I recall a thread a while back touting the welfare statistics that showed whites receive 60 someodd percent of welfare dollars.

There are blacks, women, Asians, and other minorities in high powered positions, whether that power be political, financial, or public (celebrity, is my meaning here).

I have colleagues in grad schools who are in minority groups. They credit their merits for earning the position they have (even if that merit is what helped select them for AA scholarships etc).

There are public schools, public libraries, public radio, and public television all offering educational opportunies for free. Vocational schools are relatively cheap and can propel someone to a better job than flipping burgers. (I've known a few high school acquaintances who went this route with great success, white and black.)

I've known white trash. I've known black trash. I've known Asian trashy. I've known white people who were gentlemen and scholars; I've known black people who were gentlemen and scholars; I've known Asians who were gentlemen and scholars; I've known native Americans and Mexicans who were gentlemen and scholars. People are people.

I grow weary of race. There is no scientific basis. We have to learn about race and how one's melanin content supersedes their soul. I await the day that MLK's dream comes true and people are judged based on their merits and not on the color of their skin.

ck -- it's simple...the stronger slaves SURVIVED the trip to the american continent...there is your FIRST cut at strengthening the genetic mix. The stronger slaves also survive the fields better...as opposed to dying...

Again...It is *amazing* that the same natural system of adaptation you no-doubt believes exist in nature you refuse to acknowledge exists within humanity. Blonde’s having babies have blonde babies…Those slaves strong enough to survive and procreate would tend to create…Ta da!!!...genetically pre-disposed STRONGER offspring…

I never suggested it was some brilliant science experiment by salve owners. It's called NATURAL SELECTION. Good god...it's isn't an attack on blacks...it's just a fact of history.

I'm not the only person with this belief...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167064/London-2012-Olympics-Michael-Johnson-descendants-slaves-medals-sprint-finals.html

The controversial theory supporting these claims goes back to 2003, when Australian scientists discovered that a gene called ACTN3 has variants which may give performance advantage to the muscles of elite athletes.

http://www.amren.com/news/2012/07/why-the-progeny-of-slaves-will-strike-gold-at-the-olympics/

Don't fear truth. Quit being a pawn/*victim* of political correctness.

'I grow weary of race"....sigh....Ignorance. Funny, by your DNA they can tell your race. Clearly race is in the genes

let's bake cookies

redhouse - i am down if they are cookies*

What does that mean? You don't like my cookies?

Anyway dubmdell it's fine to be weary of race - any sane person would be. Race is not real. You are right for saying so. The genetic differentiation between races is so minute as to be irrelevant. It just so happens that phenotypically there are wide changes, at least greatly noticeable physical appearance changes, that we recognize.

But it doesn't matter in this context whether race has a genetic basis. That's not the point - what matters is that it does have a *social* basis, and in that sense, is very very real.

As long as people are being discriminated against because of their race, we are not allowed to stop talking about race. One day, I believe, there will be no more race. Interbreeding will reach a point that it becomes more trouble that it's worth, and everyone will begin to look more and more like each other. This is indeed already happening. But until that day, or perhaps the day when people finally manage to stop discriminating (this is unlikely, as I mentioned before, because racial bias is unconscious), we need to take action to counteract it.

In fact, I want you to reflect on that statement I just made.

Racial bias is *subconscious*. Even the most progressive, non-racist of persons exhibits it.

Even many people of color exhibit it! Many of them have a bias against their own faces! This is what is meant by the phrase "colonization of the mind."

So what does this mean? It means that we cannot pretend we are color blind. We cannot say that race is not real, in a practical sense. In a practical sense, it pervades social life.

And how does it so pervade? In terms of oppression, discrimination, and bias.

It was necessary and proper for the countries of the world to write racism out of their legal systems. But that was low hanging fruit. To say that the battle against racism is done once you have an amendment in your constitution banning racial discrimination is folly.

As I said, the oppression out there is real and in some sense inevitable, until people's minds can be changed. That could take centuries. In the meantime, if we are intellectually committed to the idea of personal liberty and equal opportunity, then we must correct for the racism of our society.

Affirmative action is a practical manifestation of this goal. I will be the first to agree with you that it is in some sense uncomfortable to do anything on the basis of race at all. It reminds us of our brutal past and our unfortunate present - it reminds us that racial discrimination was not just for Marcus Garvey or MLK or Gandhi. It is here with us still.

