Race as a social construct.

[Mac Jesus]

In my intro to anthropology class we have had a very brief discussion about the concept of race.

Apparently "race" in the opinion of many biological anthropologists, is not a particularly useful way for classifying humans. They would argue that the diversity of human beings is so great and complicated that it is impossible to classify individuals into discrete "races"

For example my professor had the class come up with the racial groups there are in the world today; some said "black, white, asian, hispanic." others came up with "black, white, arab, latino, philipino, chinese, etc." one student even said "mongloid, negroid, caucasoid" According to my anthro textbook racial categories vary from 3-37 depending on who the classifier is.

There are other reasons i'll touch on later but first i'd be interested to hear what this board thinks on the topic. Is Race a biologically scientific classification tool, or is it simply a social construct that causes many problems.

 

[BoMbTrEeS2]

i feel people are different because of culture and environment, race is irrelevent.
just my opinion though.

 

[HERESY]

Is Race a biologically scientific classification tool, or is it simply a social construct that causes many problems.

Both, but I feel it is more of a social construct.

 

[BaSICCally]

a "minority" has nothing to do with race either. A miority is a ethnic group who does not have access to resources. An example would be aprarthied in South Africa, the majority of the people of South Africa are African, yet they live in poverty because the Anglo-Saxon people withold valuable resources for their gain. Therefore the Africans of South Africa are a minority. Race has little to do with clasification of "minorities".

 

[mac_luv]

My sociology instructor said it is a social construct. Diffrences in humans are so little. Culture influences us, but by nature we all act the same.

He compared Brazil to America. In America we see race and classify people by that. We divide ourselves by that. In Brazil they don't judge off of color or race. They don't judge you by your color, but they judge you by your social class. Over there a black man isn't looked down upon compared to a white man. Skin color means nothing over there. They don't treat you different because you look different. They have classism instead of racism.

 

[HERESY]

Very controversial topic, surprise there arent more posts...

From the anthropology classes ive taken, i seem to get a very contradictory message from the profs. On the one hand they say that race is a social construct, that its a man made thing, they make the argument that their is more genetic variation among "races" than between them, and that somehow this is evidence of race not really being a biological issue.

Of course this is just the introduction and then the prof goes on to explain to us the origings of human diversity, the hierarchy of the animal kingdom, varying theories on the medium of evolution etc. Anybody who knows anything about evolution has heard of the mitochondrial eve, the mother of all modern humans who was found in south africa. He tells us that we are in fact very similar to chimpanzees based on our DNA, he tells us about neanderthal man and the differences between us, how neandthal man was mroe robust than the modern white european, stronger physically, intelligent, but not as intelligent as modern homosapien, larger skull etc, give us examples of where fossils of our recent ancestors had bulges in the back of their skulls moving outward from the neck, where we now have a flatter back of the head, tells us about brow ridges evolving into a flatter face and so forth, he tells us that if the neandethal lived among us then we would not pick him out as an outsider, but assume he was one of us......which leads to, in my opinion, one of the most glaring contradictions. Make any opinion about me or my posts that you want, but this is what i took away from the lecture.....

Based on the professors explanations, phd blah blah, what he was descriing ive observed only in modern day africans. From the brow ridge to portrusion in the back of the head, to certainly being more robust, and at least in albeit racially biased IQ tests, scoring lower than other minority groups subject to the same racial biases of the test. Now of course, this is not true of all people of african decent, but the portrusion in the back of the head is something i have only observed among africans.

Whats my point here? My point is that the professor in my class made him teachings very clear. He first gave us the notion that race did not exist, and then presented everything available to prove that not only did it exist, but that modern day africans are the so called "missing link" in our evolutionary theory, that there are no fossils linking modern humans to neanderthals because we label them as modern humans. Is this the way race is being taught? So tabboo that the only way to dissiminate recent scientific research is to teach an in between the lines version that the average hungover college student will never see? This says much about race as a social construct, and the attitude ofabsence of race being a social contruct.

I know dogs have different breeds, would you all like to change the notion of race to breed? Would that make it more acceptable. Phenotypes are what we use to define eachother because vision is one of our most pwoerful assets.

(emphasis mine.)

What is the name of your professor, and how may I contact him myself?

 

[RedStorm]

@those who believe biological races exist (nhojsmith in particular)

Can you tell me what the various races of the human species are?

