. There is no center there; there is no there there in the center. It's fluid. »

“But think about race and its universality or lack thereof. Where is your measurement device? There is no way to measure race first. We sometimes do it by skin color. Other people may do it by hair texture. Other people may have the dividing lines different in terms of skin color. What's black in the United States is not what's black in Brazil or what's black in South Africa. What was black in 1940 is different from what is black in 2000. Certainly, with the evolution of whiteness, what was white in 1920 - as a Jew I was not white then, but I'm white now, so white has changed tremendously.”

“For race to have meaning, for race to be more than skin-deep, for race to be more than a typology, one has to have concordance. In other words, skin color needs to reflect things that are deeper in the body, under the skin. But, in fact, human variation is rather non-concordant.

I'll give you an example of concordance. Height is actually quite concordant with weight. As we get taller, we gain weight, we have more weight. One aspect of size is concordant with another aspect of size.

But most of human variation is non-concordant. Skin color or eye color or hair color is not correlated with height or weight. And they're definitely not correlated with more complex traits like intelligence or athletic performance. Those things evolve and develop in entirely different ways. Just as skin color develops in a different way from size, intelligence, athletic performance, other traits develop in different and independent ways.

A map of skin color gradients looks sort of like the map of temperature. It gets lighter, as you go towards the poles and it's darker near the equator. But then take a map of, say, the distribution of blood type A. Looks entirely different. There's no relationship between the two maps. The distributions are non-concordant. Simply, one is not related to the other.

When we adopt a racial view, we have to see concordance. And perhaps if we don't see it, we make it up. Because if there's no concordance, there is no race. So, racist scientists, for example, have to see a concordance between skin color and IQ, otherwise there's no meaning there, there is no there there. There's nothing under the skin. Race stops at the color of your skin.”

“Richard Lewontin did an amazing piece of work which he published in 1972, in a famous article called "The Apportionment of Human Variation." Literally what he tried to do was see how much genetic variation showed up at three different levels.

One level was the variation that showed up among or between purported races. And the conventional idea is that quite a bit of variation would show up at that level. And then he also explored two other levels at the same time. How much variation occurred within a race, but between or among sub-groups within that purported race.

So, for instance, in Europe, how much variation would there be between the Germans, the Finns and the Spanish? Or how much variation could we call local variation, occurring within an ethnicity such as the Navaho or Hopi or the Chatua.

And the amazing result was that, on average, about 85% of the variation occurred within any given group. The vast majority of that variation was found at a local level. In fact, groups like the Finns are not homogeneous - they actually contain, I guess one could literally say, 85% of the genetic diversity of the world.

Secondly, of that remaining 15%, about half of that, seven and a half percent or so, was found to be still within the continent, but just between local populations; between the Germans and the Finns and the Spanish. So, now we're over 90%, something like 93% of variation actually occurs within any given continental group. And only about 6-7% of that variation occurs between "races," leaving one to say that race actually explains very little of human variation.”

‘The idea of race, of course, assumes that there are set boundaries between the races, but we know that to be untrue. You know, there's no racial boundary that's ever been found. Any trait that one looks at, one tends to see gradual variation from one group to another. The facts of human variation are that it's continuous, it's not lumped into three or four or five racial groups.’

[Rue]

Here Lictor are the Professor’s specific responses to your attempt to suggest differences in medical rates of illness in different groups prove biological races exist.

"Frequently studies are done that show that there are racial differences in all sorts of diseases. Blacks, for example, have twice the rate of infant mortality in the United States than whites. Native Americans, overall, have higher rates of diabetes. And so the question is, how do you interpret that?

First, that may mean to some people - oh, the differences between blacks and whites are really about prenatal nutrition. That's why there are differences in infant mortality. Other individuals may think that that has something to do with medical care. And other individuals may think it has to do with genetics - that there really is something about African-American genes.

So until we address that fundamental confusion about what race is, you know, we're going to be open to different actions and interpretations. And clearly, if you think it's genetics, it may lead to one medical intervention or maybe no medical intervention. If you think it's nutritional, it leads to another. If you think it's medical care, it leads to yet another potential medical intervention.

"How did sickle cell originate and what does that reveal about the racial world view?

Sickle cell is a nice way to think about the difference between a racial world view and a world view in which you look at adaptation, change, adjustment to different environments. To the racial world view, sickle cell was seen as a disease of African-ness, a condition of African-ness, perhaps even a pathology of African-ness.

