There are two things I hate:
Those intolerant of other peoples' ethnic background, and the Dutch.

Hm. I'm not sure about that quote. I'm German-American, and I've had some mean comments directed my way when caught speaking German. But then again, I'm also descended in a small part from the first white colonists. I don't think it's very constructive to point out possible racism, but rather, point stuff out *privately* to people who say possibly insensitive things. Instead of labeling things, let's try to live and act as justly as possible, and not worry too much about decorum.

Yeah, it was an oversimplification, but the thread link was included and everyone is free to read it and draw their own conclusion.

Draug, and your conclusion was enlightening.

Intentionally so... :-P

And what was the intention?

I think that people dwell too much on racism. I think that the quickest way to ohelp get rid of any apparent racism, would be to treat people as equal. For example, get rid of any race specific scholarships, Affirmative Action, and any other laws that treat one race like it is less advanced as another. If I was a minority, then I would view these as degrading; I can't make it on my own, so I need special help from the government? I can understand limiting certain scholarships to a poorer area, but why make it race specific?


That said, I do enjoy an occasional race joke as long as it is actually funny. :D

Racism is a complete misnomer. We are all humans, part of the human race. To catagorize any ethnicly different person as being of a different race is an attempt to either make them inferior or you superior.

Race, ethinicity and language are often confused. A Nazi is racist, an Anglophile is culture biased, but not a racist. A Spaniard may have little in common with Colombian other than language.

@Dingle - to provoke a response.

race is a nice little ficiton created by humans, culturally based divisions have been the norm for hundreds of years - different races of the superiority in them is a cultural fabrication - and what constitutes a different race differs from culture to culture.

We naturally group people into the us, and the them groups - this makes sense for a defensive alliance of Us against Them - and culturally is benificial to promote unity against an outside force - if the 'Them' is more complicated with their own internal divisions (shiaa and sunni muslims, say) the idea becomes less useful; we tend to simplify.

Throughout history Religion, Race and Language have been used to justify wars to promote one group's (whatever Us you subscribe to) economic superiority - the acquisition of resources to make yourself richer, more powerful and secure - but what is an important Us or Them groups varies from culture to culture, from country to country, and from person to person. Race is a nice fiction, In biology the idea of human 'races' is not considered useful (there is more genetic differences within a given 'race' than there is between them) Only in sociology where race/ethnicity and how people treat each other is the idea important.

Well put orathaic. It's so true. Races have taken on a broad spectrum in modern times. Especially in America where true Racial backgrounds have been reduced to color. Their president is a great example of this.

@ dwbrke Your confusing race and species. Catagorize a person as a different race only means they are different subset, and does not always mean a person is trying to make them selves superior or inferior just different. There are also very rational reasons to seperate groups into different subsets by race such as medical risks.

"@Dingle - to provoke a response. "

And here I thought it was to be a dick.

I'm Turkish and currently living in Canada. Before coming here, I always thought I was white. We have a huge variety in our Turkish gene pool, but it had never occured to me to classify the variations back home. Surely enough, soon after arriving in Canada, somebody popped my cherry by telling me I was brown. I still don't get the point of that classification.

"different races of the superiority in them is a cultural fabrication"
Not entirely. Almost every stereotype is based originally in some kind of factual evidence. I'm not saying that my race is superior to someone else's, but there are genetic tendencies, such as Asians being generally smarter.

An interesting study:
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/studien/bericht-43536.html

"Around the world, the average IQ for East Asians centers around 106; for Whites, about 100; and for Blacks about 85 in the U.S. and 70 in sub-Saharan Africa. "

The race based slavery used in the Americas has unfortunetly colored are perception of what is race and even are reaction to the term.

So here's where it starts to get muddy. Can a belief in CULTURAL superiority, without a belief in the individual superiority of the people in those respective cultures, be called racist?

now I'M taking aoofense to that, Draugnar!

Once and for all... I DO NOT THINK GERMANS ARE NAZIS OR EVIL OR ANY OF THAT, I SAID IT WAS MERELY A NEGATIVE STEREOTYPE THAT CAME FROM WWI AND WWII!!! THE WHOLE POINT WAS HOW OUR WORLD HAS BEEN AFFECTED BY THE WARS, NOT ABOUT RACISM!!!!!!!!!

