SHARPTON'S TALE NO BIG DEAL
[Although anthropologists have recognized for decades that "race" is a
social rather than a biological concept, advances in DNA have brought
this reality to a wider audience. Still, the major media doesn't like to
deal with it and so implicitly or explicitly continues to give race
biological status. Courtland Milloy's column is a striking exception]
COURTLAND MILLOY, WASHINGTON POST - So Sharpton, civil rights activist,
is descended from a slave owned by relatives of segregationist senator
Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Big deal. How about whether Sharpton
is descended from Mandinka royalty in Mali or sheep herders in Gambia?
Better yet, trace Al to Lucy, the graceful Australopithecus anamensis,
"First Humanlike Woman of the World," who lived in Ethiopia about 3.2
million years ago. Now we're talking genealogy.
Otherwise, we're just splitting hairs on a gnat's butt. Can we move into
the 21st century, please? The encoded human genome ought to render such
Sharpton-Thurmond connections as insignificant knots on a dead "family
tree." It's a forest out there, and everything is tangled up. . .
As research historian Frank W. Sweet wrote in a 2004 online essay about
race and DNA, we are inextricably mixed, right down to the marrow of our
bones. If scientists find a certain genetic marker "at position 16q24.3
of your 16th chromosome," Sweet wrote, "then it is two-out-of-three
times likely that you inherited it from a sub-Saharan ancestor."
Little wonder that researchers have determined that "some so-called
'black' Americans [about 5.5 percent] have less DNA admixture of African
ancestral origin than do some so-called 'white' Americans." And we're
not talking about "black" people who knowingly "pass for white." These
are "white" people who'd probably have a heart attack if somebody told
them the truth -- that they were nobody special, just ordinary human
beings. . .
If Sharpton really wants to muse on such minutia, he might consider
this: About one-third of so-called "white" Americans have been found by
geneticists to possess 2 to 20 percent of recent African admixture.
That's roughly 74 million whites. For all he knows, Thurmond could be a
descendant of the Sharpton clan. Then, instead of Al expressing "shock,"
we'd have Strom rolling in his grave. Big deal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/02/27/AR2007022701559.html
SAM SMITH, GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL REPAIR MANUAL, 1997 - The most
important fact about race: It doesn't really exist. At least not the way
many Americans think it does. There is simply no undisputed scientific
definition of race. What are considered genetic characteristics are
often the result of cultural habit and environmental adaptation. As far
back as 1785, a German philosopher noted that "complexions run into each
other." Julian Huxley suggested in 1941 that "it would be highly
desirable if we could banish the question-begging term 'race' from all
discussions of human affairs and substitute the noncommittal phrase
'ethnic group.' That would be a first step toward rational consideration
of the problem at hand." Anthropologist Ashley Montagu in 1942 called
race our "most dangerous myth."
Yet in our conversations and arguments, in our media, and even in our
laws, the illusion of race is given great credibility. As a result, that
which is transmitted culturally is considered genetically fixed, that
which is an environmental adaptation is regarded as innate and that
which is fluid is declared immutable.
Many still hang on to a notion similar to that of Carolus Linnaeus, who
declared in 1758 that there were four races: white, red, dark and black.
Others make up their own races, applying the term to religions (Jewish),
language groups (Aryan) or nationalities (Irish). Modern science has
little impact on our views. Our concept of race comes largely from
religion, literature, politics, and the oral tradition. It comes
creaking with all the prejudices of the ages. It reeks of
territoriality, of jingoism, of subjugation, and of the abuse of power.
DNA research has revealed just how great is our misconception of race.
In The History and Geography of Human Genes, Luca Cavalli-Sforza of
Stanford and his colleagues describe how many of the variations between
humans are really adaptations to different environmental conditions
(such as the relative density of sweat glands or lean bodies to
dissipate heat and fat ones to retain it). But that's not the sort of
thing you can easily build a system of apartheid around. As Thomas S.
Martin has written:
"The widest genetic divergence in human groups separates the Africans
from the Australian aborigines, though ironically these two 'races' have
the same skin color. . . There is no clearly distinguishable 'white
race.' What Cavalli-Sforza calls the Caucasoids are a hybrid, about
two-thirds Mongoloid and one-third African. Finns and Hungarians are
slightly more Mongoloid, while Italians and Spaniards are more African,
but the deviation is vanishingly slight.
