# Racism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 23, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119 "2010-04-23T17:02:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/41 "2010-04-24T02:34:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Is it possible that racism is actually a part of our makeup? Is nepotism & favouring family members part of our makeup? Race is essentially a larger extended family so to an extent it is just an extension of nepotism. You can’t make it go away completely. > [@](#): > > What conditions could possibly contribute to such a society? Could those conditions be replicated in modern life? Removal of inequality would help, but that isn’t realistic. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/42 "2010-04-24T03:08:02Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Is nepotism & favouring family members part of our makeup? Race is essentially a larger extended family so to an extent it is just an extension of nepotism. Race is NOT analogous to an extended family. It has can and often does have little to nothing to do with actual genetics or genetic relationships. And, family relationships tend to be focused as much on helping the family members as they are in opposing outsiders, as in your own example of nepotism. Racism is overwhelmingly focused on hatred and exploitation of the “outsider”, with little concern for the “insider”. A family member will typically help me if I need it; a white racist isn’t going to care about me just because I’m also white. There’s no fellow feeling in racism, only hatred towards the enemy. It’s not the same thing either physically or psychologically. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/43 "2010-04-24T03:25:47Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Race is NOT analogous to an extended family. It has can and often does have little to nothing to do with actual genetics or genetic relationships. And, family relationships tend to be focused as much on helping the family members as they are in opposing outsiders, as in your own example of nepotism. Racism is overwhelmingly focused on hatred and exploitation of the “outsider”, with little concern for the “insider”. A family member will typically help me if I need it; a white racist isn’t going to care about me just because I’m also white. There’s no fellow feeling in racism, only hatred towards the enemy. > > It’s not the same thing either physically or psychologically. Yes it is. People of the same race are genetically more similar. The three clusters shown below are European (top, green + red), Nigerian (light blue) and E. Asian (purple + blue). [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/\_o6vigEr23C4/SSl0A1BD2YI/AAAAAAAAALI/rLaeIV3CE80/s400/Picture+2.png](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_o6vigEr23C4/SSl0A1BD2YI/AAAAAAAAALI/rLaeIV3CE80/s400/Picture+2.png) According to the mathematical analysis given in this paper, populations with FST as low as .0001 can be resolved with current technology. (Typical FST between northern and southern Europe is about .006, between Europe and E. Asia about .1 and between Europe and Nigeria about .14 .) > **[Genetic clustering: 40 years of progress](https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/06/genetic-clustering-40-years-of-progress.html)** > > Represent each individual human by their DNA sequence. When aggregated, they cluster into readily identifiable groups. This has been known f... ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/44 "2010-04-24T03:39:50Z")
What are the two “principal components” plotted on the graph? Why were those two axes, specifically, chosen for representation? Where is all the rest of the DNA? Since when have enough people had their personal DNA sequenced to make statistically meaningful comparisons between groups of such people? The second graph apparently represents only 92 individuals. With a tiny sample, there’s a potentially huge selection bias based on how those 92 were picked; if they’re chosen from relatively more isolated, traditional communities, it stands to reason they’d show more genetic grouping with each other–and more difference from the handful of people picked on other continents–but that doesn’t tell us much about the millions of other people (who might also be assigned to these same races, based on traditional visible criteria) who are better traveled. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/45 "2010-04-24T03:44:18Z")
> [@](#): > > And, family relationships tend to be focused as much on helping the family members as they are in opposing outsiders, as in your own example of nepotism. Also, they both involve similar psychological processes. The evolved tendency of altruism towards relatives. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/46 "2010-04-24T03:47:50Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Since when have enough people had their personal DNA sequenced to make statistically meaningful comparisons between groups of such people? The second graph apparently represents only 92 individuals. . For a larger study see Risch & Hua Tang’s paper involving 3,636 subjects. > [@](#): > > Numerous recent studies using a variety of genetic markers have shown that, for example, individuals sampled worldwide fall into clusters that roughly correspond to continental lines, as well as to the commonly used self-identifying racial groups: Africans, European/West Asians, East Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans (Bowcock et al. 1994; Calafell et al. 1998; Rosenberg et al. 2002). > > Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. > **[Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in...](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1196372/)** > > We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects ... ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/47 "2010-04-24T03:50:09Z")
Reading further, Hsu acknowledges that there can be greater separation between two individuals in the “same cluster” than between two individuals in “different clusters.” Yet he still wants to label the “clusters” as “races,” and make much of this. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/48 "2010-04-24T03:51:23Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Also, they both involve similar psychological processes. The evolved tendency of altruism towards relatives. Racism is about greed, ego and malice, not altruism towards relatives or anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/49 "2010-04-24T03:55:57Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Racism is about greed, ego and malice, not altruism towards relatives or anyone else. You’re overlooking that the flipside of altruism or preference for those in your group or family is going to be less preference for others. Basically in-group/out-group bias. It’s got little to do with greed or ego. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/50 "2010-04-24T04:03:46Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > You’re overlooking that the flipside of altruism or preference for those in your group or family is going to be less preference for others. Basically in-group/out-group bias. It’s got little to do with greed or ego. Don’t be silly. Racism is about praising your own greatness/excusing your failures (ego in other words), and excusing the exploitation, abuse or slaughter of the designated outsider (greed and malice). And unlike the family bias you keep trying to compare it to, there’s no fellow feeling toward the in group; it’s all hostility towards the outsider. It’s not the “flipside” of anything. Nor, again does it have much to do with genetics; just look at the American “[one drop rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule)”. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/51 "2010-04-24T04:12:56Z")
