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- I read a story in a newsletter about company employees who are Special Olympians today. Two of the three pictured had “mongoloid” features. Which got me wondering, , ,
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- If there is a condition that we’ll call “condition z” that makes tends to make your facial features a particular way (mongoloid), and also makes you tend to be mentally retarded,
- are people who have features similar to what “condition z” looks like, exhibiting it in some way? This would sound really primitive, except that I note that the condition of mental retardation and having “mongoloid” features does cut across ethnic boundaries.
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- I realize that there are plenty of non-mongoloid people who are retarded (or near-retarded), but it’s my experience that when you see someone who looks “that way” you can be pretty sure they are missing at least some of their noggin’s intended capacity. You can’t tell what type or how muchthey’re missing; but still. I don’t know anyone of actual Mongol ancestry to ask or to try to judge (and depending on their personality I might not ask anyway), but can one also asssume the other way 'round? - MC
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That term, when referring to a certain type of retardation, has nothing to do with the Mongol people. In fact, the term is no longer in use.
Typically, people with this type of retardation, have flattish faces, a cleft palate and dark hair. This evokes an Asiatic appearance, and the Mongols were unlucky enough to be associated with that.
Mongols are a race of people no smarter and no dumber than any other race.
It arose from the 19th century ethnologists who decided that various “races” were more or less intelligent than other “races.” Mongols were considered inferior to Caucasian, although superior to Negroid. Since folks with Down Syndrome are fairly functional (as well as having a similar epicanthic fold near the eye and, occasionally having a slight jaundice), Dr. John Down used the word “mongolism” to describe the specific syndrome that now bears his name (as the original descriptor of the syndrome). Part of his decision in choosing the name was the idea that the child of European parents might be a “throwback” to an earlier developmental stage. He saw the (rather remotely) similar features of children with Down Syndrome (that differed markedly from their Caucasian parents) to people living in northeast Asia as evidence for this “earlier racial” characteristic manifesting itself.
Tom~
The condition you’re refering to is now commonly called Down Syndrome. It’s the result of having an extra 21st chromosome and can lead to a variety of physical and mental abnormalities. The heavy eyes and flat nose commonly associated with DS looked Asiatic, and Mongoloid was used as a term for Asiatic, hence the crossover in terms.
I don’t know, but are blondes dumber than average? I read a lot of dumb blond jokes.
How about Blond Mongols?
tomndebb, I believe you are mistaken. People with down sindrome looked like mongols and that is where the term originated and no reflection on Mongols themselves was intended. If you have proof to the contrary I’d like to see it.
sailor, sorry but…
"The great Mongolian family has numerous representatives, and it is to this division I wish, in this paper, to call special attention. A very large number of congenital idiots are typical Mongols. So marked in this, that when placed side by side, it is difficult to believe that the specimens compared are not children of the same parents.
The number of idiots who arrange themselves around the Mongolian type is so great, and they present such a close resemblance to one another in mental power, that I shall describe an idiot member of this racial division, selected from the large number that have fallen under my observation:
The hair is not black, as in the real Mongol, but a brownish colour, straight and scanty. The face is flat and broad, and destitute of prominence. The cheeks are roundish, and extended laterally. The eyes are obliquely placed, and the internal canthi more than normally distant from one another. The palpebral fissure is very narrow. The forehead is wrinkled transversely, from the constant assistance which the levatores pebrarum derive from the occipito-frontalis muscle in the opening of the eyes. The lips are large and thick, with transverse fissures. The tongue is long, thick and is much roughened. The nose is small. The skin has a slight dirty-yellowish tinge, and is deficient in elasticity, giving the appearance of being too large of the body.
The boy’s aspect is such, that is difficult to realise that he is the child of Europeans; but so frequently are these characters presented, that there can be no doubt that these ethnic features are the result of degeneration"
Directly from “OBSERVATIONS ON AN ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION OF IDIOTS” J. LANGDON H. DOWN
Scratch the “,sorry but…”
Man, I really miss the days when you could title a serious scientific paper “Observations on an Ethnic Classification of Idiots” and get away with it.
Just being able to use the word “idiots” in a clinical sense would be wonderful:
“Your diagnosis, doctor?”
“Mr. Smith, I won’t lie to you…your son is an idiot. He scored a 95% on the moron scale, has an well-developed feeb factor, and is probably the purest textbook case of nincompoopery that I’ve ever seen.”
…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!