Affirmative action doesn’t require “real” race, or race at all, to make sense. It can be based on class, or on other forms of bigotry.
For example: In a hypothetical society where redheads, or people with lisps, or little people were despised, affirmative action policies for redheads, or people with lisps, or little people could make sense–even if there was no race of redheads, or people with lisps, or little people as such.
Race does exist.
If I identify another as being from X race does that make me a racist ?
Now I know that there are problems with people regardless of race or even a difference in general and I know that one race may think differently to another on many things, we have the Aborigines of Australia and the original people from New Zealand and this lot are the same colour and they don’t like each other or look up to there culture and they are two different people who just like with different breeds of dogs have a different type of nature.
It’s a fact that’s how they are and I am not talking about half breeds or less because this is another breed again.
Now some may call such an understanding as racist maybe, but I don’t think there is anything wrong with such an understanding.
I find a person who is racial prejudice as an idiot, the prejudice just comes from an ignorance on the reality.
I went to a place that claimed had Australian aboriginal people that showed there history at the place, I got there and asked where are the aboriginals, they said it was them 
no no I want to talk to aboriginals not half cast types putting on a show just for simplistic ignorant whites, who don’t have a clue and can be palmed off with any load of rubbish.
I am one who lived with the true people when I was a young and I find it an insult to have to put up with the political correct dribble that forced down our neck day in day out, having some ponce dictate to me what I have to believe !
I was interested before I went there and I sat through it all 
boring.
At the end of the day there is different races and only political correctness says it’s not, PC is a whore and bastards like this are trying to destroy all and any race and I see it with the true aboriginal people that the PC bastards have claimed that to be an aboriginal you just have to have some blood line of it and you are one, that’s a modern day PC lie that’s been conjured up to work destroy the real true aboriginal people.
It’s stealing there true identity as a people and it’s done for a cunning plan the PC Marxist have install down the track.
I do say that a person who is not full blood can still be an type of aboriginal and all, but as such is not truly an Aboriginal because that’s what the word means.
One thing about the term African American, I find this is such a totally foolish thing to say :smack: when they are not African American ? they say this nonsense when they are American born of full or part of African blood it’s madness that’s created by political correctness, the fact is it’s not true !! and this is the madness of PC it has no respect for the truth, it’s a deceitful whore.
If I ran around saying my race before my Nation, people would think your some sort of full on Nazi moron not to mention some sort of racial prejudice rat bag nut case.
I admit a smidge of confusion as well. I think TriPolar’s point is that all humans have their ancestral origins in sub-Saharan Africa (or so goes prevailing evolutionary theory, anyway), but even if so, I didn’t get it at first.
In any case - yeah, people with darker skin are often denied opportunities through the preconceptions of others, regardless of how recently “African” (if at all) their ancestry. Does this guy have an 80% subSaharan African whatever? It’s entirely possible David Duke has a more recent ancestral connection to Africa, by thousands of years.
You might be missing the point of both of these propositions. On the one hand is the argument that racial discrimination is unjustified on the grounds that there are fundamentally no differences other than a few distinguishing physical characteristics. At the same time, Affirmative Action recognizes that while raced-based classicism should not exist, it does in fact exist and there ought to be mandatory remedies to compensate for past abuses against people who have been disproportionately affected by these policies.
You spend so much time railing against “Political Correctness” and hurling insults around, yet you demonstrate that you are totally ignorant of the topic on which you are expounding.
Your definition of race is very much an example of a social construct. It is not based on science, but on your perceptions of the prejudices with which you grew up, based on nineteenth century beliefs that were formed before science demonstrated that they were wrong.
Race, as an expression of a biological reality, does not exist. It is a social construct applied to people based on misunderstandings and misleading appearances.
If you identify a person as being a member of “race X,” it may or may not make you a racist. If you are speaking with the understanding that your identification is based on socially defined characteristics of appearance, there is no reason to believe you are a racist. If you are speaking as though “race” was some biological reality, then you may be a racist or merely terribly ignorant.
The scientific reality is that all humans are “half breeds” (to use your insulting slur). As to “half castes,” (if you are going to use a slur, learn to spell the word), you have imported the word from India from a meaning that was, itself, a social construct, never based on science. It will be more appropriate if you refrain from using slurs when you try to propose an argument, as the slurs simply indicate that you are more interested in promoting hatred than in actual discussion.
