The greatest social altering comment (in wake of Dallas shooting)

supremecommander:

No...race is equally a social construct.

I respectfully disagree. Race is not a social construct it is a natural phenomenon. Man did not create race, but perceives the differences within his race. As a poster has already pointed out, there is only one race, and that is the human race, a species of ethnic diversity through slight genetic differences, but we are all human, and no ethnicity is the lesser for its difference to that of others. Race does not pertain to an idea, it pertains to a clarification of what we all are. Society does not give us 'race', genetics do, hence it cannot be a 'social construct' which is an idea of whatever it pertains to.

Racism is not an argument between genetics, it is an argument between mindsets, it is an ideological issue, not a genetic one, but it has been associated with genetic differences in error, and has caused massive division between ethnicities. You state you are black, I can tell you I am white, but can you tell me how the colour of our skins impact negatively upon either of us? What genetic traits do you or I have that could possibly cause either of us offence? I can tell you now, there are none.

No. The only possible divisions that could lay between us lays not in our skin colour or in any other genetic trait you or I possess, but in that of our mindset, the strife can only lay in our ideas of each other, and neither your or my genetic traits shape anything of our ideas, where the true cause of division exists. The use of ethnicity and genetics are nothing but misdirections and misappropriations deflecting away from the true causes of strife, the differences in mindset and the cultures which arise out of mindset.

originally posted by: Jordan River
Race is social construct.

No it's not. Black parents don't give birth to Asian babies.
Stop this politically-correct foolishness. Races exist whether you like it or not.

a reply to: Gothmog

Yet we have been subdivided into 1000s of different small little groups . Groups that shouldnt matter. But , what would I know ?

Because if we united we could overthrow the yoke of the puppet masters. We think that by having choices we are exerting our individuality - yet the choices we are given come from a narrow well defined band. We seem to get to an apex in "civilization" and then we revert to barbarism.

There is only 1 race - human

Are you sure about that?
Why is it when anomalous evidence is found in ancient sites they are quickly hushed up

ancientpatriarchs.wordpress.com...

GIANTS, NOT ALLOWED BY SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE, DISAPPEARED FROM HISTORY AS REPORTED IN OLD NEWS! APRIL 19, 2016 THE PARADISE POST 7 COMMENTS by Lu Paradise • October 5, 2014• 1 Comment • 1,919 views

You and I are certainly not allowed to know about the existence of Giants in History! By whom? By the Academia- Media- State- triumvirate! Then how did we find out? Well, look at all these over a century-old press items from days of yore, before the p.c. ban was imposed on media and academia, even from the New York Times! The NYT has definitely changed its tune since! The reported agent most active in “securing” or rather ‘disappearing’ the evidence of giant skeletons and skulls, was –and still is– the Smithsonian Institute! Or rather ‘The Locked Vault of Real Historical Evidence!’

a reply to: pl3bscheese

Family is all but dead in the US, and yet society and civilization remain

all but dead - and yet the so called society and civilization that remains is run like a plutocracy, kleptocracy orwellian dystopian fascist nightmare. Challenge your own assumption - you have been assimilated into the Borg Collective.

If you're gonna make baseless assertions you need to back them up.

Race is not a social construct, the somewhat arbitrary classification of races is a social construct - the underlying genetic reality is that of groups of people that differ in their genetic make up. The only social construct here is your conditioning and the pathological fear of acknowledging readily apparent differences between us, an obvious product of egalitarianism gone haywire.

See, after WWII social engineers decided that acknowledging the reality of race was dangerous and might lead to further atrocities. They therefore started sheltering us from this idea, rationalising it in various ways. I haven't seen any credible evidence that race is actually a social construct. Our differences however are as evident as the sun and the moon in the sky.

The problem only comes when you put superiority and inferiority into the equation. Our dear leaders seem to think that we are not mature enough to handle the truth so they've tried to convince us this is only a social construct. An idea bordering on solipsism - I'm gonna close my eyes and pretend that race isn't real: so race isn't real.

It's ironic because mot people actually do acknowledge race. They do it when they stereotype Asians as good at math, or when they stereotype blacks as superior runners or athletes. How do they reconcile this apparent cognitive dissonance? The answer is they don't, they're just too myopic to actually recognise it. Most people are walking contradictions, and most people hold shallow beliefs they haven't even thoroughly thought through.

a reply to: HoldMyBeer

Thank you for sharing that 'labeling' view. I do believe that that does make the most sense. Hopefully more will see that message and recognize the truths thoughtfully stated.

