[Jordan]

How come every fob I know in vancouver calls themselves Asian.

[barend]

What's a "fob"?

[civilian_number_two]

It sounds like something that came out of my bum.

[Spoon Poetic]

How is race biological? How can race be biological, when the "Hispanic" race is really a mix of the "Native American" race and the "White" European race, and the "Native American" race is a migrated branch of the "Asian" race? How is race biological, when 95% of genetic differences exist within racial boundaries?

However, it's not like I'm not expecting a valid answer or anything, since apparently my opposition is, uh, preoccupied with his own fecal matter? ...

[civilian_number_two]

How is race biological, is that the question? How can the sceince of biology predict the physical characteristics of a child, knowing the genetic makeup of the parents? Is that the question?

Do black people spontaneously produce Chinese children, to meet with sociological inventions, is it, or are there other factors at play? Is that it?

I think I wet myself.

[Spoon Poetic]

You didn't read my whole post, did you? Or do you just choose to ignore the evidence contrary to your belief of race being solely biological?

I admit there are a handful of differences between races. Skin colour, eye shape, hair texture, and scant few disease susceptibilities.

However: Skin colour can be the same from race to race - a Native American to a Hispanic to a medium Indian to a Japanese person to a lighter black person, for instance. What about differences of skin colour within the same race? I know white people that are darker than some black people. And how do you classify an African albino? Would he be also "black?"
Eye shape, again, can be the same from race to race - also, can be different within the race. Take your "Asian" for example - from Japanese to Chinese we have two completely different eye shapes, though yes, their colouring is usually similar. And then there are white people and black people and Indians and so on that generally, I'm not seeing a difference in eye shape.
Hair texture - Native American and Indian are the same. Asian and about half of white people are the same.
Disease susceptibility most often has to do with where the particular ethnic group is from, and what diseases were there, too. Where there was rampant malaria, people developed an immunity to it - where malaria wasn't, people remained susceptible to it because they had no reason to develop immunity. Yes, this is biological, but it's not like, black people get this and this disease just because they're black, or something. It was more to do with geography and adapting to the environment than anything race-related.

And then what about all the people that are more than one "race" combined? What about biology, then? And again I say, the "Hispanic" race is really a mix of the "Native American" race and the "White" European race, and the "Native American" race is a migrated branch of the "Asian" race. 95% of genetic differences exist within racial boundaries, leaving only 5% of genetic differences to be between races.

Biology can predict the physical characteristics of a child between two parents, yes, but it doesn't depend on race. A child's skin colour will generally be a blend of both parents' skin colours, kinda like paint. Pale person + dark person = medium baby. I don't see black + black = black so much as I see colour + colour = blend of colours. The formula works whether the parents are of the same race or different ones. Same with height. Tall + tall generally equals tall (unless something else gets in the way like an illness during a growth spurt, lack of nutrition, recessive gene, etc). Short + tall generally equals medium height.
(At the same time, some physical characteristics aren't guaranteed by the parents. Both of my parents are fat. My brother and I are not fat. Because not all physical characteristics are biological. But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are not referring to every physical characteristic.)

So my belief is that having two black parents only assures that the child will be "black" because we as a society have labeled people with darker skin than Europeans that aren't originally from somewhere in the Asian continent (this includes Native Americans), as being in the "black" race. Race is primarily made up of physical characteristics, and people slap these labels on people as it's convenient. Tiger Woods for example - everyone says he's black. Really, he's one-quarter Chinese, one quarter Thai, one quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch. He's way more of everything else than he is "black." There are other examples of this but I don't want to waste my time listing them as they will probably go ignored anyway.

And you really should get your incontinence problems checked out.

This post has been edited by Spoon Poetic: 25 October 2007 - 03:58 PM

[civilian_number_two]

You're talking like you think anyone has ever made the claim that one person must be distinctly one race or another, and that failing this, race cannot be said to exist. If that's the case, if I got that right, please raise your right hand.

If you think that maybe with crossbreeding people can be said to have characteristics of more than one race at a time, and that by speaking of them in this way, that is to use the labels in describing them (as you did in your Tiger Woods example), you agree that race exists, then raise your left hand.

Ah, good. We agree then. Race is no more a sociological invention than geology is. It is something that can easily be observed and described without creating a new language and without having to fear offending the easily offended. Glad we got that sorted!