Just yesterday I participated in a march on my campus protesting the racist behaviors of some fraternities and other residents of a student neighborhood adjacent to campus. They threw bleach filled balloons at minorities and yelled epithets. And I've been told that the night Obama was elected, racists were out in force with their epithets.

You might protest and say "oh well that type of thing doesn't happen around here." And maybe it doesn't. It doesn't have to, though, for racism to still be real, and for affirmative action to still be necessary. But it is illustrative of the *fact* that racism is nowhere near gone.

There is a growing discourse in social justice among PoCs and allies about the so-called "color-blindness" of the privileged. I don't want to make this a screaming match, so I have not been saying this, but many of them, I think you should know, consider the doctrine of "color-blindness" to be thinly veiled racism.

I used to be like that, and wouldn't have understood what they meant by that, but now I do.

What about my 80%?

Michael Johnson is welcome to believe what he wants, but he's not a historian or a geneticist.

krellin, I understand what natural selection is, and I understand that it works in people. But American slavery did not provide, in any meaningful sense, an environment that encouraged the natural selection of people whose descendants would become successful athletes. Even if it did, it did not exist long enough to allow any such action to happen, nor was it sufficiently unique as an experience to explain the current athletic abilities of any group of Americans, nor are current black Americans exclusively the descendants of any slaves who might have survived this imaginary culling.

You need to give me a process beyond "it was hard so the stronger survived" or a field in which people who have gone through slavery in the Americas are uniquely excellent.

@redhouse - I don't want to get into gender politics because although it bears cosmetic similarities to racial politics, it is actually quite different.

Krellin, you must have been delightful as a child.

Thucy, that's not the point. My question is transferable to your situation, how is a colored person going to be regarded at your University who DOES have the credentials to get in without an AA program? You've been focusing on all these poor colored kids not being able to make it on their own, how about the ones that ARE able to make it on their own, but will be invariably associated to the AA program, particularly if they were JUST able to make it.

@ckroberts - you are just delusional. Do you know how many slaved died IN TRANSIT....it is logical to assume these were *weaker*....there's your start on natural selection.

But..you be politically correct and bury yoru head in the sand and pretend there were no repercussions to slavery. For god's sake, at least this is a benefit from a horrible thing.

Give me another reason that the descendants of American slavery *dominate* in physical sports? Because all you PC morons on here wants to say nonsensical bullshit like "there is no such thing as race"....so clearly it isn't their skin color that makes them better athletes. So...it *might* just have something to do with their historical breeding.

I know...that's a scary topic to discuss openly and honestly. But to admit it doesn't mean slavery was right...it just says slavery had an *impact* on a group of people.

Sad that you just can'tr grasp taht.

@dubmdell -- I'm a delightful person now. I'm just honest and open, unlike too many that hide behind politically correct nonsense and deny the reality of the world around them.

@dubmdell.....and thanks for contributing to the conversation. When people don't have original thoughts, or know they have been beaten, they *only* attack. If you want to attack, at least attack within an argument. lol That you have no argument, ONLY attack, means...well...you have *no point* to make, thus admitting my intellectual superiority on the topic at hand. :)

krellin, your constant mentioning of political correctness indicates that you don't know or remember anything else I've written on this website. And that's fine. For the record, I am against affirmative action, but even more than that I am against general and in particular historical ignorance.

Anyway, once again, you are mistaken. People who survive something like the Middle Passage aren't strong or don't have endurance the way a football player does, and there's no evidence that it was primarily those in physically the best shape who survived the Middle Passage. Is the entirety of your evidence that a lot of people died and we can assume therefore that they're weaker? That's exceptionally thin.

"Give me another reason that the descendants of American slavery *dominate* in physical sports?"

Two big problems: "descendants of American slavery" doesn't mean anything. That's not a unique, identifiable group. You mean black people, but almost every black person in the USA has a significant number of European ancestors. Maybe you're trying make a hybrid vigor sort of argument? Second, "dominate in physical sports" is a dumb concept and it's inaccurate. The best basketball players are black, the best soccer players are Hispanic, the best swimmers are white, the best wrestlers are white, the best baseball players are white and black and Hispanic, the best badminton players are Asian, and the best runners are black.

I'm also going to assume that because of statements like this: "I know...that's a scary topic to discuss openly and honestly. But to admit it doesn't mean slavery was right...it just says slavery had an *impact* on a group of people." that you have absolutely no familiarity with academic debates about the nature slavery in the last forever years.

