# The race issue



## danielfranco

Lately, there have been several threads dealing with language as part of the diversity issue, and sometimes the topic of race is addressed, so I decided to start this thread.
Last year there was a documentary where this researcher was able to trace some genetic markers and use them to "guesstimate" the main routes of human migration in the last 50,000-70,000 years.
One of the principal ideas from that documentary has stayed with me, and I want to ask your opinions about it. He claims that, according to DNA data, all human population presently on the planet can be traced back to the African landmass of 50,000 years ago. That is, there hasn't been enough time for our species to fragment into different racial groups. The DNA data indicates that all differences (like skin color) are merely environmentally driven and cosmetic in nature.
His claim is that, if forced to define which race every Homo Sapiens in this planet, then from the DNA data only the black race can be said to exist.
What does the forum think?
Dan F
(I'm still researching the 'net to find sources and references. Be back with updates when I find them.)


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## cuchuflete

If your source is correct, and all humanoids are of a single "race", then what is there to discuss?

I've always assumed that there was only a single human race, and that the variations in appearance are like the variations in any animal species.

The use of the term "race" as a way to artifically group people and confirm existing prejudices is not useful.  We would be better off ignoring it.


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## Mariaguadalupe

I totally agree with Chuchuflete. 

Culturally, I also learned that we are all equal and whatever is on the outside is only circumstantial. 

Every single one of us belong to one race -- the human race.
What makes us different is good and evil and that is an individual classification.  No "race" can be stereotyped.  Each person is unique.


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## danielfranco

Precisely, cuchuflete and Mariaguadalupe.
I personally believe that the "race issue" becomes less of an impediment in interpersonal relationships to those individuals who have more experience dealing with people from diverse cultural backgrounds. For example, in these forums one finds many persons that, in their quest to learn different languages, come in contact with peoples from many different countries.
However, I'd like to comment that the variations in animals' appearances are more often due to speciation. Perhaps this contributes to make it easier for those who insist in classifying humans by race.
Because this issue has been addressed in those threads about nationalism, linguistic discrimination, and other similar topics recently, I also believe it'd be better to excise it from our personal lexicons.


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## danielfranco

This is the documentary I referred to in the opening of the thread.
Ironically enough, the process of globalization will blur the ethnic distinctions even more so that studies like this will not be possible in the future.


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## Residente Calle 13

Genetically speaking, every human being is almost a clone of every other human being.

Here are some interesting facts:
Of our few genetic differences only 6 percent are among "races."
Only 9 percent are differences among groups within a "race."
There rest, 85 percent, are variations within local groups.
The typical difference between two Icelandic villagers or two Kenyan villagers is much greater than the average difference between the two groups.
According to geneticist Richard Lewontin, if after a worldwide catastrophe only Icelanders or Kenyans survived, the human species would suffer only a "trivial reduction" in it's genetic diversity.

One of his students, Spencer Wells, has been doing some interesting work trying to find a common a Scientific Adam.


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## Residente Calle 13

danielfranco said:
			
		

> This is the documentary I referred to in the opening of the thread.
> Ironically enough, the process of globalization will blur the ethnic distinctions even more so that studies like this will not be possible in the future.



Yes! That's the guy I was talking about!


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## Brioche

Residente Calle 13 said:
			
		

> Genetically speaking, every human being is almost a clone of every other human being.
> 
> Here are some interesting facts:
> 
> Of our few genetic differences only 6 percent are among "races."
> Only 9 percent are differences among groups within a "race."
> There rest, 85 percent, are variations within local groups.
> The typical difference between two Icelandic villagers or two Kenyan villagers is much greater than the average difference between the two groups.


 
Well, here's another fact. 
There is no way that an Icelander could blend in with the crowd in Kenya, or that a Kenyan could blend in with the crowd in Iceland.

The Kenyans are quite sure they know who's who. Ditto for the Icelanders. 

Extra fact: the Kenyas generally reckon they know who's Luo or Kikuyu or Masai or any of the 40 ethnic groups in Kenya.

Any chance that the Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Chicanos, Hispanics &c, &c in the USA will stop self-identifying, or being identified as "different" in some way? Or that they will demand the cessation of racially determined targets/affirmative actions?


