Re: Ethnic
Eric N Shook (enshook@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu)
22 Apr 1995 06:07:38 GMT
Vincenzo Bitti (MC4631@mclink.it) wrote:
: Hello !
: I would like to start a thread about the meaning
: of the word/adjective "ethnic"
: What is an "ethnic group"
: how differ from other similar
: like population, tribe and....race ?
Well, I am certain that others will sincerely answer your question,
but I thought that a little sarcasm couldn't hurt:
Races do not exist now, and never really did. But, to really
understand this you must scratch the surface of the topic to get
beyond issues of color, and into issues of genetics. Now if we can
only arrange for every bigot to study genetics instead of filling all
of their time just inbreeding generation after generation......
(Remember, this is _all_ laden with sarcasm.)
We are working on eliminating tribes in general, but then again, the
family values movement in America may be working against that in some
unseen way (heck, they seem to be working against evolution..........
as I just noted above). Regardless, we are diligently working at
eliminating at least natural tribes.
As far as populations go, we are wearing those down as well. We are
slowly polluting them and crowding them out of their ecosystems,
whether they are trees, or humans. But really, we are all waiting
for some small country to get the bomb so that we can hold a limited
nuclear exchange (sounds sexy, doesn't it?) and dispense with
populations as well. Recently it seems that the Fundamentalists in
Iran seem to be working towards nuclear weapons capability. I can only
say that they, too, are for family values, as this seems to be a theme
which runs through all of the worlds fundamentalist movements.
Ethnic groups are, on the other hand, here to stay. Whether they
were once identified as being part of a race, a tribe, or a specific
population, we can identify their ethnicity by what they did before
they stopped being capable of doing anything at all.
Now, I can only apologize for what seems to be such seething
negativity about the state of the world, but I watched too many
environmentalist shows recently. I fully intend to get in all of the
public television viewing that I can before it, too, ceases to exist.
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