How Many Races Are There?

reply to post by masqua


masqua, you're absolutely right. Race is entirely a social concept, not a biological one. Humans have always been migrating and encountering, interacting and mating with others. The obstacles to such interactions have always been social and cultural, not biological. Race is simply an ideology about human differences.
Although, race has no scientific basis, it is often used in social organisation and action; many people self-identify in terms of a particular race, it is an experiential reality, and racism (meaning merely the identification of races) helps determine not only the 'other' but also the 'self'. Race may not be a significant biological fact but it is certainly a significant social reality.
I recently mentioned in a separate thread that we, as human beings, need to begin looking beyond these social and cultural barriers - we could learn so much from culture and each other if we just learned looked past these abstract issues..

The key word in your post is culture. There are no seperate races: just seperate cultures. Race is seperate; culture is diverse. It's more than splitting hairs or political correctness: it's using language to redefine our world.

Helena Blavatsky book Isis Unveiled is sourced widely. In her book she sites the world has seen 7 different races of "man"

reply to post by masqua


When I saw the title of this thread, that was exactly the answer that came to mind. One, the human race (at least here on Earth...). The rest is just BS! If the gene (or genes) that cause dark pigmentation, or slanted eyes, etc. is no different than the gene (or genes) that cause red hair, or blue eyes. Different cultures, yes. Different races, no!

Originally posted by Skyfloating
reply to post by masqua

 

The next thing I learned is that if I adapt my teaching skills depending on who I am teaching, any of these people, no matter race/culture are able to learn and progress rapidly.

One example was a group of Africans I taught. I re-arranged the seating order of the classroom to a circle rather than one guy standing in front talking down to them. Then I built the teaching of vocabulary around music/songs rather than dry and lifeless school-texts. Grammar was taught through playful games and colors. The whole group succeeded where formerly an african group would have failed.

Another example was a group from Germany. If I started to focus too much on music and other stuff I had done with the African group, they would have stood up and wanted their money back. Knowing how the German mind works I wrote a "Workplan for the Week", where the activity of every single hour and the reason for that activity was outlined and would be checked off after the activity was done. For me personally that type of rigidness is silly...but its not for me to judge, thats the way Germans like to work. And work it did.

OK let me start first by saying AWESOME thread! Probably the first one I have read cover to cover so far. Lots of AWESOME links and ideas presented. I have TOTALLY changed my view on the categorization of humanity from this post. This is what happens when the Mod Gods come together and have a meeting of the minds. Also glad the mod AsheyD had the courage to ask hard questions. Thumbs up buddy for not letting politics get in the way of your search for truth.

I want to address this post you made skyfloating. Your experiment is missing a KEY PART! The BLIND! You have nothing in this data to prevent a bias!

Look at it from a different perspective. What if it was a group of Africans that were raised in Germany you were teaching and a group of Germans that were raised in Africa?

Your data suggests this was never even considered.

Also I know you said this skyfloating, LETS CUT THE SEMANTICS!

The big question no one seems to want to step up and ask is

Do Different Races have different intelligence levels?

If we can have differences like skin color or eye color get passed on through heredity can the capabilities of the brain be passed on in hereditary traits?

If we use animals as an example like Dogs some people would argue that there are INDEED breeds of dogs that are smarter than others.

This is a STEREOTYPE! It is a stereotype because it can only be considered a STATISTIC!

Once a percentage comes into play that is not 100% every time all the time it is a stereotype.

There ARE stupid border collies. There ARE dumb German Shepherds.

This alone would have to force us to approach each life individually and say what are the capabilities of this human.

I think also forcing people to refer to each other as The White Breed or the Black Breed would make us stop and think and could go a long ways towards ending racism. As soon as I hear "breed" I think animal. People like to consider themselves separate from animals. We EAT animals. No one wants to think of themselves as "food".

Also if people referred to themselves as Black Human or Asian Human it might make them think a little bit more along the lines of brotherhood and sisterhood. Humanity.

Race - Human
Breed - Irish - German - Hungarian + other unknowns
Religion - Christian - Catholic - Jewish

I mean I am a freaking MUTT! And damn proud! MIXED POWER! MIXED POWER! Through your "breeds" combined I am TURKEYBURGERS!

[edit on 13-6-2009 by TurkeyBurgers]

I didn't really realize it before I was getting into all of this conspiracy stuff, but this is class dividin-and-conquering, whether it'z pitting Conservatism against Liberalism, Republican against Democrat, Left against White, Black against White, Black against Asian, White against Asian, White against Muslim, Muslim against Christian, and the permutationz go on and on and on and on and on, without any end in sight whatsoever.