And so to find sickle cell was to find evidence of African-ness by definition. It was typological. If a person from Italy had sickle cell, it must be because they had some African blood - they must be polluted with African blood. And that was the end of the story. If you had sickle cell, you're African; if you're African, you might have sickle cell. And it's a rather pre-Darwinian and perhaps comforting story. But, it's also a very wrong story.

The right story - and I think the much more interesting story - emerged in the 1950s. And that was with a couple of discoveries. The first one was a discovery that sickle cell, which is a change in red blood cells that gives it a sickle shape, actually confers an advantage in fighting malaria. An individual who has one sickle cell allele, but not both - what we call sickle cell 'trait' - has a selective advantage in situations in which you have endemic malaria.

Individuals who had sickle cell trait seemed to resist malaria better than other individuals. And malaria is, and has been, one of the greatest killers of humanity of all time. If ever there is a selective pressure, malaria is it. And so those individuals might actually survive and prosper, and then the number of subsequent individuals with sickle cell trait would increase in a population because that allele would be selected for.

Well, that's one thing. The other thing was to actually take a close look at where malaria actually arose and became endemic and severe. Then also to look at who has sickle cell. Frank Livingston did this, and lo and behold the two maps matched extremely well. Places in which malaria was endemic, and had been endemic for a long time, were exactly the places in which sickle cell was highest. Conversely, places where endemic malaria was rather low were places in which sickle cell was virtually non-existent.

He had more than a smoking gun there. He had a nice evolutionary story and a rather tight one about how, perhaps, 5,000 years ago, for instance, in West Africa, endemic malaria became a serious problem when people started cutting down forests in the origins of agriculture. And individuals who had sickle cell were selected for, and it expanded.

Sickle cell isn't an African disease. It is true that some Africans have sickle cell, particularly individuals who have ancestry around West Africa. That's one of the highest places of sickle cell. But, it's also true that East Africans hardly have any sickle cell. South Africans don't have any sickle cell. But, it's also a Middle Eastern disease, and it's also a Mediterranean disease. Individuals in Turkey and Greece and Italy, Sicily, have sickle cell; more than individuals do in South Africa, or in East Africa. So, sickle cell is not an African disease; it's a condition that developed in response to malaria. "

If the above is confusing to you Lictor, try read one paragraph at a time and take breaks in between.

[Rue]

In this post Lictor I I provide words used to repudiate the notion you hold that there are white, black and Asian races and each race has a different intelligence level.

Scientific work abetting the idea that race is real, typological, and hierarchically arranged is actually rather an old occupation, you know. In the mid-1840s we see Samuel Morton measuring crania to get at cranial capacity and then to try to rank the races on the amount of cranial capacity they have, and to equate that with racial differences and intelligence.

And really about every 20 years somebody else comes along, almost with a best-seller, perhaps with a new method for measuring intelligence, ultimately to show that there is a ranking in intelligence, usually with whites up top.

The most recent effort was The Bell Curve, which came out in 1994 and literally reached number two on the best-seller list in 1994, behind a book, by the way, written by Pope John Paul. The Bell Curve threw a couple spins into this. One is that it actually promoted Asians as being closer to the top, also broke down whites a little bit more. But fundamentally it was the same type of book as was written by Morton in 1850; you use the same basic methods and the same basic logic.

Their argument went something like this: there is something called intelligence that we can put our fingers on, that we can measure; intelligence is some sort of univariable; it's one-dimensional. That intelligence then is measurable by something called an intelligence test that actually measures intelligence. And then that intelligence is highly heritable; it's something we really do get in our chromosomes, in our genes; it comes to us that way, it is highly heritable. Then one has to say that there is such a thing as white, black, and Asian, or whatever groups you're comparing, that they are real, that they are measurable, that they are reproducible.

But then let's to back and look at the assumptions again. Is there a white group, a black group, an Asian group? Are these reproducible? Are they trained equally? Can we really measure a variable called intelligence? Is it really something that's not affected by environment, about how we're trained, how we grow up, what stimulation we have by children?

I'll give you an example. One test has shown that just a little bit of lead in the blood can affect intelligence - a little bit of lead in the blood, prenatal, can affect intelligence by easily eight points on an intelligence score. Are we to believe that those factors were unimportant in looking at the differences in IQ scores? Of course not. "

[Rue]

Culturing profiling makes sense..certain families or extented families or nationalities have a certain set of values..and excepted codes of behavour. For instance to profile the Jamacan culture that excepts street justice as a way of life is wise --- But it is unwise when a person can not tell the difference between an African from the Congo or a Jamacian - or the difference between a Korean and a crimminally minded theif that exitis Tiwan because China my reclaim his pludered wealth - culure is culture - skin tone and scull structure is another matter.

