4 ms·

I don't understand your distinction or the underlying mental model you're using. I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born

I don't understand your distinction or the underlying mental model you're using. I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape. A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide. For example, in ancient Rome slavery was widespread, but there was no skin color distinction. Slaves differed from free mostly by clothing. Once they were free, they could change clothes and change their lives. That didn't happen in the US, and as a result skin color discrimination often got written right into the legal code. Such a thing would have been impractical in many regimes in which slavery was practiced.

dragonwriter 9y ago
> I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape. Race is a social construct, not a biological fact. (This is evidenced by the fact that racial identities shift, both “organically” and as the result of deliberate societal engineering; the effort in revolutionary México typified by La Raza Cósmica is an example of a (significant in effect, though incompletely successful) attempt at the latter. Now, it's true that both of these processes tend to be slow, and the context of race in which you were born is likely (providing you don't move to a different part of the world) to be the one in which you live your whole life, or at least the variation will be small, but that's not because race is inherent, just that the socisl attribution of race evolved slowly most of the time. > A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide. Racial identity is always a social divide; it may or may not be a significant social divide in general, in specific, concrete terms in the modern US, however, it's the second most significant such divide, behind that of economic class.
- angersock 9y ago
  >* Race is a social construct, not a biological fact.* Odd, given the known epidemiology of sickle-cell anemia and other known issues like the alcohol flush reaction (Asian glow).

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I don't think of race as a social divide, rather as something that you're born with and can't escape. Race is a social construct, not a biological fact. (This is evidenced by the fact that racial identities shift, both “organically” and as the result of deliberate societal engineering; the effort in revolutionary México typified by La Raza Cósmica is an example of a (significant in effect, though incompletely successful) attempt at the latter. Now, it's true that both of these processes tend to be slow, and the context of race in which you were born is likely (providing you don't move to a different part of the world) to be the one in which you live your whole life, or at least the variation will be small, but that's not because race is inherent, just that the socisl attribution of race evolved slowly most of the time. > A social divide can crop up around it, but race in and of itself does not necessarily have to create a divide. Racial identity is always a social divide; it may or may not be a significant social divide in general, in specific, concrete terms in the modern US, however, it's the second most significant such divide, behind that of economic class.

angersock 9y ago
>* Race is a social construct, not a biological fact.* Odd, given the known epidemiology of sickle-cell anemia and other known issues like the alcohol flush reaction (Asian glow).