Re: There are racists; but no races.

Thomas L. Billings (itsd1@teleport.com)
Thu, 09 Jan 1997 22:56:37 -0800

In article <5b3ff4$b98@canyon.sr.hp.com>, mikep@sr.hp.com (Mike Powell) wrote:

> Michael Ballard (miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
> : On 7 Jan 1997, Mike Powell wrote:

> : > Michael Ballard (miballar@leland.Stanford.EDU) wrote:
> : > : It is generally accepted now that modern humans originated in
> : > : Africa about 100,000 years ago. Our family tree is rooted in
> : > : Africa. There is only one race, the human race. Unfortunately
> : > : though, there are many people who have grown up within a
racist
> : > : system of dogmas and practices which lead them to perpetuate
> : > : social structures which result in oppression of their fellow
> : > : workers. More's the pity, as a working class divided
will always
^^^^^^^
> : > : be defeated.

> : > There are no "workers", only people (humans) ... who do work.
> : >
> : > This is generally accepted (but not by everyone).
> : >
> : > -mp-

> : We do NOT live in a classless society:

> We do not live in a raceless society.

Which comments are BOTH true. They are also indicative of the value of
the concepts of race and class for predicting human behaviors. I've come
to regard them as equivalent in social science to what Earth, Air, Fire,
and Water were for Chemistry, for 2000 years. Concepts which seem to work
somewhat, as long as thorough and quantitative predictions and
measurements are NOT made.

Just as a chemist would not deny the existence of Earth, Air, Fire, and
Water, I would not deny the concepts of either class or race. I wouldn't,
however, say they tell us anything more about human behavior than their
physical counterparts did about chemistry.

Regards,

Tom Billings

-- 
Institute for Teleoperated Space Development
itsd1@teleport.com(Tom Billings)
ITSD's web site is at, http://www.teleport.com/~itsd1/index.html