Do You Think Race is a Social Construct?

You dug for that response.

 

I think the true social construct is this "We're all the same" business.

Ever dated outside your race? I have. And not because they look like people in my race.

I think we are different, and that's awesome. We should embrace and celebrate it; not try and deny it.

 

We look different, therefore we are.
Now, if you came from another galaxy, we're the same. Probably primitive too.

 

This is an old post but interesting the comments and how they pertain to today's social environment.
If we where able to take most news or commentary and remove the race words from them it makes for a totally different mental picture.
Try it sometime.

 

Scientifically humans are basically the same. It's why we can reproduce with each other. Certain gene pools continue to breed with each other for milenia and certain traits such as darker skin are best for health in places like Africa. So after a while you see "race" black vs white vs Asian.

Since it's much easier to fly to a foreign country and date someone now we are loosing this. In the future humans are not going to have the distinct skin color they have now. Most people I see who claim they "don't see color" and claim there is no race are concerned with this issue.

Race only matters if you use yours for self esteem. You can find a lot of this is racist circles. Your people have the higher IQ, work ethic, etc. It does not matter but humans have decided it does.

 

I think it's both genetic and a social construct. Obviously, there are noticeable physical differences among whites, African-Americans, Native Americans, and East Asians. That fact must indicate a genetic basis. But there's a lot of fuzziness at the edges, and increasing mixing of races, making it hard if not impossible to draw sharp boundaries among such populations. Superimposed on these are cultural and socio-economic differences, leading to stereotypes about behaviors associated with different races that are really products of culture and class. I think Pork is correct in saying "there is just as much variation within one race (say two asian people) as there is between races (say an asian and a white person)." And we have abundant examples in U.S. history of ethnic groups like the Irish and Italians being ascribed behavioral characteristics that seem to have been the result of culture and neighborhood, and were overcome by upward mobility that was easier because the physical differences were less conspicuous than for African-Americans. It's really difficult to separate out the genetics from class and culture. The impact of slavery and the experience of racial segregation, de jure or de facto, have got to be profound for African-Americans
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My father, a Chickasaw, believed that Native Americans had a congenital tendency to be alcoholics. I don't drink for that reason, never desiring to put it to the test. Many of these stereotypes may have a grain of truth to them, but there are so many notable exceptions. Do Obama, Kamala Harris, Susan Rice, Condolisa Rice, etc., fit the stereotypes of African-Americans? Are they African-Americans, or "half breeds", and if that means they act like Caucasians, what does that tell us about the utility of race as a concept? I approach this subject the way I do religious faith. We may never have certainty in our lifetimes, but we can make educated bets based on our observations, personal experience and the best available evidence from the sciences. I think that favors regarding race as relatively superficial, and diversity as desirable in our country.

 

Yes and no. The way that race is a social construct, but the differences between people of different races are not. For instance, many groups of Europeans were not considered white in the US during the early 20th century. However, this gradually changed over time so that anyone of European heritage is considered "white". So, the way that one's race is defined is a social construct. However, there are definitely regional differences between people from different parts of the world, but how one draws those boundaries in terms of one's genetics/features is completely subjective and based on social factors.

 

if race is an artificial social (i.e. bad) construct, then why does the US govt ask a person's race on the census form. why do college admission forms ask an applicant's race? why do job application forms ask the race question? if race is irrelevant, as so many people claim, then why aren't they demanding the race question be dropped from the census form, job application forms, college admission forms? instead the same people who like to preach that race is an artificial social construct are usually the very ones who demand that people receive special consideration based on their race, special consideration based on what they say is an artificial social construct

 

colors

 

I actually just did a search on this topic a couple of days ago and discovered that the United States was the first country to use race to categorize people.

 

There’s no such thing as race. It’s just a made up myth that should be abolished from society.

 

Exactly! And it was done for the purpose of making people feel better about slavery. Now that slavery is over there’s no need for the idea/myth of race. There’s only one race, the human race.

 

Shakespeare dealt with this issue very adequately more than 400 years ago in his play "The Merchant of Venice".

 

I have heard that the US is the only major nation in the world that categorizes people in its national census by race. Why? Democrats like to call themselves the party of "people of color" but their definition of that includes everyone who is not white. I have read that lots of Asians resent being called "people of color", as do many Arabs. Why are Hispanic people of Spain & Portugal not considered "people of color" but Hispanic people of Mexico & Central America are? There's no logical reason. It's all about domestic US politics.

 

The ridiculous hate humans have for one another is the social construct that matters and that should be dealt with.

 

According to a copy of the World Book, Encyclopaedia Americana, an edition of early sixties I guess I grew with being in the library of my family, "in the USA anyone with a known black ancestor is deemed as black" . Just how insane is this ? Also terms as quadroon, octaroon etc. are really appalling.

The nazis used to distinguish between aryan, individuals belonging to "inferior" races like the black, asians, and jews and the so called "mischling" who were germans with no more than two Jewish grandparents. Mischlings couldn't marry with a full aryan but didn't necessarily end up in an extermination camp.

So basically the fucking NAZIS were less strict about race issues than the USA in the sixties. This appears to me as a big red alarm light. Is this still a thing ?

 

Race is an arbitrary social invention that has frequently changed in the past and still changes with social norms.
Race has never been vetted by science and has been completely discredited by hard science, Biology and genetics
Now that we have completed the Human Genome Project we KNOW with absolute certainty that there are no "Race" genes.
We also know that Neanderthals and other "protohumans" are not different species but simply us. As such the term "Homo sapiens" first used in 1758 is now completely obsolete and needs to be replaced.

 

You're gonna need some documentation to back up that claim. Even diehard racists don't usually regard other races as different species. Since Neanderthals were able to intermarry with homo sapiens, they obviously had at least one important characteristic that would count against them being a separate species, but also had a fairly wide range of characteristics that readily set them off as a group related to, but not "just the same", as homo sapiens. They were distinctly different in their evolution. BTW, the term homo sapiens may strike you as obsolete, but is still in general use by the scientific community, and the fact that it was first used in 1758 is irrelevant.
The origin and evolution of Homo sapiens
Homo sapiens – modern humans
Homo sapiens

 

This has always perplexed me.

To this day, I cannot think right off the bat of another country that does this. Only the USA.
I might be wrong ofc, but it still says a lot.