 

[HERESY]

opposed to this should I assume? shall I assume you're opposed to evolution as well? he would claim my statements are ridiculous while I would say my conclusions are apparent given the way he presented information, remember he is not going to risk his job, he rather prefers this country to where he is from.

Please answer the question.

 

[I AM]

I made a thread about this awhile back.

I agree that race is a social construct.

 

[HERESY]

sure right after you give me your social security number and home address cool guy, are you going to contribute to this exchange or go crusading?

You don't know if I am writing a 500 page thesis, doing a report on Afrikan history or if I desire to transfer and take his class. Please, answer the question.

 

[RedStorm]

I don't know what biology will end up calling them whn all this political correctness stops impeding science but I would say....the big three mentioned in the first post, negroid, mongoloid, caucasoid or as some would say black brown white. black africas in the first group, asians in the second, and the white man in the latter. asians share many characteristics of latins and with the migration over the land bridge I feel indians are the ancestors of asians. they mixed with the white spaniards to create the mexicans (literally mixed), blakcs have been moved by slavery to all areas including south america.

as humans one thing is clear, we love to procreate consensually or not, the constant mixing has created many sub breeds much like dogs, I myself am a mutt. this mixing has gone on quite a bit, the majority of african americans are at least part white because of rape historically.

So is race defined by geographic origins?

 

[HERESY]

ill go ahead and take that as a no, but thanks for your insights heresy, relevant as usual

Likewise.

 

[The Duke of Earl]

I don't know what biology will end up calling them whn all this political correctness stops impeding science but I would say....the big three mentioned in the first post, negroid, mongoloid, caucasoid or as some would say black brown white. black africas in the first group, asians in the second, and the white man in the latter. asians share many characteristics of latins and with the migration over the land bridge I feel indians are the ancestors of asians. they mixed with the white spaniards to create the mexicans (literally mixed), blakcs have been moved by slavery to all areas including south america.

.

mexican does not mean , it is a english translation to the word mexica which the mexica were the aztecs which had a thriving civilization in central mexico before the spanish came. also there is evidence of civilizations in south and central america before any so called land bridge. :dead: :dead: :dead: :dead: :dead: :dead: :dead: :dead: :dead:

 

[WHITE DEVIL]

A miority is a ethnic group who does not have access to resources.

Wrong. Minority means "numerically inferior".

An example would be aprarthied in South Africa, the majority of the people of South Africa are African, yet they live in poverty because the Anglo-Saxon people withold valuable resources for their gain. Therefore the Africans of South Africa are a minority. Race has little to do with clasification of "minorities".

They are an oppressed majority.

 

[Mac Jesus]

The neanderthal is thought to of been of a different species, meaning that humans and neaderthals could not interbreed and produce fertile offspring. I don't know quite what you mean when you say that we label them as modern humans.

There are some who believe in the multi-regional theory that think that neaderthals were not a seperate species but a sub-species of humans and that humans and neaderthals actually interbred and the neaderthals didn't die out they just merged with us so to speak. But that thought is dying out due to mtDNA evidence. Most anthropologists seem to believe in the out of africa theory.

i feel people are different because of culture and environment, race is irrelevent.
just my opinion though.

This guy actually made a really good point. A lot of the variation in humans is due to both cultural and evironmental reasons. Glogers rule can explain skin color, 2-0 sixx once posted a really good thread on the evolution of skin color based on Nina Jablonski's work which seems to support glogers rule. Even longer limbs in areas where it is hot can be explained and why the inuit are so short. Why some humans can digest lactose and others can't. It can all be explained through adaption to the environment. I'd post more on all this but i'm in a kind of hurry. So if there are any questions I can explain better later.

Wrong. Minority means "numerically inferior".

According to my sociology class (another class where I was taught that race is a social construct) a minority group is a disadvantaged group whose members because of physical or cultural differences are subject to unequal treatment by the dominant group.

 

[I AM]

Gotta love sociology classes....I learned a great deal minoring in sociology...just finished my minor actually...graduate in june.

I remember the map that 2-0-Sixx posted of the skin colors, it was actually very interesting.

But people can't handle the truth or they don't want to, so they'll disagree with it until they realize they're being fucking stupid (which will probably be never for most people).