Come Oh Ye Rational Thinkers...and explain race theory to me

[JuliaL]

I'm not white. I'm more of a tasteful beige.
If pressed, I will self identify as African-American though my ancestors took a
fifty thousand year break in their passage to the New World to hang out in
northern Europe.

Race is a leftover cultural concept from the age of expansion of the English/French/Spanish/Dutch/Portugese used to rationalize the subjugation of pretty much everyone they met outside Europe. Other folks, like the Japanese, had similar xenophobic concepts, but were less effective in implementing their empires.

Some current populations would like to keep the old usage, but accumulated knowledge of biology and culture has undermined its justifications.
Others use it as a rhetorical strategy by which they can trump disagreement or stifle discussion.

[dyresand]

One would think and i think this way why separate humanity socially even further were already humans we shouldn't be putting people and or races into categories it's like cool you got dark skin
your ancestors lived in a harsh hot ass environment or oh hey you have fair skin and no dark skin your ancestors must have live in a area with 4 seasons. I mean the whole thing with race separation needs to end
we are already separated by thousands of other things including religion and world views lets toss race aside and keep that one locked away.

[FlyingSpaghettiMonster]

I really don't care about ethinicty honestly, As a hispanic I don't care about what stereotypes people may have about me. The only thing I care about is if people are being politically incorrect light heartedly and not being serious, or whether they really do hate people from other countries. There might be persecution of white people and for obvious reasons, for slaughtering, raping, and enslaving and are always the punching bag and the big bad for many minorities. But honestly as long as people of all colors treat me human, I don't care I hold no prejudices for any person of any color who is willing to treat people with respect and acceptance.

[tantric]

aren't certain races supposed to be more prone to certain illnesses, and I think I heard people of east asian decent are more sensitive to alcohol aswell?

There are gene lines, yes, and the East Asian Blush is true, but they don't track with 'races' at all. And, generally, they are mixed and mixed again, so that it'd be impossible to make neat categories.

---

I'm not white. I'm more of a tasteful beige.
If pressed, I will self identify as African-American though my ancestors took a
fifty thousand year break in their passage to the New World to hang out in
northern Europe.

Race is a leftover cultural concept from the age of expansion of the English/French/Spanish/Dutch/Portugese used to rationalize the subjugation of pretty much everyone they met outside Europe. Other folks, like the Japanese, had similar xenophobic concepts, but were less effective in implementing their empires.

Some current populations would like to keep the old usage, but accumulated knowledge of biology and culture has undermined its justifications.
Others use it as a rhetorical strategy by which they can trump disagreement or stifle discussion.

Back in the 80's during my first trip to cali, I was talking to this black guy, who said, "Yeah, I'm pretty buff" - I looked at him and said "you're really more mocha"

(buff=muscular)

[Thumpalumpacus]

I object to having that crap applied to me, especially by people who take it as natural law. Likewise, I don't appreciate being classified as an infidel my Muslims. It's technically correct, but it's irrational crap and I find it offensive on that basis. I don't like being seen as an archetype based on my Zodiac. So? Don't look at me and call me 'white'. Don't read my genome and call me 'black'. And please note that my status as an Asian is only honorary. I want to be classed, racially, as Human.

I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about what others think of myself, really.

[vorlon13]

For some more fun with weird racial stuff, look at all the stuff the Mormons have come up with.

And the frosting on the cake was their late 70s repudiation of the race crap. God relented on the harsh overt racism at the beseechment of the Mormon hierarchy, and then once they got God on board, they were able to go ahead with being totally not racist like they wanted to be all along.

[Dystopia]

Human races exist... people, get over it.
And, statistically speaking, some races excel on some tasks, while others excel on other tasks... may be a cultural thing, though, but the correlation is there.

I'd say physically blacks and whites are better at some some sports but apart from that I don't see any reason why it's not cultural. Blacks score lower on IQ tests but blacks are, all over the world, overwhelmingly poor, less educated and more religious.

That said, I have no problem if you apply a statistically relevant stereotype, like... blacks have longer penises than any other race.
But the wrong kind of stereotype grinds gears.... like... native americans are dumber than asians.

The difference isn't that big as people put it

Apart from that... anything is game.
Did you know that, in portuguese, the polite word to describe a black person is "negro" (same word as in english, but the 'e' reads a bit like eh and all 'o's at the end of words sound like a curt 'u')? And if you use the translation of "black" (preto), you get the non-politically correct version!
These are just two words that describe the same color we use when painting... and with paint, no one cares if you use preto or negro.
We have another color that also gets two words to describe it, red: encarnado, vermelho.... yeah, none of them are even remotely similar to the spanish rojo, or the french rouje. Although the portuguese "roxo" (reads like rho-chu) is purple... Kinda makes you wonder that we went a bit sideways when we decided to name colors, compared with the rest of Europe.

I never use the word negro, I figured blacks are offended if I use it, they prefer preto.



OP

My vision on race is the following:

Biologically, there are minor differences but they are not enough to justify lumping humans into categories. There is no such thing as a 100% pure bloodline

Culturally and socially YES - Race exists and it's still a thing. With race comes culture, religion, habits, language, customs. For minorities race can be a very important uniting characteristic of their people. Ending racism isn't achieved by simply not talking about - Quite the opposite, we have to talk about it and discuss race.

Saying race doesn't exist dismisses terrible experiences everyone might have suffered because of skin colour. I'm going to give an easy example - Many people say "Jew" isn't a race/ethnicity, and that's basically ignoring the amounts of anti-semitism that still exists (In Europe it's more acceptable than "Islamophobia") - Not to mention the majority of anti-semitism isn't religiously driven, it's racially and economically based. So yeah, you may think Jew isn't a race but there are two groups who target Jews for race - Muslims and the far right

[Losty]

"if you want to be Black"

This is where I stopped reading

[Neo-Scholastic]

The OP has a point. Racial categories are not biologically valid ways of classifying people. Instead racial/ethnic distinctions reflect cultural identity. Its a separation between 'us' and 'them' for personal/social/political reasons. Cultural identity comes from a variety of factors, language, food, geography, genetic traits, religion, etc. FWTW, the same goes for gender. People either have the Y chromosome or they don't.

[Anomalocaris]

........ This could go on for hours.

And it's going to.