Regardless of what science says, however, myth can kill and cause pain
just as easily as scientific truth. And regardless of what science says,
there are no Japanese players in the NBA or, as anthropologist Alice
Brues told Newsweek, "If I parachute into Nairobi, I know I'm not in
Oslo."
In fact, give or take a few thousand years, it's unlikely that those of
a Nordic skin complexion would stay that way living under the African
sun. Similarly, the effects of a US diet are strong enough that the
first generations of both European and Asian Americans have found
themselves looking up at their grandchildren.
In such ways adaptation mimics what many think of as race. But who needs
science when we have our own eyes? If it looks like race, that's good
enough for us.
Further, we are obsessed with the subject even as we say we wish to
ignore it. A few years back, a study of urban elections coverage found
five times as many stories about race as about taxes.
We can't even agree on what race is. In the 1990 census, Americans said
they belonged to some 300 different races or ethnic groups. American
Indians divided themselves into 600 tribes and Latinos into 70
categories.
If we are going to insist on dividing people by race, we should at least
use comparisons more up-to-date than those thought up centuries ago.
Here are a few suggestions based on modern science
Basis of comparison: Front teeth
New Guinean-Germans
Japanese-Estonians
Celtic-Indians
Ability to digest milk
Swedish-Indians
Nose length
Norwegian-Arab-Nigerians
English-Algerians
Even as we talk endlessly of race and ethnicity, we simultaneously go to
great lengths to prove that we are all the same. Why this contradiction?
The answer can be partly found in the tacit assumption of many that
human equity must be based primarily on competitive equality. Listen to
talk about race (or sex) and notice how often the talk is also about
competition. The cultural differences (real or presumed) that really
disturb us are ones of competitive significance: thigh circumference,
height, math ability and so forth. We accept more easily other
differences -- varieties of hair, degree of subcutaneous fat, prevalence
of sickle cell anemia -- because they don't affect (or affect far less)
who gets to the top.
Once having decided which traits are important, we assign causes to them
on the basis of convenience rather than fact. Our inability to sort out
the relative genetic, cultural, and environmental provenance of our
differences doesn't impede our judgment at all. It is enough that a
difference is observed. Thus we tend to deal neither with understanding
what the facts about our differences and similarities really mean -- or,
more importantly, with their ultimate irrelevance to developing a world
where we can live harmoniously and happily with each other. We don't
spend the effort to separate facts from fiction because both cut too
close to our inability to appreciate and celebrate our human
differences. It is far easier to pretend either that these differences
are immutable or that they don't exist at all.
And so we come to the Catch-22 of ethnicity. It is hard to imagine a
non-discriminatory, unprejudiced society in which race and sex matter
much. Yet in our efforts to reach that goal, our society and its
institutions constantly send the conflicting message that they are
extremely important.
For example, our laws against discriminatory practices inevitably
heighten general consciousness of race and sex. The media, drawn
inexorably to conflict, plays up the issue. And the very groups that
have suffered under racial or sexual stereotypes consciously foster
countering stereotypes -- "you wouldn't understand, it's a black thing"
-- as a form of protection. Thus, we find ourselves in the odd position
of attempting to create a society that shuns invidious distinctions
while at the same time -- often with fundamentalist or regulatory fervor
-- accentuating those distinctions.
In the process we reduce our ethnic problems to a matter of regulation
and power, and reduce our ambitions to the achievement of a tolerable
stalemate rather than the creation of a truly better society. The
positive aspects of diversity remain largely ignored and
non-discrimination becomes merely another symbol of virtuous citizenship
-- like not double-parking or paying your taxes.
Martin Luther King said once: "Something must happen so as to touch the
hearts and souls of men that they will come together, not because the
law says it, but because it is natural and right."
Sorry, Martin. Our approach to prejudice and discrimination is not
unlike our approach to drugs: We plan to simply rule them out of
existence. In so doing, we have implicitly defined the limits of virtue
as merely the absence of malice.
