-Caveat Lector-
Today, the Left is where most modern racism is found. Except for some
deranged KKK types (probably mostly FBI informers), most of the blatant
racism is promulgated by the "politically correct" Left who thrive on
tribalism and racialist stereotypes.
flw
>>AMONG THE GREAT disservices of the self-proclaimed objective
media has been to perpetuate the unscientific and non-objective concept
of race. Now, thanks to Americans tired of being defined by others and a
Census Bureau giving them new freedom to say who they are, the whole
idea of race is starting to crumble. Which isn't to say that the media has
fully caught on.NPR's Diane Rehm is still fretting about the "mixed race
issue." The Christian Science Monitor is confused as well: "The census
puts Spanish-speaking blacks both in the 'black' category and the 'Hispanic'
category. This overlap makes exact comparisons difficult. Should all
Hispanics be compared to all blacks or just non-Hispanic blacks?"
And this from the Washington Post:
"Levonne Gaddy, of Tucson, president of the Association of Multi-Ethnic
Americans, said the number of multiracial Americans was lower than she
expected but added, 'We're very pleased that we have gotten this far.'
Gaddy, who checked white, African American, and American Indian on her
census form and also wrote in 'multiracial,' does not think much of the
standard racial categories used in census forms and public discourse.
"'When I see the word 'race,' I cringe, because I don't see there is much
connected to the word," she said. 'It's not about biological purity. I don't
see the word 'race' as really being a valid word to express anything except
about what we socially think about this concept..'
"But some academic experts and civil rights groups worried that such
personal philosophies do not reflect political reality . . . "
Apparently unbeknownst to the Post, those "academic experts" who have dealt
most intimately with the subject, anthropologists, have been trying to
explain to reporters and others for decades that there is no biologically
sustainable definition of race. This isn't a matter of "personal philosophy"
but one of fact. But for reasons ranging from the cultural, to the
bureaucratic, political and racist, we have tacitly accepted the fiction of
race. And those who are meant to set us straight on such things -- reporters
- have gone right along with the myth.
In fact, what are considered the genetic characteristics of race are often
the result of cultural habit and environmental adaptation. As far back as
1785, a German philosopher noted that "complexions run into each other."
Julian Huxley suggested in 1941 that "it would be highly desirable if we
could banish the question-begging term 'race' from all discussions of human
affairs and substitute the noncommittal phrase 'ethnic group.' That would be
a first step toward rational consideration of the problem at hand."
Anthropologist Ashley Montagu in 1942 called race our "most dangerous myth."
Yet in our conversations and arguments, in our media, and even in our laws,
the illusion of race has been given great credibility. As a result, that
which is transmitted culturally is considered genetically fixed, that which
is an environmental adaptation is regarded as innate and that which is
fluid is declared immutable.
Many still hang on to a notion similar to that of Carolus Linnaeus, who
declared in 1758 that there were four races: white, red, dark and black.
Others make up their own races, applying the term to religions (Jewish),
language groups (Aryan) or nationalities (Irish). Modern science has little
impact on our views. Our concept of race comes largely from religion,
literature, politics, and the oral tradition. It comes creaking with all the
prejudices of the ages. It reeks of territoriality, of jingoism, of
subjugation, and of the abuse of power.
DNA research has revealed just how great is our misconception of race. In
'The History and Geography of Human Genes,' Luca Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford
and his colleagues describe how many of the variations between humans are
really adaptations to different environmental conditions (such as the
relative density of sweat glands or lean bodies to dissipate heat and fat
ones to retain it). But that's not the sort of thing you can easily build a
system of apartheid around. As Thomas S. Martin has written: "The widest
genetic divergence in human groups separates the Africans from the
Australian aborigines, though ironically these two 'races' have the same
skin color . . . There is no clearly distinguishable 'white race.' What
Cavalli-Sforza calls the Caucasoids are a hybrid, about two-thirds Mongoloid
and one-third African. Finns and Hungarians are slightly more Mongoloid,
while Italians and Spaniards are more African, but the deviation is
vanishingly slight."
The Census Bureau deserves our thanks for helping us start to see ourselves
>>as we really are.
HOW TO GET ALONG WITH OTHER AMERICANS http://prorev.com/ethnic.htm
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