This causes the good and decent partz of humanity to be fighting and battling each other so that they cannot even detect the real true enemy to us, they canot recognize the beginning of an overthrow of a government and/or nation.

We need to stop fighting amongst ourselves and come together against this very real threat that seeks to attain Global Governance. Just like the Council On Foreign Relations said in an address to the U.S. Senate, "We shall have World Government. The question is whether we will have World Government by Consent, or by Conquest."

Aaron

There are 2 races. The human race and the jewish race. Once people realize this much, they can finally step forward to see where the New World Order is really coming from

Thank you. I enjoyed your thoughts.

I too believe that there is only one race. The Human Race.

reply to post by masqua


There are races, there are genes in every human which makes them different, especially groups termed race, each race shares the genes which make them human, but some genes are different, like height, nose size, etc. Diet and enviroment contribute greatly to this, but race doesn't mean superiority, nor does it mean speciation, it means, simply, difference, just that, i dont wanna sound racist when i say this, but, a negro may have a wider nose, larger lips, better eye sight and physique than an asian or white genetically, as it is carried on from his fathers, but a white or asian or whatever race can still match the physique and eye sight with proper diet etc., the negro may just have a higher chanc of this because his parents were like this, it's all down to nature vs nurture, and in the game of race, its both. People know border collies will be faster tan rottweilers, but if you train the rottweiler properly, he may outrun the border colly, even if the collies father mother and ancestors were very very fast. It's all down to biology and social science, but no matter what, it doesnt mean superiority.

reply to post by Amagnon


Very well written! I applaud you without any reservation mate!

Sorry for being curious, but where did you grow up? and where are you living now?

Best regards!

reply to post by Skyfloating


Yes, we need unity in diversity. Unity does not equal uniformity, even though many like to claim this or believe this. Unity in diversity, to me, would involve simultaneously recognizing our common humanity (unity), and also the differences between each other (diversity). Because of the unity portion, we would not try to oppress the other for his differences. The thing here is that we are all human beings, and none of us are any more or less of human beings than any other.

A uniform world would be a silly, boring, and drab one. It would be awful. We don't need to eliminate differences, as we are meant to be diverse. We instead must eliminate prejudices and oppression, i.e. we must eliminate the types of attitudes we take toward differences.

I also think that what's at issue here is not that "differences" don't exist. Differences exist, that's a fact. I'd say that "races" are an arbitrary construct. They are an arbitrary way of grouping together certain types of traits. Depending on what arbitrary criteria we choose we could say there are 3, 5, a dozen or dozens even hundreds of "races". The arbitrary conventions used for them are just that: arbitrary and more due to historical reasons that, like it or not, are tainted with prejudice throughout. This does not mean that the recognition of differences equals prejudice, nor does it imply the usage of these arbitrary conventions in and of itself equals prejudice either, rather it tells that they originate from prejudiced world-views.

Here's some examples. This is a map showing a distribution of people's skin color.
media-2.web.britannica.com...

If that is our criterion for "race", we could say there's 2, 3, 4, 5, or more depending on how many tones we want to distinguish.

This is a map showing distribution of certain genetic profiles:
publications.nigms.nih.gov...

We could say there's dozens of "races" with this one.

Do you see just how arbitrary it gets? This, again, does not mean that differences do not exist: what it means is that there is quite a bit of arbitrariness in the groups we label "races".


[edit on 13-8-2009 by mike3]

reply to post by Skyfloating

3. We are all different and thats great!!!!

Oooooorah!!!!

We're all human, and we're all different. We should be celebrating our differences, rather than waging wars over them. But that's what tribalism does to us...

Though not every facet of "tribalism" is bad, to my mind the bad out weighs the good by a significant amount.

One. The human race.

All that divide us is ideas.

A complexion...eye color...texture of hair or shape of the face is nothing.

We are all human beings and children of God and the sooner we get that through our pointy little heads the better off we will all be.

Originally posted by grover
All that divide us is ideas.

Truer words were never spoken.

It's sad to see that so many still hold on to those ideas, such as classism, caste-ism, tribalism, racism and all the other isms that put us into neat little boxes to keep us 'sorted'. Fatism, skinnyism, baldism, hairyism, agism and youthism. Yup, if you can fit an ism to it, it's likely to make sense. Let's face it, most of us are living with a severe case of paranoidism.

We like to keep all these different people sorted out, don't we? Mexican races (probably about 5 dozen there), Germanic races (hoo boy, that's a mixed bunch), British races (just try to count them all). I could go on and on.

