Re: What Are the Race Deniers Denying?
Susan (rgq101@uriacc.uri.edu)
1 Oct 1996 14:42:41 GMT
Bob Whitaker <bwhit@conterra.com> wrote:
>Stephen Barnard wrote:
>>
(stuff snipped for band width!)
>> If race is a myth then it shouldn't be part of the census. Even if it
>> isn't a myth then a case can be made that it shouldn't be part of the
>> census.
>>
>> Steve Barnard
>
>
> In case you hadn't noticed, the "anti-racists"(anti-whties) are
>perfectly consistent about this: the white race exoists if they are
>saying something nasty about it, it does not exist if someone is saying
>something good about it.
> More generally, the "anti-racists" always insist that race exists
>when they want quotas, integration, to to chase down whites who don't
>want to associate with nonwhites with "low-cost" housing, or white
>majority countries which want to restrict immigration. This is all
>"white racism" and race is pushed by them to "cure" it.
> When it is pointed out that all their ethnic balance programs are
>targetted at whites, suddenly the white race is impossible to define and
>suddenly ceases to exist once again.
> I can't believe you hadn't noticed that.
If I get the time, I will reply to some of the other comments here. But
in the moment that I have, I just want to point out what looks like a
basic misunderstanding here. "Race" as it is generally used by
anthropologists is a biological term, which refers to physical
differences between groups. It is often also used colloquially to refer
to sociologically defined differences, but there is a significant
difference between the two. Developing programs and setting legislation
on the basis of sociological differences is often called "raced based",
but is in fact a recognition of the sociological differences between
people (for example, many of the beneficiaries of Head Start are African
American, but the deficiencies which the program makes up for have to do
with economics and access to adequate schooling, not to the simple fact
of being African American).
So it is not contradictory to state, on the one hand, that some groups
are disadvantaged and need help to rectify that disadvantage, while also
maintaining that the BIOLOGICAL concept of race is not particular valid
or useful in dealing with human populations.
And as a side note, the sloppy usage of the term "race" is part of the
problem with the whole concept!
Susan
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"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps."
-- Emo Phillips
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