… that is not how race works.
we already ARE the same race. we constructed differences to divide us, elevate ourselves and put down outsiders without having to accomplish anything.
Imagine a world where everyone taller than 6 feet is considered a different social class. that’s race.
I get it and agree mostly. I definitely think socioeconomic classes are more of a defining/dividing line than a heritage you happen to share with someone.
Only <1% of any humans DNA differs, but I think a better point is that everyone is atleast 50th cousins or something (Granted if you share a heritage its much closer)
But also if you told someone like my girlfriend that race isn’t real she’d probably sock you. She’s experienced it and its very real to her.
When we started dating I would actually try to talk about how I don’t understand why she would side with someone solely because their skin was dark like hers and it would be a point of contention. She would literally associate with someone that objectively did something she thinks is reprehensible because of literally only that. She grew up very wealthy and never hurt anyone, guy on the news was someone in and out of prison who literally fired first on the guy that revived him with narcan–but they happen to have the same color of skin.
As a boy other Latinos would literally antagonize me for “acting white” because I would rather read during recess than play football/soccer–because being educated is associated with being white; we were the children of poor families with gangbangers as role models so we must obviously be destined for different things /s
I feel like a lot of racial issues are cultural and self-perpetuating. But my girlfriend in particular was the only black woman in a white conservative town, people would open doors for her friends and close it when it came to her, If I visit her hometown she doesn’t want to be out for long, etc. So I get why it is very important to her.
The discrimination is real, no question about it.
The thing that’s not “real” is that this is solely about skin color.
In the USA race is defined quite closely along the lines of “continent of origin” (or of origin of the ancestors), because the USA Is a country with worldwide immigration. Thus the groups are larger.
Compare that to Europe, where world-wide immigration only started picking up in the last two decades. Here people can discriminate just as easily within what would be considered the same race in the USA. For example, many people in Austria really hate Serbians. Many Serbians really hate Croatians. Many Croatians really hate Albanians and so on.
This is also visible in the meaning of the words “race” and “racism”. Before WW2 “race” was commonly used in Europe as in the “German race”, the “English race” or the “French race”. And while the term “race” fell out of use after WW2 and was subsequently re-imported from the USA with the USA-meaning, the original meaning lives on in the meaning of “racism”.
For example, if a French man hates all the English, this wouldn’t be racism in the USA (since both are from the same “race” by US-definition), it would totally be racism in most European languages.
The “social construct” part of the discrimination is along which lines discrimination happens. There’s nothing “natural” about discriminating along the lines of US-race. Discrimination can happen just as viciously along any other line.
And that certainly doesn’t mean people don’t suffer from it. But it also means that making sure everyone is as equal as possible (e.g. by eliminating US-race) won’t stop discrimination.
socially constructed things are very real. I don’t know who the fuck let that fart out in our society, to make people think that when they hear “it’s a social construct” they hear “it’s not real!” pretty frustrating
what it means is that it’s an arbitrary thing based on mostly nothing except history and all it would take to change it is for us to act differently towards it.
but the history behind it is very real, so we can’t just eliminate race by pretending it isn’t real. we have to acknowledge the impacts, respect the differences, and work towards making the idea of race obsolete. that’ll probably take a few thousand years lol
Hahahahahaha no, look at India.
India
At least top and bottom are about race.
What is race though, the Irish and Italians weren’t white till what the 50s?
nah… equally looking people, indistinguishble from each other, have managed levels of hate high enough to attemp genocide
Right. Like, can you imagine what society would be like if we let bald people vote? /s
That demon is left handed!!!
that animal has a unibrow!!! to the pitchforks
No, we’d simply find some other difference to get divided on.
It’d be regions/land-based, probably. “Southern pride,” etc…just without the racism. Fuck those star-bellied sneeches across the river.
Glad that you brought up the Sneeches!
And I hear those damn Zooks eat their bread with the buttered side down.
I vote we use wealth.
Unfortunately it’s the wealthy people who decide.
It’s intersectional: the wealthy early birds. They would make the decision while us night owls sleep
It’ll ultimately just lead to even more discrimination against the poor
Having lived in a majority white city where they divided themselves between countries of origin, this would happen.
Until a large Hispanic influx northeast PA had Italian sections, Irish sections, Lithuanian sections, Polish sections, etc. When my ex’s grandmother met me she asked me “what are you?” despite us both being white.
She was old enough to remember that none of those origins was considered white.
In the show All In The Family, Archie isn’t just bigoted against non-caucasians; he’s bigoted against the polish, Irish, Italians, etc… He’s less bigoted against those groups than he is against non-whites, but still bigoted. He’s also bigoted against catholics
Exactly. This is why people say race is a construct.
If we all became the same race then some self labeled ingroup would construct (i.e. create) new criteria to label others as an outgroup eventually creating new races.
Or people would simply be divided over what race they used to be.
After a few generations, they’d start to forget
Look up Cagots, then.
And people would also track down and document what race people used to be before the change happened so that they could keep on hating too.
No, you don’t need genetic differences for racism.
In fact, in most European languages the words “race” and “racism” are talking more about nationalities than about genetically different population groups.