Time to soak my head in wine. Daddy is taking me to see the monkeys!

[Spoon Poetic]

How many times have I said I know that race exists? I said race exists. I just also said that it exists because society has created it. Not because biology has created it. My argument is that geography and like, three physical characteristics led society to develop the idea of "races" which is not biologically sound (an argument that a very large majority of friggin' anthropologists agree with). And I gave explicit arguments as to why this is my belief, none of which you actually address. I gave explanations as to why I don't think it is biological, and you just throw a blanket accusation at me without even trying to refute my arguments. Is it because you can't? You can't change a person's opinion or even make yourself look good by arguing a point with nothing to back it up and nothing to refute the other position. You don't pay any attention to my posts at all, and think I said what you want me to have said. You don't address my arguments, and you throw accusations at me of what I think/say without even linking those accusations to anything I actually have said, so I have no idea how you come to such conclusions. And then you act like a deranged child or octogenarian with Alzheimer's or something - are you trying to imply something with that? If your intent is to make me look or feel stupid, I can assure you, you are getting quite the opposite results.

At first I thought this was an intelligent discussion, but I can see now that it has deteriorated into something that I don't want to be a part of.

[Slade]

How old are you again, Civ? Three? For someone who normally sounds fairly intelligent and puts forth good arguments, you've been continually building up strawmen and tearing them down in your debate with Spoon and Barend. Are you deliberately ignoring others' points, or do you really not understand what they are trying to say, no matter how many times they are repeated? And you've degenerated into random bullshit at the ends of your posts. Why is it in this thread you're the one who can't seem to debate well, when it's often the other way around? I'm not trying to gang up on you. I'm not some silly PC police. I'm just saying that whether you realize it or not, you've completely missed many points, and refute things nobody is saying. It's confusing, and you just seem like a jerk with all of that fecal matter rubbish.

I'm going to try to sum it up:

Barend: Terms like "African" and "Asian" should mean "From somewhere in Africa" or "somewhere in Asia", and they aren't very accurate or descriptive. Also, the US and neighboring countries tend to misuse these words and this should be stopped because it creates confusion. "Asian" shouldn't just mean "dude with slanty eyes and yellow skin" because Asia incorporates more territory than that, and there are better words for those people in various areas, if you have the knowledge to recognize those better words and use them properly.

Spoon: Race is a social construct of language, based upon certain key genetic traits and generalizations, but there are so many variations upon these traits in practice that it's not an accurate description. It exists and is based upon generic biological classification, but is not the biological classification itself. The proper word for that is "ethnicity."

Is that pretty good, guy and gal?

Civ again: Anyway, don't just play with language when it suits you to try to sound right, like with your "Nationality" comment. You know damned well that when people talk about ethnicities that happen to share the names of the countries where those ethnicities originated, they're not trying to be nationalists. Unless I misunderstood something earlier between you and Spoon. Anyway, it's perfectly acceptible to me if someone wants to say "I'm <Whatever>ish." because they originated in the country, even if their ethnic background differs. It can be a bit misleading sometimes, but that's because of the way the lines have been blurred between ethnic background and national origin, like with Sweedish, or Irish, or Japanese, or whatever country you wish to choose an example from.

And I forgot to post this two hours ago when I typed it up.

[civilian_number_two]

Guys, I don't even know what you're trying to say anymore. The poopipants stuff was a pisstake (no pun intended) at Barend, who was trying to say that "theory" meant the same as "hypothesis" in all cases, effectively trying to turn this thread into a useless radical Christian Evolution argument. It was me giving up on that strand of this argument. I would figure anyone OVER three years old would recognize that for what it was and not get all hung up on it. Good one, though Slade. I hadn't heard the "How old are you?" arghument before, so the freshness of it was a real shot in the arm for this tired debate. I don't know what you mean either about my "Nationality" comment; maybe you're referring to the point where I admitted I had been misusing "Ethnicity," which I had used to mean "biological traits in common to a group." Actually that word is more correctly "race" since "ethnicity" according to the 20 or so dictionaries I found online turned out to be more or less synonymous with "cultural commonality." So that was me admitting to an error before anyone even called me on it, and apologizing for confusing langauge. Good of you to call me on my honesty there, I guess.

I'd like to prove that I have in fact been reading everything here.

