The myth of race: Why are we divided by race when there is no such thing?

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Hi Big Furry longtime ..
Not only that but folks who do believe in a discreet concept called race can't even agree on how many races exist or give an accurate description of what it truly is,culture is more a factor than race and culture can be learnt or loss.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

The color of one's skin and texture of the hair are not a biological realities? Epicanthus (eyelid fold) is not a biological reality? These traits "breed true" (sorry, I'm a dog person). If they are not race, what are they? Are they just genetic traits, like brown hair and blue eyes? If so, those ARE biological realities.

I agree.
I am getting out of here now.
I fear that this is going somewhere like this......"If you claim that there are biologically different groups of people in the world, you are a racist."

a reply to: butcherguy

I don't care if someone says I'm a racist. People here should know better. But the statement that the concept of human races is not a biological reality is confusing to me.

Sure, some people have dark skin because of their area of origin, but if they move to Sweden and reproduce, the child's physical traits are going to be the same as the parents. That's biology, as far as I know.

Can anyone help me out?

.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

The color of one's skin and texture of the hair are not a biological realities? Epicanthus (eyelid fold) is not a biological reality? These traits "breed true" (sorry, I'm a dog person). If they are not race, what are they? Are they just genetic traits, like brown hair and blue eyes? If so, those ARE biological realities.

I agree.
I am getting out of here now.
I fear that this is going somewhere like this......"If you claim that there are biologically different groups of people in the world, you are a racist."

Come on Butcher Guy no one is calling you a racist everyone here at one time in our lives believed in race but we have caught up with the science after all it seems counter intuitive at first like I said we can clearly see different looking people exist all over the world but the science goes much deeper than that and is telling us no! despite eyeballing each other the difference are superficial I bid stay or at-least give those other POV a hearing.

a fear that i have, and maybe someone can help me out, is this:
very often we lump together race and culture, in a positive or negative way,
while i don't much believe in different races, i think we can all agree cultures are a real thing and they are all different.
my fear is this, how do we abolish the idea of race, without neglecting cultural differences?
i've bumped into a bunch of forums and videos saying how acknowledging a cultural difference is racist.
I personally think indian women are hot, and apparently that is racist because i am attributing a personal quality to skin color.
and then there is this thing about cultural appropriation that people seem to complain about, if you "use" something that is generally associated with another culture, say you eat sushi without being japanese, that is also a horrible thing.
How do we get rid of the concept of race without destroying the concept of cultural diversity? because i find it should be celebrated, there is an awesome difference between us that should be celebrated, i don't want to live in a world where we see each other as just identical copies.

originally posted by: MX61000
I'm trying to enlighten people, you people are trying to paint me racist when I've said nothing racist, like I said your own people secretly argree with me, choose your side, you didn't have to reply to my comment. a reply to: InhaleExhale

Yes and that is your problem,

no one wants to be enlightened when we all are, so your time pushing that wall would be well spent in maybe preparing for what you think is coming would it not?

You people?

You are replying to me but accusing me of what others have said of you.

How are you trying to enlighten anyone when you cant or don't know who said what to you, you just treat all of the posters the same, yes you are very enlightened, much so like many others that claim enlightenment and knowledge and being awake but cant reply with out allowing their delusions to dictate their post.


I did choose my side, that's why its my side and not yours.


I know I don't have to reply to your comment, I know I don't have do many things.

Its a choice, you have one, actually you have a infinite number of choices, making the right one is the test of life we all face.

Help is available if you can open up to another.

a reply to: Spider879

Come on Butcher Guy no one is calling you a racist everyone here at one time in our lives believed in race

I didn't blame anyone for that. No one did that.
But I would not be surprised if it did happen.
I will continue reading the thread.

What we see as different "races" is just groups of humans who adapted to different climates over a long period of time. e.g. People in hotter climates have more melanin to protect the skin from UV rays, which results in a darker appearance. Thick fuzzy hair protects the scalp/head from the sun. Conversely, people in colder climates (Europe) have very different features. White skin due to a lack of melanin. Straight flat hair to act like a blanket, protecting the head and face from cold winds. Sunlight resistance isn't needed so much. Of course there are variables between those two opposites. But that's basically the only reason people look different.

originally posted by: Spider879
despite eyeballing each other the difference are superficial

That I agree with. The differences are superficial. Like blue eyes and brown hair, big noses, skin tone, health issues, etc. All are physical and are genetically passed on. Which is biology.

Maybe the OP source is saying that non-physical differences (like intelligence) are not biologically common to all in one race. I agree with that, as well. Maybe I just figured it out for myself.

.

originally posted by: tothetenthpower
The melatonin content of your skin, has nothing to do with it.

Skin must get quite sleepy with all that melatonin in it.

Double post.

I went back an read your comments, that was others that label me as racist.
Anyone who knows me knows I'm not racist.
I'm just one who stands for the truth regardless to who it may condemn.
a reply to: InhaleExhale

a reply to: MX61000
a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

originally posted by: 200Plus
Explain it to me in easy to follow terms please. As if I had a GED and slight brain damage

Ok

You are correct, breed would be a far more accurate description of human races, than race.

Humans are mammals, we are animals, highly intelligent animals, but animals nonetheless.

Look at dogs, dogs are animals, they can breed with each other regardless of "race". A chihuahua is a dog and can breed with let's say a poodle, or any combination you wish.