ORDER THE REPAIR MANUAL
http://prorev.com/order3.htm
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[Although anthropologists have recognized for decades that "race" is a
social rather than a biological concept, advances in DNA have brought
this reality to a wider audience. Still, the major media doesn't like to
deal with it and so implicitly or explicitly continues to give race
biological status. Courtland Milloy's column is a striking exception]
COURTLAND MILLOY, WASHINGTON POST - So Sharpton, civil rights activist,
is descended from a slave owned by relatives of segregationist senator
Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Big deal. How about whether Sharpton
is descended from Mandinka royalty in Mali or sheep herders in Gambia?
Better yet, trace Al to Lucy, the graceful Australopithecus anamensis,
"First Humanlike Woman of the World," who lived in Ethiopia about 3.2
million years ago. Now we're talking genealogy.
Otherwise, we're just splitting hairs on a gnat's butt. Can we move into
the 21st century, please? The encoded human genome ought to render such
Sharpton-Thurmond connections as insignificant knots on a dead "family
tree." It's a forest out there, and everything is tangled up. . .
As research historian Frank W. Sweet wrote in a 2004 online essay about
race and DNA, we are inextricably mixed, right down to the marrow of our
bones. If scientists find a certain genetic marker "at position 16q24.3
of your 16th chromosome," Sweet wrote, "then it is two-out-of-three
times likely that you inherited it from a sub-Saharan ancestor."
Little wonder that researchers have determined that "some so-called
'black' Americans [about 5.5 percent] have less DNA admixture of African
ancestral origin than do some so-called 'white' Americans." And we're
not talking about "black" people who knowingly "pass for white." These
are "white" people who'd probably have a heart attack if somebody told
them the truth -- that they were nobody special, just ordinary human
beings. . .
If Sharpton really wants to muse on such minutia, he might consider
this: About one-third of so-called "white" Americans have been found by
geneticists to possess 2 to 20 percent of recent African admixture.
That's roughly 74 million whites. For all he knows, Thurmond could be a
descendant of the Sharpton clan. Then, instead of Al expressing "shock,"
we'd have Strom rolling in his grave. Big deal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2007/02/27/AR2007022701559.html
SAM SMITH, GREAT AMERICAN POLITICAL REPAIR MANUAL, 1997 - The most
important fact about race: It doesn't really exist. At least not the way
many Americans think it does. There is simply no undisputed scientific
definition of race. What are considered genetic characteristics are
often the result of cultural habit and environmental adaptation. As far
back as 1785, a German philosopher noted that "complexions run into each
other." Julian Huxley suggested in 1941 that "it would be highly
desirable if we could banish the question-begging term 'race' from all
discussions of human affairs and substitute the noncommittal phrase
'ethnic group.' That would be a first step toward rational consideration
of the problem at hand." Anthropologist Ashley Montagu in 1942 called
race our "most dangerous myth."
Yet in our conversations and arguments, in our media, and even in our
laws, the illusion of race is given great credibility. As a result, that
which is transmitted culturally is considered genetically fixed, that
which is an environmental adaptation is regarded as innate and that
which is fluid is declared immutable.
Many still hang on to a notion similar to that of Carolus Linnaeus, who
declared in 1758 that there were four races: white, red, dark and black.
Others make up their own races, applying the term to religions (Jewish),
language groups (Aryan) or nationalities (Irish). Modern science has
little impact on our views. Our concept of race comes largely from
religion, literature, politics, and the oral tradition. It comes
creaking with all the prejudices of the ages. It reeks of
territoriality, of jingoism, of subjugation, and of the abuse of power.
DNA research has revealed just how great is our misconception of race.
In The History and Geography of Human Genes, Luca Cavalli-Sforza of
Stanford and his colleagues describe how many of the variations between
humans are really adaptations to different environmental conditions
(such as the relative density of sweat glands or lean bodies to
dissipate heat and fat ones to retain it). But that's not the sort of
thing you can easily build a system of apartheid around. As Thomas S.
Martin has written:
"The widest genetic divergence in human groups separates the Africans
from the Australian aborigines, though ironically these two 'races' have
the same skin color. . . There is no clearly distinguishable 'white
race.' What Cavalli-Sforza calls the Caucasoids are a hybrid, about
two-thirds Mongoloid and one-third African. Finns and Hungarians are
slightly more Mongoloid, while Italians and Spaniards are more African,
but the deviation is vanishingly slight.
