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That's not going to happen. However, if we just ignore the issue, let ourselves think everything is fine and dandy then something bad will happen.
Irrelevant. I'm sure my ancestors travelled across the land that is Germany now, doesn't make me German.
Sure about that?
Well not quite so irrelevant - you didn't travel across Africa - you are African, as are we all
Lol I'm not African. I had African ancestors at some stage of the human evolutionary process which I suppose I am proud of. My primary ancestors though are from Europe, so my European heritage is more important than my African one. But the most important is my Irish heritage.
My original comment referred to the question of who is white and who isn't.
Who really gives a toss about whether people of Eastern European/Albanian background qualify as 'proper' whites? Why would anyone care?
More the reason to not give a toss about shades of colour then.
You are who you are. Your nationality is your nationality. I can't see why we should bother any further than that.
Yep. Pigmentation is naturally part of evolution. Humans, like all other organisms, evolve to adapt to their surroundings in the most efficient manner. That's all there is to it.
Sorry didn't understand fully what you were saying.
Yeh, they do and it's more than pigmentation. There are other physiological differences. Not saying there's any difference with the way we all think but there are physical differences other than just different skin colour.
I can see why people feel a sense of belonging with regards to the culture of their country during their lifetime, but I don't really get identifying with things that happened in your country tens, hundreds, thousands of years before you were born. Banging on about things "my country achieved" before I was even born is retarded in my opinion. On the race point, I think moaning about human rights abuses, and what "our race," not any that are actually still alive, that happened before you were even born is equally retarded. Fine moan about existing racism (which imo is why white people are far less likely to define themselves by their race, whereas minority races are), but keep it to that.
Anyway, define white? Good at swimming and cycling, not so much at sprinting and boxing.
Shock horror, people are different, that still doesnt get us anywhere towards defining who is one 'race' and who is another.
Someone said racial origin can actually be important because of subtle biological differences that 'tot up'. I'll see if I can find it. He was a biologist though, and wasn't saying that any race was inferior, rather that we're not as as identical as sometimes we're given the impression.
So you'd have a check list, and if you fit most of the features of that 'race' you are it?
And what is the starting point for this, white, black and yellow? Or is it more subtle than that?
You cant define what a 'race' is, let alone define who might or might not be in it.
The shape of the skull is a good indicator a lot of the time but not the only one. Of course skin colour is an obivous one because it's the first thing you notice when looking at someone.
So we pick a certain shade, and if you are one side of that you are white and the other side black, thats totally arbitrary.
So there are only blacks and whites in this world? Why does any discussion about race always turn into black vs white?
I certainly dont think there are only blacks and whites, largely because I think the whole concept of race is totally stupid. How many races are there? And where do you draw the lines inbetween?
What I was trying to point out was if you do it on skin colour then you have to put down an arbitrary line between one race and another, something which makes no sense.
And I already said numerous times on this thread that it's not just skin colour. Yes, it is ambigious, I'm not denying that. If you look at how humans have adapted to climates in respective regions you'll see differences. Even in Europe itself, people in Scandanavia tend to have a light hair colour whereas people in Iberia have darker colour because, well it's much hotter in Iberia than it is in Scandanavia. In Japan, most people have white skin but their facial/cranial features are different.
Just look at this picture of an African albino.
The crisis that erupts from this horror he called: "role confusion." They don't know what to wear, how to act, who to marry, who to be friends with, where to go to church, how to cut their hair; they are lost. The answer they are shoveled is: "just be yourself." This begs the obvious question: how? They have forgotten how to be themselves, because they have rejected themselves or were never taught who they are.
'white' includes hispanic, indian and arabic, due to the similar facial structure. the pigmentation is more to do with the environment.
'black' also includes aboriginal australians, while 'asians' is considered to be the far east and south east asia, but also towards north american, as native americans also have a form of epicanthal fold in the eyelid, and other oriental characteristics.
this 3 race categorisation is very 19th century though, and it was later considered that there were 5 races...
but the lines are getting blurrier and blurrier.
2. The 'mongrel' argument is flawed from its premise: mixes of what?
3. The convention is 'race' for the largest, mainly continental groupings, and ethnys for the smaller.
4. The ways our media, politicans, and assorted pressure groups use racial terms, is indeed about power, and it has been too for many social and hard scientists for the last 60 years. But it's not the case for all of today's scientists.
5. I've never heard of anybody who identifies themselves solely by race. If you're interested, I suspect the rates of ethnocentrism for British groups will basically match the Americans if we substitute Asians for Mexicans.
1. Races are usually understood to mean the large population groups, mainly at a continental level. Subraces, or ethnys, are also identifiable by both genotype and phenotype. Remember the guy that police were trying to identify last year - they had DNA only, but it was enough to track him to (I think) the Windward Islands - such detail of our human histories is written into our genes.
It's really only as difficult to define as it is to know who is being spoken of. Blacks...Nelson Mandela and Haile Selassie; Whites...Churchill and HMQE2. Nobody mistakes Mandela for a White or the Queen for a Black.
2. To differentiate, not exclude. In general, voluntary affiliations are made to join with others. In any case, hardly any Whites come together out of concern or interest in their racial group - I suspect that there are more White activists working against 'White racism' than for their race. I think you may be right.
As I said in my first post, where qualifying as 'White' once offered privileges, the reverse is now true, and when politicians, major foundations, quangos, social scientists, governments, and the media approach the question of 'Whiteness' it's with a quite different agenda.
To clarify even further - you believe the nazis blaming a minority (the jews) for problems in the treatment of other Germans is the same thing as black community groups challenging racism and workplace discrimination?
You're also linking to websites asking question such as 'whose view of reality is most distorted? Old female hippies or blacks?' 'Black atheists most likely to cheat on taxes' 'IQ rises with lighter skin for blacks' - ultimately one of those websites that presents repeatedly negative views of non-'white' groupings, but seems to avoid any stats at all that reflect negatively on a 'white' grouping.
It may be the nature of where you've drawn your sources is questionable - but be aware of the rules you agreed to when signing up here when making further posts.
I hate the term "hideously white" though.
Can you provide examples?
I know, coming over hear, using our threads, contributing nothing to the society.
Post of the week...
And though it's not the best link, Dr. Armand Leroi, from the department of biological sciences, Imperial College London, says that race may be more than a social idea: http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Leroi/
I would say asking Dr. Leroi what the 'white' race is, he'd be able to give us a much better and specific answer based on our genes and biological make up rather than religion and social contexts.
Exactly, there are some many little differences, so many little sub groups that its impossible for it to be a proper scientific grouping, too many people are a mix and therefore dont fit easily into one group or another. For it to be scientific you need to have set definite standards which with 'race' you cant.
But that is just nature in general. It's so diverse, the point I was trying to make was that even though Scandanavians and Iberians are not the same, they share more similar characteristics than a Black or Eastern Asian person.
I'm not an anthropologist, I don't know all the answers but I'm just saying we shouldn't automatically dismiss or confirm the existence or non-existence of races.
http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm