Can We Please Define “Racism”?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

dude what are you talking about?

'The shovel i dig with grows closer to your heart and soul'???

Stay out of it, Pedroh. He knows.

Actually I really don't. I think its as weird and crazy as Pedroh seems to.

[NavarreMan 10]

Race comparison I think it's only an American thing, I've never seen other countries trying to differentiate everything by race, what they do, how they do it, if they graduated high school, if they have 3 kids or 4.. at the end, all of them are Americans.. I don't know why it is so important to see if white people graduate from college or if 40% of african americans will be in jail or shot before they're 18 years old.. to be more technical, I don't think other languages than english uses races referring to humans, in spanish is to refer to animal breeds.. like dogs.. not among people.. I don't think other english speaking countries do this as much as in the USA.. I don;t think there's african-english people or hispano-canadians.. LOL

I am going to take a stab at this and say that I think that Germany at one point pretty much cornered the market on the issue of bad race relations. I have traveled there many times and there is definitely a difference in attitudes in Germans and other Europeans who are not nearly as high on the ladder as the locals. The English do it within their own race with striking prejudice. Russia and China and some African nations have all done the same thing. The English very definitely have names for the many different foreigners that live there and they can display extreme prejudice towards people of other races.

It is a "better than you" mentality. And I do not believe it is an American exclusive, but we have perfected it. It is wrong. That is my opinion, my "stand" on this issue.

God forbid should I be accused of not standing behind my point of view.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Race comparison I think it's only an American thing, I've never seen other countries trying to differentiate everything by race, what they do, how they do it, if they graduated high school, if they have 3 kids or 4.. at the end, all of them are Americans.. I don't know why it is so important to see if white people graduate from college or if 40% of african americans will be in jail or shot before they're 18 years old.. to be more technical, I don't think other languages than english uses races referring to humans, in spanish is to refer to animal breeds.. like dogs.. not among people.. I don't think other english speaking countries do this as much as in the USA.. I don;t think there's african-english people or hispano-canadians.. LOL

I am going to take a stab at this and say that I think that Germany at one point pretty much cornered the market on the issue of bad race relations. I have traveled there many times and there is definitely a difference in attitudes in Germans and other Europeans who are not nearly as high on the ladder as the locals. The English do it within their own race with striking prejudice. Russia and China and some African nations have all done the same thing. The English very definitely have names for the many different foreigners that live there and they can display extreme prejudice towards people of other races.

It is a "better than you" mentality. And I do not believe it is an American exclusive, but we have perfected it. It is wrong. That is my opinion, my "stand" on this issue.

God forbid should I be accused of not standing behind my point of view.

Political Correctedness Nonsense! You're just being PC! PC! PC! Neener, neener...gasp....sorry, that's all I can really 'add' to the conversation.

[NavarreMan 10]

A rose by any other name...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Race comparison I think it's only an American thing, I've never seen other countries trying to differentiate everything by race, what they do, how they do it, if they graduated high school, if they have 3 kids or 4.. at the end, all of them are Americans.. I don't know why it is so important to see if white people graduate from college or if 40% of african americans will be in jail or shot before they're 18 years old.. to be more technical, I don't think other languages than english uses races referring to humans, in spanish is to refer to animal breeds.. like dogs.. not among people.. I don't think other english speaking countries do this as much as in the USA.. I don;t think there's african-english people or hispano-canadians.. LOL

I am going to take a stab at this and say that I think that Germany at one point pretty much cornered the market on the issue of bad race relations. I have traveled there many times and there is definitely a difference in attitudes in Germans and other Europeans who are not nearly as high on the ladder as the locals. The English do it within their own race with striking prejudice. Russia and China and some African nations have all done the same thing. The English very definitely have names for the many different foreigners that live there and they can display extreme prejudice towards people of other races.

It is a "better than you" mentality. And I do not believe it is an American exclusive, but we have perfected it. It is wrong. That is my opinion, my "stand" on this issue.

God forbid should I be accused of not standing behind my point of view.

Political Correctedness Nonsense! You're just being PC! PC! PC! Neener, neener...gasp....sorry, that's all I can really 'add' to the conversation.