Barend refuses to allow area of origin to be a defining word to describe people, unless they are white. "Caucasian" is acceptable, but "African" and "Asian" are not, with the exception that the latter two terms are used to describe exclusively people born in Africa and Asia, and inclusively as well. So therefore they are not to be used as terme describing race, unless we say that Turks are of the same race as Japanese. Barend also denies the idea of Evolution, so I took his stance with a grain of salt.

Spoon says that race exists, but that it has nothing to do with biology. She says that all people are basically collections of traits, and that it was sociologists who gathered certain common stes of traits and created termes for these groupings, that sociologists effectively created the notion of "race." She argued that I should not be allowed to call Japanese people and Chinese people both "Asian" because Chinese people look one way while Japanese people look another. See, I said that "Asian" was to be used to describe a racial "GROUP," not a race, so you should be able to see that I mean that the Japanese are one set of people andf the Chinese another. Spoon ironically backs this up by saying that Japanese people look one way and Chinese people look another way. She is making generalizations about sets of people of common biological origin, and then says that race is a construct created by sociologists and that biology has nothing to do with it. I don't know how it is that she can say that they have common looks and traits if it has nothing to do with biology, or that they are not of the same race (are they of different races?) because they look different.

The fact is, people lived in xenophobic isolation for centuries, and by doing so separated themselves into breeds. Germans have common physical traits. I can tell an Irishman from an Italian. Crossbreeding does not deny the existence of race; race was created by separation and centuries of breeding, just as it has been done (selectively, in less time) with dogs. Racial GROUPS exist as well. Although they may not actually share an origin with the people of the Caucasus as was believed, white people share several similarities. So many races belong to the racial GROUP "Caucasian." I would include Turks in that group, and I would not include them in the "Asian" group. But that gets us back to Barend and Evolution and "thoery," and I'd rather not.

It doesn't matter however. We are not simply sets of traits selected froma common pool. We are the products of our parents and their ancestors. Races have formed themselves, and geographically collected physical differences are observable by just anyone, not just sociologists. Greater movement of people and the loss of xenophobia has allowed for races to commingle and intermarry moreso than ever before, but this hasn't removed the differences that formed over centuries. You can still say that Tiger Woods is Caucasian and Black and Indian and Asian. Whatever you call it, the thing exists, and not in the sense that Spoon suggests, as a thing invented by sociologists. The thing exists, and if you like, sociologists named it (I'd rather leave the work of taxonomy to the biologists, but there we disagree). Biology has everything to do with race. Differences in physical traits are biological. If Spoon can say Chinese people look different from Japanese people, why can't I?

[Jordan]

So my belief is that having two black parents only assures that the child will be "black" because we as a society have labeled people with darker skin than Europeans that aren't originally from somewhere in the Asian continent (this includes Native Americans), as being in the "black" race.

What hte fack are you talking about? We label black people black because they aren't from europe or asia?

Race is biological. We are waking organic heaps that take up physical space in the universe, everything about our physical side is always biological.

Sociology speaks in terms of race relations and cultural off shoots like art, music, war, politics, and science.

We looked at negros from africa and called them black because they are darker than us. We're not actually white and negros are not actually black. It's just a convient label. If they're biology dictated that they were another shade of colour, then we'd label them accordingly.

Geographic location and skin color can be used to desrcibe races.

African only referes to blacks not Tunisians, Egyptians, or South Africans.

Asian means slanted eyes and yellow skin. Not indian or Turkish or any of those Stan countries were people don't use chop sticks etc.. ANd eastern russians with pal white skin are not asian. Japanese, Polyneians isles, China, Korea etc. are all Asian.

European means white, it does not refer to arabs or blacks living in europe. THey are not european and never will be. My pal is a colored european-dwelling human being, but i'd never introduce him as being European. Caucasian also denotes white people. This is true even though people who lived in the caucasus during antiquity were not entirely white, and still aren't.

Portugese are not exactly white, neither are some Italians. Yet we still call them as such because they are european.

N.America is becoming more mixed so in order to be clear, you need to use colour as a race labler.

SO there you go, both colour and geography can be used to decribe a person. It's not confusing, i use it all the time.

You can sum up all the races with the following.

Asian
Caucasian
Eurasian
Negro

End of story.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 26 October 2007 - 12:46 AM

[Jordan]

I also forgot indo

[barend]

Guys, I don't even know what you're trying to say anymore. The poopipants stuff was a pisstake (no pun intended) at Barend, who was trying to say that "theory" meant the same as "hypothesis" in all cases, effectively trying to turn this thread into a useless radical Christian Evolution argument.

