4 ms·

The photos are nice, but the ones that talk about "skin color" are usually "anti-racists". Actual racists, to the extent that they care about biological race,

The photos are nice, but the ones that talk about "skin color" are usually "anti-racists". Actual racists, to the extent that they care about biological race, are interested in the entire phenotype, the statistical groupings of traits like hair color, eye color, facial features, head shape, length, body structure and yes, also skin color. Africa is full of tribes with similar skin colors that are only very remotely related, often more genetically diverse than Russians and Basques. (There are of course also lots of _different_ skin colors in Africa!) Calling them all "Black" is just reductionist and frankly racist.

arketyp 5y ago
>Calling them all "Black" is just reductionist and frankly racist. But you just said actual racists care about statistical groupings of traits. Seems then that the "anti-racists" would be more prone to that kind of reduction.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  They are, only talking about skin colour is way more reductionist that taking the entire phenotype, and history, into account.
  - SamBam 5y ago
    "The anti-racists are the real racists," eh?
    - Grustaf 5y ago
      A lot of them are. But racists are also racists.
SamBam 5y ago
The book in the post explicitly makes that point. It shows multiple people who might be labeled different races with the exact same skin color, for instance. It's making the point that skin color is far more diverse than simplistic ideas of race, and far less-correlated to race than one might think. I think seeing everyone in a multi-dimensional spectrum, in which the viewer occupies one point and is not simply on one side of some line, like they might simplistically imagine, does a lot to show our commonality.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  > It's making the point that skin color is far more diverse than simplistic ideas of race, and far less-correlated to race than one might think. My point is that very few actual racists (outside the US, at least) think in terms of skin colour, so if that is the purpose of the book it seems to miss the target. I would say that it is the skin colour concept that is simplistic and meaningless though, it is race that is a diverse and interesting concept, related to biology, geography, migrations etc. Skin colour is just one out of hundreds of characteristics, and arguably one of the least interesting and meaningful ones.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Calling them all "Black" is just reductionist and frankly racist. When Black activists talk about Black with a capital “B”, they are referring to a shared identity group, not a skin color. Now, its true that the name of the identity group has origin in other people's description based on skin color, but that’s history, not meaning.
- Grustaf 5y ago
  Sure, in a way that's just a historical accident, they could have used some other word, I'm not really talking about that. I'm more about skin colour discussions in general, as if that was the important thing for anyone. I feel it's kind of a straw-man, very few biologically oriented "anti-black" racists look at albinos differently. They dislike them just as much, the literal "skin color" is not relevant.

arketyp 5y ago

>Calling them all "Black" is just reductionist and frankly racist. But you just said actual racists care about statistical groupings of traits. Seems then that the "anti-racists" would be more prone to that kind of reduction.

Grustaf 5y ago
They are, only talking about skin colour is way more reductionist that taking the entire phenotype, and history, into account.
- SamBam 5y ago
  "The anti-racists are the real racists," eh?
  - Grustaf 5y ago
    A lot of them are. But racists are also racists.

SamBam 5y ago

The book in the post explicitly makes that point. It shows multiple people who might be labeled different races with the exact same skin color, for instance. It's making the point that skin color is far more diverse than simplistic ideas of race, and far less-correlated to race than one might think. I think seeing everyone in a multi-dimensional spectrum, in which the viewer occupies one point and is not simply on one side of some line, like they might simplistically imagine, does a lot to show our commonality.

Grustaf 5y ago
> It's making the point that skin color is far more diverse than simplistic ideas of race, and far less-correlated to race than one might think. My point is that very few actual racists (outside the US, at least) think in terms of skin colour, so if that is the purpose of the book it seems to miss the target. I would say that it is the skin colour concept that is simplistic and meaningless though, it is race that is a diverse and interesting concept, related to biology, geography, migrations etc. Skin colour is just one out of hundreds of characteristics, and arguably one of the least interesting and meaningful ones.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Calling them all "Black" is just reductionist and frankly racist. When Black activists talk about Black with a capital “B”, they are referring to a shared identity group, not a skin color. Now, its true that the name of the identity group has origin in other people's description based on skin color, but that’s history, not meaning.

Grustaf 5y ago
Sure, in a way that's just a historical accident, they could have used some other word, I'm not really talking about that. I'm more about skin colour discussions in general, as if that was the important thing for anyone. I feel it's kind of a straw-man, very few biologically oriented "anti-black" racists look at albinos differently. They dislike them just as much, the literal "skin color" is not relevant.