How is this not "only an attack?"


krellin (361 )
12:36 PM
+1
'I grow weary of race"....sigh....Ignorance. Funny, by your DNA they can tell your race. Clearly race is in the genes

Good god, man, this is NOT an attack. It is IGNORANT to not know that RACE is *literally* in your genetics. So I stated a fact and gave him the benefit of the doubt that he isn't stupid...just ignorant.

Alright shut the fuck up about the slaves. There is no longer debate about the relationships between race and genetics. The jury is in.

It is 99.9999% socially constructed. Move on. Nothing to see here.

You, on the other hand, are stupid by your last post, because what I did was clearly state a fact (race is identified in genes) and suggeted he was ignorant. You, who clearly can read and write, are apparently stupid, though, because you have no reading comprehension....which is not "ignorance", but, in this case, an indication of stupidity.

THIS is not an attack either. It is an observation - and educated guess based on what I see from you...

@CK -- I bring up "Political Correctness" in THIS thread (where else have I brought it up????) because the notion of discussing the *real world* impact on the physique of slave-descendants -- which should be an amazing scientific study -- is NOT something anyone ever studies because political correctness forbids even the discussion of the theory! THAT is political correctness run amok! You deny even the possibility, even though historically we KNOW that the ranks of slaves thinned out *significantly* just in transportation...and anyone with a shred of common sense would guess that the *weakest* died first and easiest....thus changing the genetic population of the slaves in transit, shifting it towards the strong and healthiest genes....

YOU are afraid to even accept this possibility. It has nothing to do with you being conservative on other topics. It has everything to do with you being afraid to discuss race openly, even though it is constantly in your face in this world. Making the discussion of race taboo is what *causes* racial divide....because it is based upon *fear*, not fact...

@Thucy -- Uh....no...YOu shut the fuck up. Prove your assertion, asshole.

I actually construct a theory around my asssertion....you just come up with some bullshit and pretend it's real. All I'm asking is that one of you admit to the mere possibility....grow a pair, man up, and realize that *possibility* that slavery impacted the population of africans brought over here.

Suggesting it is all cultural is actually MORE insulting to blacks than to say it was because of a shift in genetics! Typical liberal dumbass suggestion..."Oh....all blacks want to do is play sports....that's why they are better at it...duhhhhhh...." says the RACIST liberal...

Ohhhhhhhhhh, it's common sense! That's your evidence. Well, my mistake! I foolishly relied on decades of scientific evidence demonstrating the absence of any relationship between external racial characteristics and meaningful genetic similarity or dissimilarity among different groups, the constant interbreeding between white and black Americans that makes the concept of different races utterly meaningless, the well documented history of slavery in America, and the obvious lack of connection between the lives of antebellum slaves and athletic success.

Also, here is something you should read. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/minorities.shtml ::"DNA studies do not indicate that separate classifiable subspecies (races) exist within modern humans. While different genes for physical traits such as skin and hair color can be identified between individuals, no consistent patterns of genes across the human genome exist to distinguish one race from another."

"Good god, man, this is NOT an attack. It is IGNORANT to not know that RACE is *literally* in your genetics. So I stated a fact and gave him the benefit of the doubt that he isn't stupid...just ignorant. "

So, based on the use of the masculine pronoun here, it seems you don't remember that your post I quoted was directed at me? Your claiming that quote wasn't an attack, that it was just stating a fact, etc, is all very pedantic. Anyway...

You yell at Thucy to "prove [his] assertion." Yet, you never offer proof of your claims.

I was on my mobile earlier and so did not post a link, but ck has beaten me to the punch. His link is excellent, but you can check mine too if you feel like exercising the ol' reading muscles. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=race+in+genes

I suppose you can read. It would be fairly classless of you to criticize Thucy for not being able to read if you yourself could not.

dumbdell....you live up to your name. You are dumb. You have YET to post ONE SINGULAR original idea. You have yet, to ONCE investigate an idea. You run purely on the idea of political correctness.

Go the fuck away....come back when you want to pretend to be a big boy, an adult, someone who actually has knowledge and ideas of his own....You are an idiot....BY OBSERVATION....not an attack....just a fact based upon observation.

You NEVER address actual points of discussion....you only attack and insult. Pathetic....moron.

Also...ckroberts is simply WRONG. Good fucking GOD...it is common knowledge that via DNA evidence you can identify the race of a person. It is NOT a matter up for debate, you fucking morons. Good god....give me a fucking break.