SO STOP IT! I'M PART GERMAN, AND I'M STARTING TO GET SERIOUSLY PISSED YOU GUYS ARE CALLING ME RACIST AGAINST MY OWN RACE!!!

It should not be called racist. Rome accepted those that where not Latin as Romans. But only after they where Romanized, born a freeman in the Empire. But any none Roman and not of the civilized nations was automaticly a barbarian. Romans also where equal opportunity inslavers, you could be a slave no matter what your race.

I was going to make fun of you for typing in all caps Obi, but when checking your profile in hopes of finding your age I noticed that you are also a 49ers fan, so I will let you go this time. :D

Thank you, fellow niner fan ;)

Obi,
You really consider yourself of the German race? Now that's amusing. Just because you are German doesn't mean you aren't racist.

Living in Canada.We have adopted a policy of labeling people people not only by race or skin color.But by langauge as well.English Canadian,French Canadian.When people ask me what I am I state Canadian.My language,skin color or cultural background of my ancestors.Should not come into play.

@Hunter: "An interesting study:
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/studien/bericht-43536.html"
You know that the author of your article belongs to a hate group?
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton

"I'm not saying that my race is superior to someone else's, but there are genetic tendencies, such as Asians being generally smarter." - i'm not saying your statistics are wrong, but i am saying that they are not as useful as you might think.

Beyond the fact that there are cultural differences which affect IQ other than just genetics, there is more genetic variety in the 'Asian' genepool than there is difference between the 'Asian' and subsaharan genepool. (these are geographical areas, and with modern transport you can easily mix genes into those pools, but even before that they weren't so different)

That is not to say there isn't class differences in America between sucessful Whites who have it easy and go to good schools (and perform better in those schools because they are better behaved) and African-Americans who end up hating the system because their famalies got screwed over by it in the first place and thus don't learn/work well within it, meaning the learn less in school.

It would be called class in any European nation (and there are poor, badly educated white people in America) but a cultural division has left America divided along 'race' lines rather than class lines (for various historical, cultural and propaganda related reasons)

That is not to deny that there is a genetic basis for intelligence, just that within any 'race' group you are likely to find genes for highly intelligent people aswell as people who are just hopelessly stupid to begin with.

A disease like sickle-cell anemia which is prevalent in African populations is a great example of natural selection; Sickle-cell provides a measure of protection against malaria and will not kill you til about hte age of 40 - thus is is likely to keep you alive long enough to raise children of your own in an area (tropical) where malaria will kill you much faster... but i don't know of any other disease which is limited to one 'race'

And yes the winners of long distance Olympics medals tend to be better adapted to high altitude climates where they actually still hunt for food, so tend to be African from Kenya/Ethiopia, and there is a genetic basis for this i'm sure - but again genetic variety within other groupings means you are likely to find genes for healthy fit runners in those groups, even if they aren't as well adapted or acclimatized to long distance running as those who grew up in societies where running is a major part of survival.

@Corwin- lol, I did not know that. But even so, I don't think his studies should be dismissed completely just because he is a racist. If he was going to forge the data, then I think that he would have made Whites the 'smartest' group. It is how he would use the data that seems to be where the hate comes into play, not the study itself.
I haven't really heard anything about him, besides the study and now the wiki page. Is he famous, or did you just happen upon this when searching him?


@Orthaic- "Race differences show up by 3 years of age, even after matching on maternal education and other variables," said Rushton. "Therefore they cannot be due to poor education since this has not yet begun to exert an effect."
I think he has basically the same argument as you, because the data showed that the Genetic side accounted for ~50% with the other 50% determined by culture/upbringing. Just like in any Nature vs. Nurture debate, they both play a significant role. There are going to be geniuses and idiots in all races, and I definitely don't think that anyone should assume that you are smarter just because of skin color.

Oh, and obviously the tests are somewhat biased, because IQ tests aren't always the best indicator for intelligence, and I think that these ones in particular were more geared towards western test takers.

"And yes the winners of long distance Olympics medals tend to be better adapted to high altitude climates where they actually still hunt for food, so tend to be African from Kenya/Ethiopia, and there is a genetic basis for this i'm sure -"

Jimmy The Greek got fired for something like this. (And I'd bet 75% of this site is under 30 and has to go look it up who he is on Wikipedia.)

Spanish people are cheater whites. Like Italian and Polacks.