Hate Crime Against White People

[rainbow]

What are you suggesting? That there are no races?

Yes. No scientific basis behind this mythology.

Move on, you are just as good a person as the next one, even if they have a darker skin, or a flat nose.

Let me apologise for this.

I did not intend to imply that 42 is a Pasty-faced Bignose.

[Brian Peacock]

I'm wondering if those 4 persons with darkly pigmented skin who were beating up that mentally disabled person with a pale pigment to his skin pondered over the nature of this social construct we call "race" as they were shouting "fuck white people" and beating him. Clearly if they only understood the arbitrary nature of the racial classification they invoked they might have settled on a more concrete one like "fuck pale skins." I wonder if it was their shouting of the term "white people" that made them racists and their action a hate crime?

I'm not sure, but lets continue to obliquely impute racism to 42. That seems like a fun deflection of reality.

I'm sure those thugs didn't spare a single thought for the arbitrary constructs they define both themselves and their victim by. It's learned - they've been trained to think that people are fundamentally different according to skin colour, geography, etc. These assumptions run deep in society; so deep that some people think that a race is an actual specific, unique or discrete thing. Let's not impute those who challenge the entire edifice of race for somehow implying others are racists if they think a race is a real thing - that doesn't get us anywhere and only perpetuate the notion 'race' as a social, cultural and/or political battleground.

Those idiots who filmed themselves are bullies plain and simple - singling out a weak victim who they could easily dominate to bolster their own self-esteem. 'Race' is just an excuse for turpitude, as it so often is, not the cause.

Social constructs are real things, aren't they? Gender, they say, is a social construct. Are we to say that a person's gender is not "real?" That people don't really have a gender? They just imagine that they do? So, when a person says they are a woman trapped in a man's body, that's not real?

In the real world, there are black people, and there are white people, and they look different. That's one of the big reasons that people categorize them as different races - these aren't subspecies of humans, obviously, but there are differences among populations of humans that are used to categorize people into races.

If there were no such classifications, you couldn't have race discrimination laws. Our race discrimination laws do not prohibit discrimination against a person who merely "identifies" as a particular race. There is an objective component. that's the same as with people who claim that there are marginalized racial groups. A white guy does not become marginalized or systemically oppressed because he chooses to identify as black. So, there must be some category distinction, no?

Hmm. Anti-hate laws do not exist because race is a fact, they exist because hate is. Are we to take it that race classifications in law define discrete groups because otherwise the law couldn't tell if a racist was being a racist or not? If so, please provide the legal definitions of the different races?

Well, in order to bring a lawsuit for race discrimination, one must allege and aver that one was discriminated against based on one's race. Therefore, there must be such a thing as race.

if there is 'such a thing as race' then you surely will be happy to furnish us with the 'racial classification specifiers' which, of course, specify the different racial classes?? The presumed legal definitions of race would be of particular interest. Nonetheless, as I pointed out before (and below) the notions of race held by the discriminator are what are relevant to lawsuits and prosecutions for racial discrimination (or hate-crime), not the notions of race held by the victim.

If there is no such thing as race, then one could not claim to be a member of a race.

Nonsense. Does something exist simply because it is declared to exist? As I've said previously the notion that humans can be classified into discrete racial groups runs deep in society but, when you examine the basis of those classifications and what that means one notices that racial boundaries dissolve and fog the more one tries to pin them down. This is highlighted by your difficulty in defining those boundaries.

If you think that races exist as unique, discrete classes then you should have little trouble explaining the determinants of the classification schema, that is; you'll have no trouble listing or linking to the definitive list of 'racial classification specifiers' and explaining the formula by which every individual is placed within a particular class.

At the moment you seem to be saying that a race is a real thing because... well... just because we all know it is.

A race can be viewed as a group of people loosely bound together by historically contingent, socially significant elements of their morphology and/or ancestry.

Exactly what morphological and/or ancestral elements determine which of the (unspecified number of) race-group one belongs to, such that one is necessarily excluded from belonging to any other race-group? What is 'socially significant' here? Who is it significant to, and why?