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## Residente Calle 13

Brioche said:
			
		

> Any chance that the Native Americans, African Americans, Latinos, Chicanos, Hispanics &c, &c in the USA will stop self-identifying, or being identified as "different" in some way?


What difference does it make? What would be the advantage? What makes you think that Latinos all identify themselves as a group? Or even Chicanos? And what makes you think all _*white *_people identify with one another in the United States? Why do you think we have words like cracker, redneck, hillbilly, trailer trash and white-trash etc? 

Physical appearence, genetically speaking, is very superficial. But even in places where people would blend in if they were in a nudist colony there are other social constructs used to exploit people. Do Shiites look that different from Sunnis in Iraq? Does that stop them from massacring each other?


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## Brioche

My point, Residente Calle 13, is that scientists may say that race is unscientific, an illusion, not real &c, &c., 
but the ordinary, average human being _firmly believes_ that race exists, and _acts on that belief_.

Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq don't claim to be members of different races. They are members of different religious sects.


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## over

danielfranco said:
			
		

> all human population presently on the planet can be traced back to the African landmass of 50,000 years ago.


On a similar note, according to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (see his entry in Wikipedia):
"As things stand, it appears that all life forms can be traced to a single ancestor which lived more than 3 billion years ago".

But if "physical appearence, genetically speaking, is very superficial," does this apply to other animals/life forms too, or just human beings?


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## Residente Calle 13

People firmly believe incredibly stupid things. The Nazi's believed in an Aryan race.

What I talked about was how close human beings are genetically and it's not based on prejudice or fairy tales but on research.

The fact that the average Kenyan would stand out in Iceland sound like something written by Captain Obvious. I'm 5'4" so I would not blend in in the NBA. I fail to see what that says about the genetic similarity, which can be demonstrated scientifically, that I share with the tallest player in the NBA. I can mate with the tallest player in the WNBA and produce fertile offspring. We're not that different, then. We're all the same size when it comes to that.

Perhaps if we talked a little more about what can actually be proven and little less about the stupid crap people believe we'd be better off.

In any case, if we all looked like people from Iceland, I'm positive still make up idiotic reasons to rape, torture, plunder, and murder each other like plenty of people who look the same have been doing for millenia.


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## danielfranco

Hi, forum-brethren.
The point made by over in post #11 has validity and is well appreciated, but is not a precise fit for this thread for the reason that, even though we all might share ancestral origins with many species (primates, including humans, are very close relatives of rodents, in the large scheme of things!), we have genetically drifted enough so that we are not the same race, group, family or even species of some of our "close" animal relatives. But my comment was in reference to the human species in particular, and how we are all still part of the same hominid group from Africa, still the same race. I apologize if I didn't specify the point enough in previous posts. Thank you all for you contributions so far.


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## TRG

Over time a group of animals breeding in isolation from other groups can develop physical  characteristics that make them distinct in appearance from other groups of the same species.  We see this all the time in dogs, cats, birds and many other animals.  Humans are no different in this regard.  Furthermore, not all of the inheritable traits of one genetic group or race are visible to the eye.  And some of these differences are very important, for example, those which make one group more susceptibel to a disease.  We talk about racism, but that's not what it is.  It is really culture-ism, because while the one group is evolving apart from the others, it was developing it own culture and when cultures meet there is friction.  It's just much more of a cultural problem than an issue of race.   Blaming everything on race fails to comprehend what's really going on.  And, unless people generally understand this we are going to continue to fail to solve our so-called racial problems.  For my part, I'll be happy when we're all part of the same mongrel mixture (I'm offending someone here) so we can move on to bigger and better. 

trg


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## Residente Calle 13

TRG said:
			
		

> I'll be happy when we're all part of the same mongrel mixture



But we already *are*. Sigh


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## maxiogee

Brioche said:
			
		

> Well, here's another fact.
> There is no way that an Icelander could blend in with the crowd in Kenya, or that a Kenyan could blend in with the crowd in Iceland.



Why go so far apart.
There's no way a Greek could blend in with the Irish, not any way the Irish could blend in with The Swedes.
But what stops them blending in is purely superficial, as it is with the Kenyans and the Icelandic.