Again, you demonstrate you ignorance with your unnecessary and erroneous complaint against “African American.” It does not mean what you seem to claim it means. The word “African” does not indicate a race, it refers to a continent. The phrase indicates people living in the U.S. who had ancestors living in Africa who were enslaved and brought to the U.S. Such people actually exist (in the millions) and they have been subjected to extreme discrimination based on that ancestry, so your objection is pointless. The word “race” gets used in that context based on the erroneous beliefs of earlier peoples about biology and the current understanding of social constructs. There may be reasons to object to the phrase, but you have not provided any legitimate reason and your insulting language is more appropriate to The BBQ Pit than to this forum.
Also “ponce” there is generally a slur for a gay man. At least in the UK and for a good long time. Not quite on the level of “fag”, but a fairly unpleasant term to use nonetheless.
Hang about you are a Political correct person who believes that being PC is something worthy to be looked up to, am I correct.
I reject PCness because I know what it’s intent is and that has to do with brainwashing people and I will inform you that the Nazis and the Communist used PC to control the people and don’t dismiss it because it’s a fact, only the way it’s used nowadays is fabian and this is just a means to an end for Communist.
Why do you use the word African as you are, we all know what we are on about and you are just trying to be a smart arse about it, who of the white Africans says he is African American ? no really ! :rolleyes:
I am an Australian and we don’t have all the hang ups like you mob do in the USA and you use words back the front to us, such things come across as just madness to us Aussies, you use the word liberal and it’s a 180 degree to what we use it to mean not to mention other things.
If I went down to see my Aboriginal mates and said they were not a race of people, I would not be that stupid or ignorant, I’d get you to go down and inform them.
There is nothing insulting at all of what I have put forward. if anything you have a guilt complex to do with your own peoples past treatment of slaves and such has nothing to do with me at all.
One of my best mates is half aboriginal and half German and that’s a fact that he says so and there is nothing in it as it’s just a fact, that’s what he is and again I like to see some PC clown tell him he is not.
I have known him for 43 years.
Your definition of race is just PC and all PC is just another form of cunning lying trickery, the PC crowd use all sorts of nonsense to play there dirty tricks, they use all the emotional garbage from the past to help them play there little games.
The past history has gone and it’s irrelevant to bang on about such dragging such emotional things, not to mention it’s just stupid, but hey cunning PC love to use this tool.
One thing is I am not racial prejudice and I have stood up with my Aboriginal mates against PC thugs pushing them around and I do say it’s PCness that’s working to wipe them out as a true race.
Yes I know Political Correctness is the work of Satan, the Bible points out just how cunningly that serpent works, oh yes such comes across as all nice and lovey dovey but you see such works are hollow empty that only lead all astray, just look at the USA everywhere PC is at work, it’s trying to destroy Christianity and the USA is going down hill to become in slaved under PCness there new idol god Molich murdering baby’s up to 9 months old, 1 million a year :o the love of PCness is insane, it’s making people out to be just cattle.
Fact is PC is not salvation but a deranged evil monster.
If you want to bring it on, I will look for this BBQ pit you mentioned, I am only new to this forum and trying to get the hang of it.
I don’t know why you get so worked up about such things, maybe you are a communist, as that’s the type who love to reject freedom of speech and play the man.
Ostentatious.
The Tomkins incident and the Aboriginal deaths in custody issues in your country demonstrate that you are not as different as you think.
Of course the cultural construct of race exists, and you are demonstrating an argument that shows why it is wrong.
You are blinded by your own privilege and have done thing to further your argument that it is a biological trait.
I love the idea that the Nazis used political correctness to control people - Juden Raus!, that’s totally PC…
…but what do I know, I’m just a half-breed.
Lack of punctuation?
Check.
References to this all being a communist plot?
Check.
References to this all being the work of Satan?
Check.
Claims of “I’m not racist” and "Some of my best friends are [insert minority here]?
Check.
Now all we need is a reference to the Illumati and at least one word in ALL CAPS?
I am with you brother, especially when people try to tell me how to greet others during the winter solstice celebration. If I prefer to say Happy Holidays, you just know somebody is going to get all upset and berate me for not saying Merry Christmas. Yes, this PC bullshit getting out of hand, but thank the goddess I live in a country with freedom of speech and religion.
Cool story bro.
I’m sorry, I’ll put it less showily for you.
“Ponce” is a derogatory term, where I live, for a gay man. I’m bisexual, and I’d kind of like to know why you used that word.
Yeah, I find myself wondering if an actual physical anthropologist would ever actually say the “race doesn’t exist”. One might admit that, while there are definite differences between human populations, the word “race” has muddied the waters and has a lot of baggage to it, leading to chattel slavery and eugenics, etc.
I’m also sure that the Aborigines and the natives of New Zealand (side question: are all the indigenous people of NZ Maori? S’pose I could go Google that…) would be thrilled by the comparison to dog breeds. At the moment I’m inclined to attribute the unfortunate metaphor to poor communication skills rather than racism, if only to give this gentleman the rapidly dwindling benefit of the doubt, but it’s not exactly an ideal turn of phrase.
