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But that’s not race. Race is explicitly about using visible differences to mark a group of people as a “lower” class. Race has nothing to do with genetics; it’

But that’s not race. Race is explicitly about using visible differences to mark a group of people as a “lower” class. Race has nothing to do with genetics; it’s a sociological invention. There are some correlations between ancestral heritage and disease prevalence at the population level, but because genetic disease susceptibility is generally are not visible to the naked eye, conditions cannot be “racist”. Skin color was chosen because it made it easier to identify escaped slaves, as all previous attempts to enslave people were difficult when the escaped slaves could blend in to the population. But other things like “Jewishness” or red hair have also been racialized at various points through history. There’s also the interesting phenomenon how the definition of “white” keeps changing. At first it meant only English immigrants, but was later extended to all Protestant immigrants, and much later to Catholics (Irish and Italian minorities). Its absolutely a made-up distinction, and we just group people with dark skin together because it’s a lazy shortcut.

Supermancho 5y ago
> Race is explicitly about using visible differences to mark a group of people as a “lower” class A. That is not the usage by definition. That may be your interpretation, but that's not the common usage. B. That is not the common way to determine race (visible differences). Genetic markers are generally the indicator (eg Ancestry.com). C. That is not the sole reason (mark people as lower class). There are medical reasons to know the genetic ancestry of your forefathers. The is easily described as "race" and is only useful in a very general practical sense insofar as it narrows the possibilities for investigation into genetic consequences. If anyone can point out a good reason in using it for more, that isn't looking to justify other or past behavior, I'd be interested in hearing about it. I might have missed something because I really don't think about race too much.
- rovolo 5y ago
  Race is correlated with and impacted by ancestry/genetics, but it is not how race is defined. For example, there is far more genetic diversity within Africa than outside of Africa. All of that diversity is mostly collapsed into "Black" in US racial classification though. So, questions for you, assuming you're in the US: how do you know whether people are Black? I am sure you at least know of some individuals who are Black, so how do you know that they are Black?
  - jhgb 5y ago
    > For example, there is far more genetic diversity within Africa than outside of Africa. All of that diversity is mostly collapsed into "Black" in US racial classification though. That's actually a very nice example of how genetics does matter for race because it shows the bottleneck of the small population that made it out of Africa.
    - rovolo 5y ago
      It shows how ancestry and race are somewhat related, but it doesn't show that genetics determine race. You can pick groups within "Black" who are more closely related to a random "White" person than they are to a random person from some other "Black" group. You can also pick "White" groups who are more closely related to a "Black" group than they are to other "White" groups. You can group people based on genetic similarity, but the racial classification of these genetic clumps is socially defined.
      - jhgb 5y ago
        > You can pick groups within "Black" who are more closely related to a random "White" person than they are to a random person from some other "Black" group. Sure, for an arbitrarily restricted definition of "subgroup", you can do that. Worst case of cherrypicking, you pick some two specific individuals who would satisfy your scenario (since a one-person group is also a group). Likewise you could claim that West Berlin was more similar to East Berlin because Frankfurt was much further away from both than they were to each other. Not quite sure how cherrypicking matters, though.
        rovolo 5y ago
        For East/West Berlin, that shows that geographic closeness doesn't determine national boundaries. The national boundary can be defined in terms of geography, but geography doesn't determine national boundaries. National boundaries are defined by people. Similarly, racial boundaries are not natural genetic boundaries. Racial boundaries are defined by people. They weren't defined in terms of genetics originally, they were social and legal definitions. You could try to define race in terms of genetics, but it wouldn't exactly match historical categorizations and it won't conform to any natural genetic differences.
- wayoutthere 5y ago
  This is some eugenics shit; I expected better from HN. How can you tell who is black from who isn’t? There are light skinned people who pass for white, and dark skinned people who don’t. Sometimes this is even within the same family with the same parents. What percentage of “black” DNA counts as “black”? Is it 25%? 10%? How can you actually measure that (the “ancestry maps” you get from sites like ancestry.com are pure fantasy with a loooooot of questionable assumptions baked in if you look into the actual science behind them). You can have African ancestry without being considered black. You can have dark skin and have a majority of European ancestry as well (which is true of many dark-skinned people in the US given the propensity of slave owners to “make their own” new slaves). Which is more important — the African ancestry or the European ancestry? Are genes associated with dark skin more powerful or something?
IncRnd 5y ago
> Race is explicitly about using visible differences to mark a group of people as a “lower” class. That's not the definition of either Race or Racism but something you created as a definition. It's not something you should use to correct others.
jhgb 5y ago
> Race has nothing to do with genetics; it’s a sociological invention. I'm pretty sure that modern genetics disagrees. You can predict your "sociological invention" from multiple genetic markers in like 99.9% of cases or something like that. It's hard to argue that "A has nothing to do with B" if B extremely successfully predicts A.
- rovolo 5y ago
  Nations are sociological inventions. If I know where (& when) on Earth you were born, I can predict your nationality with extreme precision. Does this mean that nationality is a natural geographic categorization?

