Subject: Re: On interracial relationships, or anything
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 1998 12:38:41 GMT

Adrian Riskin (ariskin@guinan.mps.org) wrote:
: In article ,
: >
: > Adrian Riskin (ariskin@guinan.mps.org) wrote:

: [snip]

: >
: > : The fact is that there is no way to define race consistently.  If you line
: > : up all the people in the world from darkest skin to lightest skin, you'll
: > : see a continuum.  Where you choose to draw dividing lines is totally
: > : arbitrary.
: >
: > Race is a social construct.

: We agree on this.  So now the question becomes, does the social construct
: reflect any aspects of reality relevant to the questions it is used to
: decide.

If, on the basis of racial difference, white folk justify
genocide, slavery, and land theft, as they have, then the
question is what is the moral debility in their make-up
or in their culture that permits such behavior, and from
what does it spring.

: >Where a given society chooses to
: > draw the line separating races is, I agree, arbitrary in some
: > sense.

: OK, but if it is arbitrary in some sense, I guess you mean that it isn't
: arbitrary in some other.  Could you be more explicit on which aspects of
: racial division you feel are not arbitrary, and in what sense they are not
: arbitrary?

If there are 128, say, degrees of mixing in a racially-mixed society,
yet only two or three racial categories, then the boundaries are
clearly arbitrarily drawn.  In America, the "middle" between 
Black and white has largely been excluded, in contrast say to
South Africa, or to the Caribbean, where white supremacy found it
convenient to invent a middle, "colored" group, as a buffer to
protect its minority position.  In America, with a white majority,
it suited them better to enforce a "one-drop" rule, lumping a
large mixed middle into the category "Black".  

: >The fact of its arbitrariness does not, however,
: > translate into its non-existence.  It does not even translate
: > into lack of consistency.  From where I sit, society's racial
: > classifications are pretty consistent, even for folks one might
: > think to occupy the "gray" area.

: I agree that arbitrariness does not translate into nonexistence or lack of
: consistency.  

Which ends the argument.

: I should have been more clear on what I meant by saying that
: race does not exist.  What I meant was that racial classifications do not
: reflect any aspect of objective reality, and therefore are useless as a
: basis for making decisions.  

Which you now reopen with yet more nonsense.

: People may be perfectly consistent about their
: classification schemes, and their classification schemes may be said to
: exist in their minds, but the question is always whether some relevant
: aspect of reality is captured in the classification scheme.

The relevant reality that needs to be addressed is
the moral debility of whitefolk that permits the planet-destroying,
misery-creating global system of racism (white supremacy).



: Adrian

"If you do not understand White Supremacy
(Racism)... everything *else* that you
understand will only confuse you."
			--Neely Fuller

	 

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