Going on the basis of the original article I wonder at what point we're going reassess all that eugenics & anthropology stuff from the last couple of centuries. From the sounds of it you think he (the author) wants to break out the calipers, start measuring skulls again and give that arcane 'research' the proper hearing it never received by the scientific community

Edited October 26, 2007 by Number 6

[maya62 7]

Here's a response to Dr. Watson's comments from a behaviorial scientist who actually studies intelligence...

In an interview with the Sunday Times, scientist James Watson suggested that race determines intelligence. We asked Steven Rose to respond to Dr Watson's claims.

...firstly, the question of what constitutes 'intelligence' is itself problematic - the word has much broader and diverse meanings than what can be encompassed in IQ tests.

Intelligence is always intelligence-in-context, ( many would argue that someone who can make remarks like Watson's is singularly devoid of social intelligence, for instance).

Second, the idea that there is a genetically meaningful African 'race' is nonsense. There is wide cultural and genetic diversity amongst African populations from south to north, from Ethiopians to Nigerians. There are, for example probably genetic as well as environmental reasons why Ethiopians make good marathon runners whereas Nigerians on the whole do not.

To group the entire diverse populations of Africa together is a characteristically racist trick. Furthermore, to even give any semblance of scientific respectability to Watson's claim, it would have been necessary to provide data such as IQ test results on all these varied African (and indeed Euro-American – so-called ‘caucasian’) populations and to explore the reasons for any differences should they appear.

Even where there are such average differences in IQ score, as for instance between Black and White populations in the US, there are no scientifically valid methods to enable one to untangle the many interacting factors of the validity of IQ tests themselves, as measures of anything other than school performance, educational and social deprivation, the history of slave-owners versus slaves and continuing racism, which may account for them.

It is now some 40 years since in the US Arthur Jensen resuscitated the buried claims of scientific racism, and since then geneticists, psychologists, neuroscientists and educationalists have rebutted them many times over.

It is sad to see Watson returning to this vomit. His scientific reputation will stand, but his reputation as a thoughtful contributor to debates about the relationship of genetics to social problems is irretrievably tarnished.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200710190003

Steven Rose

Following a degree in biochemistry at Cambridge, a PhD in neurochemistry in London and post doc periods in Oxford Rome and London, Steven Rose was appointed Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at the Open University, where he is now Emeritus Professor. He is also Visiting Professor at University College London. His research centres on the neurobiology of learning and memory and is currently focused on developing a therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease. He has received a variety of medals and international awards, most recently the prestigious Edinburgh Medal.

Thank you very much, Mr. FP!

And I didn't mean to infer that there's anything wrong with celebrating one's heritage or diversity in general. I guess I just look forward to the day when the fabric of humanity (and the west in particular) has many more shades of color in it and not so much white, particularly in positions of power. I'm a big diversity fan myself, although I guess that looks like PC behaviour to some...

To me, being PC is just that, being respectful of others and celebrating diversity. I've always thought that people who object to the idea of being respectful of others just can't be bothered to retrain their minds away from prejudicial attitudes, or just need to have someone lower on the totem pole to elevate their own status, just like men who shun "sensitivity" because they associate it with the feminine and are therefore somehow threatened by it.

Let the flaming begin!!! WOOOHOOOOO!! Its Friday!!!

Maya

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Here's a response to Dr. Watson's comments from a behaviorial scientist who actually studies intelligence...

In an interview with the Sunday Times, scientist James Watson suggested that race determines intelligence. We asked Steven Rose to respond to Dr Watson's claims.

...firstly, the question of what constitutes 'intelligence' is itself problematic - the word has much broader and diverse meanings than what can be encompassed in IQ tests.

Intelligence is always intelligence-in-context, ( many would argue that someone who can make remarks like Watson's is singularly devoid of social intelligence, for instance).

Second, the idea that there is a genetically meaningful African 'race' is nonsense. There is wide cultural and genetic diversity amongst African populations from south to north, from Ethiopians to Nigerians. There are, for example probably genetic as well as environmental reasons why Ethiopians make good marathon runners whereas Nigerians on the whole do not.

To group the entire diverse populations of Africa together is a characteristically racist trick. Furthermore, to even give any semblance of scientific respectability to Watson's claim, it would have been necessary to provide data such as IQ test results on all these varied African (and indeed Euro-American – so-called ‘caucasian’) populations and to explore the reasons for any differences should they appear.

