I guess no physical/geneticist anthropologist has bothered to participate in this thread because most the article and many of the postings are utterly absurd. But I’m an optimistic sort of person so I’ll try a bit of educating.

1. "Racism" is defined as the attribution of moral/intellectual characteristics on the basis of real or IMAGINED physical characteristic. In some ways, racism is very similar to a phobia at the individual level. Socially defined groups and their history will lead to different cultural creations. These enrich us all, and the variety in cultures helps the species survive different external conditions. Even groups having suffered from past colonialism, slavery, and/or genocide and social oppression and exploitation by their fellow human beings have come up with rich cultural creations and inventions (for instance the best of American music, the many contributions to scientific and medical discoveries by African American individuals, etc ) though a debilitating pain can remain across the generations.....

2. Physical/geneticists anthropologists and others have completely abandoned the concept of race for at least 2 decades or more.

3.Surely, you have wondered at some point or other why pseudo-scientists who conduct those pseudo-studies never seem to worry how to define a Black or a White person. And this is the most blatant clue as to the social origin of the notion of race: "we know so well who is a Black person and a White one that there’s no need to define them, or even broach the subject matter." So those studies usually follow the "one drop rule" that came into effect in the US when slavery began to be seriously questioned, and in the aftermath of the Civil War. If you had one "drop" of an imaginary "blackness" you lost all civil rights. How scientific is that!? Has "blood" been translated as "genes"???? And if "white blood/genes make you smarter, shouldn’t there be some sort of hierarchy, such as the more white blood the smarter, etc.

4. There is absolutely no "Black" and "White" genes, no black and white blood, and yes, the earth is round and it turns around the sun.....

5. Yes there are genetic characteristics clustered around populations. For instance, if you have blue eyes, you are more prone to skin cancer. Does that make blue eyed people a race? And what if you have dark skin and blue eyes, etc etc. And how about the individuals who have managed thanks to their physical appearance (and the social value attached to them) to "pass"? How many American "Whites" have "Black" ancestry? Mediterranean people are more prone to certain types of cancers, and these includes Jewish populations. But Jewish populations in other parts of Europe and the world do not carry that genetic marker. (Of course Judaism is a religion not a genetic cluster of any kind. When people talk about "imaginary" physical characteristics, Jews come to mind because they come in all shades of skin, hair and eye color...)

So please, take the time to inform yourselves, or some of you might end up on the very lowest rank of intelligence tests and some pseudo-scientist might attribute this to your pseudo-race (by the way, how do you define intelligence?)

Dear kati,

Where did you learn all this? Your teachers did an amazing job.

You can learn this in introductory anthropology courses. Take a look at the the American Anthropological Association's Statement on Race: <link>

Oh, I have no doubt that one can learn this in introductory anthropology courses. I'm amazed that some students buy it wholesale and that teachers are able to wash the brains of their students so thoroughly.

and still people persist in believing what they would like to believe instead of what science tells us. more of the rampant anti-intellectualism that i thought would be long gone by now.

There is absolutely no "Black" and "White" genes

OK, at the extreme risk of putting my foot in my mouth, I'll ask a question.

If race isn't genetic, why are the children of black people black, and the children of white people white?

DBuss:

There is absolutely no "Black" and "White" genes

OK, at the extreme risk of putting my foot in my mouth, I'll ask a question.

why are the children of black people black, and the children of white people white?

It's an optical illusion.

Yes, there is a genetic reason for the amount of melanine in your skin. There are evolutionary trends at play because the less melanine you have the more you are able to absorb some of the benefits of the sun in northern regions of the world, and the more melanine, the more you are protected from the harmful effects of the sun in tropical areas.

There are other physical ifferences between individuals besides the amount of melanine in their skin. Examples are eye and hair colors, height, physiognomy, etc. The only reason some of these features come to be seen as marker of "race" and some not, is entirely independent of any genetic factors. They are however dependent on social factor, such as history. The "races' of humankind were categorized in the way we are still familiar with long before the advent of the field of genetics and it is genetics, among other things, that made us reconsider the validity of the concept of race.

Yes, there is a genetic reason for the amount of melanine in your skin. There are evolutionary trends at play because the less melanine you have the more you are able to absorb some of the benefits of the sun in northern regions of the world, and the more melanine, the more you are protected from the harmful effects of the sun in tropical areas.

I understand and agree with this, but it seems to be the sort of statement which lends weight to the idea that the races are due to genetic differences.

The "races' of humankind were categorized in the way we are still familiar with long before the advent of the field of genetics and it is genetics, among other things, that made us reconsider the validity of the concept of race.

This isn't my field. But it seems to me that things like eye color and hair color are also genetic, and also tend to be grouped in races. Yes, I'm sure somewhere out there is a red haired black man with blue eyes. But if you tell me that someone has red hair and blue eyes usually I'd be right in guessing he also has white skin.

