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An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

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Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#31

Post by bryanrasmussen »

Joker_vD wrote: post #5

> the concept of ‘race’ is scientifically and socially unsupportable. Just like the concept of "culture". See https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/12/does-race-exist-does-c... , here's the kicker: "There were two arguments against race being a real concept: it didn’t cluster nicely, and within-group variation was greater than between group variation. And both of these are equally true of culture. Any mathematical argum…

Imagine no more, I do not believe culture - as described in the article - exists. When I talk about culture I talk about the arts and literature of a particular time period, area, language, and social status. If someone talks to me about German culture or even something as narrow as Danish culture I know they are discussing a stereotype or cartoon. Cartoons are of course often useful for rhetorical or humorous effect.

That said there is of another difference between the two concepts - race (as described by racists) is something that is considered to not be created by humans but something essential and unchangeable by the person; whereas culture is always something considered to be created by humans.

The arguments against race, as well as not clustering nicely and the within group-variation thing, all hinge on race being a social construct - like culture.

Perhaps the reason then that race and culture would be so similar is that they are in fact both very much alike in that they are concepts created by humans.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#32

Post by throwaway894345 »

bendoernberg wrote: post #7
atemerev wrote: post #2

This is how it works in European countries, e.g. France. “Race” never figures in any government documents, forms and surveys. Mentioning someone’s race considered to be somewhat rude and is regarded as a thing of the past. Not everybody is race-agnostic, but all government organizations and all businesses are required to be race-agnostic by law. This includes never asking about race, particularly in forms and surveys…

I've been very influenced by Isabel Wilkerson's new book to look at America as having a racial caste system that's 400 years old. The entire economic and political history and present of the United States is governed by this caste system; it's even written into the physical geography, e.g. where there is lead and where there are trees. If you don't ask about race on government forms, how are you going to measure prog…

We can argue that there is work to do toward equality without discrediting ourselves and our objective with incredible claims about “having barely started” as though we still have slave plantations and so on.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#33

Post by syshum »

arel wrote: post #23
mikece wrote: post #12

Race or culture isn't the issue but "identity politics" which mandates that one must see themselves and others not as the unique and wonderful individuals they are but as an impersonal member of a class to be treated according to the understood (or assumed) qualities of that class. Nothing is more destructive to cordial interpersonal relations than saying "Oh, you're an X and I will treat you as X-types ought to be t…

What you're missing here is in reality, your life experience, outcomes and how you are treated in society can be very much a consequence of your "identity". All groups are advocating for is equality of treatment from institutions and from society at large. Is that too much to ask? Once we get to that place there's nothing more marginalised groups would love to do then to stop being defined by race.

What you are missing is that "All Groups" are not simply asking for "equality of treatment from institutions and from society at large" in fact many groups are asking for equity not equality, there is a difference.

Sometimes this is referred to was "equality of outcome vs opportunity"

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#34

Post by Joker_vD »

aklemm wrote: post #18
Joker_vD wrote: post #5

> the concept of ‘race’ is scientifically and socially unsupportable. Just like the concept of "culture". See https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/12/does-race-exist-does-c... , here's the kicker: "There were two arguments against race being a real concept: it didn’t cluster nicely, and within-group variation was greater than between group variation. And both of these are equally true of culture. Any mathematical argum…

Except that culture is escapable, changeable. Race isn’t. So what is your point exactly?

That "race" is as real as "culture" is, or "sex", or "gender".

So an attempt to abolish identity politics simply by declaring "Those differences don't exist!" won't succeed. They do exist, and sadly, they're considered by some people when making decisions that affect other people's lives and well-being (while, arguably, those shouldn't be considered).

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#36

Post by Joker_vD »

Kednicma wrote: post #25
mikece wrote: post #12

Race or culture isn't the issue but "identity politics" which mandates that one must see themselves and others not as the unique and wonderful individuals they are but as an impersonal member of a class to be treated according to the understood (or assumed) qualities of that class. Nothing is more destructive to cordial interpersonal relations than saying "Oh, you're an X and I will treat you as X-types ought to be t…

Race is a little bit the issue, because there's no biological basis for the idea that humans aren't just one single species. A genuine observation and appreciation of "race" consists of understanding that humans do not have a single appropriate skin tone, mostly. I'm not sure what else there is for you, but it's not there for me.

Yes, humans are one single species, just like the dogs are one single species, and humans do not have a single appropriate skin tone, just like dogs do not have a single appropriate kind of fur, or single appropriate body proportions.

That doesn't change the fact that there are different dog breeds, or different human, well, let's not call them "races" or "breeds", but large vaguely-defined (because they form continuum) groups of distinctly different average appearances.

