# Let's define "racism" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 26, 2010, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357 "2010-04-26T01:18:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [May 2, 2010, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/61 "2010-05-02T12:41:47Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Unless you qualitatively define both “black people” and “people of other races.” Your research (and all your holistic statements) are bunk, right out of the gate. > > You see, whether you are a racist (or not) is very important as I, personally, need to know if it’s worth my time to even look at your data/conclusions. However, researchers who use poor scientific parameters like “the blacks” make that decision moot. Would this statement be correct or incorrect? _ **Among the US population self-described as “black,” there is a significant difference in the prevalence of some genes from the US population self-described as “white.” An example is the prevalence of Hemoglobin S.** _ ---
**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:** [May 2, 2010, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/62 "2010-05-02T12:50:37Z")
> [@orcenio](#): > > Unless you qualitatively define both “black people” and “people of other races.” Your research (and all your holistic statements) are bunk, right out of the gate. > > You see, whether you are a racist (or not) is very important as I, personally, need to know if it’s worth my time to even look at your data/conclusions. However, researchers who use poor scientific parameters like “the blacks” make that decision moot. I would also be curious if you consider this correct or incorrect: _ **Genetic differences are a principal reason that females, as a group, perform more poorly than males at football.** _ ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/63 "2010-05-02T12:56:16Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I would also be curious if you consider this correct or incorrect: > > _ **Genetic differences are a principal reason that females, as a group, perform more poorly than males at football.** _ But can you prove that particular difference in ability is completely down to genetics, and not due to the fact that males have been conditioned to play football for much longer than females? ---
**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:** [May 2, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/64 "2010-05-02T17:12:54Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > But can you prove that particular difference in ability is completely down to genetics, and not due to the fact that males have been conditioned to play football for much longer than females? Even the fact that males–and not females–have been conditioned to play football in the first place is due to their genetic differences… 😉 “Prove” and “completely” are precisely the two weasel terms behind which those who are splitters (i.e. the sort of person who wants to pretend race is no category at all) hide. I’d say it’s obvious that males are–on average, and as a group–larger, stronger, faster and more openly aggressive, all due primarily to the fact that they are different from females genetically. There is overlap, certainly, and there are exceptions. And that’s sort of the point: it is average differences at a group level that are at play when discussing group differences. I’m sure a really determined feminist egalitarian could talk my ear off about me “proving” there is a nature-based difference in football ability between men and women. I’m equally sure the average person would just sort of chuckle and turn away. Res ipsa loquitur if you watch sports. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/65 "2010-05-02T17:30:31Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > . . . those who are splitters (i.e. the sort of person who wants to pretend race is no category at all) hide. As opposed to those who are willing to “create” artificial groups based on superficial similarities despite massive amounts of conflicting information? 😃 I would say that one could, indeed, note that a group exists in North America that has a common genetic background with a significant source of African ancestry. The problem arises when someone chooses to generalize from that specific group population of people with an admixture of West African, European, and North American ancestry back to some other group that includes anyone with pre-colonial sub-Saharan ancestry, even those whose only similar characteristic is skin somewhat darker than the typical European. Hemoglobin S will show up in the North American group that includes African ancestry more frequently than it will show up in North Americans of mostly European ancestry. However, there are regions in Africa where one will never find Hemoglobin S and places in Europe where it is endemic–their children just did not happen to migrate to North America in sufficient numbers to become statistically significant. This points out the importance of accurately describing populations while avoiding the misleading and fuzzily defined–actually more mush than fuzz–term “race.” ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/66 "2010-05-02T18:02:00Z")
So, if “race” doesn’t exist, then I guess “racism” doesn’t exist? