That's a very complicated question. When we say, for example, "white" people we are actually alluding to an assortment of qualities not merely skin color. But, because we're extremely visual creatures we use the most apparent quality. And that happens to be skin color.
We have an automatic system that picks up on these qualities in order to distinguish threats from our own tribe.
It's important for our system to be able to do this quickly because our life depends on it. But, just because we are very adapted at picking up on these aesthetic qualities in order to quickly form these identities doesn't mean that these identities are limited to aesthetic qualities. It's just a hack we have so we can quickly make distinctions within one's present environment.
But, all in all, race is genetic. And, white people for example are of an European ancestry.
And, on a side note, if by chance there is some sort of purity you're seeking here, then that's not being realistic.
Come on man. I'm not playing this game. When people say white people, you have a pretty damn good idea what features are being referenced. It's very seldom that it would be fuzzy as to whether they're White, Hispanic, Jewish, or Asian.
No, that's not true, and you're totally playing some game here because you're not actually confused by who the Jews are. Or who the Asians are. Or who the blacks or whites are. They're very easily identifiable. Anthropologists can even do it simply using bones. So, all I have to do is identify my people. Which I have. My people are those of European ancestry.
If you want to pretend you have difficulty identifying those people, then you're being obtuse.
This doesn't need to get all fancy with absolutes.
You know, that's interesting that you think I'm playing a game. There actually is confusion. For example. Dump "hindi man" into google image search. These are people from India. How many of the faces you see could be mistaken for random "white people"? Not all. But some. The brits did a lot of interbreeding during the colony years. Is India still one "race"? Or many?
Now dump "mexican man" and "arab man" into google image search. See how much overlap there is? Are you looking as the "hispanic" race, or the "arab" race? Most of the distinction is based on what they're wearing. The typical "mexican man" gets a big sombrero. The "arab man" is wearing a headdress called a Keffiyeh.
Now look up "Colin Powell" and put him next to a picture of "Tom Bosley". They look almost exactly the same. Even their skin color is the same. Yet one is a "white man" and the other is a "black man". If you think carefully about how you are making the distinction, you'll find it's mostly about the shape of their noses.
You have been trained - by your media, by the faces you grew up around, by your parents - to recognize some traits as defining a race, and some as not, including even traits that you are not even aware you are using. To you, people from China are all one "race", and look no different from people in Tibet, but if you were Chinese, you would have a big giant legacy of your own ethnic chaos from which to form your own ideas of "race".
By the way, it's true that anthropologists can put bones into a number of broad categories using various metrics. Forensic anthropology defines up to six races for their categorization, for example. (Note that there is no "hispanic" or "arab" race according to them.) But their work is actually getting harder with each generation, as the individual differences get more and more intermixed, with global travel and interbreeding.
And, if you were presented with a random skull, are you prepared to determine if the person was part of "your group" by examining it? Probably not. So, their metrics don't have much to do with how you identify race anyway, do they?
Either way, it bears pointing out that none of the physical measurements anthropologists take have any bearing whatsoever on behavior - not even on trends in behavior. Except to say stuff like "this fellow was really tall, so he probably had to duck under doorways a lot".
So. "Your people" are of European ancestry. Are you including the Russians? Because in the east, they interbred a fair amount with Mongolians. My father's father was from siberia, and you can see some resemblance in my father's face. that's him on the left.. Does this mean we have to deny each other jobs or something, since we're different races? Or am I white enough to be one of "your people"?
You think I'm playing a game here, but I ain't. These stupid biases are the underpinning of a lot of utterly worthless conflict and deprivation.
The problem is with your question is you're demanding an absolute in order to accept races -- which is a trick because you're imposing an impossibility. To put it analogously: What is the exact point you go from green to blue? What we identify as blue is actually a spectrum. When you get to the edges of that spectrum, color identification becomes more difficult.
That difficulty doesn't make people turn around and hold colors don't exist.
So, yes, where people have mixed, the typical aesthetic identifiers we use become fuzzy. So what? That doesn't negate races.
Obama for example is half white and half black. But, because of his features, he's considered black. By and large he identifies as a black person as well. And, this isn't coincidence. He can't go around claiming he's a white guy because of those features. No one would buy it.