Skin colour, hair colour and density, skin texture, may vary but if you rip their guts out on a battlefield and spread them around a bit, you'd be hard put to reassemble one of them!


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## Brioche

maxiogee said:
			
		

> But what stops them blending in is purely superficial, as it is with the Kenyans and the Icelandic.


 
Well _we _know that it is _purely superficial_, but for huge numbers of humans, it's vitally important to their sense of being.

It seems humans have a built-in desire to divide the world into _us_ and _them._

There's _us_ - who realise that race is a fiction - and _them_ - who refuse to see the facts staring them in the face.


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## moodywop

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> I've always assumed that there was only a single human race, and that the variations in appearance are like the variations in any animal species.
> 
> The use of the term "race" as a way to artifically group people and confirm existing prejudices is not useful. We would be better off ignoring it.


 
I agree with Cuchu 100%. 

Maybe we are failing to distinguish "race" as a scientifically meaningless concept and "race" as a cultural construct which, as Brioche argues, those who "refuse to see the facts staring them in the face" will cling to despite scientific evidence to the contrary.
I share biologist Jared Diamond's optimistic belief that "the reality of human races is another commonsense ‘truth’ destined to follow the flat Earth into oblivion.”

From a purely academic point of view what puzzles me is how the scientific data can be interpreted in contrasting ways and lead to conflicting conclusions. Maybe those who have read up more on the subject will be able to explain this discrepancy.

Spencer Wells followed in the footsteps of (and worked with) Luca Cavalli Sforza, an Italian geneticist at Stanford, who concluded that his research over the past 50 years undermines "the popular belief that there are clearly defined races" and will "contribute to the elimination of racism." 

Francisco Gil White in _Resurrecting Racism_ uses Cavalli Sforza's research to show that the concept of "race" is not applicable to humans:

"In _How Humans Evolved_ Robert Boyd and Joan Silk present, side by side, two graphs: one illustrates the genetic differences between chimpanzee races, and the other the genetic differences between the supposed human races. The chimpanzee differences are relatively dramatic; the human graph by contrast is almost perfectly flat...
...the average differences between local populations of the _same _purported race (say, ‘white’) are in fact _larger_ than when populations of _different_ purported races are compared (say, ‘black’ and ‘white’)"

On the other hand conservative journalist Steve Sailer(founder of the "Human Biodiversity Institute") claims that Cavalli Sforza's statement that human races do not exist is a "politically correct smokescreen" concealing the fact that his research actually proves the opposite and aimed at avoiding "being defunded by the leftist mystagogues at Stanford":

"[Cavalli Sforza's] number-crunching has produced a map that looks about like what you'd get if you gave an unreconstructed Strom Thurmond a paper napkin and a box of crayons and had him draw a racial map of the world"
"A race is simply a lineage. A racial group is simply an extremely extended family that inbreeds to some extent. Race is a fundamental aspect of the human condition"​


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## badgrammar

Wow, I am so happy because I feel I actually have something of real interest to add to this thread!

A couple of months ago, I spent a whole day looking at the website of the "Genographic Project", a research project being conducted by National Geographic.  Fascinating stuff.  

The project's goal is to classify human haplotypes, or the genetic markers that can be traced back to a specific geographical spot, and are responsible for the characteristics of what are more commonly called "races".  Using haplotypes of human dna, they have traced human migration around the planet over the past 200,000 years, following "These great migrations (that) eventually led the descendants of a small group of Africans to occupy even the farthest reaches of the earth".  We all come from Mother Africa, no doubt about it.

We are all of the same race - the human race.  But we all have a haplotype, each and every one of us has genetic markers that tie us into a group descended from the first humans.  What does it prove about race today?  I don't know, to me that's not the point.  

You can check out the project, and even participate in it (you have to purchase a small kit and have your haplotype analyzed).  

Humans have always mixed groups and ethnicities, always will.  That's fine with me, I'm all for mongrels, I certainly am one.  It might bum me out that there's little chance any of my grandchildren will have my blue eyes (recessive genes, right?), but that's the extent of it. 

In any case, it is really cool to see how humans spead across the planet, and it could be fun to know your haplotype.  The perrenial problem is that some peckerhead somewhere will inevitably use this information to make claims about racial superiority and/or the importance of racial purity.  But the rest of us can enjoy this journey into our common history, the history of humanity (Start music, roll tape...)

