Biology of Race

[EyeDentist]

There are any number of traits for which people display categorical differences. Just a few off the top of my head:
–Skin color/tone
–Hair color
–Hair texture
–Eye color
–Relative length of index and ring fingers
–Presence or absence of an eyelid crease
–Presence or absence of detached earlobes

I’m sure we could come up with many more.

All of these are determined genetically. The question is, when it comes to divvying humans into races, why do we prioritize certain traits (most obviously skin tone) over others? For example, why is it we do not determine race as a function of eye color; ie, the Blue-Eyes, Brown-Eyes, Green-Eyes and Hazel-Eyes? Why not hair color: The Blondes, The Browns, The Reds, The Auburns, and The Blacks? In other words, what’s so special about skin tone that it gets to be the single-strongest determinant of race? (This is especially germane given that, of the traits listed, skin tone, with its vast variability, is perhaps the weakest with respect to its ability to definitively sort individuals into well-defined categories.)

[pfury]

@BrickHead

I believe we should all treat all decent, benevolent or harmless people with fairness, empathy, and compassion–that is, equally

You should really backread the thread. This is the exact opposite of what Raj is suggesting we do as a country.

[SkyzykS]

@EyeDentist

In other words, what’s so special about skin tone that it gets to be the single-strongest determinant of race?

Its easy. You know all about the cognitive stuff and how our brains like to take short cuts to conclusions.

So we look at someone and choose an obvious albeit arbitrary characteristic and run with it. Skin color is just the most obvious. I know some caramel/black people with blue eyes, but you have to get pretty close to see their eye color. You can tell they are darker from pretty far away though.

[therajraj]

@pfury

@BrickHead

I believe we should all treat all decent, benevolent or harmless people with fairness, empathy, and compassion–that is, equally

You should really backread the thread. This is the exact opposite of what Raj is suggesting we do as a country.

My opinions are on immigration going forward of people who want to enter the country and live here.

Of course lying is always fun

[pfury]

@therajraj

My opinions are on immigration going forward of people who want to enter the country and live here.

Of course lying is always fun

You believe people should be excluded from this country based on race, religion, and geographical location. How is that not the exact opposite of what he said?

[BrickHead]

Before I reply to your post, I’d like to say that I have no intention of being offensive or argumentative to you. I say this because I have not communicated with you before, you’re likely a nice guy, as am I, and we’re dealing with topics about which people are very sensitive.

With that said, here are my takes.

Although I do find many peoples’ beliefs ranging from being annoying to insane, I don’t really mind people believing what they do until they start putting their beliefs into actions in a way that harms me, my kind, or those close to me. If Raj or anyone else admires Hitler and the National Socialists, or any of their collaborators in Europes, so be it. Until and if their beliefs come into action in a way that harms, me, I really don’t give a rat’s ass about their thoughts.

This leads me into my firm belief in freedom of association. I’m Jewish, and I don’t need every Tom, Dick, and Harry of the entire world accepting or liking me or my kind. If a golf club doesn’t want to do business with Jews, fine, don’t accept me! If blacks want to have magazines in which no one but blacks are featured, that’s fine, and such magazines do exist. Asians in my own borough have business that employ no one but Asians. Here we have a Polish-Slavic credit union, and just the name alone implies that I and other non-Slavs can’t be a part of it. All such examples are examples of discrimination, and although I might not like being excluded from some business, recreational areas, or whatever, that’s how it is! I can find exclusively Jewish businesses, schools, recreational groups, etc, if I wanted to. But obviously I don’t; despite what I’ve said above, I have a multi-cultural group of close friends (Middle Eastern, Jewish, Asian, and white).

@loppar

believes in the inherent superiority of the white race

I don’t see what’s wrong in thinking an individual or group is superior to another. I really don’t. It’s a thought and if the person thinking it doesn’t harm anyone else and acts respectful and cordial to all of those he comes into contact with, I don’t know how it can be harmful. There are people superior to me in several ways. Am I harming myself by thinking this?

@loppar

expresses deep regret that Hitler lost WW2

I feel that I need to keep stating I am Jewish because I think someone out there will call me a “self-hater” which I am not. Even self-hate isn’t an emotion to which I’m prone, let alone because I’m Jewish. I have regrets and flaws, but I don’t hate myself.

Anyway, any way one cuts it, it’s not like the outcome of the war was so damn good! Millions of people died during the war because of warfare and all its associated tragedies and also because murderous, sadistic communists were running half of Europe, and continued to do so after the war, humiliating, repressing, raping, brutalizing, starving, machine gunning, falsely accusing, and working to death millions of Italians, Croats, Serbs, Germans, Lithuanians, and Poles, and so on!

Be back. Gotta do something all of the sudden.

[therajraj]

@pfury

@therajraj

My opinions are on immigration going forward of people who want to enter the country and live here.

Of course lying is always fun

You believe people should be excluded from this country based on race, religion, and geographical location. How is that not the exact opposite of what he said?

Sounds like he means within a country to your fellow citizen.

Only nut jobs don’t believe in borders

[pfury]

@therajraj

Sounds like he means within a country to your fellow citizen.