The nature vs nurture argument, wearing a different jacket. A couple of years ago I saw a black father walking hand in hand with his albino son at the train station. What a fascinating picture the two of them made, with both the striking difference in skin color and the very obvious resemblance in other traits. I love images like that, that challenge the obvious conclusions. Here are a few more.....

While the article describing How My Dream Gap Year In Europe Turned Into A Nightmare pokes obvious fun at the stereotype of rich whites going to save poor blacks in Africa....

.... as does the Africa for Norway video



... but the Black Irish of Monserrat are truly intriguing ....

Scientists Call for End to Race Denial

Let's celebrate human genetic diversity

Bruce Lahn and Lanny Ebenstein
Nature, 8 October 2009

Science is finding evidence of genetic diversity among groups of people as well as among individuals. This discovery should be embraced, not feared, say Bruce T. Lahn and Lanny Ebenstein.

A growing body of data is revealing the nature of human genetic diversity at increasingly finer resolution. It is now recognized that despite the high degree of genetic similarities that bind humanity together as a species, considerable diversity exists at both individual and group levels (see box, page 728). The biological significance of these variations remains to be explored fully. But enough evidence has come to the fore to warrant the question: what if scientific data ultimately demonstrate that genetically based biological variation exists at non-trivial levels not only among individuals but also among groups? In our view, the scientific community and society at large are ill-prepared for such a possibility. We need a moral response to this question that is robust irrespective of what research uncovers about human diversity. Here, we argue for the moral position that genetic diversity, from within or among groups, should be embraced and celebrated as one of humanity's chief assets.

The current moral position is a sort of 'biological egalitarianism'. This dominant position emerged in recent decades largely to correct grave historical injustices, including genocide, that were committed with the support of pseudoscientific understandings of group diversity. The racial-hygiene theory promoted by German geneticists Fritz Lenz, Eugene Fischer and others during the Nazi era is one notorious example of such pseudoscience. Biological egalitarianism is the view that no or almost no meaningful genetically based biological differences exist among human groups, with the exception of a few superficial traits such as skin colour. Proponents of this view seem to hope that, by promoting biological sameness, discrimination against groups or individuals will become groundless.

We believe that this position, although well intentioned, is illogical and even dangerous, as it implies that if significant group diversity were established, discrimination might thereby be justified. We reject this position. Equality of opportunity and respect for human dignity should be humankind's common aspirations, notwithstanding human differences no matter how big or small. We also think that biological egalitarianism may not remain viable in light of the growing body of empirical data.

Many people may acknowledge the possibility of genetic diversity at the group level, but see it as a threat to social cohesion. Some scholars have even called for a halt to research into the topic or sensitive aspects of it, because of potential misuse of the information.

Others will ask: if information on group diversity can be misused, why not just focus on individual differences and ignore any group variation? We strongly affirm that society must guard vigilantly against any misuse of genetic information, but we also believe that the best defence is to take a positive attitude towards diversity, including that at the group level. We argue for our position from two perspectives: first, that the understanding of group diversity can benefit research and medicine, and second, that human genetic diversity as a whole, including group diversity, greatly enriches our species.





Box 2. Emerging understanding of human genetic diversity

Genetic diversity is the differences in DNA sequence among members of a species. It is present in all species owing to the interplay of mutation, genetic drift, selection and population structure. When a species is reproductively isolated into multiple groups by geography or other means, the groups differentiate over time in their average genetic make-up.

Anatomically modern humans first appeared in eastern Africa about 200,000 years ago. Some members migrated out of Africa by 50,000 years ago to populate Asia, Australia, Europe and eventually the Americas. During this period, geographic barriers separated humanity into several major groups, largely along continental lines, which greatly reduced gene flow among them. Geographic and cultural barriers also existed within major groups, although to lesser degrees.

This history of human demography, along with selection, has resulted in complex patterns of genetic diversity. The basic unit of this diversity is polymorphisms — specific sites in the genome that exist in multiple variant forms (or alleles). Many polymorphisms involve just one or a few nucleotides, but some may involve large segments of genetic material. The presence of polymorphisms leads to genetic diversity at the individual level such that no two people's DNA is the same, except identical twins. The alleles of some polymorphisms are also found in significantly different frequencies among geographic groups. An extreme example is the pigmentation gene SLC24A5. An allele of SLC24A5 that contributes to light pigmentation is present in almost all Europeans but is nearly absent in east Asians and Africans.

