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Re: What Are the Race Deniers Denying?
Peter Koliatsis (koliatsi@ix.netcom.com)
Wed, 02 Oct 1996 23:22:09 GMT
On 1 Oct 1996 14:42:41 GMT, Susan <rgq101@uriacc.uri.edu> wrote:
>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!
By "sociological differences" do you mean disadvantages because of
income or do you mean a classification based on a person's looks? It
seems that a lot of people have argued that ending affirmative action
based on race and making it a matter of economic disadvantage solves
the racial classification problem while still helping the
disadvantaged? Why not end race as a classification and substitute for
it a needs criteria based on income or other disadvantages not tied to
how curly your hair is or how dark your skin is?
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