Race doesn't exist, yo.

[murphee]

Race does exist, evidence of it is easy to see, IMO. Attitudes about race are varied, complicated and easily up for debate.

[alaina]

murphee said:

Race does exist, evidence of it is easy to see, IMO. Attitudes about race are varied, complicated and easily up for debate.

Yea, I think so, too, but that wasn't the point.

[murphee]

Not sure what your point is; is it that all perceptions and thoughts are simply chemical reactions in the brain?

[murphee]

I think I understand now, and I believe that race is both a social construct and a biological reality.

[asdf]

World's best classification system:

Australian Aborigines:

Two subraces:

Australid:


Tasmanid:




Egyptians:





Black guy:


Mediterraneans (common in spain)


white people:




Subrace Jews:


Carl:

[anodyne]

Perhaps like the way the term Hispanic is used. Many people in the US think that Hispanic is a race. The US census states clearly that Hispanics can be of any race but the US government, and media, still gives the impression that people labelled Hispanic, regardless of actual race, are of the same race rather than just having similar cultural roots. In that sense, race is a social construct since a white Cuban, a black Dominican, and an Amerindian Mexican are lumped together into a constructed racial category.

[annienormanna]

I think the Tasmanid is graco-hobbitic

[asdf]

That's stupid. He's 5'7.

[alaina]

Oh, bah.
Forrester, I know that making jokes is your thing and all ;D, but
I was kind of hoping for serious, well-thought out replies on the topic of the post.
Very cute. Really.

[annienormanna]

seizure said:

That's stupid. He's 5'7.

Oh yeah? Until you saw Joh Rhys Davies next to Viggo Mortensen I bet you bought into Davies being all normal sized as well

[nockwasright]

I agree with murphee.
Race is a biological reality as much anything else we say it exist in the material world, as phisical differences in different species of animals.
Race is also a social construct that partially overlaps with biological race. The social construct exists in the way ideas do exist, that is a different way from facts.
The social construction of race is more important for our lives than the biological (e.g. consider the one drop of blood rule, and even more the sense of affiliation of the individual with his race, that is completely non rational). But there would never have been a social construct concept of race if there haden't been races in the first place.

[annienormanna]

nockwasright said:

I agree with murphee.
Race is a biological reality as much anything else we say it exist in the material world, as phisical differences in different species of animals.
Race is also a social construct that partially overlaps with biological race. The social construct exists in the way ideas do exist, that is a different way from facts.
The social construction of race is more important for our lives than the biological (e.g. consider the one drop of blood rule, and even more the sense of affiliation of the individual with his race, that is completely non rational). But there would never have been a social construct concept of race if there haden't been races in the first place.

The cruel realities and what we do with them, then.

[murphee]

Yep.

[Drooperdoo]

I know Forrester was cracking a joke when he had Yul Brynner as an Egyptian [by dint of the fact that he played an Egyptian in "The Ten Commandments"], and then he threw in a West African negro for good measure as an equally laughable example of an "Egyptian".
Then he jokingly lumped in some black kids and claimed they were "typical Mediterraneans":



I laughed (as we all did) at those silly jokes (and many others). But I wanted to show you guys my own discovery of a sort. It was recently brought to my attention that an Italian actor kind of looked like me. Here's his pic and then mine:





I'm fascinated because he has the same nose, same deep-set eyes, the same forehead and cheekbones. It kind of depresses me, too, in a way--because I realize that I, too, can be boiled down to a "type," or rather to a stereotype.

[annienormanna]

murphee said:

Yep.

Peace.