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/67 "2010-05-02T18:22:57Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > So, if “race” doesn’t exist, then I guess “racism” doesn’t exist? That does not follow. If god does not exist, religion does not exist? If ghosts do not exist, fear of hauntings does not exist? If magic charms do not work, there is no such thing as superstition? Racism is the pleasure of hating or loving people that you have arbitrarily bundled into imaginary groups for your own enjoyment. One may engage in that bundling without having a factual basis for it. You will also note that I have not made the claim that “‘race’ doesn’t exist,” so that straw man fails. On a social level, races do exist because humans are quite capable of bundling together dissimilar entities based on superficial similarities. They are quite capable, then, of making false generalizations about the artificial groups they have created in their minds. It is even physically possible for biological races to exist within humanity, however, none of the larger groups currently bundled into the three, four, or five popularly associated “races” are sufficiently coherent to justify using the word. There are clearly smaller populations of people who are genetically coherent and one might make a case that we could use the word “race” to categorize them. (Some ethnologists have actually done that, leading to lists of 60 or more “races.”) However, since the vast majority of people who hear the word “race” will think of one of the big three/four/five groups, using “race” to identify a biological population will cause more confusion than it is worth. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/68 "2010-05-02T18:23:09Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > So, if “race” doesn’t exist, then I guess “racism” doesn’t exist? I don’t believe in god, yet religion seems to exist. Imagine that. ---
**Author:** ![orcenio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/orcenio/32/1036_2.png) [@orcenio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orcenio)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/69 "2010-05-02T18:27:06Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Would this statement be correct or incorrect? > > _ **Among the US population self-described as “black,” there is a significant difference in the prevalence of some genes from the US population self-described as “white.” An example is the prevalence of Hemoglobin S.** _ I’d say that “the US population self-described as black,” and “the US population self-described as white” are still piss-poor descriptors; but hey, it’s more precise then “the blacks” and “the other races.” There are rules, guild-lines and reasons as to why you (or any person with an iota of scientific respectability) are not supposed to make vague, quasi-genetic, racial claims[ > [@](#): > > Statement 7: We discourage the use of race as a proxy for biological similarity and support efforts to minimize the use of the categories of race and ethnicity in clinical medicine, maintaining focus on the individual rather than the group > Although a broad range of associations between genetic markers and human traits - including diseases - is emerging, any accompanying correspondence with race or ethnicity is statistical. > Although certain relatively rare genetic diseases, such as Tay-Sachs, are found in higher frequencies in some human populations, the result of population bottlenecks or environmental pressure, these diseases are also found in other populations. Overemphasizing the genetic contribution to complex human disease or behavioral traits can promote not only racism, but also a naive genetic essentialism - the notion that genes determine health status or behavior [28-30]. Such essentialism is particularly dangerous in clinical translation, where a focus should be maintained on the individual rather than the group [31]. ]([http://genomebiology.com/2008/9/7/404](http://genomebiology.com/2008/9/7/404))as to whether it’s “correct or not” this sickle-cell bunk has been dealt with an nth number of times by scientists like Lewontin[ > [@](#): > > For example, sickle-cell disease, which is often thought to be an African trait, is instead characteristic of ancient ancestry in a geographic region where malaria was endemic. Africa is one such region, but so are the Mediterranean and southern India. If sickle-cell disease is suspected, then the correct diagnostic approach is not simply to determine the patient’s race, but to ask whether they have African, Mediterranean or South Indian ancestry. To use genotype effectively in making diagnostic and therapeutic decisions, it is not race that is relevant, but both intra- and trans-continental contributions to a person’s ancestry. ]([Race: A genetic melting-pot | Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v424/n6947/full/424374a.html))to fellow boards members like [myself](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12059557&postcount=28) or the less hotheaded [tomndebb](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12385148). I’m not gonna go too deeply into this whole race/genetics thing that you are, so timidly, milling around with as I have [already](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11853418&postcount=142) [repeatedly](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11314907&postcount=66) [done](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=11913366#post11913366) [so](http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/elsi/humanmigration.shtml#7); but, for the fun of it, I will leave you with a new link and a few choice quotes for you to peruse. Last May, the [American Journal of Physical Anthropology](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Journal_of_Physical_Anthropology) had done an entire spread (similar to what [Nature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_%28journal%29) [did in 2004](http://www.nature.com/index.html?file=/ng/journal/v36/n11s/index.html)) called: [Race Reconciled: How Biological Anthropologists View Human Variation](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122296751/issue). Which is very informative. [ [QUOTE] We agreed that: [ul] [li]There is substantial variation among individuals within populations.