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OfflinexFrockx
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Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones)
    #14432530 - 05/10/11 10:58 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

The subject of race is subject to many long, drawn-out, emotional, nuanced arguments subject to personal beliefs and almost totally without confident resolve or objective conclusions. Here I will attempt to provide an explanation as to why all these debates are, have been, and will be, unnecessary, without factual merit, and bathed in  projections of our beliefs onto reality.

Some time ago there was no life on earth. As complex organic molecules began to form, life emerged on this planet, bringing with it a multiplicity of organisms designed to survive in the environment they were borne into. As life begat life, and change continued its course, shaping the new organisms with the same forces that drove their original creation from those complex organic molecules, there were lots of bacteria, fish, algae, coral, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and so on. And then came man.

Man was an interesting creature. Like some other mammals, the species of man was divided between male and female. Somewhere in what we now speak of as Africa, men and women lived in caves and other shelters, both made by their environment and by themselves. These people, to us, may have seemed to look alike. Cavepeople. We can all access a portrait of these folks from our ancestral memory. Long, dark body hair, a shaggy mane, tanned skin, unibrow.

While to us, these people seemed the same, within their group, they surely seemed totally different. One caveman, lets call him Fred might say to his wife, Wilma, "Our neighbor Barney and his wife Betty are a couple of waterholers. Look at them with their fair skin and light hair. They're so much more stupid then us, I mean, just look at their pet kangaroo, what the fuck is that about?" And Barney might say to Betty "Gee Betty, I'm starting to think Fred and Wilma are different than us. Just look at them with their dark hair, olive skin, and mustard colored garments. It just doesn't make sense to me."

And life went on. As people spread across the globe, more differences emerged. All the while, by the same constant change of nature that produced the organisms that preceded Man. At no time did ever a division exist in that unbroken causal chain from the dawn of man to the beginning of time.

But as things went on, differences still grew. More change produced more variety. As time went on, while they also would squabble about whether Pebbles ought to be legally allowed to wed Bam-Bam on account of their differences, they got new things to think about. Under the same sort of circumstances, true racism emerged, bathed in the glory of the ideas that preceded it. These ideas also, a part of nature, part of an unbroken chain of events in nature, and, like life, the ideas of race took shape and became, figuratively, living animals of their own.

And it wasn't just japes about Betty's firecrotch or Pebbles' problems in school anymore. No, now Betty was said to have belonged to a group called "Caucasians" and Bam-Bam was now said to have belonged to a group called "Italians" Now, at no point did Betty or Pebbles or anyone else ever break off from the world and become separate from the other things in nature. What broke off, figuratively speaking, was the idea. The idea, the race-animal, if you will, became widespread and accepted as a way to talk about groups of people with common differences. The animal though, was, is, and always will be, a figurative one. At no point did the animal transverse the gap between the quite literal skulls of the people who came to use the idea and the reality surrounding them in which they observed these differences they came to name. But make no mistake, all of this was a natural process, all part of an unbroken chain of events we call nature.

So what do we make of this race-animal, now that it has become the joke it always was? I don't know. Should we use the language of race? Do we need to? Why do we use it, simply to make things faster, easier, or more simple? At what cost?


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Invisiblemushiepussy
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Re: Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones) [Re: xFrockx]
    #14432879 - 05/11/11 12:30 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Race is based on genetics, not beliefs. However beliefs and experience can shape genetics, if pebbles says fuck school and ends up dropping out and never puts his critical thinking abilities to use, he will lose them and his children will not be taught these abilities. It's a double fuck of both nature and nurture. This process doesn't have to have a definitive begining, it is a gradual one. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen though.

Race 100% exists, it is merely variations amoung species. It just so happens many of these variations have become a blended mess in the recent years, and is very hard to distinguish one from another.


Edited by mushiepussy (05/11/11 12:39 AM)


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InvisibleSilversoul
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Re: Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones) [Re: mushiepussy]
    #14432987 - 05/11/11 01:06 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

I've gone back and forth on this issue, and what I've basically concluded is that of course there are regional genetic populations, but that the variations between them do not lend themselves to the broad characterizations we refer to as "race."  The more biologically significant form of genetic categorization is clines.  Race certainly exists as a kind of phenotype, but there does not appear to be any particular set of genes which could differentiate one race from another.  As such, there does seem to be an element of social construction to race.

Given this reality, I find it interesting how there are predictions that whites will be a minority in America by 2050.  I happen to disagree with this assessment, as I believe that by that point, the standard for what counts as white will have shifted.


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OfflinexFrockx
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Re: Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones) [Re: mushiepussy]
    #14433803 - 05/11/11 08:22 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

"Race is based on genetics, not beliefs."

Categorization based on genetics is just as judgment driven as categorization based on skin color. There are no real divisions.


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InvisibleDiploidM
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Re: Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones) [Re: xFrockx]
    #14433830 - 05/11/11 08:29 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Categorization based on genetics is just as judgment driven as categorization based on skin color.

Name ANY categorization that is not based on judgment.


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Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.


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OfflinexFrockx
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Re: Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones) [Re: Diploid]
    #14433873 - 05/11/11 08:41 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Can't.


Edited by xFrockx (05/11/11 08:42 AM)


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Invisiblemushiepussy
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Re: Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones) [Re: Silversoul]
    #14434783 - 05/11/11 12:47 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)





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OfflinexFrockx
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Re: Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones) [Re: mushiepussy]
    #14436127 - 05/11/11 05:54 PM (12 years, 8 months ago)

That's a nice language framework you got there chief.


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InvisibledeCypher
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Re: Me Manifesto on why race does not *Actually* exist (with some Flintstones) [Re: xFrockx]
    #14438489 - 05/12/11 02:52 AM (12 years, 8 months ago)

Sorry, I can only answer your questions if you're Caucasian.  I've got standards, you know.


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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.


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