'Black Lives Matter' Organizer Outed as White?

[PRB]

What amalgamation of observable differences is required to classify someone as black? How dark does their skin have to be? How curly does there hair have to be? What objective criteria are there? And is this list of criteria written down anywhere so that we can apply the requisite tests to any given person and determine what race they are, according to their composite amalgamation of observable traits?

just because I can't give you a perfect line, doesn't mean all shades of black are equally black.

we can stop being so PC and just admit ancestry exists, even if skin color isn't the perfect indication of it.

 

[erowe1]

just because I can't give you a perfect line, doesn't mean all shades of black are equally black.

we can stop being so PC and just admit ancestry exists, even if skin color isn't the perfect indication of it.

Nobody ever said ancestry didn't exist. So is that what races are? People's ancestry?

Acknowledging that races are social constructs doesn't have anything to do with PC. It's science.

 

[erowe1]

Actually, that's exactly what it means, or specifically, it means it doesn't exist in nature, only in human terms.

Which is it? Does it not exist or does it exist?

Either way, what you just described, that race doesn't exist in nature, only in human terms, is exactly the truth. It's like language, culture, or religion. It's not something that scientists can discover. Races are categorical labels that have the meaning we as society agree to give them through constant negotiation by way of our use of the labels. Of course, none of this means that races don't exist. Races exist as social constructs just like languages, cultures, and religions exist.

it's simpler than that, acting black means conforming to a stereotype and behavior that's associated with blacks, it has little to do with biology.

So you can identify as black based on how you act, regardless of anything biological?

 

[PRB]

Nobody ever said ancestry didn't exist. So is that what races are? People's ancestry?

Race is the amalgammation of differences DUE TO ancestry. Relations are relative, a person born in England before there was mass immigration and airplanes is "more" related to a person in Greece vs China & Africa.

Acknowledging that races are social constructs doesn't have anything to do with PC. It's science.

too often people confuse the fact that social constructs means either ancestry doesn't matter, or that skin color is no indication of ancestry, neither are completely true.

 

[PRB]

Which is it? Does it not exist or does it exist?

The English language doesn't exist but for humans inventing it and using it.

Either way, what you just described, that race doesn't exist in nature, only in human terms, is exactly the truth. It's like language, culture, or religion. It's not something that scientists can discover.

Scientists can't find the lines that divide, but they can assign relative relations.

Races are categorical labels that have the meaning we as society agree to give them through constant negotiation by way of our use of the labels. Of course, none of this means that races don't exist. Races exist as social constructs just like languages, cultures, and religions exist.

People who say "it's a social construct" want to mean "it doesn't exist without humans recognizing it, and we should stop recognzing it".

So you can identify as black based on how you act, regardless of anything biological?

You can lie about anything, but if you want to act black, you'll be treated black regardless of your skin color.

 

[liveandletlive]

Is he gonna take a test or what? this countrys obsession with race is surely unhealthy however.

 

[Peace&Freedom]

He's just a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude. Ain't nuthin' butta thang.

 

[erowe1]

Race is the amalgammation of differences DUE TO ancestry. Relations are relative, a person born in England before there was mass immigration

There is no such thing. Before mass immigration there were no people born in England. Everyone ever born there is descended from people born elsewhere.

If race is an amalgamation of differences due to ancestry, or, as Paleolibertarian said, phenotypes, then we could take a population of a bunch of males and females, none of whom identify as black, and selectively breed their children to result in descendants at some point who have the right amalgamation of genetically inherited traits to match your definition of black, although none of their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on all the way back to the population of this initial population were black.

I don't have any problem with calling such a person "black." But if that's what blackness is, and if there is no clear line demarcating how much someone's phenotype has to match the archetype of blackness you want to use, it follows that this guy in the OP can consider himself black without being objectively wrong, and if he does, then he's not lying when he says so.

 

[erowe1]

The English language doesn't exist but for humans inventing it and using it.

The same is true of racial categories.

Scientists can't find the lines that divide, but they can assign relative relations.

