Re: BELL CURVE CRITIC EXPOSED?

James Nicoll (james_n@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca)
Fri, 3 Feb 1995 15:21:44 GMT

In article <3gsqu3$ssg@agate.berkeley.edu>,
<jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>dexter@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Frosch) wrote:
>
>> >james_n@coulomb.uwaterloo.ca (James Nicoll) wrote:
>>
>> >> What race are Africans*, then?
>>
>> >African.
>
>> i don't understand. what makes 'african' a race (even in a
>> social sense)? is 'new zealander' a race?
>
>Personally, I think that "aboriginal Africans" hardly form
>a race. But if the previous poster insists on naming some
>race that spans all of Africa, why not "African"?
>
>By the way, the previous poster did specify that he wanted a racial
>name for "aboriginal" Africans, excluding the descendents of
>white settlers, etc. Perhaps my excision of that qualification
>threw you for a loop.

Not quite. Here's the complete posting:

In article <3gp0bt$qnp@agate.berkeley.edu>,
<jerrybro@uclink2.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>pn8886@csc.albany.edu (Phil Nicholls) wrote:
>
>> The "guesses" are based on superfical phenotypic traits, not on
>> any information about ancestry.
>
>Only when there is no such information available. Whatever
>the guesses are based on, they are *about* ancestry. If, for
>example, someone were to identify me as black, and then discovered
>that I was in fact a dark-pigmented Hindu, I'd expect him to
>admit his error. "Black" means "African-American".

What race are Africans*, then?

James Nicoll

* Those Africans not of recent European or Asian origins, I mean.

*****************************************************************************

I was curious, given that "Black" means "African-American"
and that Americans (African or otherwise) make up a relatively small
fraction of the African population, how you classified Africans. Are
Africans Black, do you think?

James Nicoll

-- 
"I'm glad I saw the galaxy, but I want to die in Brooklyn."