Only nut jobs don’t believe in borders

@BrickHead

Care to clarify? Did you mean we should only treat people with fairness, empathy, and compassion if they’re in your country as citizens already?

[therajraj]

I don’t admire hitler. On Twitter I have a friendly back and forth with an Italian jew from Brooklyn. He rips on my race and I rip on his.

These weirdos have become so obsessed with me they now are Stalking me off this site

[BrickHead]

@pfury

Care to clarify? Did you mean we should only treat people with fairness, empathy, and compassion if they’re in your country as citizens already?

I should have been more specific. I don’t have the ridiculous ideal of not thinking there are people who want to enter this country with malicious intent or that there aren’t outsiders who want to destroy my country or others! I meant to treat people in everyday life like that. I am not blind to the necessity for war at times for good reasons, nor am I against showing other nations who is boss.

[loppar]

@BrickHead

Before I reply to your post, I’d like to say that I have no intention of being offensive or argumentative to you. I say this because I have not communicated with you before, you’re likely a nice guy, as am I, and we’re dealing with topics about which people are very sensitive.

Nah, we’re cool. It’s just @therajraj is an antisemitic creep and people sometimes don’t catch that when they drop into a middle of a discussion.

While his arguments may seem sane or partially reasonable at first, eventually he drops his guard and starts ranting about the Jews/blacks/Mexicans/whomever

[pfury]

@BrickHead

I don’t have the ridiculous ideal of not thinking there are people who want to enter this country with malicious intent or that there aren’t outsiders who want to destroy my country or others!

I should have been more specific as well. Do you think we should pass judgement on an individual and/or treat them poorly BEFORE they commit a negative act, or afterwards?

Edit: as an example, do you feel as much legislation should be passed as possible to keep the white % of America as high as possible?

[anon50325502]

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html#sf

[EyeDentist]

@SkyzykS

Its easy. You know all about the cognitive stuff and how our brains like to take short cuts to conclusions.

So we look at someone and choose an obvious albeit arbitrary characteristic and run with it. Skin color is just the most obvious. I know some caramel/black people with blue eyes, but you have to get pretty close to see their eye color. You can tell they are darker from pretty far away though.

Bingo. It is exactly as you describe–a function of our cognitive biases. (I’m using the word biases here not in the sense of a negative social trait, but rather in the neutral sense of an innate tendency to do one thing over another.) We can speculate that this bias was useful at some point in our evolutionary development, and remains with us as a result of that long-ago usefulness–a vestigial function, the cognitive equivalent of the appendix.

The fact is, it ‘feels’ right/natural to us to categorize people in this manner, and it is this feeling that has created, and perpetuates, the social construct of race. However, the fact that race feels like a fact-about-the-world doesn’t make it so; ie, it doesn’t follow that the racial categories we commonly recognize provide much useful information regarding the sorting of traits (other than the ones used to create the categories in the first place, of course).

[therajraj]

@pfury

Edit: as an example, do you feel as much legislation should be passed as possible to keep the white % of America as high as possible?

Anyone who is against the US doing this must by extension hold this position for every country out there Also doing this.

Many countries like Japan,Saudi Arabia,Israel, already have racially discriminatory immigration policies

[thunderbolt23]

@therajraj

Anyone who is against the US doing this must by extension hold this position for every country out there Also doing this.

Many countries like Japan,Saudi Arabia,Israel, already have racially discriminatory immigration policies

Stop avoiding the question - do you support such legislation?

[pfury]

@therajraj

Anyone who is against the US doing this must by extension hold this position for every country out there Also doing this.

Many countries like Japan,Saudi Arabia,Israel, already have racially discriminatory immigration policies

I’m personally against all countries doing this.

@thunderbolt23

Stop avoiding the question - do you support such legislation?

We know he is, I’m just curious if Brick is as well, as I don’t know him very well

[therajraj]

@thunderbolt23

@therajraj

Anyone who is against the US doing this must by extension hold this position for every country out there Also doing this.

Many countries like Japan,Saudi Arabia,Israel, already have racially discriminatory immigration policies

Stop avoiding the question - do you support such legislation?

He’s not asking me

[anon50325502]

I’m all for it. Only “whites” can come in. Guess we’ll be getting an influx of immigrants from the Middle East since the US census considers these folks “white”.

/sarcasm

[thunderbolt23]

@loppar

Nah, we’re cool. It’s just @therajraj is an antisemitic creep and people sometimes don’t catch that when they drop into a middle of a discussion.

While his arguments may seem sane or partially reasonable at first, eventually he drops his guard and starts ranting about the Jews/blacks/Mexicans/whomever

Yes. That’s a deliberate tactic for the new wave of supremacist idiots, by the way - instead of pounding the table and screaming about racial superiority, which will end the discussion, they are opting for a kinder, gentler approach that eases into the conversation and let them hang around, saying such things as “hey, there are no superior or inferior races, they’re just different, but races like to keep to their own, and would not be a great idea for our society too if everyone did that?” This is the Richard Spencer approach.

But the ruse doesn’t last forever and the mask slips, and they wind up saying something like societies run by black folk are destined to disintegrate because of their wicked low IQs.