Hell, look at Talcom X. No one really buys that he's a black guy. But, he does a damn good job of mimicking certain aesthetics.
So, the overall point is that when people say, "Race is just social construct," they're implying that race is a figment of people's imagination. And, that's just not true.
You can't accept tribalism without acknowledging that there are systems in place that serve to identify friend from foe. We developed adaptations to do this sort of identification because we are social creatures, and it is an imperative to be able to distinguish our kin from other entities. We have all kinds of adaptations like this, for example the whites around your eyes are there so that your pack can see where you're looking. Just because this system that allows us to make these identifications can be tricked that doesn't mean that ones tribe is merely a concept.
One's race is empirically verifiable. That doesn't mean you're not going to have cases where it's fuzzy to do so.
I'm not asking you to find the exact point we go from "green" to "blue". I'm not asking you to find the edge cases. I'm not asking you to define the exact borders. Just give me the ideal single example. The point right in the middle of all these spectrums, where it is absolutely beyond all doubt that you are looking at a member of your race. Hell, post a picture of yourself, if you like, or your grandfather or something.
We've already established that you consider your race light-skinned. I want to know what other criteria you've got.
I'm not the arbiter here. These are norms people already grasp. I'm simply referencing them just like everyone else that acknowledges race. I don't know how much info it will take for you to finally snap out of it. Maybe this one will help you:
Yes, genes correlate with face shape, in some as-yet-unknown but probably quite complicated relationship. So?
That study asked "individuals" to categorize the faces they gathered from a collection of people into four categories. The summary does not say how many "individuals" were asked to do this, or where they came from. Were those individuals Penn State academics? Representatives from the sample group itself? Who knows. Did their categorizations map to the geographic locations of the people whose faces they were categorizing? It doesn't say.
Nope, I just can't figure out what your point is with this. I asked you for your own personal example, you throw this at me. Why? "I'm not the arbiter here"? Yes, you are the arbiter of what YOU call your tribe. Who else would be??
When people say "race is a social construct", they have a point. As I said above - to you, people from China are all one "race", and look no different from people in Tibet, but if you were Chinese, you would be able to recognize Chinese from different regions of the country (as well as Tibetans, who live in "contested lands" according to the Chinese government) and have various opinions about them.
So, you tell me: Are there multiple Chinese races? Or just one?
Does she look like a Jew to you? Because she's a jew. And not in some I-picked-it-up-in-college way either. She's from a big ol' Jew family spreading from New York to Florida. Both her parents were Jewish, and all her grandparents were Jewish.
Go ahead and tell me what "features are being referenced" to identify her as Jewish, and not, say, a Roman Catholic from Scotland. :D
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 01:34 am (UTC)We have an automatic system that picks up on these qualities in order to distinguish threats from our own tribe.
It's important for our system to be able to do this quickly because our life depends on it. But, just because we are very adapted at picking up on these aesthetic qualities in order to quickly form these identities doesn't mean that these identities are limited to aesthetic qualities. It's just a hack we have so we can quickly make distinctions within one's present environment.
But, all in all, race is genetic. And, white people for example are of an European ancestry.
And, on a side note, if by chance there is some sort of purity you're seeking here, then that's not being realistic.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 01:54 am (UTC)So, you're saying that a light skin color is part of your race ... what else?
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 02:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 04:09 am (UTC)If you want to pretend you have difficulty identifying those people, then you're being obtuse.
This doesn't need to get all fancy with absolutes.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 07:12 am (UTC)For example. Dump "hindi man" into google image search. These are people from India. How many of the faces you see could be mistaken for random "white people"? Not all. But some. The brits did a lot of interbreeding during the colony years. Is India still one "race"? Or many?
Now dump "mexican man" and "arab man" into google image search. See how much overlap there is? Are you looking as the "hispanic" race, or the "arab" race? Most of the distinction is based on what they're wearing. The typical "mexican man" gets a big sombrero. The "arab man" is wearing a headdress called a Keffiyeh.
Now look up "Colin Powell" and put him next to a picture of "Tom Bosley". They look almost exactly the same. Even their skin color is the same. Yet one is a "white man" and the other is a "black man". If you think carefully about how you are making the distinction, you'll find it's mostly about the shape of their noses.
