Originally posted by: Keyvan
Originally posted by: BullsOnParade
The whole idea of racism is very normative,
What exactly did you mean by that ? The genetic basis for race is a pretty well established scientifically and as another poster pointed out, it is at the very least the basis for a great deal of medical research given the obvious descrepancies in risk for particular cancers, heart diseases and other chronic diseases.
What I meant to say when I said that racism is normative is that your view on the subject will have a basis on your norms and values.
Again, whether a certain "race" is more prone to a certain disease or not does not mean that people should be categorically singled out by race.
If the average life expectancy of someone in Angola is nearly half of someone from Canada, does that mean that the people of Angola have defective genes or that their race is simply no good? Or is it more likely that their environment is the cause of this?
Originally posted by: spidey07
Originally posted by: Keyvan
Originally posted by: BriGy86
i believe there are different biological races
people are physically different
the problem is that when issues like this pop up people assume that some one is being racist, so everyone tries to drill into each others head that we are all exactly the same
nobody is denying that people are physically different, but the problem is when people translate these physical traits into "races", and then extend to make generalizations about people of certain origins. The whole idea of racism is very normative, and what I am saying is that it is simply pointless to classify people by their physical attributes under the guise of "race". our differences with one another isn't in an innate biological difference, but it is in our culture.
*sigh*
this is a prime example of PC taken to the extreme.
there are three different races each with their own distictive traits governed by DNA.
what you are proposing is that all tulips are the same and we cannot classify them any futher.
If you truly believe our difference is not an innate biological difference then you have much to learn.
What I am saying is that it is more useful, since we are being very pragmatic in this discussion, to study cultures in order to understand those different from us.
Like I've said, I am not denying that there are physical differences between different peoples. However, I insist that these differences are superficial.
To quote the article linked from The Stanford Daily: "that variations in skin color may arise from a single gene among the billions that determine human appearance".
You can interpret this however you wish, but to me, that one gene that determines your skin colour is just that, your skin colour.