Were there no groups of people loosely bound together by historically contingent, socially significant elements of morphology or ancestry, then there wouldn't be any races to hate. I.e., everyone would have the same historical, social, morphological and ancestral elements.

As mentioned previously (and below) noting similarities and differences is one thing, defining people in to discrete classes is another. Here you are saying that because culture and morphology varies then races necessarily exist, but you're still not telling me anything about the whys or hows, you're just asserting the existence of race as a kind of self-evident truth or as a kind of brute fact.

I return to my simple, straightforward question: What is a race, how many are there, and what specifically distinguishes one race from another?

Racism is the advocacy and/or promotion of differential treatment and regard based on an arbitrary distinction, usually skin colour.

Racism is generally defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. Not all arbitrary distinctions are racism. For example, discrimination based on height or weight or beauty would not generally be racist.

You seem to be arguing against something from you own imagination here because I in no way implied that all arbitrary distinctions are racism, just that racism was rooted in an arbitrary distinction. Racism is a form of bigotry and people can be bigots about all sort of things can't they? And how is 'prejudice, discrimination and antagonism' different from 'the advocacy and/or promotion of differential treatment and regard'? You're just recasting the language but adding nothing to the pot.

What makes a racist a racist, rather than a sexist or a fattist, is that their notion of race, as comprising distinct, discrete groups, is brought to the justification of their views actions. But again, that some (and perhaps even most) people think that races are a real distinguishing classification is only really a factor in racism when a racists uses it as an excuse to regard and treat others differently - as I said before, racists rarely say that their own asserted race-group membership justifies that others should treat them harshly, discriminate against them, or abuse them.

Under legal statutes there is often a separate discrimination based on "color" as distinct from discrimination based on "race."

Please show relevance.

The racist maintains that, as they see it, an individual's race-group membership justifies that differential treatment and regard, the conditions for which are something usually applied by racists to others. Racist very rarely say that they should be treated unfairly, discriminated against, denigrated or abused because of their own race-group membership - that is almost always reserved for others. As the UK law on hate-crimes is framed it makes absolutely no difference if a victim is a member of this or that group, only that the perpetrators think they are and act on that basis. So, no, the existence of anti-hate laws and hate crimes does not depend on race being a real, actual thing formed of discrete, unique, identifiable classes.

There are people who belong to different races, distinct from whether any perpetrator thinks they belong to different races.

For someone to 'belong' to a race-group that race-group must exist, so please list or link to the list of races that people can, and I guess you would maintain must, belong to.

That notwithstanding, what I think you mean here is that people identify with, align themselves with, and/or embrace certain collective identities; I'm Black, I'm White, I'm Chinese-American, I'm Afro-Celtic, etc etc. While I don't disavow this, what I'm saying is that collective identities are not discrete race-groups unless, that is, somebody can identify the (presumably) impermeable social/cultural boundary between race-groups defined in those terms. But is this really what you mean by race?

If it were then saying: I'm German-American, I'm Italian-American, I'm a Cubs fan, I'm Country to the core, once a Marine always a Marine, I'm a Science Nerd, etc etc, would distinguish racial identities too, wouldn't it - and if not why not?

Acknowledging commonalities and differences is a long way from declaring that discrete and exclusive classes of humans are real and exist, and if you are of the opinion that certain combinations of commonalities and differences identify the different races then surely one also has to acknowledge the essential arbitrary nature of that classification?

For example, you have colleges and universities today suggesting that it is a "microaggression" to say that there is no such thing as race, or that we are all one race, the human race. That's because they belong to racial groups who have been oppressed, and so they view the suggestion that there are no racial groups as negating their experience.

Is that what you think or are you just trying to move the discussion onto what you consider safer ground?

So some think think that 'in the real world' because black and white people have a different skin tone then they can be legitimately classified into different race-groups.

Legitimacy has nothing to do with it. Black and white people are different races, precisely because they have significant morphological distinctions. That doesn't mean they are different species or subspecies. That just means they're different races.

Fine, they've noted a difference.

Indeed, the differences are the source of the classifications.

So, are you saying that racial classification is not legit now?