Supermancho 5y ago

> Race is explicitly about using visible differences to mark a group of people as a “lower” class A. That is not the usage by definition. That may be your interpretation, but that's not the common usage. B. That is not the common way to determine race (visible differences). Genetic markers are generally the indicator (eg Ancestry.com). C. That is not the sole reason (mark people as lower class). There are medical reasons to know the genetic ancestry of your forefathers. The is easily described as "race" and is only useful in a very general practical sense insofar as it narrows the possibilities for investigation into genetic consequences. If anyone can point out a good reason in using it for more, that isn't looking to justify other or past behavior, I'd be interested in hearing about it. I might have missed something because I really don't think about race too much.

rovolo 5y ago
Race is correlated with and impacted by ancestry/genetics, but it is not how race is defined. For example, there is far more genetic diversity within Africa than outside of Africa. All of that diversity is mostly collapsed into "Black" in US racial classification though. So, questions for you, assuming you're in the US: how do you know whether people are Black? I am sure you at least know of some individuals who are Black, so how do you know that they are Black?
- jhgb 5y ago
  > For example, there is far more genetic diversity within Africa than outside of Africa. All of that diversity is mostly collapsed into "Black" in US racial classification though. That's actually a very nice example of how genetics does matter for race because it shows the bottleneck of the small population that made it out of Africa.
  - rovolo 5y ago
    It shows how ancestry and race are somewhat related, but it doesn't show that genetics determine race. You can pick groups within "Black" who are more closely related to a random "White" person than they are to a random person from some other "Black" group. You can also pick "White" groups who are more closely related to a "Black" group than they are to other "White" groups. You can group people based on genetic similarity, but the racial classification of these genetic clumps is socially defined.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      > You can pick groups within "Black" who are more closely related to a random "White" person than they are to a random person from some other "Black" group. Sure, for an arbitrarily restricted definition of "subgroup", you can do that. Worst case of cherrypicking, you pick some two specific individuals who would satisfy your scenario (since a one-person group is also a group). Likewise you could claim that West Berlin was more similar to East Berlin because Frankfurt was much further away from both than they were to each other. Not quite sure how cherrypicking matters, though.
      - rovolo 5y ago
        For East/West Berlin, that shows that geographic closeness doesn't determine national boundaries. The national boundary can be defined in terms of geography, but geography doesn't determine national boundaries. National boundaries are defined by people. Similarly, racial boundaries are not natural genetic boundaries. Racial boundaries are defined by people. They weren't defined in terms of genetics originally, they were social and legal definitions. You could try to define race in terms of genetics, but it wouldn't exactly match historical categorizations and it won't conform to any natural genetic differences.
wayoutthere 5y ago
This is some eugenics shit; I expected better from HN. How can you tell who is black from who isn’t? There are light skinned people who pass for white, and dark skinned people who don’t. Sometimes this is even within the same family with the same parents. What percentage of “black” DNA counts as “black”? Is it 25%? 10%? How can you actually measure that (the “ancestry maps” you get from sites like ancestry.com are pure fantasy with a loooooot of questionable assumptions baked in if you look into the actual science behind them). You can have African ancestry without being considered black. You can have dark skin and have a majority of European ancestry as well (which is true of many dark-skinned people in the US given the propensity of slave owners to “make their own” new slaves). Which is more important — the African ancestry or the European ancestry? Are genes associated with dark skin more powerful or something?

IncRnd 5y ago

> Race is explicitly about using visible differences to mark a group of people as a “lower” class. That's not the definition of either Race or Racism but something you created as a definition. It's not something you should use to correct others.

jhgb 5y ago

> Race has nothing to do with genetics; it’s a sociological invention. I'm pretty sure that modern genetics disagrees. You can predict your "sociological invention" from multiple genetic markers in like 99.9% of cases or something like that. It's hard to argue that "A has nothing to do with B" if B extremely successfully predicts A.

rovolo 5y ago
Nations are sociological inventions. If I know where (& when) on Earth you were born, I can predict your nationality with extreme precision. Does this mean that nationality is a natural geographic categorization?