For example, if you read German articles from the 1920s, they often talk about the “German race”, the “French race” or the “English race”. In most European languages the word “race” fell out of use after WW2 and the American meaning of the word “race” was re-imported later on. But the meaning lives on in the meaning of “racism”.
For example, in German a white person from Germany who hates everyone from France irrespective of their skin color is still a racist, while in the USA that wouldn’t qualify as racism.
That’s because neither the word “race” nor “racism” have a clear definition. “Race” is used entirely to discriminate “them” vs “us”. So “race” determines whatever group people in a country want to discriminate against.
In the USA this was clearly a “we, the while ex-european people” vs “them, the black former slaves” and “them, the asians” and “them, the south americans”.
So what would happen if suddenly everyone had the same skin color? People would just shift to the next best thing to discriminate.
Instead of discriminating against black people, just do what has been done in Europe for millennia: Discriminate against slavic people. (The term “slave” comes from “slavic”, because it was so common to keep slavic people as slaves.)
And if nations, religions, languages and regions of origin would also disappear as things to discriminate against, then it would shift to the next thing: people who went to a different school, have a different education or best of all: other types of poor people.
The issue is that humans are heuristics-based beings. Prejudices the result of learning. I’ve had 5 crappy HP printers, so I conclude all HP printers suck. Some friends have had terrible experiences with Fiat cars, so I avoid Fiat cars. I read in the newspaper that Nestle is destroying the planet, so I eat something else.
The problem is that if this is applied to humans, they get unfairly judged for things that are often completely out of their control. The core mechanism that we humans function on happens to be severely destructive in this context. But that’s also why it’s hard to impossible to get rid of racism and similar forms of discrimination because they are so centrally embedded in how we humans function.
Any small difference in personality is gonna be used to justify what is wrong with the world.
Race was invented by them to divide us. They’ll just invent something else.
They already use gender, sexuality, nationality, anything really. Race is just one of many strings on the harp of bigotry.
Absolutely. Religion, language, country of origin, gender, age, there’s no shortage of useless ways to divide people. Our differences aren’t the issue, the issue is the rich and powerful exploiting our differences to pit us against each other.
Indian hate goes up whenever india related policies go into effect, trump tarrifs india and no one gived a fk since all day see is normalized indian hate for months prior
Bosnia would like to have a word.
lol right. I wonder what race OP imagines
Uh we are the same race. There do not exist multiple human races in any biological sense. So what would happen is what is happening now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)?wprov=sfti1
Virtually all racism boils down to colorism
Don’t forget that people hated the Irish too. Color ain’t the only reason.
I remember a little while ago when it was in the news for a very short time that they found several mass graves in PA of Irish who were brought over to be indentured servants. I don’t remember if they had determined what the cause of death was, whether it was illness or murder, but it stopped being news pretty quickly because no one really cared.
Cholera, mostly, but also violence. It says they were turned away from getting help because the locals feared contagion, so perhaps that’s some of the violence. They also made practically no money but had a generous whiskey allotment, which would likely contribute to violence. They were working on Duffy’s Cut for some time, and the mass grave has been described as a garbage dump for bodies, not like they were lined up and shot or something, not that it makes it any better. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/irelands-forgotten-sons-recovered-two-centuries-later-9194680/
Where people draw racial lines is arbitrary. I guess it is largely defined by skin colour and culture
The rich are the ones that made race into a problem. Racism isn’t organic, it was constructed by colonialism.
We are all the same race we are just different colours. Can you imagine any other animals fighting over their looks.
They’d still argue over religion. And what sports team they cheer for. And whatever else the billionaire owned media could decide to distract them with.
If I really wanted an excuse to hate people, I’d hate people who make dumb complaints about movies
People who won’t use their blinkers
People with no regard to those around them
People who litter or don’t clean up after their dog
The list goes on.
But To be fair, why was Gandalf the White just waiting around in the forest for Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas to stumble upon him?
Bro thought he was dead and in the wizard afterlife.
Turns out he was already there. There is no escape frome middle earth for a wizard.
There’s still Religious bigotry… That’s worked as an alternative for eons
There is only the human race. Any differences in appearance is less that a % of genetic difference.
The modern concept of race was invented in 1684 by this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Bernier?wprov=sfla1
It’s been utter bullshit from the start
Of course he was fr*nch
I’m ngl he looks exactly like what I expected.
omg he’s even got a fedora… gotta be a hoax…
“Our”
I’ve ever only seen Americans and random racists use the term that way. Most of us agree that we’re one race.
Are you kidding? I’ve heard Scots and English vilely denegrate Welsh, Germans denegrate Saxons, English denigrate black people…on and on and on.
Black people denigrating blacker people, Indians denigrating darker Indians, and so on. Yeah, we’re tribal, evolved that way.
These people all bent over the word “race”. Meh. Give it a rest. The word used to be in common parlance, now I never here it IRL, despite being told us Southerners are the most racist people on Earth.
I’m in the deep south and I hear it a lot, from every race.