[/li][li]Some biological variation is apportioned between individuals in different populations and among larger population groupings.[/li][li]Patterns of within- and among-group variation have been substantially shaped by culture, language, ecology, and geography.[/li][li]Race is not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation.[/li][li]Human variation research has important social, biomedical, and forensic implications.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE] ]([http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122209165/PDFSTART](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122209165/PDFSTART))[ > [@](#): > > we demonstrate that the > observed pattern of global gene identity variation is consistent > with a history of serial population fissions, bottlenecks > and long-range migrations associated with the > peopling of major geographic regions, and gene flow > between local populations. This history has produced a > nested pattern of genetic structure that is inconsistent > with the existence of independently evolving biological > races. ]([http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122209160/PDFSTART](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122209160/PDFSTART))[ > [@](#): > > The results are clear and somewhat > surprising. We see that populations differ in the amount > of diversity that they harbor. The pattern of DNA diversity > is one of nested subsets, such that the diversity in > non-Sub-Saharan African populations is essentially a subset > of the diversity found in Sub-Saharan African populations. > The actual pattern of DNA diversity creates some > unsettling problems for using race as meaningful genetic > categories. For example, the pattern of DNA diversity > implies that some populations belong to more than one > race (e.g., Europeans), whereas other populations do not > belong to any race at all (e.g., Sub-Saharan Africans). ]([http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122209168/PDFSTART](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122209168/PDFSTART))And well… you can read the rest at your leisure. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I would also be curious if you consider this correct or incorrect: > > _ **Genetic differences are a principal reason that females, as a group, perform more poorly than males at football.** _ What is this? Let’s mess with **orcenio** ’s head day? You need to get to your final (non-sports/NBA/gender related) point. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/70 "2010-05-02T23:20:20Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Racism is the pleasure of hating or loving people that you have arbitrarily bundled into imaginary groups for your own enjoyment. One may engage in that bundling without having a factual basis for it. OK, good, this thread is finally going somewhere. A couple of follow-up questions: 1. I assume you agree with the “conscious belief” part of my definition, right? Things like “bundling” and “loving” and “hating” sound to me like things that one must choose to do. 2. If one bundles people into imaginary groups and then performs research on those groups (e.g., to determine how members in that group vary with respect to a certain characteristic, and to compare such group’s variance with the variance in other groups), one is not necessarily a racist, right? Just doing the research does not automatically mean that one loves or hates members of any one group. 3. I assume you agree that the term “racist practice” doesn’t have a lot of content–what matters is the conscious beliefs of individuals. Thanks. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/71 "2010-05-02T23:29:06Z")
Actually, I’m completely uninterested in the debate over what constitutes race biologically, although it’s true I think there is a biologic connection that is more coherent than the politically correct crowd wants to admit to. I’m OK with waiting for genetic studies of origins to be parsed out well enough for everyone to be happy. There will still be lumpers and splitters, and I suspect at the end of it, both sides will claim victory. It’s kind of silly to pretend that the ordinary European-descent individual doesn’t have something more in common biologically with other European-descent individuals, and ditto for those of sub-saharan African ancestry. And frankly, just the phenotypic appearance alone which leads to so much discrimination is biologically-based grouping–it’s not just some sort of purely cultural overlay on top of otherwise totally indistinct genetics. The controversial statements I’ve made on this board are centered around the fact that, where differences in any two groups being studied are found, those differences tend to be genetic (at least the differences I’ve discussed). I don’t care if the groups being compared constitute different races or not. That’s a definitional thing, and in my mind it’s completely irrelevant to the point that nature, and not nurture, accounts for the differences. I suspect the attack on the idea of races is really an effort to promote the notion of egalitarianism–that all humans are roughly equal in potential, and that they are not groupable in any meaningful way biologically. I consider that nonsense. Whether you are a splitter and want to make 1,000 different “populations,” or a lumper and make 4 