What does this have to do with race?

People who say "it's a social construct" want to mean "it doesn't exist without humans recognizing it, and we should stop recognzing it".

Some people might mean that. But that's not where the claim comes from. It's a scientific fact. Anthropologists don't stop using racial categories just because they know they're social constructs.

You can lie about anything, but if you want to act black, you'll be treated black regardless of your skin color.

Ergo, race is more than just an amalgamation of differences due to ancestry. It also includes how a person acts.

 

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

What amalgamation of observable differences is required to classify someone as black? How dark does their skin have to be? How curly does there hair have to be? What objective criteria are there? And is this list of criteria written down anywhere so that we can apply the requisite tests to any given person and determine what race they are, according to their composite amalgamation of observable traits?

If you have no African ancestry, you can't identify as someone who does. That is what "black" means.

 

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

Acknowledging that races are social constructs doesn't have anything to do with PC. It's science.

No it isn't. Race is biological.

 

[PRB]

No it isn't. Race is biological.

ancestry is biological, but the categories black/white/yellow are socially constructed and can change over time.

 

[PRB]

It also includes how a person acts.

No, that's ethnicity/culture. When liberals say "there is no race, only ethnicity" they mean there is only skin color that makes us look different, and behavior that we are taught after we're born, nothing makes human populations inherently different, and they're wrong.

 

[pcosmar]

No it isn't. Race is biological.

No it isn't. "Race" is an imaginary construct..

In Middle Earth or on Azeroth (fictional) there are Races. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Orc, etc.

Races are fictional.

There is only one human race. There are family lines (ancestry)and regional and cultural differences that have developed over time.
But we are all the same race,, and going back far enough,,all the same family.

 

[PRB]

The same is true of racial categories.


What does this have to do with race?

what you just said above, racial categories are social and artificial assignments, but ancestry is very much scientific. scientists don't say "if you're 25% African, you're not African enough to be black" but they will say "If you're 25% African, you're more African than a person who is 0% African, and less than a person who's 75% African" So while many people are not "purely white" or "purely black" which requires definite dividing lines, we can assign and calculate abundance/relative relation.

 

[PRB]

No it isn't. "Race" is an imaginary construct..

In Middle Earth or on Azeroth (fictional) there are Races. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Orc, etc.

Races are fictional.

There is only one human race. There are family lines (ancestry)and regional and cultural differences that have developed over time.
But we are all the same race,, and going back far enough,,all the same family.

So you're equally African as Barack Obama and equally Asian as Yao Ming?

Just because we are one species that can interbreed, doesn't mean there are no differences between us. Africans have dark skin, tend to have curly hair, and tend to have wider noses, east Asians (oriental) tend to have smaller eyes, less body hair and shorter overall body height..etc.

 

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

ancestry is biological, but the categories black/white/yellow are socially constructed and can change over time.

How we identify race is socially delineated, but what we base it on is biological.

 

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

No it isn't. "Race" is an imaginary construct..

In Middle Earth or on Azeroth (fictional) there are Races. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Orc, etc.

Races are fictional.

There is only one human race. There are family lines (ancestry)and regional and cultural differences that have developed over time.
But we are all the same race,, and going back far enough,,all the same family.

No, wrong. The races differ in muscle mass, fat distribution, hormone levels, skull shape, skull size, brain size and average IQ among other things. These are all biological differences. The races differ genetically.

 

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

Social construct. Yeah, sure.

 

[juleswin]

No it isn't. "Race" is an imaginary construct..

In Middle Earth or on Azeroth (fictional) there are Races. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Orc, etc.

Races are fictional.

There is only one human race. There are family lines (ancestry)and regional and cultural differences that have developed over time.
But we are all the same race,, and going back far enough,,all the same family.

If you want to know how much of a social construct race is, just get a baby and raise that baby in some country side community where only one race exists. Raise that kid till he is 8 or 9 and then take him/her to the city. I promise that he would point it out the second he sees someone different from his own race.

I think the lines that is put on race maybe a social construct but race itself has basis in reality.