Each of the breeds has been selectively bread into a certain look, sometimes color, each in turn has developed it's own set of health issues due to inbreeding.

But they are all dogs who "evolved" from wild dogs and people inbreed them for certain colors and temperaments and intelligence.

If you are a christian, I'll tell the story based on some Christian stories.
Let's start with the tower of Babel, according to the bible (and most science) humans were once basically in one area of the world. Then according to the tower of Babel, they disbursed after they were divided by language. They traveled to different areas of the world, both science and religion agree on that one, the great diaspora.

Humans in africa would die if their skin was too light due to sunburn. So the children with the darkest skin had the highest survival rate. The groups they lived in and bred in were very small so the darker the skin the higher the survival rate and therefore with thousands of years of inbreeding, very dark skin was the result.

However, as we have seen the gene for white skin, hair and blue eyes still exist, even in the darkest skinned Africans, google, white babies born to Africans, and you will see the genes are extremely recessive in Africa, but are still there.
As someone pointed out earlier, sickle cell anemia developed due to malaria, google the connection.

Humans in the far reaches of the north would die from lack of vitamin D if their skin were dark. So the children with the lightest skin had the highest survival rate.

The genes for light skin, hair and blue eyes are somewhat "connected", and after thousands of years of inbreeding, very light skin was the result.

Each tribe everywhere in the world rarely traveled more than 20 miles from home for thousands of years. So inbreeding was the result.

The groups began to look more and more like each other as happens when you only breed small dogs with other small dogs or hairy dogs with hairy dogs, or hairless dogs with hairless dogs.

Also, when a gene "broke" in someone causing a disease, because of the inbreeding, that group tended to pass the "broken" gene along to everyone in the group as a normally recessive gene.

So like dog breeds, you could look at a persons DNA - which is essentially a map of the genes - and by looking at the map tell where the "trail" ends - by skin color, "broken" genes, eye color and all other "racial" characteristics.

If one believes the Bible, we all descended from Adam and Eve, if you are a scientist you believe most of us came out of Africa and then interbred with other small human groups, overwhelming the small groups until the ones who came out of Africa dominated genetically in great tribal wars and take over of lands that happened from time to time.

Then since most people never left home for thousands upon thousands of years, people started to look alike and their genome (DNA map) looked alike. That is how racial characteristics developed, just like dog breeding. "racial" characteristics are the result of inbreeding.

Does that explain it?


Addition:

Like dogs, people in the small inbred groups tended to have some groups smarter than others through inbreeding, the smarter people breeding with the smarter people, as we see today.

Like dogs, people in the small inbred groups tended so have some groups more aggressive than others through inbreeding.

And so on and so on, it is all basically a result of inbreeding, and like some breeds are dainty looking, some bold looking, etc,. humans have also developed along those lines. But still at the root are all still simply humans, regardless of breed (race).

a reply to: tothetenthpower

I was born in Mississippi in 1951, to a whole worst kind of racists clan. I swear the stork dropped me off at the wrong family. When I was 10, I noticed all the civil rights events and violence going on around me, I listened to the political talks at the sunday dinners. I had just read the Diary of Anne Frank, and made me wonder about hate. One time, my grandma was helping me do my homework and I asked her, "Why do we hate n#####s? " She said, "Because they are Sub-human". Racism is learned behavior, accepted through ignorance and isolation. The science has always been there to see the biology, through the children of mixed colors, if they wanted to admit it.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
I'm sure there are few people left in the thread who haven't noticed you trolling yet.

And some of us just ignore it instead of encouraging it.

And I'm here asking REAL questions, trying to get some help in understanding and I get ignored...

I'm out.

a reply to: Benevolent Heretic

All race is, is the beginnings of evolutionary drift. Yes, depending on where your ancestors hail from, you will have some differences in your genetic makeup than someone who is from another part of the world. That is how evolution works. Niches being filled and all. BUT the big difference here is that at no point in the world have humans stayed so isolated from other humans for such a long time that they have become incapable of breeding with other humans in other parts of the world (the definition of a new species).

Also, in biology, there is no "race" in the taxonomic ranks.

originally posted by: Benevolent Heretic
a reply to: butcherguy

I don't care if someone says I'm a racist. People here should know better. But the statement that the concept of human races is not a biological reality is confusing to me.

Sure, some people have dark skin because of their area of origin, but if they move to Sweden and reproduce, the child's physical traits are going to be the same as the parents. That's biology, as far as I know.

Can anyone help me out?

.

Thats because it will take some time before traits favoring a Swedish clime to manifest itself the vid I posted earlier showed us that we all came from the same place and this kind of micro evolution is to be found in Africa itself the Khoisan are lite-skinned with the epicanthal fold as in some Asians but they never came from Asia

Khoisan of Southern Africa

A Himba also of Southern Africa

A Nuer of the Sudan
All could be mistaken for Asians or Asian influenced but all were the result of local adaptation within Africa the reverse is true with the below

The Prime Minister of New Guinea

From the Solomons Isle

From Melanesia
These folks looks African but have not seen Africa for the better part of 60kyrs and are more closely related to the liter-skinned Asians than they do Africans.

a reply to: butcherguy

stand firm and call them on their loosely associated logic.

It is strange, isn't it? In context with our cultural beliefs, it is utterly foreign.

But I can assure you that one human can translate equally into any other human environment. Even if it takes a little bit of sunscreen.