There is No Such Thing as Race

[LietKynes]

Please, for the love of whatever you believe in, pick up a history book.

Today's my birthday and I think I just went a little grayer from this comment alone.

ate mais,

dormindo

 

[Dellefuss]

And look at what in particular?

 

[Adamski]

Quite interesting article indeed. There was some fine points but I wouldn't buy all of it.

There was explanations on how differences in cultures may cause rapes. That only explains things, it doesn't make it any less wronger, or rapist less evil.. And I'm bit skeptical that foreigners wouldn't rape their relatives too. BTW, in Thailand, rape in marriage became crime this year, so perhaps Finland is actually advanced country, here rape in marriage became crime in year 1994.. It seems kinda late, but don't know how it is on other countries.. If I recall it right, on Turkey was such law that rapist must marry his victim.




Well, we have same kind of phenomenon. I would call it result of excessive drinking. Seriously, in cultures where there exists barbaric practices like killing a victim of rape it seems more likely that rapists themselves are not considered so much of a criminal, so although barbaric practices are rare, it might still be that rapists still don't get any punishment. Yeah, I admit that this is bit speculative point.



Forumtalk is hard to use as evidence, there are better sources in such topics, but tracking of such sources is kind of laborius when there are many long threads and dead links.. Therefore, I just say that I have read about those things and it made me believe in them.



Well, yeah, but I feel that when talking about racism it is not too far away from topic to mention that there actually could be good reasons to racism and when there's good reasons to hate some smaller group, many people are not so selective and just generalize that hate to all whose skin color is same. Understanding of racism feels more wise approach than outright hating of it.

Gotta add for disclaimer that I don't have any sympaties on neonazies who randomly beat up foreigners. I'm just beginning to suspect that diversity of cultures is not actully working so well, and maybe it should be researched more closely and perhaps even prevented, instead of just repeating the mantra; "diversity of cultures is a rich"..

I feel that race is a meaningful concept, even if it isn't right word for it. It still describes pretty well how different "races" look like. There has happened some mixing of races, but majority of people still have pretty pure blood..

 

[OMGItskatee]

Since the topic is African civilization, I'd say look at the Kingdoms/civilizations of Kongo, Kush, Nubia, Ghana, Mali, Songhay, Great Zimbabwe, Axum just to name a few off the top of my head.

On a further note, not to be insulting, but I find it utterly confounding that in this day and age someone could still believe that Africa (or any other major continent) did not produce any civilization. Correction, just one as you stated above.

In all honesty, Rags, according to current understanding, man has been in Africa the longest--do you really believe Egypt was all that was done?

Now I'm about to go way and continue by saying that there have been 'classical' civilizations in the Americas, the Pacific Islands, Asia, and, of course, Europe.

Perhaps there needs to be a global Black History Month.

paz,

dormindo

 

[doctorspivey]

I see your point here but we are talking about cultures, not races. You can't even legitimately say that everyone within a single culture upholds the same attitude. So it is impossible to predict the moral values of a person on the basis of race or culture. Of course culture is no excuse for rape but my point is that firstly you should be wary of statistics and that secondly there are better explanations than a person's race.

Suppose you know ten people five with blond hair, five with brown hair. Four of the blond ones are rich, one of the brown haired ones is rich. The rest are poor. Of the four poor people three (one brown two blond) steal to earn money. Can you legitimately say that blond haired people are more untrustworthy than brown haired people?





You are probably right that cultures which punish the victim will forgive the criminal. This is abhorrent to me and I would not support it in the slightest. But again we are talking about cultures not races. You can't project the attitudes (maybe even a limited number of members) of a culture onto the whole population who live under that culture; much less onto the entire race of the population who live under that culture.



On the basis that evidence is thin on the ground I think this should be left alone.




I agree that race is a fairly accurate predictor of a person's general appearance but I don't think it is a useful concept beyond that. We don't distinguish between people with curly hair or people of a certain height. The reason is that if we create a category (for example 'the young') it is generally so we can attribute additional properties (not just 'the young are generally young') to that group, for example 'the young play more video games' etc. I just don't think that we can attribute with any degree of accuracy such properties to races. A race is too big a grouping to be of use.