Given these geographically differentiated polymorphisms, it is possible to group humans on the basis of their genetic make-up. Such grouping largely confirms historical separation of global populations by geography. Indeed, a person's major geographic group identity can be assigned with near certainty on the basis of his or her DNA alone (now an accepted practice in forensics). There is growing evidence that some of the geographically differentiated polymorphisms are functional, meaning that they can lead to different biological outcomes (just how many is the subject of ongoing research). These polymorphisms can affect traits such as pigmentation, dietary adaptation and pathogen resistance (where evidence is rather convincing), and metabolism, physical development and brain biology (where evidence is more preliminary).

For most biological traits, genetically based differentiation among groups is probably negligible compared with the variation within the group. For other traits, such as pigmentation and lactose intolerance, differences among groups are so substantial that the trait displays an inter-group difference that is non-trivial compared with the variance within groups, and the extreme end of a trait may be significantly over-represented in a group.

Several studies have shown that many genes in the human genome may have undergone recent episodes of positive selection — that is, selection for advantageous biological traits. This is contrary to the position advocated by some scholars that humans effectively stopped evolving 50,000–40,000 years ago. In general, positive selection can increase the prevalence of functional polymorphisms and create geographic differentiation of allele frequencies.

Yeah.. let's trust the people that want to ban research on race. Let's just ignore it because it doesn't fit into our neat ideology of egalitarianism.

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

if you truly believe that family is all but dead, then all I can say is...this is the end. Hold your breath and count to ten.

Tired of Control freaks

originally posted by: TheConstruKctionofLight
a reply to: pl3bscheese

all but dead - and yet the so called society and civilization that remains is run like a plutocracy, kleptocracy orwellian dystopian fascist nightmare. Challenge your own assumption - you have been assimilated into the Borg Collective.

Well, without picking apart your extremes, I'd suggest you realize I was speaking of the US. The same corruption exists the world over, where the family unit has varying degrees of existence.

It's not the issue.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

you think of family as 2 parents and whatever number of kids. That is one definition but I would like to point out what happened to families after world war II. In the US, there was 5 million war widows raising their children alone. It doesn't matter to kids if daddy died or got divorced or abandoned his family. All the kids know is that daddy is not there!

www.pobronson.com...

"World War II subjected the nation's families to severe strain. During the war, one-sixth of the nation's families suffered prolonged separation from sons or fathers. Five million "war widows" had to cook, clean, launder, and care for children alone. Wartime migration added to familial strain, as more than fifteen million civilians moved in search of new jobs. Wartime families faced a severe shortage of adequate housing and a lack of child-care facilities. These stresses contributed to a dramatic upsurge in the postwar divorce rate and to severe problems of child welfare, including tens of thousands of unsupervised "latchkey" children and high rates of juvenile delinquency, venereal disease, and truancy." 5. In 1946, the New York Times reported that there was a study of children attending Sarah Lawrence's nursery school in New York, and "While one-third-to one half of the children in better-off families grow up in stable homes and home towns, Dr. Murphy declares that another half grow up in families constantly on the move, or in homes broken by illness, death, or divorce, or in which parents lack ordinary sense about children's needs. ¶ Wise and skillful handling of children sometimes offsets the effect of broken homes, she believes, but their increasing proportion is noted as part of a family picture she finds 'normal' now. ¶ 'Of approximately 130 children who attended . . . the nursery school between 1937 and 1942, 20 per cent had experienced a broken home before the age of 5,' she writes. 'This includes families broken by divorce, by death of one parent, by prolonged illness such as a nervous break-down or tuberculosis involving long absence of a parent from home. ¶ 'Estimates based on case studies of Sarah Lawrence College students suggest that a minority of children today arrive at the age of 18 without some such major break in the family. ¶ In view of the country's high rate of both divorced and of mental illness, Dr. Murphy comments, 'we can see how unreal our usually concept of normal family experience actual is.'" 6.

And yet - the family as an important unit continued on into 2016.

Tired of Control Freaks

a reply to: TiredofControlFreaks

No, PC is an amorphous and poorly defined termed created by conservatives in the late 1980s as a result of not wanting to acknowledge that society has (supposedly) moved on from usually charged terms based on race, gender and so on.

These days it's used as a term to bash anyone who doesn't agree with another person's (usually conservative) name calling.

a reply to: cuckooold

I always thought that PC was a well-defined term. Talk only the way we want you to talk or you will land in legal trouble.

Tired of Control Freaks