You have been trained - by your media, by the faces you grew up around, by your parents - to recognize some traits as defining a race, and some as not, including even traits that you are not even aware you are using. To you, people from China are all one "race", and look no different from people in Tibet, but if you were Chinese, you would have a big giant legacy of your own ethnic chaos from which to form your own ideas of "race".
By the way, it's true that anthropologists can put bones into a number of broad categories using various metrics. Forensic anthropology defines up to six races for their categorization, for example. (Note that there is no "hispanic" or "arab" race according to them.) But their work is actually getting harder with each generation, as the individual differences get more and more intermixed, with global travel and interbreeding.
And, if you were presented with a random skull, are you prepared to determine if the person was part of "your group" by examining it? Probably not. So, their metrics don't have much to do with how you identify race anyway, do they?
Either way, it bears pointing out that none of the physical measurements anthropologists take have any bearing whatsoever on behavior - not even on trends in behavior. Except to say stuff like "this fellow was really tall, so he probably had to duck under doorways a lot".
So. "Your people" are of European ancestry. Are you including the Russians? Because in the east, they interbred a fair amount with Mongolians. My father's father was from siberia, and you can see some resemblance in my father's face. that's him on the left.. Does this mean we have to deny each other jobs or something, since we're different races? Or am I white enough to be one of "your people"?
You think I'm playing a game here, but I ain't. These stupid biases are the underpinning of a lot of utterly worthless conflict and deprivation.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 05:05 pm (UTC)That difficulty doesn't make people turn around and hold colors don't exist.
So, yes, where people have mixed, the typical aesthetic identifiers we use become fuzzy. So what? That doesn't negate races.
Obama for example is half white and half black. But, because of his features, he's considered black. By and large he identifies as a black person as well. And, this isn't coincidence. He can't go around claiming he's a white guy because of those features. No one would buy it.
Hell, look at Talcom X. No one really buys that he's a black guy. But, he does a damn good job of mimicking certain aesthetics.
So, the overall point is that when people say, "Race is just social construct," they're implying that race is a figment of people's imagination. And, that's just not true.
You can't accept tribalism without acknowledging that there are systems in place that serve to identify friend from foe. We developed adaptations to do this sort of identification because we are social creatures, and it is an imperative to be able to distinguish our kin from other entities. We have all kinds of adaptations like this, for example the whites around your eyes are there so that your pack can see where you're looking. Just because this system that allows us to make these identifications can be tricked that doesn't mean that ones tribe is merely a concept.
One's race is empirically verifiable. That doesn't mean you're not going to have cases where it's fuzzy to do so.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 10:52 pm (UTC)We've already established that you consider your race light-skinned. I want to know what other criteria you've got.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 11:27 pm (UTC)http://news.psu.edu/story/308588/2014/03/20/research/3-d-model-links-facial-features-and-dna
no subject
Date: 2017-02-12 12:43 am (UTC)Yes, genes correlate with face shape, in some as-yet-unknown but probably quite complicated relationship. So?
That study asked "individuals" to categorize the faces they gathered from a collection of people into four categories. The summary does not say how many "individuals" were asked to do this, or where they came from. Were those individuals Penn State academics? Representatives from the sample group itself? Who knows. Did their categorizations map to the geographic locations of the people whose faces they were categorizing? It doesn't say.
Nope, I just can't figure out what your point is with this. I asked you for your own personal example, you throw this at me. Why? "I'm not the arbiter here"? Yes, you are the arbiter of what YOU call your tribe. Who else would be??
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 10:54 pm (UTC)So, you tell me: Are there multiple Chinese races? Or just one?
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 10:59 pm (UTC)Citation needed, plz kthx
no subject
Date: 2017-02-11 09:07 am (UTC)Does she look like a Jew to you? Because she's a jew. And not in some I-picked-it-up-in-college way either. She's from a big ol' Jew family spreading from New York to Florida. Both her parents were Jewish, and all her grandparents were Jewish.
Go ahead and tell me what "features are being referenced" to identify her as Jewish, and not, say, a Roman Catholic from Scotland. :D