Yes, black skin is different to white skin. Now the question is, why or how is this not an arbitrary distinction, and, as I said before (and below), does it mean that we are to determine the range and bounds of race-group membership by reference to a colour chart? Does this person belong to the Black or White race-group for example?



How many groups must we create in order to fully populate the myth of race?

Yet is this the only race-group determinant? What about hair or eye colour? What about height or weight? What about musical preferences or whether people drink white or red wine with fish?

Generally - the races would be generally Europid, Mongoloid, African and Australoid. Hispanic, for example, is not a race, but an origin issue, someone with heritage from a spanish speaking country. Latin would be someone with heritage from a Latin country. So, Brazilians are generally Latin but not Hispanic, for example, and their race can be Europid, Mongoloid, African or Austaloid depending on their features and ancestry.

For one, if race is real and distinct races exist then generalities cannot apply. And for two, on what basis do we determine if a person belong to these Europid, Mongoloid, African and Australoid goups? Are you saying that race is a historical or genetic classification?

What about the person who is neither black nor white, neither one nor the other, do they get their own racial category, and then what about the person who is between the intermediate class and the outlier?

People can be mixed race.

Which means absolutely nothing unless the boundary between the, for want of a better term, base-races can be determined and defined. Also, are all mixed race people of the same race, and if so wouldn't this not suggest that 'mixed' is the race that the majority of people belong to?

If skin colour is so informative are we to determine and define which race-group people belong with reference to a colour-chart (perhaps with the aid of an appendix on how manageable one's hair is), and if so how many categories will that eventually amount to?

I don't think it's that complicated. A person is black if they have dark skin and they would be African if ancestrally African, and Australoid if ancestrally from Australia and surrounding islands. That kind of thing. Richard Dawkins is Europid or Caucasian, even though he was born in Africa. We can all see he's white. He's not a black African. He's a white African.

It's apparent that you don't think this is a complicated matter - in fact you seem to suggest that it's a very simple matter and only made complicated by trying to explain how simple it is. OK, so you can't say what factors determine race-group membership, but you know one when you see one, right? How is this not arbitrary again?

Yes, with regards to this formulation of 'a race' I'm suggesting there are no races, just people with different skin tones...

Sure, but this is just semantics. The racial categories are taking the features such as skin tone and in connection with ancestry fitting people into a category we call a race. It's not only skin tone. For example, we don't call everyone who is dark racially African. An aboriginal Australian could be just as dark, and he'd be Australoid.

Again, how is this not arbitrary? After all, all of our ancestors came from Africa - does that mean we all belong to the African race? Who decides what skin-tone determines each race-group, and does it mean we change race when we get a tan?

...and in that I am saying that there is no rational or legitimate basis to classify people into discrete racial groups at all, nor to treat them differently on that basis.

If that's the case, then we better remove all affirmative action laws, since that treats people differently based on race. If there is no such thing as a racial group, then I as a white Europid person should be able to get affirmative action just as easily as another racial group.

You're happy to bemoan the assumptions of others but not so happy to explain your own or explain how they can be raised from the subjective mire of assumption into the cold light of fact.

Affirmative action programs are an attempt to normalise and integrate those groups who have traditionally been discriminated against on the basis of their perceived race-group membership. I would suggest that this is a social and cultural issue and does not automatically make race a real classification. As I have said already, these assumptions about racial distinctions and distinctiveness run deep, but they remain essentially arbitrary even while they have a certain cultural traction.

There are no 'White' boys and no 'Black' boys - just boys.

Oh, well, when a black guy is shot by a cop, there are certainly enough reports about his race to suggest you may be overstating the case a tad. The four kids in the video torturing the white kid were black.

That's a separate issue to whether races exist. Your argument here seems to boil down to an assertion that because people think that races are distinct class of humans, and that therefore they belong to this-or-that race-group, then they are actually and factually distinct classes of humans. I'd rather talk about what that actually and factually means.

Those who disagree with me merely have to define the absolute boundary between 'Black' and 'White', though I suspect that while most are unable to actually explain the factors which determine who belongs in which of the unspecified number of supposed discrete race-groups most self-proclaimed 'race-realists' will maintain the "But I know one when I see one" position. Bully for them.