Check it out here: https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/


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## moodywop

badgrammar said:
			
		

> . The perennial problem is that some peckerhead somewhere will inevitably use this information to make claims about racial superiority and/or the importance of racial purity


 
By sheer coincidence we posted simultaneously and you gave a perfect description of the journalist I quoted


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## badgrammar

Look at the website, you will find the Peckerhead genetic marker, Haplotype PH1.  This haplotype can be found in combination with all other human haplotypes, leading to the unhappy conclusion that PH1 is highly mobile and knows no geographical boundaries.

Cuchu, I have to say I agree that race is a useless concept in terms of artificially grouping people for some PH1 purposes.  However, I find the study of the subject of genetic markers and haplotypes (aka:races/ethnicities) is well worth discussing, in the interest of understanding our individual and common roots.


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## cuchuflete

Hi Badgrammar,
I share your view that it is well worth discussing genetic attributes...it's interesting stuff.  
What I find to be less useful is the common conception of race, based at times on physical appearance, and at times on whatever other factors somebody wants to bring into a conversation to support a previously held posture.

I don't recall exactly when (anyone who can help with this, please do,) but a while ago I heard a public radio discussion about the earliest use of "race" by the US Census bureau, and the motives for this use. The definitions used had no basis in genetics! No surprise here, as the motives were economic and political. Note how the definition*s* (hah!) of Hispanic and Latino have changed over time, as used by the US federal government. Again, the motives are political and economic, and do not speak to inherent human characteristics. Despite this, many people take the data and misuse them to push their previously held prejudices.

The US is not alone in this regard. An article in The Economist (UK) looked at education. UK government data showed that 'black' students were not doing very well in school. The Economist's reporter looked harder at the data, and found that "white" students of the same economic level were doing even worse than the 'black' students! In the meantime, politicians and citizens of all persuasions ran around like chickens with their heads cut off making sweeping generalizations about 'black' student performance. We can do without that sort of poppycock, which has no genetic basis.

The lack of any consistent, scientifically valid, objective definition of race makes the terms highly suspect. Whenever you hear someone use it, you should ask them to define it!


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## Outsider

Brioche said:
			
		

> My point, Residente Calle 13, is that scientists may say that race is unscientific, an illusion, not real &c, &c.,
> but the ordinary, average human being _firmly believes_ that race exists, and _acts on that belief_.


You know, Brioche, I'm not so sure the big divide when it comes to race is between the average man and the scientist. I see Eastern European immigrants lighter skinned than I happily fraternizing with the darkest African immigrants, here in Portugal. I actually think the simple people care less about rigid "racial" divides than do certain elites stuffed with ideology.

It _is_ true that the average man is a little behind the times, as far as knowing just how superficial races are, biologically speaking. But I have hope that given enough time the new information from anthropology and genetics will spread to all layers of society. On the other hand, while most scientists know best, _some_ of them are still trying to bring back to life the ghost of race. E.g., that infamous _Bell Curve_ book, published a couple of years ago.


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## Residente Calle 13

Outsider said:
			
		

> It _is_ true that the average man is a little behind the times, as far as knowing just how superficial races are, biologically speaking. But I have hope that given enough time the new information from anthropology and genetics will spread to all layers of society. On the other hand, while most scientists know best, _some_ of them are still trying to bring back to life the ghost of race. E.g., that infamous _Bell Curve_ book, published a couple of years ago.



The good thing about Science, even pseudo-sciences inspired by ignorance and prejudice like phrenology is that it makes people curious and sparks debate. It is thanks, in part, to phrenology that we have studies on brain localization. So every time you hear something about *the frontal lobe* thank a phrenologist!


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## danielfranco

The great divide between those who have discarded the concept of "race" and those who hold on to it, unfortunately, has little to do with academic training. Often, there are some horror stories and rumors about celebrated scientists, artists and authors who are horrid racists and bigots. Apparently, the divide lies along the lines of personal ethics.
I find it uplifting to participate in a forum where so many subscribers seem well beyond such useless concepts.
Thank you, everyone, for sharing your opinions.


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