4 ms·

I was watching the Olympics opening ceremony with my young son and he noticed that, at least in some cases, people from particular countries share a skin color.

by exitb 2y ago

I was watching the Olympics opening ceremony with my young son and he noticed that, at least in some cases, people from particular countries share a skin color. Was I supposed to tell him that he's mistaken and we indeed don't know why that appears to happen? Yes, races can mix which also mixes their features, making them difficult to singularly classify. But is it necessary to not notice that in some cases larger populations have not mixed for a while and developed a common set of features?

scotty79 2y ago
You should explain to him that when people live in certain places for many generations some adaptations to local environment happen in their bodies. Then you could explain how it's a fairly recent thing that skin of some people got white because of living in relatively low light environment for millenia. As people now have have ability to move freely and freely eat food from around the globe this artifact of being stuck in one place will eventually disappear. But for now we can enjoy how differently people can look while being generally the same.
- dotancohen 2y ago
  > some adaptations to local environment happen in their bodies That is an excellent description of how different races came to diverge, thank you! I especially like that it emphasizes our common ancestry - we are all human.
  - gregjor 2y ago
    A good explanation of how and why specific combinations of genes get concentrated in relatively isolated populations. What we call “race” historically got based on superficial features, not analysis of similarities in DNA. It turns out that sometimes those correspond, and sometimes they don’t. Indonesians and Brazilians have similar ranges of skin color (melanin) for the same reason — adaptation to sun exposure — but only distant common ancestors and very different histories.
    - dotancohen 2y ago
      Does anyone consider Indonesians and Brazilians to be a single race? I think that your comment addresses a strawman that nobody stated. If you are discounting the idea that colour is a singular indicator of race, then yes I agree with you. But that does not mean that race, as a whole, does not exist.
      - gregjor 2y ago
        I was pointing out that people can end up with similar superficial features without common heritage. I doubt anyone considers Indonesians and Brazilians the same race, but then again I’m pretty sure a large number of Americans would call both “black.” As evidence I offer the fake “race” Americans call Hispanic or LatinX, a definition that includes people with very different genetic and social heritages, and one mostly rejected by members of the supposed Hispanic race. That’s a political construct and convenience, not a real thing in any sense. Race exists as a social construct. Collections of genes concentrated in a population describe something, I called it heritage. Sometimes the social construct and the heritage correspond, sometimes not. “African” only describes a race based on superficial features, not genetic variation. I live in east Asia among people I (white American) always thought of as members of the same race, Asian. But I have learned that the people here have different racial definitions and boundaries, more tuned to their own social constructs and ideas about heritage and history. No doubt people from the African continent have different ideas about race than I got raised with. So in that sense “race” is a social construct, because different societies have different and conflicting definitions. Which do we call correct? My American/western notion of Asian as a race, or the definitions the people of Asia use?
      - defrost 2y ago
        I don't think anybody seriously considerd either "Indonesian" nor "Brazillian" to be racial categories or groupings. What is the precise unambiguous definition of "race" in any case? With Brazil you have a country in which a small few were rumoured to be exact clones of Hitler ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Brazil_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Brazil_(novel) ) a greater majority who are descended from European colonizers and former African slaves and a small number who "pure" descendants from the some 2,000 different tribal groups once totalling some 7 million people prior to the 1500 CE European contact. Indonesia is a similar construct - it's a political boundary about many many distinct ethnologies from some 17,000 islands and over a quarter billion people.
huimang 2y ago
The issue here is slight genetic differences and/or phenotypes are being construed as significant enough to mark people as a different -race- of human, which significantly plays into racism. Whereas my understanding is Africa itself has more genetic diversity than the typical races that been demarcated more for political reasons.

by exitb 2y ago

scotty79 2y ago

You should explain to him that when people live in certain places for many generations some adaptations to local environment happen in their bodies. Then you could explain how it's a fairly recent thing that skin of some people got white because of living in relatively low light environment for millenia. As people now have have ability to move freely and freely eat food from around the globe this artifact of being stuck in one place will eventually disappear. But for now we can enjoy how differently people can look while being generally the same.

dotancohen 2y ago
> some adaptations to local environment happen in their bodies That is an excellent description of how different races came to diverge, thank you! I especially like that it emphasizes our common ancestry - we are all human.
- gregjor 2y ago
  A good explanation of how and why specific combinations of genes get concentrated in relatively isolated populations. What we call “race” historically got based on superficial features, not analysis of similarities in DNA. It turns out that sometimes those correspond, and sometimes they don’t. Indonesians and Brazilians have similar ranges of skin color (melanin) for the same reason — adaptation to sun exposure — but only distant common ancestors and very different histories.
  - dotancohen 2y ago
    Does anyone consider Indonesians and Brazilians to be a single race? I think that your comment addresses a strawman that nobody stated. If you are discounting the idea that colour is a singular indicator of race, then yes I agree with you. But that does not mean that race, as a whole, does not exist.
    - gregjor 2y ago
      I was pointing out that people can end up with similar superficial features without common heritage. I doubt anyone considers Indonesians and Brazilians the same race, but then again I’m pretty sure a large number of Americans would call both “black.” As evidence I offer the fake “race” Americans call Hispanic or LatinX, a definition that includes people with very different genetic and social heritages, and one mostly rejected by members of the supposed Hispanic race. That’s a political construct and convenience, not a real thing in any sense. Race exists as a social construct. Collections of genes concentrated in a population describe something, I called it heritage. Sometimes the social construct and the heritage correspond, sometimes not. “African” only describes a race based on superficial features, not genetic variation. I live in east Asia among people I (white American) always thought of as members of the same race, Asian. But I have learned that the people here have different racial definitions and boundaries, more tuned to their own social constructs and ideas about heritage and history. No doubt people from the African continent have different ideas about race than I got raised with. So in that sense “race” is a social construct, because different societies have different and conflicting definitions. Which do we call correct? My American/western notion of Asian as a race, or the definitions the people of Asia use?
    - defrost 2y ago
      I don't think anybody seriously considerd either "Indonesian" nor "Brazillian" to be racial categories or groupings. What is the precise unambiguous definition of "race" in any case? With Brazil you have a country in which a small few were rumoured to be exact clones of Hitler ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Brazil_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boys_from_Brazil_(novel) ) a greater majority who are descended from European colonizers and former African slaves and a small number who "pure" descendants from the some 2,000 different tribal groups once totalling some 7 million people prior to the 1500 CE European contact. Indonesia is a similar construct - it's a political boundary about many many distinct ethnologies from some 17,000 islands and over a quarter billion people.

huimang 2y ago

The issue here is slight genetic differences and/or phenotypes are being construed as significant enough to mark people as a different -race- of human, which significantly plays into racism. Whereas my understanding is Africa itself has more genetic diversity than the typical races that been demarcated more for political reasons.