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opinions on last night's question time
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ratcni01
ratcni01
916 posts

Re: opinions on last night's question time
Oct 24, 2009, 11:22
The idea of dividing the human race into races in the way we currently do was born of european anthropological studies done during a historical period where this terminology was defined based on the modernist philosophy that the kind of research being done was neutral in values and factual in output. Imo no research is neutral and the supposed factual output has in many ways been superceded by contemporary genetic research about genetic diversity etc.

Also think that the term race encourages polarised thinking and division. Whereas I prefer the view of humanity based on the Pogo cartoon which concludes "I have seen the enemy, and they are us" (an eco cartoon I know) but the sentiment is applicable elsewhere. Seems to me a better way to regard race is that there's one race, the human race. So the only interracial progeny are mermaids or centaurs etc.

I used the term race at times, but I prefer describing difference between people, I tend to describe what the difference is and/or use the self descriptive phrase used, so my kids are black people in some contexts, even though they're actually light brown skinned, but mostly they're an emo/indie/rock girl and a footie/xbox fanatic :-)

Racial descriptive terms such as black, asian, mixed race, arab or jewish aren't actual terms to define a race are they, they're a socially constructed piece of shorthand to enable us to describe what might be a historical location, religious or cultural tradition describe skin colour or physical features but when you delve into it defining this or that person as being of this "race" becomes virtually impossible with any kind of real logical or scientific basis.
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