People use the word “race” in conversation? Hard to get my head around! Not doubting you, but we don’t talk like that. OTOH, we’re seriously race (heh) mixed in NW Florida. My block is a nearly perfect cross-section of black, white, Asian demographics for the area. LOL, my wife being the 1% Asian rep. :)
No Hispanic folk, but they were really rare before 2004. No joke, there were hardly any Mexican restaurants before they flooded in to save us from the destruction.
OTOH, we’re seriously race (heh) mixed in NW Florida
Maybe you’re so used to it, you don’t notice. Or maybe it’s said in other ways, eg, “Certain races do this thing or think that way.” Or maybe it’s more subtle, “That’s just their culture.” “That’s just how their people are.”
It’s also maddening when discussing medical issues. "Why does my race have to be brought into it?” “Because certain ethnicities have problems with this particular medical condition moreso than others.” “Because I’m more susceptible to x and I can’t do y with you.”
south of what?
Might be a German thing, but race and racist don’t have the same base for nothing. You don’t talk like that here and I’ve only heard it in the us. Maybe Scots bite their tongue taking to a German about those things.
Plural of anecdote… Yes I know, forgive me for not documenting all the times I’ve heard it. Maybe people posture, depending on the surrounding people. Maybe they feel more free to be more honest as tourists. Perhaps both.
Hahahahahaha, that’s some funny shit right there.
Fun fact, there is more genetic variation within Africa than there is in the rest of the world combined. This is because only a small lineage of humans ended up migrating out of Africa.
There’s no logical difference, but there’s all the emotional difference in the world. We evolved to be suspicious of that tribe over on the other mountain. And well we should have been! They might just come over and slaughter us for our women and land.
Besides, we didn’t evolve to operate in groups larger than about 150. Past that, other people become objects in our minds. We can’t be truly close to more than that many people. What is the Monkeysphere? ( <- solid article on all this)
It’s why I understand the immigrant hate. Earth’s population has more than doubled in my lifetime. “Who ARE all these people and why are they from another tribe?! It was already crowded!”
Only way we get over the hate ironically consists of two seemingly opposed plans:
- We need less people, or at least spread 'em out. Mammals get freaky when crowded.
- Get different sorts of people mixed up. People hate the idea of immigrants, “Meh, the ones I know are great people. It’s those others who are bad guys.”
We’ll get there. There have been massive strides in my lifetime alone.
We’ll get there. There have been massive strides in my lifetime alone.
If we don’t extinct ourselves and a bunch of other species, first. Maybe. The current race toward devolution gives me pause to doubt, however.
We’re not going extinct. Humans are the toughest beasts on the planet, the AR-15 of animals. Not the best at anything, not by a long shot, but we’re perfect multi-purpose lifeforms. Hell, we survive in every ecosystem on Earth. Insects can’t even claim that!
But yeah, I’ve commented enough in the past on what we’re taking out with us. Lived through seeing 73% of animals go POOF! since 1970, seen my local ecosphere crashing out over the last 5. I want to cry and scream! And no one is aware. When I talk about it IRL, people are captivated, “You’re right. Hadn’t noticed that. Wow.” You can see their gears turning, truly a new thought.
We’re not going extinct. Humans are the toughest beasts on the planet, the AR-15 of animals. Not the best at anything, not by a long shot, but we’re perfect multi-purpose lifeforms. Hell, we survive in every ecosystem on Earth. Insects can’t even claim that!
I do believe climate science. And I do think a nuclear world war would decimate humans. I do hold hope, and recognize very real potentialities.
You can see their gears turning, truly a new thought.
And right back to football, video games, occasionally maybe standing somewhere publicly with a clever sign.
LOL, I’m a child of the Cold War. You can’t tell me about global thermonuclear war fears! :) Weirdly, us teens just accepted it was a thing that could happen any second. Whatever.
And don’t be so cynical! Educating people like that, showing them how things have changed for the worse in their experience has impact. But you gotta follow through with solutions they can work with! “And that’s why I don’t use pesticides or herbicides. Notice the frogs are back on our block? Seen all the dragonflies? Check out my ponds. They double as mosquito control!”
I think we’re missing the trees in this forest of doom. We’re powerless to fight the megacorps, and bitching about them only makes people feel more powerless. But we can teach people to chip away, give them actionable goals. Put the idea in their heads that, “This isn’t normal or right and you’ve experienced this!”, without being preachy. It’s hard.
I’ve seen massive social and environmental progress in my life. It all started with grass-roots talking points. Don’t say “fag”, don’t toss your cigarette fag (heh), pick up trash that’s not yours, and on and on.
Don’t lecture or lay blame, no guilt trips, talk about the problem in a personally, emotionally understandable way they’ll internalize, give them a solution they can act on right now, today.
Maybe I’m still an idealist. So it goes.
There’s no logical difference?
My particular health risks would beg to differ.
There’s differences, but basing your opionion of someone on their race (bigotry and racism) is “philistine, backward thinking”.
Got me there! I was referring to the previous post saying we’re so genetically tight as to be scientifically indistinguishable as “races”. But yeah, a couple of base pairs coding for a misfolded protein is certainly a difference!