Even where there are such average differences in IQ score, as for instance between Black and White populations in the US, there are no scientifically valid methods to enable one to untangle the many interacting factors of the validity of IQ tests themselves, as measures of anything other than school performance, educational and social deprivation, the history of slave-owners versus slaves and continuing racism, which may account for them.

It is now some 40 years since in the US Arthur Jensen resuscitated the buried claims of scientific racism, and since then geneticists, psychologists, neuroscientists and educationalists have rebutted them many times over.

It is sad to see Watson returning to this vomit. His scientific reputation will stand, but his reputation as a thoughtful contributor to debates about the relationship of genetics to social problems is irretrievably tarnished.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200710190003

Steven Rose

Following a degree in biochemistry at Cambridge, a PhD in neurochemistry in London and post doc periods in Oxford Rome and London, Steven Rose was appointed Professor of Biology and Director of the Brain and Behaviour Research Group at the Open University, where he is now Emeritus Professor. He is also Visiting Professor at University College London. His research centres on the neurobiology of learning and memory and is currently focused on developing a therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease. He has received a variety of medals and international awards, most recently the prestigious Edinburgh Medal.

Thank you very much, Mr. FP!

And I didn't mean to infer that there's anything wrong with celebrating one's heritage or diversity in general. I guess I just look forward to the day when the fabric of humanity (and the west in particular) has many more shades of color in it and not so much white, particularly in positions of power. I'm a big diversity fan myself, although I guess that looks like PC behaviour to some...

To me, being PC is just that, being respectful of others and celebrating diversity. I've always thought that people who object to the idea of being respectful of others just can't be bothered to retrain their minds away from prejudicial attitudes, or just need to have someone lower on the totem pole to elevate their own status, just like men who shun "sensitivity" because they associate it with the feminine and are therefore somehow threatened by it.

Let the flaming begin!!! WOOOHOOOOO!! Its Friday!!!

Maya

I think you are spot-on with that. While I won't deny that political correctness can cause problems - I think its often more of a red-herring that people want to admit. People spend more time bemoaning the presentation of an issue, than the issue itself.

As far as this topic goes, given that we supposedly live in a society that if not equal in practice, at least tries to be in theory - a degree of political correctness is necessary to treat people with a degree of equality. Once you start down the road of suggesting that certain social groups are 'inferior'... well... it doesn't take a genius to figure out how it ends up.

That's not something I want to stand behind - anymore than those folks who think that 'more research' is needed to figure out if the Holocaust happened, or that there's somehow some question over its historical presentation.

Edited October 26, 2007 by Number 6

[Caladan 19]

I guess we'll never know. Any research that purports to test such theories will

never see the light of day in our PC society.

Intelligence is genetic and hereditary to some extent, that much is clear.

Identical twins are more likely to obtain the same IQ score than twins from

two separate eggs that have a different genetic makeup.

There are huge genetic differences between races, as well within races, and it's

not entirely a stretch to suggest that some races or groups within the same race

may be more intelligent (on average) than others due to these differences.

Not to pick on you, but do me a favor: go to scholar.google.com. Type in your choice of search words like "race" and "intelligence" and maybe "g." Look at all the results.

The research is being done. It's being published. It's not being ignored. I know, it's only publicly available, that means it's not seeing the light of day.

There is a statistically significant IQ difference, but there are two problems with that. One is that IQ is not an automatic predictor of intelligence or success compared to other factors. (if I train you in logic puzzles for a year, I can get your IQ score to go up), and second, the differences are not nearly large enough to justify the discrimination that goes on. E.g., there's more than 30 IQ points difference at least between me and my sister (she's of above average intelligence, I am very good at standardized tests), but due to having the same parents and a reasonably middle class lifestyle, she and I will go on to roughly similar lives in terms of financial success. And there's only about 15 IQ points difference among 'races.' As far as I'm concerned, if there's a racial makeup to IQ it's less relevant than wealth and education and nutrition.

In any case, Watson's just bizarrely dumb for defining all of Africa's problems as exactly the same. Are the problems of Egypt the same as South Africa? Isn't that like trying to diagnose Guatamala's problems by looking at Iowa?