or 5 major “races”–I could not care less. We are our genes, and where we find differences in group average performances, look to the genes for why those populations got to the point they are in in the first place, and why it is so difficult to nurture them out of it. I don’t care, really, if you want to split. If you take a group of high-performing blacks and low-performing whites on the SAT, I’d argue the difference between them is overwhelmingly going to be that the population of blacks you’ve chosen is more intelligent by nature. If you take a group of blacks who are horrible at basketball and a group of whites who are basketball stars, I’m going to argue that the difference is likely to be a genetically-based superiority of the white group. If you take a group of white scholastic high-performers and compare them with a group of white scholastic low-performers, unless you can show an enormous disparity in nurture, I am going to argue the difference is genetic–particularly if you can’t bring the low-performers up to snuff with subsequent improved nurturing. I do not discount nurture entirely. It overlays our genes. But if we find differences among races at that (crude) category level, and we adjust for nurture, then it’s reasonable to assume the residual differences are nature, even if those groups do not have some sort of biologic cohesiveness with one another. All tall people may not be biologically related to one another, but the difference between them and short people is still nature and not nurture. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/72 "2010-05-03T01:10:38Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I suspect the attack on the idea of races is really an effort to promote the notion of egalitarianism–that all humans are roughly equal in potential, and that they are not groupable in any meaningful way biologically. I consider that nonsense. Whether you are a splitter and want to make 1,000 different “populations,” or a lumper and make 4 or 5 major “races”–I could not care less. And I suspect that accusations of “egalitarianism” are simply a way to make up a label to make the “other side” appear to be anti-science or something. \* ::: shrug :::\* 😛 > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > We are our genes, and where we find differences in group average performances, look to the genes for why those populations got to the point they are in in the first place, and why it is so difficult to nurture them out of it. > > I don’t care, really, if you want to split. If you take a group of high-performing blacks and low-performing whites on the SAT, I’d argue the difference between them is overwhelmingly going to be that the population of blacks you’ve chosen is more intelligent by nature. If you take a group of blacks who are horrible at basketball and a group of whites who are basketball stars, I’m going to argue that the difference is likely to be a genetically-based superiority of the white group. If you take a group of white scholastic high-performers and compare them with a group of white scholastic low-performers, unless you can show an enormous disparity in nurture, I am going to argue the difference is genetic–particularly if you can’t bring the low-performers up to snuff with subsequent improved nurturing. > > I do not discount nurture entirely. It overlays our genes. But if we find differences among races at that (crude) category level, and we adjust for nurture, then it’s reasonable to assume the residual differences are nature, even if those groups do not have some sort of biologic cohesiveness with one another. All tall people may not be biologically related to one another, but the difference between them and short people is still nature and not nurture. Actually, my serious objection to all this is that you are using groups to make your claims, regardless. One set of people wants to pretend that there are no groups and no differences among those non-existent groups. They are wrong; we can certainly find groups and examine them. One set of people wants to pretend that group identity is destiny. They are wrong; there are too many obvious exceptions. I would rather that all people be treated as individuals, regardless of any group to which they might belong. Unfortunately, our society, (expanding on an apparent propensity for xenophobia that has been well documented in both our species and in some of our cousin apes), find a need to establish groups and then use characteristics–often imagined–that they assign to those groups to label and defame, (or, occasionally, exalt), individuals within those groups. To the extent that our society has already created situations that will harm individuals because of their perceived memberships in groups, I support some forms of corrective actions. (I have also opposed some actions as being counterproductive, such as quotas and outcome based testing.) To the extent that I find someone trying to create claims that the individuals within a group deserve any harm or disrespect because of the perceived group into which they were born, I will oppose them. To the extent that I find claims that a “group” exists and that it has certain easily identified characteristics, then I will demand evidence. Further, I will oppose any language that permits evidence about a smaller group being applied to a larger group for which there is no equally persuasive evidence and I will always challenge a claim that any individual must have certain mental, physical, or moral characteristics that vary among individuals, based on a group membership. (This is why I find the whole issue of Sickle Cell Anemia so frustrating. We have, for