On Saturday 25 Feb 2012 2:15:10 pm Chew Lin Kay wrote: > Throwing a comment out there until I find more brain space to deal with > it--there is diversity of race, there is diversity of religion, there is > diversity of class.
Disclaimer: I ask for forgiveness in advance. I mean no harm, but as I get older I find myself writing things that probe innocent "innermost feelings" that people may have and end up causing anger. Please assume goodwill. Chew Lin Kay used the expression "diversity of race" and that sparked off a series of thoughts in my mind. There was a time maybe from the 1800s to the early 1900s where "science" actually believed that humans occured in "races". Races were not defined on any objective metric but usually on physical characteritics like skin color and shape of nose or some feature visible to humans. Shape and size of nose became an impotant way of recognizing superior and inferior races - with Aborigines and people of African origing occupying the lowermost rung. I recently unearthed a book printed around the 1902-1910 period that belonged to my grandfather. It's called "The Living Races of Mankind". Here is a scan of page ii of the introduction that classifies humans into three races that would be as distinct as different species (as chimp and gorilla) - if there had not been so much cross breeding between them. http://i1116.photobucket.com/albums/k566/bennedose/LRM-intro-ii-part.jpg This sort of "science" directly fed racism based on a tenuous mix of fake anthropolgy and theories sourced from Biblical tales of Hamitic races. I don't think we are different races because that word carries too heavy a burden of history. We might have different ethnic origins. May I also use this opportunity to link on here a Nursery rhyme that was available in shops in India in the early 1960s. I have the original 45 RPM record of about 20 rhymes, but this one is about the Ten Little Nigger Boys" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkb4rP6Jq1Q shiv
