# Any defensible value to "racial consciousness," "racial loyalty," etc? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 19, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022 "2010-03-19T15:44:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022/21 "2010-03-21T21:51:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > You are assuming a meritocratic society where individual ability correlates closely with distribution of goods, and there are no non-meritocratic social or economic advantages or disadvantages to being born into a particular family, or social class, or racial/ethnic group. That is not true of the U.S. at present, nor of most other societies. Good point; I did not mean to distract the debate into whether or not differences are innate–that’s being argued elsewhere, as you know. I should have said, " If races are not innately equal, the pie will not **ever** be evenly distributed by race **regardless of efforts to equalize opportunity**. If the pie is not evenly distributed by race, it will be difficult to eliminate race consciousness." I think your question is around whether or not “race consciousness” is a good thing, and I’m suggesting that whether or not it’s a good thing, it’s an unavoidable thing in any world where “race” is suggested by appearance and it is therefore apparent by looking around that goods are maldistributed along racial lines. Because we identify atavistically with our race (and perhaps for other reasons as well) we are going to look around and wonder why our peeps are not doing as well as other peeps. If, on the other hand, we lived in a world where all races had equal outcomes, it would be easier to get to a point of diminished racial consciousness. As you point out, such a world does not exist, and to the best of my observation, the same approximate success rankings for the same groups are universal. It’s not as if the asians are math stars in California but bringing up the rear in Brazilian math classrooms. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022/22 "2010-03-21T23:40:50Z")
**BrainGlutton** , I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you that modern society could be more “meritocratic”. But keep in mind that different people’s notions of what is and is not meritocracy are different. Mine is probably different from yours and yours might be a bit different even from your close political allies. But when it comes to people deciding which political cause to support, do they bother asking “should we try to make things more meritocratic (according to BrainGlutton’s definition) before we try other sort of reform?”. No, they don’t. People are looking for things that look/sound like a pragmatic, feasible solution. If it’s not a “fair” solution in your view, so what? Do you think that your own preferred solutions are “fair” in the eyes of other people and groups out there? And yet you push for your solution, and others push for theirs. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022/23 "2010-03-22T17:56:10Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Fine, if you don’t care whether your descendants have souls or not . . . My cosmology considers “soul” to be an inherent trait of matter, like pigmentation. So nyah! Also: The WASP’s did not & could not found a country. A country is a stretch of land. They founded a republic, they _conquered_ a country. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022/24 "2010-03-22T18:08:18Z")
> [@code\_grey](#): > > **BrainGlutton** , > > I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with you that modern society could be more “meritocratic”. But keep in mind that different people’s notions of what is and is not meritocracy are different. Mine is probably different from yours and yours might be a bit different even from your close political allies. > > But when it comes to people deciding which political cause to support, do they bother asking “should we try to make things more meritocratic (according to BrainGlutton’s definition) before we try other sort of reform?”. No, they don’t. People are looking for things that look/sound like a pragmatic, feasible solution. If it’s not a “fair” solution in your view, so what? Do you think that your own preferred solutions are “fair” in the eyes of other people and groups out there? And yet you push for your solution, and others push for theirs. I have the honor of calling to your attention that your posts in this thread are growing progressively less coherent. And progressively less relevant to the topic. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022/25 "2010-03-22T18:11:15Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I rarely admit this, but, hey, if not to 35,000 dopers, then to whom shall I confess it? > > I always kind of ‘understood’ where white supremicists where coming from. If you are truly in fear of annihilation…I mean, if you look at your daughter marry a black man, and the kid comes out as what you and everyone else in this society considers maybe black but definitely not white, I can see how one might feel…like his self is ending… Hard to explain, I guess, but I get where they are coming from. Yeah. The genes that code for not producing melanin tend to get overridden in the first generation of mixing. I certainly felt a sort of racialism, wanting to marry a fair & Nordic girl & preserve the phenotype, when I was younger. That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to preserve the other “races” as well. So I can almost get anti-miscegenation sentiment. But some of my earliest friends were two mulatto (technical mulatto? well, mixed-race anyway, but they were dark while their mother wasn’t) boys. “Keeping the race pure,” even then, was not the point to me, just preserving a certain appearance in some set of individuals. People should be free to mix different genes if they wish. And of course I have since learned that genetically the genes don’t just blend to beige. There will be super-dark individuals & transparent redheads out of a “mixed gene” population. And my own grandmother was olive-skinned as some Germans often are & hardly a pale redhead, & bore a few pale Nords. So I don’t think saving the whiteness is necessary, because I understand genes. In fact now I’m tempted to encourage marrying across “racial” (really caste at this point) lines in order that the Yankean people can stop being a bunch of different nations living among each other & become one people. > [@](#): > > As for races that are commonly oppressed, I think it is natural for them to develop some ‘racial pride’, and it is probably good for their survival to do so. I mean, black kids coming up today can benefit from some ‘black is beautiful’ propaganda, if just to offset the the media standards of white beauty in this society. Individually, it can help them, if they look at being black as a being in a family that they see as beautiful. Yes. It’s also really important that the dominant ethnicity’s kids learn to see the beauty in those of the less privileged race. White kids that see black as beautiful can help change the whole culture. But I fear that creeps out some blacks for whom blackness is their “special thing that others don’t understand.” ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2010, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022/26 "2010-03-23T03:38:44Z")
Judging from attendance at the local tanning booth on the part of my white buddies (and the fact that my local Costco is currently selling three different tanning booths) I suggest the notion that whites are opposed to dark skin is a strawman with no basis in reality. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022/27 "2010-03-24T15:07:24Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > . . . and to the best of my observation, the same approximate success rankings for the same groups are universal. It’s not as if the asians are math stars in California but bringing up the rear in Brazilian math classrooms. 1. Cite? 2. If that’s true, how do you know it’s genetic and not cultural? (After all, the development of mathematics in Asia, after a promising start, stagnated for thousands of years.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-defensible-value-to-racial-consciousness-racial-loyalty-etc/533022.md?page=1)