years, been documenting on this board that it is a geographic disease that clearly crosses ethnic boundaries, yet we still keep encountering posts that attempt to extrapolate its prevalence among black people of North America back to a “racial” disease within Africa–and then erroneously claiming that it “demonstrates” the validity of “race”–while ignoring the founder effect of the location in africa from which most black North Americans were brought.) To the extent that BiDil will help a number of black North American men to survive heart problems, I am glad that it has been tested and approved. To the extent that the reasons why it has been successful appear to have much more to do with the age and physical conditions of the persons for whom it works, regardless of perceived “race,” I regret that it was tested based on political pressure and that it will be used, in the future, to make more bogus claims about “race.” ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/73 "2010-05-03T07:03:44Z")
Defining racism as a consciously held affirmative belief, as others have pointed out, is a rabbit trail. It’s impossible to prove and, what’s more, it’s fashionable for racists to claim that they’re just 'telling the truth", or what have you. Hell, when everybody from White Power movements to David Duke all claim that they’re not racists, it’s clear that waiting for an admission of racism before we can form a valid judgment makes about as much sense only convicting people of crimes if they admit to them. It’s not anti-white racism, it’s White Pride. It’s not anti-semitic paranoid conspiracy mongering, it’s searching for Jews who have Conflicts of Interest and therefore can’t be trusted to have political opinions that differ too much from yours. It’s not xenophobia, it’s wanting to preserve the purity of essence of western civilization. And so on, and so on, and so on. Racists virtually never go out and _admit_ that they’re racists. And what’s more, they will often feign righteous indignation at such a suggestion. We had a guy here recently arguing that Jews were directly descended from Satan and weren’t just sub-human, they were lower than animals… and he said he wasn’t a racist. David Duke writes about the dangers of Jewish Supremacism and Dual Loyalty, and bemoans how unfair it is that people think he’s a racist. The folks who were creating passing around “Obama Bucks” with pictures of watermelons and fried chicken? They’re offended you’d call them racists. Offended, they’ll tell you. If we wait for racists to admit that they’re racists, we’ll die of boredom (or get some serious ocular damage from too much eye rolling). Instead, it’s perfectly fair to say that someone _is_ a racist if they do/say racist things. We don’t have to play Mindreader McPhee to prove that someone who says that blacks don’t deserve voting rights is a racist. We don’t have to try to divine someone’s true internal monologue if they name everybody in the US government who they think is Jewish and accuse them all of potential treachery based on nothing but their ethnicity, or single out Jews among all other people and say that if their politics aren’t the ‘correct’ kind that we should investigate them for treacherous devotion to Global Jewry… we can safely conclude that they’re a racist. We don’t have to perform rigorous psychological analysis on someone who says that gays are uniquely horrendous and public displays of affection among gay couples should be criminalized, but not so for straight people. We can, again, reach the valid conclusion that we’re dealing with a bigot. I don’t think that the basic logical underpinnings that support this are all that controversial, either. Not if we get down to brass tacks. We wouldn’t be hemming and hawing if the behavior under discussion was someone advocating, say, the forced sterilization of all Hispanic people, or setting up extermination camps for a racial group, or what have you. We don’t demand a complete psychological workup before we can call someone a racist who’s wearing a swastika arm band and talking about the evils of racial mixing. Nor does the claim that racism must be totally conscious hold water. If every time you see a black person you assume that they’re probably a violent criminal, or at least somehow involved with drug dealing then you’re a racist. And you’re a racist even if you don’t stop and engage in the requisite degree of soul searching (and categorical analysis) required to formulate the concept that “blacks are inherently prone to criminality and drug use due to their race.” It’s simple, actually. Someone can reliably be said to be a racist if they engage in racist behavior. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2010, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/74 "2010-05-03T12:22:53Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > (This is why I find the whole issue of Sickle Cell Anemia so frustrating. We have, for years, been documenting on this board that it is a geographic disease that clearly crosses ethnic boundaries, yet we still keep encountering posts that attempt to extrapolate its prevalence among black people of North America back to a “racial” disease within Africa–and then erroneously claiming that it “demonstrates” the validity of “race”–while ignoring the founder effect of the location in africa from which most black North Americans were brought.) > > To the extent that BiDil will help a number of black North American men to survive heart problems, I am glad that it has been tested and approved. To the extent that the reasons why it has been successful appear to have much more to do with the age and