[QUOTE=American Association of Physical Anthropologists]
3.There is great genetic diversity within all human populations.** Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.
**
[…]
10. There is no necessary concordance between biological characteristics and culturally defined groups. On every continent, there are diverse populations that differ in language, economy, and culture.** There is no national, religious, linguistic or cultural group or economic class that constitutes a race.** However, human beings who speak the same language and share the same culture frequently select each other as mates, with the result that there is often some degree of correspondence between the distribution of physical traits on the one hand and that of linguistic and cultural traits on the other.** But there is no causal linkage between these physical and behavioral traits, and therefore it is not justifiable to attribute cultural characteristics to genetic inheritance.**
[/QUOTE]
Originally Posted by gytalf2000 View Post
Yeah, I find myself wondering if an actual physical anthropologist would ever actually say the “race doesn’t exist”.
Funny you should say that…
Quote:
Originally Posted by American Association of Physical Anthropologists
3.There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of genetically homogenous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past.
[…]
10. There is no necessary concordance between biological characteristics and culturally defined groups. On every continent, there are diverse populations that differ in language, economy, and culture. There is no national, religious, linguistic or cultural group or economic class that constitutes a race. However, human beings who speak the same language and share the same culture frequently select each other as mates, with the result that there is often some degree of correspondence between the distribution of physical traits on the one hand and that of linguistic and cultural traits on the other. But there is no causal linkage between these physical and behavioral traits, and therefore it is not justifiable to attribute cultural characteristics to genetic inheritance.
Interesting!
Despite your odd syntax and bad punctuation, I suspect you are asking whether I think that Political Correctness is a good thing.
No. I think that Political Correctness is a phrase used by crude people to rationalize their own own rejection of polite conversation and their insistence that they be allowed to be rude when they make insulting statements about others, particularly when the statements are both rude and false.
There is nothing “Politically correct” about using science to examine human populations and realizing that nineteenth century ideas about “race” were errors. There is, rather, something a bit sad about expressing errors as “true” when they are supported by nothing but personal beliefs despite being contradicted by facts.
Actually, not only was “Political Correctness” coined 30 years after the Nazis were well on the way toward oblivion, but the Nazis and the Stalinists used the opposite methods to make their points. Instead of insisting on polite expressions, they brought crude and erroneous expressions into their languages.
(And your fascination with communism–a political movement that has been washed up for over 25 years–is intriguing in its silliness.)
Slaves in the U.S. were brought from Africa–thus African American. We also have German Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Polish Americans, etc., but those people immigrated by their own choice from nation states in Europe. When brought to the U.S., slave were forced through a process known as breaking in order to separate them from their homelands and to prevent their descendants from being able to identify the lands from which their ancestors had been taken. So the broader identification of “African,” (which is entirely accurate–we never imported slaves from Mongolia or the Pampas), has been used. I am hardly being a smart ass by simply pointing out facts. One does not hear white people identify as African American because there are very, very few white Africans who have immigrated to the U.S. and none of them were imported as slaves.
The words “half breed” and “half caste” are insults. “Bastards” and “whore” are insults. That you post such vitriol while denying your actions says much about your knowledge and logic.
You are also making silly claims regarding my non-existent guilt complex, but I am beginning to expect from you irrational leaps of rhetoric that avoid facts.
What “definition” do you propose for the word “race”? What is its history and where is the evidence for it? I have pointed out facts regarding both the biology and the sociology behind the use of the word and the best that you can do is to label the facts as “PCness” without providing a single bit of evidence for your beliefs. Hiding behind silly accusations of “PC” with no facts does nothing to promote your beliefs.
Whoopee! Now you are dragging odd religious beliefs into the discussion.
meh
I am hardly worked up about anything. However, Straight Dope is a slang term for correct information and your nonsense is the opposite. And now you are back to throwing around the word “communist” with no basis. It seems that you have an extremely limited world view in which you wish to think of Satan and communism and PC as some sort of unholy triad of activity in the world and you have to force anyone who does not agree with all your errors into a container with those labels so that you can avoid ideas that trouble you. You will note that, aside from pointing out the lack of facts in your posts, I have made no effort to pigeonhole your beliefs into some rigid box. I have also made no effort to silence you. (It is much better to have you post your errors so that they may be refuted than to silence you. The only condition on that is that if you insist on posting insults toward other posters, you might jeopardize your posting privileges.)
You maybe correct it may not be the correct phrase, but it’s sort of like that, just some people get offended over anything and start getting off track with what they may think is being said.
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