I don't think they have to define an exact boundary. Not everything is mathematical precision. Why don't you ask an applicant for affirmative action how they know they are in a minority group? That's pretty much the same test.

You're shifting the goalposts here. If races is real and a race exists as distinct class of human, one that necessarily limits any individual's race-group membership to one and only one particular class, thereby excluding possible membership of all other groups, then defining the boundary between races is fundamental. If, on the other hand, the boundaries are fuzzy, and a person can in theory belong to more than one race-group, then the classification of a race is arbitrary and subjective. If race-group membership is arbitrary and subjective then a race cannot exist as a unique or discrete set or class. So which is it? If you maintain, as I do, that racial classification is arbitrary then what are you arguing against(?); and if you maintain that it is a classification that marks real, actual factual discrete classes of humans then please list all the races and demonstrate the basis of that classification.

And just to iterate a previous point: Racial divides are conceived of, bolstered and perpetuated by those who maintain that a 'race' is a specific or discrete class such that everybody has automatic race-group membership which necessarily excludes them from belonging to any other race-group. In other words, those who define humans into races perpetuate and maintain the racial divide.

Oh, well, I'm sorry about that. I hope you'll lecture people applying for affirmative action, or claiming to be members of an oppressed group. They must be maintaining the racial divide, then.

I'm not lecturing anyone. I'm questions assumptions about race while trying to explain my reasons for maintaining that the notion of race that most people take for granted, that a race is a distinct, exclusive, determinable class of humans, is wholly arbitrary and in many case prejudicial, and that the classification of people into these distinct race-groups is as illogical as it is socially divisive - even while the idea persists in society and may even exert considerable cultural force.

[rainbow]

Thank you, Brian, you said it better than I could.

[Forty Two]

I think you're overcomplicating it. A race is a group of people identified as distinct from other groups because of physical traits shared by the group. While there is as much genetic variation within racial groups as between the, there are still physical traits shared within such groups. That's why there are groups which can be classified as Europid/Caucasian, Mongoloid, Australoid or Negroid/Black. The fact that there are mixed race people, and the fact that it's not always crystal clear whether a person belongs to a given group doesn't mean there aren't the groups. All races, of course, belong to the same species.

In another context, the UN uses the term "ethnic groups" and there are over 5,000 recognized "ethnic groups." These are not genetic categories, and the features of an ethnic group are vague and ill-defined, and largely arbitrary. That doesn't mean there are no ethnic groups. There are. And, it's sometimes difficult to tell which ethnic group a person belongs to. It's that kind of thing.

Ethnic groups are not races. So, posting a picture of someone with a skin tone between black and white does not mean there are no races. Arabic folks, for example, tend to have a more olive complexion, but they aren't black. They're Caucasian. Folks from hispanic or latin countries are not in a separate racial group either. Most hispanic people are caucasian.

A common example of a microaggression is to say "there is only one race, the human race." http://sph.umn.edu/site/docs/hewg/microaggressions.pdf (similar policy in effect at the University of California).

[NineBerry]

You can separate all human beings into two groups: Those who are younger than 30 years. And those who are 30 years or older. These two groups exist. But this division is absolutely meaningless. You can define what you call races and then make up criteria to sort people into these races. But the criteria are as arbitrary as the division based on age.

[Forty Two]

You can separate all human beings into two groups: Those who are younger than 30 years. And those who are 30 years or older. These two groups exist. But this division is absolutely meaningless. You can define what you call races and then make up criteria to sort people into these races. But the criteria are as arbitrary as the division based on age.

Arbitrary or not, they exist. There is a division between those over 30 and those under. We have a division between children and adults. It's not a mathematical precision to find the line when a person stops being a child and becomes a teenager, and then an adult. Is it 18? Is it 21? Does it differ from person to person?

I don't need to be able to categorize every human being with mathematical precision to be able to say that there is such a thing as an adult, and there is such a thing as a child.

[NineBerry]

Stupid laws apply the distinction between children as adults as a sharp separation. Good laws recognize that their are differences between individuals with regard to their maturity.