Regardless of what science says, however, myth can kill and cause pain
just as easily as scientific truth. And regardless of what science says,
there are no Japanese players in the NBA or, as anthropologist Alice
Brues told Newsweek, "If I parachute into Nairobi, I know I'm not in
Oslo."
In fact, give or take a few thousand years, it's unlikely that those of
a Nordic skin complexion would stay that way living under the African
sun. Similarly, the effects of a US diet are strong enough that the
first generations of both European and Asian Americans have found
themselves looking up at their grandchildren.
In such ways adaptation mimics what many think of as race. But who needs
science when we have our own eyes? If it looks like race, that's good
enough for us.
Further, we are obsessed with the subject even as we say we wish to
ignore it. A few years back, a study of urban elections coverage found
five times as many stories about race as about taxes.
We can't even agree on what race is. In the 1990 census, Americans said
they belonged to some 300 different races or ethnic groups. American
Indians divided themselves into 600 tribes and Latinos into 70
categories.
If we are going to insist on dividing people by race, we should at least
use comparisons more up-to-date than those thought up centuries ago.
Here are a few suggestions based on modern science
Basis of comparison: Front teeth
New Guinean-Germans
Japanese-Estonians
Celtic-Indians
Ability to digest milk
Swedish-Indians
Nose length
Norwegian-Arab-Nigerians
English-Algerians
Even as we talk endlessly of race and ethnicity, we simultaneously go to
great lengths to prove that we are all the same. Why this contradiction?
The answer can be partly found in the tacit assumption of many that
human equity must be based primarily on competitive equality. Listen to
talk about race (or sex) and notice how often the talk is also about
competition. The cultural differences (real or presumed) that really
disturb us are ones of competitive significance: thigh circumference,
height, math ability and so forth. We accept more easily other
differences -- varieties of hair, degree of subcutaneous fat, prevalence
of sickle cell anemia -- because they don't affect (or affect far less)
who gets to the top.
Once having decided which traits are important, we assign causes to them
on the basis of convenience rather than fact. Our inability to sort out
the relative genetic, cultural, and environmental provenance of our
differences doesn't impede our judgment at all. It is enough that a
difference is observed. Thus we tend to deal neither with understanding
what the facts about our differences and similarities really mean -- or,
more importantly, with their ultimate irrelevance to developing a world
where we can live harmoniously and happily with each other. We don't
spend the effort to separate facts from fiction because both cut too
close to our inability to appreciate and celebrate our human
differences. It is far easier to pretend either that these differences
are immutable or that they don't exist at all.
And so we come to the Catch-22 of ethnicity. It is hard to imagine a
non-discriminatory, unprejudiced society in which race and sex matter
much. Yet in our efforts to reach that goal, our society and its
institutions constantly send the conflicting message that they are
extremely important.
For example, our laws against discriminatory practices inevitably
heighten general consciousness of race and sex. The media, drawn
inexorably to conflict, plays up the issue. And the very groups that
have suffered under racial or sexual stereotypes consciously foster
countering stereotypes -- "you wouldn't understand, it's a black thing"
-- as a form of protection. Thus, we find ourselves in the odd position
of attempting to create a society that shuns invidious distinctions
while at the same time -- often with fundamentalist or regulatory fervor
-- accentuating those distinctions.
In the process we reduce our ethnic problems to a matter of regulation
and power, and reduce our ambitions to the achievement of a tolerable
stalemate rather than the creation of a truly better society. The
positive aspects of diversity remain largely ignored and
non-discrimination becomes merely another symbol of virtuous citizenship
-- like not double-parking or paying your taxes.
Martin Luther King said once: "Something must happen so as to touch the
hearts and souls of men that they will come together, not because the
law says it, but because it is natural and right."
Sorry, Martin. Our approach to prejudice and discrimination is not
unlike our approach to drugs: We plan to simply rule them out of
existence. In so doing, we have implicitly defined the limits of virtue
as merely the absence of malice.
ORDER THE REPAIR MANUAL
http://prorev.com/order3.htm
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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