Edit: just to elaborate slightly, I suspect that if we would undertake a massive gene pool homogenization program (lots and lots of population migrations, cross-whatever marriages and child-bearings), we might in several hundred years arrive at a more or less uniformly skin-toned population in which case one, technically, could term that skin tone as "innately appropriate".

But I personally fail to see any allure in this: what's the point of averaging out the physical differences, they're mostly inconsequential anyway?

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#37

Post by soco »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #26
aklemm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that culture is escapable, changeable. Race isn’t. So what is your point exactly?

The immutability of race is one of the reasons why we ought not discriminate on the basis of race, but the parent is addressing the question of whether or not race is “real” and our inconsistent treatment of race and culture, another social construct.

This might be of high interest to scholars, but for the regular Joe on the street the realities are way more important. And my feeling is that the OP is trying to shift the discussion from reality (which can be addressed in a way or another) to philosophical debate (well, good luck with that)

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#38

Post by 082349872349872 »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #28
rmrfrmrf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument put forth in the book Racecraft [1] is that America's founding on individual liberty juxtaposed with the economic reality of chattel slavery created a contradiction so stark that it was necessary to invent a framework to justify slavery culturally. [1] Fields, Karen E, and Barbara J. Fields. Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. 2012.

We fought our bloodiest war attempting to destroy one side of that contradiction. Individual liberty remains the most important tenet of a free society. Preserving it demands personal responsibility and impartiality. Anything less is pandering.

Nota Bene: other countries got rid of slavery, earlier, without bloody internecine wars.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#39

Post by seszett »

Tainnor wrote: post #17
joaomacp wrote: post #10

As a European, every US election season I'm always dumbfounded by how much the "black vote" is discussed. Just recently, when Kamala Harris was announced as VP, all they talk about is how she will contribute to the black vote. This makes it seem as she was only chosen because of her race, and even worse: it's an insult to black people, grouping them together as having one opinion. I don't know why there's no backlash…

I'm European myself. I don't think we can compare Europe with the US. Due to centuries of slavery and then segregation, black and white communities are still somewhat separate and tend to have different cultures etc. Of course, individually, there are many examples of people who are "in between", but the cultural blocs do exist. And by the way - in Belgium, parties have to pander to the French or the Dutch voters; in…

> in Belgium, parties have to pander to the French or the Dutch voters

Well it's a bit different, as people in Wallonia can only vote for francophone parties and people in Flanders only for Flemish parties. Only Brussels gets both. So in effect, parties don't really have to choose whether to pander to the French-speaking or Dutch-speaking voters.

Which is even worse IMO, because how can you form a functioning federal government from parties that are each elected only by half of the country? Well you can't, as the current situation shows.

Re: An Argument for Race Abolitionism (2020)

#40

Post by EForEndeavour »

Kednicma wrote: post #30
Joker_vD wrote: post #5

> the concept of ‘race’ is scientifically and socially unsupportable. Just like the concept of "culture". See https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/12/does-race-exist-does-c... , here's the kicker: "There were two arguments against race being a real concept: it didn’t cluster nicely, and within-group variation was greater than between group variation. And both of these are equally true of culture. Any mathematical argum…

Are accents cultural or racial? There's plenty of cultural traits which are heritable and measurable. The difference is that there's only one human race, while there's many different cultural memeplexes. Race literally doesn't exist: The partitions that you imagine as dividing people aren't actually backed by any particular observable or experiment. Meanwhile, cultural markers do exist: We can measure what people wea…

> The partitions that you imagine as dividing people aren't actually backed by any particular observable or experiment. Meanwhile, cultural markers do exist: We can measure what people wear, speak, trade, value, etc.

I'm having genuine difficulty wrapping my mind around this argument.

I don't mean to inflame tempers or anything here, but would we agree that any operational definition of "race" probably needs to include some mix of both cultural and phenotypic attributes (including but certainly not limited to skin color)? If so, then:

- aren't the cultural aspects of race just as measurable as you just pointed out -- what people wear, speak, trade, value, etc.?

- aren't variations in human bodies (differences in phenotype) arguably even more measurable than that? It's easy for me to determine from a low-res photo that someone is of East Asian descent. It's nigh impossible for me to tell whether they're culturally Chinese, rural Texan, Jamaican, etc.

To claim that race "literally" doesn't exist while in the next sentence pointing out that cultural markers exist just seems really dissonant to me, and I'm honestly not sure what part of my model of the world needs changing to become compatible with these two claims.

Are you saying that you could chat up a person, maybe interview them, and conclude that they're probably indigenous to Tibet, but phenotypic markers (or whatever your definition of "racial," or even genetic? [1]) are guaranteed to be uninformative toward this conclusion?

[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/114/16/4189

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