If you want to say that the concept of "races" isn't especially useful now that we have access to the gene code, I'd have to agree. But to argue race has nothing to do with genetics is counter intuitive.

The world not being flat had a number of tests which ran counter to it. Ships having their hulls but not their masts disappearing as they went into the distance, lunar eclipses having circular shadows, that sort of thing. What results support race being independent of genes?

I’m afraid you might be putting the cart before the horse. I don’t blame you because it’s incredibly difficult and confusing to challenge the categories we were taught along with language when we were still babies. In this case there’s an overlap so it's not easy to disentangle the threads history has produced.

The concept of race is based upon some select physical characteristics but not some others. For instance, why not a race of blue eyed people, or of short or tall or in between people? Also some of the physical characteristics that are used to define "race" are entirely imaginary. An example is the idea that Jews form a race even though they come in all skin, eyes and hair colors. And then your "race" can change over time. For instance Irish emigrants to the US used to be looked at as "colored." The KKK had songs in which they were referred to as "niggers." Who could have fathomed back in the nineteenth and early twentieth century that we would now all celebrate St Patrick day? (there's an interesting book by Noel Ignatiev called HOW THE IRISH BECAME WHITE, and another by Karen Brodkin, HOW JEWS BECAME WHITE FOLKS AND WHAT THAT SAYS ABOUT RACE IN AMERICA —so you see, people we now think of as white used to be black. That’s as counterintuitive as it gets, but then intuition is often learned rather that arising spontaneously)

Genetics does cause physical particularities but it doesn't cause "race" because the idea of picking certain physical characteristics and not some others to define a race comes from historical circumstances (for instance the need to justify slavery in a country whose constitution claimed that all people were created equal. The only way around it was to decide that certain people were not human and that was done by using some very arbitrary criteria.)

I was being ironic when I stated the earth is round. Actually I've been told that it’s somewhat lopsided. But once upon a time (and for a long time at that) the whole idea was thought to be not only counterintuitive but the work of the devil. Look what happened to Galileo. And after that, the Heliocentric theory was declared heresy by the Inquisition and ground for burning the book and the person advocating it.... There were various reasons for this described by Thomas Kuhn, THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS and his book on Galileo.

why do the Negros have such nappy hair ? why do they have blue gums? why is the prison system 10 to 1 negros over whites ? There is something inside that black skin,that makes them half man-half monkey ! It seems that the magnitude of Black hate crimes,is so out of control,the prison system is bursting at its seams !! I hear in your words you are trying to convince yourself that we are alike,but thats just not so !

Sorry you have such a phobia of natty hair! I think there might be a word for that condition like there is for agarophobia, etc. Perhaps you should consult a shrink? That being said, I'm so glad you and I are not alike! Myself I just love my own "natty," very nicely freezy hair. It has volume and brilliance, I feel it reflects my thought processes! I'd sure hate to have yellow straw sticking out of my skull instead.....

As for animal fetishes, I'd much rather be a monkey than a pig, but that's just me....

Ooops, I wrote my last post so fast, I made a couple of typos... It should of course have been "nappy" and "frizzy"

Dear Kati,

Re: Also some of the physical characteristics that are used to define "race" are entirely imaginary. An example is the idea that Jews form a race even though they come in all skin, eyes and hair colors.

Caucasians come in various skin, eyes and hair colors. Dark-skinned Indians are Caucasians. Race is not about skin color. There are white Negroes.

I've always thought of Ashkenazi Jews as an ethnic group. Those who prefer to understand Jewishness in terms of religion might have a point when it comes to American Jews--there are so many converts. But I am a European secular Jew.

Who am I if I am not an ethnic Jew?

It is fashionable to pooh-pooh common folks and their "simple" understanding of race. Social scientists insist (it's an outdated theory, for most don't insist on this anymore) that race doesn't exist, that it is a social concept. Essentially, social scientists are telling the whole world of simple folks that their way of coping with daily life is imaginary, that what they see and experience is not true and is not valid. To accuse the whole world of being impractical and illogical is highfalutin nonsense.

Prejudice is based in experience. It assigns negative value to another group's traits. What is high energy to one group seems like pushiness to another. What is happy-go-lucky to one group is irresponsibility to another. Yet insisting that differences do not exist and attempting to silence the whole populace is fraught with danger: people will become highly hypocritical and will develop other ways of coping with social lies imposed on them. Resentment and social unrest will follow, unless we'll become subject of a totalitarian state that will suppress dissidents in one way or another (see Watson and Summers affairs).

kati ! i seem to have touched a nerve ! but since you are offering your GREAT and ALL knowing info.on blacks and whites,you totally overlooked the fact i gave you about the prison system! any comments on why the prison system is overrun with negros? ever heard the new saying we have in KENTUCKY " IT'S SO EASY,A NIGGER COULD DO IT " ! Most negros are stupid,most people know that! The ones that are a little educated,have a little white mix from the slave days ! White slave owners would buy black women for sex,or just to breed! anyway ,digest that,and then i'll give you some more !