Hey, pal... did you know that there are 3 million races in the world? Yeah, it's true, once you start looking at all the different shades of skin. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Now why is it so important to sort people into seperate groups? Could it be that way in order to have control over us? Damned straight it is. Here we have the biggest conspiracy of them all and no-one wants to change it because almost everyone thinks it's 'science' or 'religion' and, God knows, we can't change what scientists or religious leaders say is the truth.

"Oh, you're a Catholic...", a Presbyterian will say, rolling his or her eyes.
"Oh, you're a Jew... ", a Muslim will say, shaking his or her head.
"Oh, you're a white... "Oh, you're a black" "Oh, you're an athiest." Oh, you're a liberal" "Oh, you're this and that, them and those"

For sure you're not one of US!!! So there you go, into the nice little box that we've INVENTED for you to sit in with with all the others of your kind.

Disgusting to see how long this charade has gone on. You know what? There's only one thing left to say about this: if it wasn't for fear of the unknown, where do you think mankind could be now? It's held us back for far too long. That's right, we're scared of each other, scared of our neighbour, scared of our governments, scared of people that don't dress like us, scared of languages we don't understand and a zillion other things that are strange.

Boo!!!

lol! I never thought of writing 'human' for race but that is a good idea. One time I wrote Protoss though.

reply to post by AshleyD

As was said humans are not 'species' because we can all make babies together whereas a cat can not with a dog. Different cats can. Different dogs can. Hell wolves and dogs can, you see.

The police only use 'race' as a descriptor. Like Chief Wiggum said
"Following a red... car... of some sort... heading in the direction of that place that sells chili! Suspect is hatless! Repeat hatless!!"

When you say 'be on the lookout for a caucasian male' etc it obviously narrows it down a lot. It is just to make things easier.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Skyfloating, I get what you are trying to say, but you are describing cultural/social differences.

(Modern) biology teaches us that there is no such thing as races in the human family.

Everyday experience shows us that there most certainly is racism based on ignorance, fear, and jealously. This is a cultural and social disease.

I agree with you whole-heartedly, however, that multicultural diversity is part of what makes life interesting, exciting, curious, and downright fascinating.

vive la différence

Originally posted by seagull
reply to post by Skyfloating

 

3. We are all different and thats great!!!!

Oooooorah!!!!

We're all human, and we're all different. We should be celebrating our differences, rather than waging wars over them. But that's what tribalism does to us...

Though not every facet of "tribalism" is bad, to my mind the bad out weighs the good by a significant amount.

Interesting and tellingly, tribalism doesn't have anything to do with racialism or racism. Both were invented by 'civilized' men to validate their supposed 'God-given' superiority over the 'primitive' tribesmen.

Disputes between tribes was never, ever, based on race or anything that could be interpreted as racialism or racism, anywhere on the planet. It was always about important things like territory (access to food supplies) or women (continuation of the the tribes) or that sort of thing.

The closest thing to a 'racial' attitude I have ever noticed (as a complete amateur I enjoy reading comparative mythology) is the Australian Aborigine concept of 'right skin'. Members of a tribe may not marry a person with the 'wrong skin'. On examination, this proves to be insurance against marrying people too closely related, and nothing to do with a tribal concept of racism. In 'modern' society we ban incest too, even to first cousins, and that is nothing to do with racism either.

[edit on 6/10/2009 by rnaa]

Originally posted by SLAYER69
I agree with the diversity part but when one group tries to dominate another in some sort of false since of superiority based on skin, hair and eye color then I would have to disagree.

I think that economic divisions are more of an issue when it comes to actual policy. Like the nightclubs that wont let you in unless you're wearing pants even though it might be mid-August in FLorida. And thats a weak example. The elites run amok in the corporate / government / banking realms devastating the world economically might be a stronger example.

THis would get us into the world of "Social Darwinism" (the idea that its the almost divine duty of the elite to dominate the masses etc), which could turn into a red herring of the OP.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
I say so because the OP...and many others...claim that seeing racial differences = seeing superior vs. inferior.

Wrong. You are putting words in my mouth.

I say that the faulty ideology of seperate races was used during colonial times (15th century and on) as a means to subjegate and rule the populations of colonies around the world and reap huge profits through the newly founded international trade (i.e. East India & Hudsons Bay Companies). The practice continues to this day, as does the ideology of racism.

I don't see Asians, Africans or indigenous people (etc.) as different races. I see them as culturally different, but not as seperate races.

reply to post by masqua


You must have seen me make this thread.

Im still not seeing the problem with calling different races different races. It doesnt make me a racist to say "The African Race is a different Race than the Chinese Race", does it?