I agree that there are problems with multiculturalism, we have them here in the UK (just look at the Bradford riots or the 7/7 bombings). This is a massively complicated problem (probably best left to discussion in a separate thread) but I don't think the solution is to make generalisations like 'all white/black/asian people...'



I think we have an alternate definition of racism here. Racism is the process of hating all people on the basis of their race. Hating a rapist who happens to be black is not racist per se, although I would say why not just hate all rapists regardless of colour?

 

[chidambaram_sethu]

Lets see we have:

Peking man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Man

Then there is Java man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Man

Of course Lucy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_(Australopithecus)

Neanderthal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal

Last but not least, superman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman

Some mention there is no difference between the first 4 and the last one.

I actually like this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman

 

[seji93]

But generalising by skin colour is exactly what you are doing. You are not saying: "I hate rapists," you are saying "I hate Africans because they are rapists." That is racism and it is downright ignorant.

If my study of Human Rights has taught me anything it is to disregard race, ethnicity, and religion as causal factors because the same human rights abuses are committed everywhere regardless of the cultural context. Rape and other violence against women is an astoundingly good example, albeit a horrific one: One in every three women in the world will be physically or sexually abused in her lifetime. In some countries it is higher, in few countries it is lower.

Less developed countries (and less developed areas of developed countries) tend to experience more severe and widespread human rights abuse because of their structural conditions. Underdevelopment and abject poverty results in few opportunities for education, social and cultural development, and political expression and participation. Thus outdated cultural practices and repressive traditions continue and even flourish.

On 'honour killings,' such as the stoning of victims of rape, you can be certain that your ancestors engaged in similar activities (no matter where you come from). What has changed for you is the structural conditions that frame your existence and determine your social outlook. In most places where 'honour killings' survive as a legitimate practice the structural conditions have changed little or even gotten worse over the last century.

Race is the most superficial and erroneous of scapegoats for explaining behaviour.

 

[libbylu]

What?! You live near Salisbury and Andover! Yeah, right on the frontline of the racial tensions aren't you? Two towns epitomising middle England. Just how many Fijians live in your area? Actually I checked the 2006 RES report for your area (link below) and 0.18% of the population gave their ethnic origin as 'other (presumably including Fijians)' so about 800 or so at most (and probably a lot less given that 'other' is basically anyone not black, white or asian). Your county is 97% white British. Also what do Fijians have to do with Africans?

Spare me. Why don't you stop reading the Daily Mail and think for yourself, or just think for that matter?

If I was flammee I wouldn't want you on my side. At least he has some, albeit debatable, reasoning behind his argument.

By the way the key to civilisation in the Western sense is agriculture so go figure why Africa hasn't followed the same path as the West.

http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/race-equality-scheme-final.pdf

 

[ninia]

Ethnic population in the UK.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/ethnicity.asp

I was sure you had a larger group of minority. Interesting The religion stat is interesting also.

Gary

 

[inappropriatus]

Well said.
Domiendo's and Devoken's posts are also right on the mark.

I wouldn't be surprised for Rag's to jump in with some National Front diatribe in response to be perfectly honest. He sounds ripe for the picking by them.

 

[manuelr]

Yep. In spite of what you read in the tabloid papers I'm not actually climbing over piles of foreign criminals and terrors suspects just to get to my job in the morning There is an interesting statistic in this report (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4306688-110360,00.html) which is that, on average, the British believe that the overall percentage of ethnic minorities in the country is 24% whereas in truth the figure is 7.1% (or was at the time of the report). The report doesn't go into why this figure is so distorted but it is an interesting question.

There was actually a report out a while ago (I can't find it) which was basically saying that although there are a lot of people who give their religion as Christian most are 'lapsed' and do not attend church. That's not to say they aren't Christian of course; they just don't follow the organised religion too closely.