physical conditions of the persons for whom it works, regardless of perceived “race,” I regret that it was tested based on political pressure and that it will be used, in the future, to make more bogus claims about “race.” Well since we keep going round and round about HbS, let me stake out my position. And let’s be clear we are talking about HbS; not sickle cell. What the distribution of HbS shows is that prevalence of a particular gene can, and does, vary by race group in the United States. Nothing more; nothing less. It does not mean race is a tightly-defined population. It does not mean the group self-described as “black” is composed of a single population, or has fewer sub-populations than any other group. It means just one thing: within this large and loose group, prevalence of a particular gene can vary. Why is this important? Because the egalitarian argument advances the position that humans are all more or less equivalent and their genetic makeup is more or less equivalent, and that in particular the group self-described as black does not contain differing prevalences of genes in any meaningful way. Well, yes it does. Now it may be that all of that difference in prevalence is a result of a single black sub-population which accounts for all of the Hb S genes. Fine. That’s the difference between lumping and splitting. Nevertheless, since “black” is a self-identification, all of the folks who identify with that group have just lumped themselves into a group which has a higher prevalence for HbS. What is the practical significance of this? When we level a charge of “racism” in the pejorative sense of the word, we are usually charging the “racist” of unfairly categorizing an entire group as being sub-par in some way, even though the problem is nurture and not nature. That is, the charge of racism is applied using the implicit assumption that we are all genetically equal in potential, even (or perhaps especially) at a group level. Under this assumption, any observed disparities at a group level can only be due to societal mismanagement, or individual misbehaviour toward the underperforming group, or “institutionalized racism” or the like. Under the assumption of genetic egalitarianism, disparities at the level of “race” can never be from genetic disparities. This assumption is incorrect. Even at a group level–even at a self-described race level–our genetic prevalences differ. And the distribution of HbS in the US black population is proof of that. Nothing more. Nothing less. It’s fine to argue that race should be eliminated as a category of any kind because it has no practical value. However it’s not fine to argue that observed disparities among races cannot have genetic underpinnings. Genes can, and do, differ in prevalence even at the level of race for all sorts of historic and evolutionary reasons. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/75 "2010-05-03T14:21:45Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > This assumption is incorrect. Even at a group level–even at a self-described race level–our genetic prevalences differ. And the distribution of HbS in the US black population is proof of that. Nothing more. Nothing less. If you wish to play that game, then you had better be clear that you are describing “North American blacks” as your “race,” because any other identification is contrary to the facts. Now, take that out into the world and make sure that every time you use the phrase, no one misuses it to apply to all sub-Saharan Africans, otherwise, you are promoting misunderstanding and error. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/76 "2010-05-03T15:19:30Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > If you wish to play that game, then you had better be clear that you are describing “North American blacks” as your “race,” because any other identification is contrary to the facts. > > Now, take that out into the world and make sure that every time you use the phrase, no one misuses it to apply to all sub-Saharan Africans, otherwise, you are promoting misunderstanding and error. I am not quite sure exactly what you mean, but worldwide the prevalence of the gene which codes for sickle cell disease is substantially higher among: 1. the category known as “self-described black” in the United States 2. the category known as “the black race” (by almost any definition) 3. the category known as “all sub-Saharan Africans” 4. the category known as “descendants of sub-saharan African ancestry” [http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/6/06-036673-table-T1.html](http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/6/06-036673-table-T1.html) This is because the “race” generally categorized as “black” has many more sub-populations with this gene than the “race” generally categorized as “white.” See [here](http://www.dcp2.org/pubs/DCP/34/Figure/34.1a) for a distribution chart with which you are alread familiar. Like almost all identified genes, it is not exclusive to the groups I have listed above. It is simply more prevalent. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/77 "2010-05-03T15:51:02Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am not quite sure exactly what you mean, but worldwide the prevalence of the gene which codes for sickle cell disease… S/B “…the prevalence of the gene which codes for Hemoglobin S…” Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/78 "2010-05-03T16:46:06Z")
