Re: Races of Man (was Re: Tolkien and the ruin of Fantasy)

Messiah (js63@cornell.edu)
Mon, 11 Nov 1996 13:25:09 -0800

It has not been concluively proven that the American Indians immigrated
form Asia, other people hythosize connections to Africa or Europe. For
instance, both Mexico and Egytp have pyramids, is there a connection?
If a researcher really wants to, he can find evidence to back up his
claim. That's why one looking atthe work of others, ypou must take
researcher bias into accout.

While one can tell the diffrence between groups, and the differences
between grousp is easier to tell than others, it's still completely
arbitary. There are as many races as the person doing the
classificatrion want there to be. Also, people are taught to think
racially, and different people have different perceptions. I took took
the entire sprectrum of human skin clolr from whitest and one end, and
blackest at the other end, do you think we could get people to agree
atthe point in which black becomnes white? Of course not. Governments
are resposible for classifying people racially. For instance, Lena
Horne and Vanessa Williams are considered black in theUS, but in Cuba
and Brazil, among moany other Latin AMerican nations, they'de be
considered mulatto or white. Even in the US before 1930, these two
women wouldn't have been considered black. Many people in the US are
trained to see such people as balck, but in the other countries of the
western Hemisphere, people may be trained to see them as white or
mulatto.

The genetic differences between humans and other primates is 2%.
However, the genetic differences between human individuals is .02%, and
betwen races, it's even samller. Besides, somewhere between 3 and six
genes control skin color, and there are millions of genes on a
chromosone. So someone could be white in apperance, yet they could more
geentically similar to Nelson mandela because they simply got they skin
color genes from the white side of their family. Or it could work that
way in reverse or with any other race. A medical student who works in a
clinic recently told a white patient that he had sickle cell anemia.
The WHite guy wnet hysterical. Sucke cell anemia is found in blacks
from a certain region of West Africa. So this eans that this man, white
in appearance, had black ancestry(as do many whites). thopugh he got
the sickle cell gene from the black side of his family, he clor and hair
and facil feature genes were from the white side, I am sure he got many
other genes from the black ancestor. I eoubt if anyone can come up with
a genetic basis for races, in the Western Hemisphere, all the
eastablished familes are mixtures betwen balcks , Indians, and Whites,
and on other continets, people are equally mixed, I know many
mulattoes(black/white mixtures), that could easly pass for Greek,
Italian, French, or Arab. This people are mixed as well, thereis no such
things a a pure race!