> [@](#): > > And unlike the family bias you keep trying to compare it to, there’s no fellow feeling toward the in group; it’s all hostility towards the outsider. It’s not the “flipside” of anything. Have you heard of evolutionary biologist William Hamilton’s work on inclusive fitness theory to explain the existence of altruism between genetically similar individuals? Or biologist John Maynard Smith’s writing on kin selection in evolution? Basically the explanation is that organisms often evolve instincts that cause altruism towards relations to promote the propagation of shared genes. In more practical terms, tribalism has been a useful means of survival and people have evolved in that context. So the prevalence of some degree of ethnocentrism isn’t that surprising. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/52 "2010-04-24T04:20:23Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Have you heard of evolutionary biologist William Hamilton’s work on inclusive fitness theory to explain the existence of altruism between genetically similar individuals? Or biologist John Maynard Smith’s writing on kin selection in evolution? Basically the explanation is that organisms often evolve instincts that cause altruism towards relations to promote the propagation of shared genes. Which have nothing to do with this. > [@Chen019](#): > > In more practical terms, tribalism has been a useful means of survival and people have evolved in that context. But racism isn’t tribalism. Related no doubt, but not the same thing. I have no actual relationship with some guy just because he’s white. It’s not like, say, nationalism which really is tribalism writ large. Racists have always been about persecuting and exploiting the outsider; tribalism includes loyalty towards the group, racism does not. It’s all malice. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/53 "2010-04-24T04:24:37Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Chen019 > Have you heard of evolutionary biologist William Hamilton’s work on inclusive fitness theory to explain the existence of altruism between genetically similar individuals? Or biologist John Maynard Smith’s writing on kin selection in evolution? Basically the explanation is that organisms often evolve instincts that cause altruism towards relations to promote the propagation of shared genes. > > Der Trihs wrote > > Which have nothing to do with this. It has everything to do with this. Nepotism and ethnocentrism are extensions of this evolved tendency for in-group/out-group bias. If people discriminate in favor of their relatives, they are going to discriminate against their non-relatives. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/54 "2010-04-24T04:24:55Z")
Hmm. So how about [this study](http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pgen.0020143)? Does this prove the “northern European” and “southern European” races? It’s looking like the clusters can be drawn at almost any scale you want to draw them at, depending on how you select your sample populations and markers. On one level, it’s not at all surprising that people with substantial similar ancestry in any given geographic area will show a certain level of genetic similarity to each other. (What else could we expect?) At another level, it’s not clear that anything is really signified by this. We gather a bunch of Norwegians and a bunch of Greeks, look at certain points in their genes, and–lo–the Norwegians “cluster” with the Norwegians, the Greeks with the Greeks. But, still, some _individual_ Norwegians are closer to some individual Greeks than they are to other Norwegians. I don’t have the biology or math to really seriously analyze this, but it seems like the evidence for the “African race” and “Asian race” is no different, qualitatively (just a matter of scale), than the evidence for the “Norwegian race” and the “Greek race.” Perhaps if we look carefully enough, further subclusters can be found amongst the Greek group–the Peloponnese race? The Cretan race? Why not just call the whole thing heritage and ethnicity, and stop acting like it means there are fundamentally different _kinds_ of human beings? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/55 "2010-04-24T04:34:17Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > I don’t have the biology or math to really seriously analyze this, but it seems like the evidence for the “African race” and “Asian race” is no different, qualitatively (just a matter of scale), than the evidence for the “Norwegian race” and the “Greek race.” Just what I’ve been saying; what gets the race label, and what doesn’t is arbitrary. It’s a historical accident that blacks happened to get stuck with the label of “race” and not, say, people with green eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/56 "2010-04-24T04:36:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Hmm. So how about this study? Does this prove the “northern European” and “southern European” races? It’s looking like the clusters can be drawn at almost any scale you want to draw them at, depending on how you select your sample populations and markers. Indeed, you can look at smaller and smaller groups until you get down to the family level. My point is simply that those of the same race they are more closely related in an extended family sense, so racism is basically ethnic nepotism. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/57 "2010-04-24T04:46:50Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Just what I’ve been saying; what gets the race label, and what doesn’t is arbitrary. It’s a historical accident that blacks happened to get stuck with the label of “race” and not, say, people with green eyes. Well, as Armand Leroi points out here, correlations of physical traits contain more info than individual ones. > [@](#): > > If one were asked to judge the ancestry of 100 New Yorkers, one could look at the color of their skin. That would do much to single out the Europeans, but little to distinguish the Senegalese from the Solomon Islanders. The same is true for any other feature of our bodies. The shapes of our eyes, noses and skulls; the color of our eyes and our hair; the heaviness, height and hairiness of our bodies are all, individually, poor guides to ancestry. > > But this is not true when the features are taken together. Certain skin colors tend to go with certain kinds of eyes, noses, skulls and bodies. When we glance at a stranger’s face we use those associations to infer what continent, or even what country, he or his ancestors came from - and we usually get it right. To put it more abstractly, human physical variation is correlated; and correlations contain information. [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/opinion/14leroi.html?pagewanted=1](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/14/opinion/14leroi.html?pagewanted=1) ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/58 "2010-04-24T04:52:57Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Indeed, you can look at smaller and smaller groups until you get down to the family level. My point is simply that those of the same race they are more closely related in an extended family sense… Two _individuals_ of the “same race” are _not necessarily_ more related to each other than two individuals of “different races”–they just _tend_ to be. They’re plottable as members of groups which show this clustering, _when you look at the groups_. It just seems very strange to insist on making qualitative statements about _individuals_–you are race X, and therefore different from him over there, who is race Y–based on the _average_ differences between _groups_ (which are themselves dependent on _which markers_ you choose; the studies aren’t comparing whole genomes). It would be like… I don’t know, compiling the test scores of all the kids in each class, then giving a student the average grade for whatever classroom he happened to be in, because after all, they had the same teacher… even if the kid’s own actual, individual test was demonstrably more like the A student across the hall than the C kids nearer to him. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/59 "2010-04-24T05:01:05Z")
> [@](#): > > wo individuals of the “same race” are not necessarily more related to each other than two individuals of “different races”–they just tend to be. They’re plottable as members of groups which show this clustering, when you look at the groups. But the genetic distance is always less between two from the same group, no? > [@](#): > > Because of the large amount of variation observed within races versus between races, some commentators have denied genetic differentiation between the races; for example, “Genetic data … show that any two individuals within a particular population are as different genetically as any two people selected from any two populations in the world.” [18]. This assertion is both counter-intuitive and factually incorrect [12,13]. If it were true, it would be impossible to create discrete clusters of humans (that end up corresponding to the major races), for example as was done by Wilson et al. [2], with even as few as 20 randomly chosen genetic markers. Two Caucasians are more similar to each other genetically than a Caucasian and an Asian. [http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007](http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007) ---
**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:** [April 24, 2010, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119/60 "2010-04-24T09:32:43Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Two _individuals_ of the “same race” are _not necessarily_ more related to each other than two individuals of “different races”–they just _tend_ to be. They’re plottable as members of groups which show this clustering, _when you look at the groups_. > > It just seems very strange to insist on making qualitative statements about _individuals_–you are race X, and therefore different from him over there, who is race Y–based on the _average_ differences between _groups_ (which are themselves dependent on _which markers_ you choose; the studies aren’t comparing whole genomes). > > It would be like… I don’t know, compiling the test scores of all the kids in each class, then giving a student the average grade for whatever classroom he happened to be in, because after all, they had the same teacher… even if the kid’s own actual, individual test was demonstrably more like the A student across the hall than the C kids nearer to him. You are making a reasonable point here–that belonging to a particular group does not automatically mean an individual’s performance reflects exactly the group average. And when there is some overlap, the least able individuals of one group will underperform the most able individuals of another. I don’t think anyone seriously debates that there is enough overlap in most populations–however defined–to observe this. What is at stake in the notion of “racism” is what happens at the “race” level. How does a particular race perform at a group average compared with another? It has become popular to counter the argument proposing that races may have innate differences by arguing that “race” is so loosely defined and so scientifically untestable genetically that it must be a meaningless concept. This is one of those things that sounds good on paper and breaks down in practice. While there are individuals whose phenotypic appearance is not representative enough to easily ascertain their race, this is not true of the broad average population. Indeed, if it were true, then racism would cease to exist because we’d all be phenotypically indistinguishable. There wouldn’t be any races. To suggest immutable (nature/genetic) differences among races is not the same as taking a position that race itself is tightly defined nor that individuals do no overlap. It is simply a position that the prevalence of genetic coding underpinning a particular skillset varies by populations–including those populations categorized as “self-described race.” Since populations–including self-described races–can be shown to have prevalences of genetic code that correlate with that population\* it does not seem unreasonable to suppose that there is more to race than simply culture. \*Say, for example, the prevalence of Hemoglobin S in the US–the genes which code for this variant are found almost exclusively in the black US population. This suggests that, although “self-described black” and “self-described white” are rather crude categories, they are not “just skin color.” And of course, prevalence of genes coding for skin color and other average phenotypic differences equally suggest some sort of average difference in genetic makeup among populations. The dilemma about ending “racism” is that if races differ in genetically-based potential, and we define racism as accepting that those average differences exist, racism won’t go away. Now if you define racism as the assumption that an individual is only capable of the average performance for his group, well we can probably try to make that go away. But that’s an educational problem and a rather weak definition of racism. It’s not an effort to pretend that there are no average differences among races. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/racism/537119.md?page=4)