[pErvinalia]

You can separate all human beings into two groups: Those who are younger than 30 years. And those who are 30 years or older. These two groups exist. But this division is absolutely meaningless. You can define what you call races and then make up criteria to sort people into these races. But the criteria are as arbitrary as the division based on age.

Arbitrary or not, they exist. There is a division between those over 30 and those under. We have a division between children and adults. It's not a mathematical precision to find the line when a person stops being a child and becomes a teenager, and then an adult. Is it 18? Is it 21? Does it differ from person to person?

I don't need to be able to categorize every human being with mathematical precision to be able to say that there is such a thing as an adult, and there is such a thing as a child.

The concept of races is about significant genetic difference (in aid of affirming inferiority/superiority). It's scientifically baseless in humans.

[Forty Two]

You can separate all human beings into two groups: Those who are younger than 30 years. And those who are 30 years or older. These two groups exist. But this division is absolutely meaningless. You can define what you call races and then make up criteria to sort people into these races. But the criteria are as arbitrary as the division based on age.

Arbitrary or not, they exist. There is a division between those over 30 and those under. We have a division between children and adults. It's not a mathematical precision to find the line when a person stops being a child and becomes a teenager, and then an adult. Is it 18? Is it 21? Does it differ from person to person?

I don't need to be able to categorize every human being with mathematical precision to be able to say that there is such a thing as an adult, and there is such a thing as a child.

The concept of races is about significant genetic difference (in aid of affirming inferiority/superiority). It's scientifically baseless in humans.

In that respect I'm in agreement. Humans are not separable into defined genetic groups, because there is more variation within any of the racial groups than have traditionally been recognized than between them. We're one species. However, race doesn't have to mean the groups are genetically distinct species. just as children are still human, and adults are still human, they are still groups that can be identified. There are black people. There are white people. These are extant groups, even though they are all genetically homo sapiens sapiens, and it is sometimes as difficult to know whether a specific individual is in one group or the other, as it is to know whether one individual is a child or an adult.

[Brian Peacock]

You can separate all human beings into two groups: Those who are younger than 30 years. And those who are 30 years or older. These two groups exist. But this division is absolutely meaningless. You can define what you call races and then make up criteria to sort people into these races. But the criteria are as arbitrary as the division based on age.

There are only 10 types of humans in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.

[Forty Two]

Stupid laws apply the distinction between children as adults as a sharp separation. Good laws recognize that their are differences between individuals with regard to their maturity.

Even outside of legal definitions, generally people can see there are children and there are adults.

[Forty Two]

There are blondes, brunettes and redheads, even though at the margins, it can sometimes be difficult to tell if a person is fits in one of those groups. They're still humans, though. These are not "myths."

[laklak]

Race is whatever people think it is, whether or not it has any scientific basis is immaterial. If someone says "look at that cracker" nobody looks at the black dude. You don't solve a problem be defining it out of existence.

[Jason]

Race is whatever people think it is, whether or not it has any scientific basis is immaterial. If someone says "look at that cracker" nobody looks at the black dude. You don't solve a problem be defining it out of existence.

[Brian Peacock]

There are blondes, brunettes and redheads, even though at the margins, it can sometimes be difficult to tell if a person is fits in one of those groups. They're still humans, though. These are not "myths."

Nobody thinks that blondes, brunettes and redheads are races, and yet people can be bigots about 'dumb blondes' and gingers as being one of Satan's minions. If one did live in a society where gingers were traditionally treated as second-class citizens then whether one was of the full-ginge or of the strawberry-blonde would be important. The classification of people into discrete groups according to the colour of their pubes is just as arbitrary as classifying people into discrete races according to some vague (and often unspecified) notions about what typifies this-or-that class or subset thereof.

Race is whatever people think it is, whether or not it has any scientific basis is immaterial. If someone says "look at that cracker" nobody looks at the black dude. You don't solve a problem be defining it out of existence.

Indeed. You solve problems by discussing them, trying to come to a rational understanding of the issues and then working through towards a solution that everyone can live with. To say that the concept of race is rooted in assumptions carried on the back of tradition not to define it out of existence - it just points to the subjective and arbitrary nature of the idea and how it's a poor basis by which to distinguish between people and/or decide on how they are or should be treated.