Black or White...

[zoltanspawn]

I am black. I cannot change that. I may take on a different nationality.. a different culture, but my race is black. My two parents are black. That is completely fixed.

I can choose to identify however I want to, but that does not change my racial background.

Your culture is not part of your DNA. Your nationality is not part of your DNA. The analogy does not fit. A braindead black man without a nation.. without a thought in his mind is still black. The same cannot be said of nationality, culture, gender identification, etc.

I guess I see the question of racial identity as broader than a question of DNA. Yes, that's pretty inflexible. But I think that there are cultural and historical dimensions in our understanding of race that are much more flexible.

 

[zoltanspawn]

It isn't a useful analogy at all. One can change their nationality at any time, subject to whatever rules or restrictions or requirements a given nation has for citizenship. One cannot change their race.

This discussion is an attempt to educate you on why the analogy is useless-- it is not the discussion of a "useful analogy" between citizenship and race.

The condescension.

 

[xbuzzerx]

The condescension.

Well, how many people do you need to line up and tell you the same thing about race being fixed?

This discussion really isn't rocket science and I'm unsure where your obtuseness on it is coming from other than an unwillingness to acknowledge the very simple answers you are receiving.

 

[bankside]

http://qz.com/427519/rachel-dolezal-is-not-transracial/

This article is full of nonsense, mostly about whiteness.

 

[xbuzzerx]

This article is full of nonsense, mostly about whiteness.

It wasn't nonsense at all. But I'm very well acquainted with your studied refusal to acknowledge race.

 

[LuckysRevenge]

I guess I see the question of racial identity as broader than a question of DNA. Yes, that's pretty inflexible. But I think that there are cultural and historical dimensions in our understanding of race that are much more flexible.

Racial identity sure. But I'm talking about my race. Not what I identify as. I can racially identify as Asian but I'm not.

 

[mbamike]

I come from a racially mixed heritage. Which race should I choose?

 

[sixthson]

I come from a racially mixed heritage. Which race should I choose?

You don't get to choose. You are what you are. You are of mixed heritage. You do get to choose culturally, however.

Personally, I prefer the use of "ethnicity" rather than "race". There are many ethnicities, but only one race: the human race.

 

[xbuzzerx]

You don't get to choose. You are what you are. You are of mixed heritage. You do get to choose culturally, however.

Personally, I prefer the use of "ethnicity" rather than "race". There are many ethnicities, but only one race: the human race.

You are in a position to live by that preference.

Remember Professor Louis Gates, who lived in an affluent, gated white suburb, and taught at Harvard, and was on television doing special programming on DNA lineage and tracing the origins of celebrities back through history? Did his choice of "culture" have a bearing when someone saw him in his own neighborhood at his own house and called the police because they thought it was suspicious a black man was in a gated affluent community?

There are a lot of white Americans who basically give some line amounting to "I choose not to think about race, it's just culture and ethnicity." Well, they are the only ones who get to do that. So it gets tiresome when there is an implication that they're doing it right and it's how all the rest of us should see it too.

 

[mikey3000]

Maybe it's time to define the term:

race*(reɪs) n

1.*(Anthropology*&*Ethnology)*a*group*of*people*of*common*ancestry,*distinguished*from*others*byphysical*characteristics,*such*as*hair*type,*colour*of*eyes*and*skin,*stature,*etc.*Principal*races*areCaucasoid,*Mongoloid,*and*Negroid

2.*(Anthropology*&*Ethnology)*the*human*race*human*beings*collectively

3.*(Biology)*a*group*of*animals*or*plants*having*common*characteristics*that*distinguish*them*fromother*members*of*the*same*species,*usually*forming*a*geographically*isolated*group;*subspecies

4.*a*group*of*people*sharing*the*same*interests,*characteristics,*etc:*the*race*of*authors.

5.*play*the*race*card*to*introduce*the*subject*of*race*into*a*public*discussion,*esp*to*gain*a*strategicadvantage


Biology plays a major role in determining race.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Biology plays a major role in determining race.

If you mean biology determines skin tone, yes absolutely.

The idea that skin tone tells you anything meaningful about this type of human being different along with his or her whole group, no. The formation of race around visual appearance was, originally, arbitrary. It was easy to do. But people imparted to it, and continue to do this, all kinds of ideas about the whole race being more or less capable, or intelligent, or hardworking, or civilized which have no basis from, or relationship to, protein sequences that determine melanin level in the skin.

 

[kallipolis]

If you mean biology determines skin tone, yes absolutely.

The idea that skin tone tells you anything meaningful about this type of human being different along with his or her whole group, no. The formation of race around visual appearance was, originally, arbitrary. It was easy to do. But people imparted to it, and continue to do this, all kinds of ideas about the whole race being more or less capable, or intelligent, or hardworking, or civilized which have no basis from, or relationship to, protein sequences that determine melanin level in the skin.

Accurate...

...............for the thought that appearances can be deceptive, is well rehearsed, and proven by human life.