WTF?!?

I tried to turn it into a debate about evolution?? I just used the premise that it was merely a theory (as in "I have a theory") that all life originated from Africa and everyone was black.
YOU then pounced on the opportunity to twist that into an argument about the word theory which was unnecessary. I made an off-hand remark the belief in a theory (using examples) and suddenly I'm a radical Christian trying to attack evolution.

You wilfully ignored my point now your throwing this bullshit in my face?

Either an angry ex-girlfriend has hijacked your account to make you look dumb or you've gone demented.

I'd like to prove that I have in fact been reading everything here.

You're failing.

Barend refuses to allow area of origin to be a defining word to describe people, unless they are white. "Caucasian" is acceptable, but "African" and "Asian" are not, with the exception that the latter two terms are used to describe exclusively people born in Africa and Asia, and inclusively as well. So therefore they are not to be used as terme describing race, unless we say that Turks are of the same race as Japanese.

Jesus titty fucking Christ!!! What?!?

I was saying (in a nutshell) I object to the idea that 'Middle Eastern' means you're from West Asia, and 'Asian' means your from East Asia. When 'Asia' is the name continent. IT would be the same as saying 'United States' means 'Southern States of the US'. A category cannot share name with name of one of its subcategories. It defies logical categorisation.

Barend also denies the idea of Evolution, so I took his stance with a grain of salt.

First of all where did I deny the idea of Evolution? I merely "denied" that every "fact" we think we know about what exactly happened is not entirely concrete.

Second of all, are you saying to the many Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Satanists, Jews, etc., out there that they're all fucking morons whose opinions should be undervalued on any topic because their belief contradicts yours?

You just proved everything Slade just said. Nice to see all these pages of arguing came about just because you thought I was a Christian and therefore had to automatically disagree with everything I said.

I’ve always thought of you as one of the more intelligent and interesting people on these boards, but seriously, you’ve been nothing short of utterly retarded in this thread. I’m sorry I wasted my time trying to make clear a rather simple premise.

[Jordan]

I don't understand you guys either.

Spoon thinks race is NOT a real organic substance which doesn't take up physical space in our dimension.

Barend thinks Asian is not a race describing term even though FOB chinese, korean, and Japanese people in Vancouver all believe they are truely Asian, and sometime talk about their common ancestory.

FOB=fresh off the boat, first generation, no white washing, no westernizing.

Then Civillian called you out on your use of caucasian, which you think is ok, but Asian isn't. You basically broke your own guide lines.

and your orginal comment which is what civllian began commenting on was

If you are from a country in Asia, you are Asian. If you are from a country in Africa, you are African. If you are from a caountry in Europe, you are European.

You ignore the fact that the above does not hold true to billions and simply say the world is stupid and just because it's popular doesn't make it right.

With word usage, majority actually DOES rule.

Go try convince gays they're not actually gays, but homosexuals. Because the term gay meant something else at one point. God forbid it have more than one meaning, like Asian and Asia.

Civillian began acting silly and slade freaks out even though it was all tongue in cheek and not really offensive at all.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 26 October 2007 - 02:33 AM

[civilian_number_two]

Barend, you used evolution as an example of the word theory meaning hypothesis. All tittyfucking aside, that's what you said. And if I want to say you're using the exact same argument that the "Creation Scientists" use, a simple dictionary definition one with no science behind it at all, to doubt the science of evolution, well ... you are.

Many words have more than one meaning. Theory is one of them, and "Asian" is another. Etc. Haven't we been through this? Didn't you say those things? Really? Are we just going to forget it all? Or is this another of those "I said this but meant that" things?

I'm fine with that.

So ... ALL people from Africa are "African." "Black" people shall, going forward, be called "Afrocaribalesinese." That will exclude Egyptians, I hope. And the original argument, that some of the Afrocaribalesinese will claim that Classical Egyptians were in fact Afrocaribalesinese and not say Middle Eastern (insert other silly name here) or anything like that, will persist.

For some others, there will be no Afrocaribalesinese, because race is a social invention and not describable by biology (except for the Chinese and the Japanese). So in that case, the Classical Egyptians were just people like Germans or Russians, though possibly with some different physical traits, and Afrocaribalesinese never existed and never will.