Come now Oleg. Do you really think someone could do you justice, culturally profiling you let alone want the government to impose such a label on you given what you have seen in the school system?

Lol-I know exactly what the civil servants would come up with in your case: a Turkish Satanist Transexual.

Imagine the stigma that would have on your children.

Edited September 19, 2009 by Rue

[Griz]

I have no idea how you relate this to what strangles wrote. Nobody here complains about "indians" in the sense of their race. The only time the subject comes up is when some moronic native type or native lover posts something stupid and inflammable which annoys people, or when natives do something criminal and violent.

The most I can say about natives, using a broad brush, is that it's sad how so many people's lives have been reduced to shuffling around a rural reservation between one shack and another, getting drunk or sniffing glue while waiting for their next government cheque. Native's lives are wasted because however many cheques are sent to them they have no purpose to their lives. Thus the high suicide rate. Thus the high alcoholism and drug rates. Thus the high crime rates.

Then explain to me why everybody says that natives have it so good on reserves? Especially after you explain your twisted version of what idiots in society and this form called so-called benefits? It is way more complicated then your BS blurb here. When your ancestors came here they smelled like pee and poop so if you don't like it go back....what about the 70 % that live off reserve? You haven't got a clue except for all the BS crap you read and hear in the news which has totally brainwashed the likes of you

[Rue]

Lictor I want to respond to your labelling certain people including myself who disagree with your take on race as all being leftist. That Lictor shows you once again in all your glory-quick to subjectively name call and label anyone you disagree with, with the same subjective label-only this time its not "sociological" or "liberal" its "leftist".

May I make a friendly suggestion what you can do with your "lefist" and "rightist" labels. I would suggest you place them in the same place as your labels used to classify people by race.

Give it a rest with the David Duke shtick.

Edited September 19, 2009 by Rue

[lictor616]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians

Russians are russians regardless of ethnicity, but ethnic russians are 80% of the population. I am sure this is correct, but it does not sound right to me when reading this paragraph. Can someone clear that up for me?

Correct. No country will ever be 100% of a certain ethinc group. That simply can't happen in these modern time. Which makes defining race all that more difficult. You are better off using Ethnic groups to define people, because many different enthicities can have the same skin colour as well as ethnicities with different skin colours.

Not a very good analogy at all. Because if you don't shower, no one would want to sit next to you on the bus. And you are going to get quite sick eventually if you don't perform regular personal hygene. But go ahead and try that experiment if you want. Any poverish nation with populations living in squalor can atest to that.

The Japanese are a horrible example. They are pretty xenophobic in many fashions. This is why the overall make up has remained somewhat homogenous/secular. Not to mention Japan is very small with a lare population. It's pretty crowded over there, and any kind of immigration would make it more cramped. And it is expensive to live there. Japan has had many issues of diversity over the years, you could call them 'racist' because they want to keep the overall make up Japanese. Koreans and other asians have not been treated very well over the years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/24/internat...?pagewanted=all

They simply lack infrastructure to accomodate immigrants. Part of the reason why there is under 20,000 people immigrating to Japan each year.

Most of what you have posted/claimed does not make sense to me either.

Your brain hurt yet?

I get a feeling you made an effort to misread what I wrote...

I said that Russia was not 20% asian/oriental... our friend griz was under the impression that Tatars, Chuvash and other minorities were somehow non-white as well... I corrected that mistake. Chuvash people for instance are often blond and even look nordic, thye resemble the Finnish Sami in some aspects as well. calling them "non-white orientals" is nonsense.

And the Japanese are actually a very GOOD example, very little crime very HIGH social cohesion, Japan is remarkably polite and even more so to tourists and strangers... Japan probably has the best service economy in the world, and the Japanese who minister to your comforts really do believe in providing the BEST service for their customers for no other reason then to be the best.

Japan is not xenophobic, it is VERY open to foreign influences, Japan has extremely capable opera companies, conductors, orchestras, Rock Bands, Rap biddies, Techno, Trance, Goa etc ... Including to their rich, diverse and very creditable cuisine, Japan has all manner of foreign restaurants... Japan has sumo, but it also has excellent baseball players to the point where it sends many players to the major league in the US... Japan have many fashions and extravagant designers respected worldwide.

To say that Japanese are xenophobic is to show one's own ignorance of that country. Japan is a very "achieved" country, who is not at ALL afraid of foreign influences... not in the slightest.

Anyone who says different is simply ignorant of reality.