The OP has defined racism in a way assuring that the only legitimate way for a person to use the term is in reference to themselves, if they choose to admit their own racists beliefs. I suppose that’s not quite right – once someone has self-identified as a racist, the rest of us are free to reply, “Yes, you are indeed a racist”, so long as the racist is ok with that. Because once the racist says, “I’ve changed my mind. Other races are no longer inferior.”, the rest of us must accept that since there is no action they can take to prove or disprove the applicability of the term. So, the OP’s definition of the word pretty much entirely eliminates the use of the word. But that’s your whole point, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/79 "2010-05-04T02:16:06Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Defining racism as a consciously held affirmative belief, as others have pointed out, is a rabbit trail. It’s impossible to prove and, what’s more, it’s fashionable for racists to claim that they’re just 'telling the truth", or what have you. Hell, when everybody from White Power movements to David Duke all claim that they’re not racists, it’s clear that waiting for an admission of racism before we can form a valid judgment makes about as much sense only convicting people of crimes if they admit to them. It’s not anti-white racism, it’s White Pride. It’s not anti-semitic paranoid conspiracy mongering, it’s searching for Jews who have Conflicts of Interest and therefore can’t be trusted to have political opinions that differ too much from yours. It’s not xenophobia, it’s wanting to preserve the purity of essence of western civilization. > > And so on, and so on, and so on. Racists virtually never go out and _admit_ that they’re racists. And what’s more, they will often feign righteous indignation at such a suggestion. We had a guy here recently arguing that Jews were directly descended from Satan and weren’t just sub-human, they were lower than animals… and he said he wasn’t a racist. David Duke writes about the dangers of Jewish Supremacism and Dual Loyalty, and bemoans how unfair it is that people think he’s a racist. The folks who were creating passing around “Obama Bucks” with pictures of watermelons and fried chicken? They’re offended you’d call them racists. Offended, they’ll tell you. > > If we wait for racists to admit that they’re racists, we’ll die of boredom (or get some serious ocular damage from too much eye rolling). > > Instead, it’s perfectly fair to say that someone _is_ a racist if they do/say racist things. We don’t have to play Mindreader McPhee to prove that someone who says that blacks don’t deserve voting rights is a racist. We don’t have to try to divine someone’s true internal monologue if they name everybody in the US government who they think is Jewish and accuse them all of potential treachery based on nothing but their ethnicity, or single out Jews among all other people and say that if their politics aren’t the ‘correct’ kind that we should investigate them for treacherous devotion to Global Jewry… we can safely conclude that they’re a racist. We don’t have to perform rigorous psychological analysis on someone who says that gays are uniquely horrendous and public displays of affection among gay couples should be criminalized, but not so for straight people. We can, again, reach the valid conclusion that we’re dealing with a bigot. > > I don’t think that the basic logical underpinnings that support this are all that controversial, either. Not if we get down to brass tacks. We wouldn’t be hemming and hawing if the behavior under discussion was someone advocating, say, the forced sterilization of all Hispanic people, or setting up extermination camps for a racial group, or what have you. We don’t demand a complete psychological workup before we can call someone a racist who’s wearing a swastika arm band and talking about the evils of racial mixing. > > Nor does the claim that racism must be totally conscious hold water. If every time you see a black person you assume that they’re probably a violent criminal, or at least somehow involved with drug dealing then you’re a racist. And you’re a racist even if you don’t stop and engage in the requisite degree of soul searching (and categorical analysis) required to formulate the concept that “blacks are inherently prone to criminality and drug use due to their race.” > > It’s simple, actually. Someone can reliably be said to be a racist if they engage in racist behavior. You’ve covered some well-trod territory–i.e., how do we determine someone’s mindset from their actions. The statute defining every criminal act has a certain mindset that must be present for a crime to have occurred (almost–some crimes are committed just by the act, but we can ignore that). Therefore, every day of the week, some court has to determine that a person intended to permanently deprive the store of the flank steak when the person walked out the door with it. So, the difficulty of determining a person’s mindset from their actions does not invalidate the whole idea that it is the mindset that matters. In this very thread, Maeglin has given us a nice example of how he uses actions to determine mindset in a specific case. So, I don’t think you’ve done any harm to my definition of racist. You’ve just said that it is hard to determine if a person is racist under my definition just by looking at his actions. I recognize that difficulty but don’t think it’s a flaw in my definition. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357/80 "2010-05-04T02:17:58Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > But that’s your whole point, isn’t it? You are probably in the wrong forum for that comment, tough guy. As to the rest of your post, see my response to FinnAgain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-define-racism/537357.md?page=5)