 

[septer_01]

Well, if bigger proportion of some people group (like refugees from Africa in Finland) are criminals don't you hate that group more than other groups of people? Poverty and cultures that they come from only explain why they do more crimes, it doesn't change the fact that they do more crimes. Hating all bad people is bit meaningless, when it comes to actually doing something to this problem. For example, we could take refugees from Asia, because it seems that asian people are more likely to actually adapt into our culture and become honorable part of society. That's probably because their culture is all about being part of society.

Individuals should be judged individually, disregarding racial characteristics. But characteristics of people groups seem to be real thing and when considering refugee matters or anything that is about groups of people it should be taken into account.

 

[Rachie]

I'm not entirely sure what your point is, or what it has to do with the topic.

If you are saying that African refugees in Finland are responsible for a higher proportion of crimes than other sections of that society, then you need to consider why that might be the case.

But if you are saying that African races are more inclined to be criminal than other races, then what you need to consider is how you became so naive as to believe such nonsense.

Are Finns very naive as a national characteristic? No, I don't believe that either! And I'm not going to label all Finns that way just because you seem to be. Do you see the parrallel I'm drawing here?

 

[Oshan]

I can see where you are coming from here. To my mind (and this seems to be the attitude of others here) the circumstances of the refugee are a separate causal phenomenon than the race of that person whereas you are lumping the two together, i.e. Africans are, on average, poorer and have more limited access to education than say Finns or Asians.

Hence your line of reasoning might be suofftopicrised as:

1: Poorer or less educated people are generally more likely to commit crime
2: African nations are generally poorer and have more limited educational access (especially those countries producing refugees)
3: Therefore African refugees are more likely to commit crime.

But here's the thing. The strength of your assumption weakens with each generalisation. Why bother with 3 or 2 for that matter? If you want to reduce crime then just let people of a certain standard of education and material wealth in. Problem is that refugees (note the distinction between these and economic migrants) generally haven't had access to education or wealth (getting to school is hard if there's a war on or you are starving).

We are moving way away from race as a concept and into the realms of international ethics (should we feel obliged to accept refugees etc?).

 

[agarcia531]

This is an interesting question because generally when I get on a bus where I live in West London about 4 out of 20 people are actually white. It's noticeable everywhere you go in London, if you start actually counting the people you pass in the street, the population seems to be hugely dominated by blacks, Asians and East Europeans.

Maybe that's just London while other parts of the country have a much higher white population. Maybe it's because during the day the 93% white portion of the population are hard at work while all the dirty foreigners are on their way to the Benefits Office.

 

[s_princezz_s]

I think there are two factors at work here.

1. Immigrant communities tend be congregated in the same areas. Out in the sticks you'll mostly see white faces, and even in parts of London you'll see far less non-white faces.

2. We tend to notice people of a different colour/race more than our own, which distorts our perception of the 'mix' of an area. (Or a bus! )

 

[ilc85]

I guess so ... Ealing isn't known as a particularly 'foreign' area though, as far as I can tell.

 

[XXSweetieXX]

Or maybe the white Londoners are driving about in cars and therefore a "bus" doesn't represent a good cross section of the population?
"Bus" being the preferred transport or peasants, weirdos, students, gimmers and the like?

 

[dandelione]

Personally, I think there's a cultural or class bias which is far stronger than anti-race bias. Are any white people really intimidated by a black youth in a business suit? Do people really think "suicide bomber" when they see a Muslim at work in a bakery? Or would we be more biased against a youth of our own race (whatever that may be) if they're dressed in your stereotypical burberry cap and carrying a can of special brew?

In terms of biases, class or culture beats race any time.

 

[Co@h55]

Not if you're Polish it isn't!

Seriously though, Ealing is a pretty good case in point. It has quite a broad cross-section, but overall I'd say it's predominantly white.

But I could imagine someone walking down the Broadway, noticing every black or Asian person going by, and going away with the impression that whites were actually in the minority.

The only time I've been aware that I was definately in a 'racial minority' in Ealing was in that pub that used to be the 'Fiddlers Three' (I forget what it's called these days) and it was wall-to-wall IPB* totty.



* (Identikit Punjabi Bird)