Quote:
Originally posted by lovelyivy84
RUGreek Let me break it down for you.
Race is a purely social construct. This is not something debatable, it is a scientific fact.
The only difference that can be positively identified between members of different races are cosmetic- skin color and hair texture. Even that is pushing it- there are people classified as white who are significantly darker skinned than some classified as black. There are black people whose hair is naturally straighter than many whites. There are tendencies and correlations between members of certain ethnic groups, or identified racial groups, but there is nothing that can be scientifically identified as a characteristic of one race.
Here's an example- a person who has two black parents, and yet is lighter skinned than many whites, and can't tan, but burns. Her hair is kinky. What race is she?
Or how about this - a female whose mother is black and whose father is white and yet appears to be completely white- the child is blonde and blue eyed. What race is she?
Or how about this one: A man who is 1/8 black, and yet has dark skin, and straight hair. What race is he?
Or better yet: the whole island of Puerto Rico is a combination of white, indigenous peoples and African slaves. Yet racially they are labeled hispanic. Hispanic is not a race because it encompasses those who are dark as night and positively Nordic in features. It is a culture. Where do you draw lines in that society? You have families where not one person is identifiable as being of the same "racial" group as their brother or sister, or even their mother or father- a mother is black, a father white, and the child looks taino! Yet they are all blood relatives.
Where do you draw a line here? It's absolutely arbitrary and can't be done in a scientific fashion.
This is all not to mention that there really is no such thing as a "black race" in America simply because ALL African-AMericans are a racial mixture to one degree or another as a legacy of slavery and the systemativ rape of black women that took place. The Black American "race" is a mixed one to such an extent that it is impossible to establish a standard of "black". You can't look at a blood test, or an MRI or a catscan and say someone is black. You ALSO can't look at hair color and skin color and say it. It's about personal definitions. There is NO scientific standard. The same amount of misture is often present in whites, even if it is not acknowledged- research has pointed to approx. 10,000 Black Americans "passing" into White America per YEAR in the 1920's and 30's. You don't know wether someone in your family was Italian like they said, or a light skinned black person, making you mixed to some degree.
Historically, attempts to establish a standard of black scientifically has been for the purposes of showing the supremacy of whites.
I won't say that you are doing that though because I don't know you.
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I agree with everything you said. You're right, there is no scientific basis for race, i wish more people could understand something like that.
Unfortunately, it's the persons skin color, family background, etc., that racism exists on. People look at you and determine you're race by what you look like. I'm not arguing that you can classify people into simple categories of races, of course you can't. The argument is that because of their biological makeup, i.e. the physical attributes of an individual, racism is rampant on that level.
I think I confused the quote i was reply to in that thread, and read racism instead of race. My bad, I didn't mean to confuse the two, but I kept jumping back and forth between the word and it's root and started to make a bad argument.
Race, in my opinion, is not an absolute thing. Yes, it is quite impossible to find a specific race for anyone, in the end, we are all different down to our genes. However, simple things off a checklist, such as skin color, background, and limited characteristics, we can find that many people can become grouped into a certain race whether they like it or not. That's my reasoning for race classification on the biological scale. I don't agree with it either, but it's just the way things are. Race is more than just a social construct.
RUgreek