I think this is the best argument for eliminativism that I have ever read. You write with clarity and the power of conviction. I share your conviction, and I thank you for sharing yours.
A philosopher might quibble with this, but here is a stab at a definition - Eliminativism is a normative position with regard to racial categories, one that argues the best way forward for human beings is to work toward eliminating racial categories - basically to stop categorizing each other by race, and relying on race as a meaningful way of understanding each other. This doesn't mean that we ignore the historical effect that racial categories have had. We just work toward making them less important and less meaningful, as much as we can. I have found the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on race to be very helpful. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/ But all I've done here is say much less well what Amir Zaki said so elegantly! ;)
Other than Laura's definition, which I think is a good one; and it seems to align with what I've observed its use in the wilds -- eliminativism seems to also come paired with the notion that not only should racial categories not be used, that the concept of race itself is erroneous and has no empirical foundation. It seems that both those points -- that racial categories should not be used as a meaningful way of understanding each other and that race is empirically unjustifiable -- are argued in Amir's essay. I am sympathetic to the first point, and think the second point is incorrect. And even though I think the second point is incorrect, I think it should be a view that students should be exposed to in any "ethnic studies" curriculum, along with other competing conceptions.
Amir: This was so well said. I have the pleasure of having met Carlos Hoyt (and his lovely wife) at a workshop last September and his model of revising the US census questions is brilliant and reflective of honest, fact-based data-gathering. I teach in a large private university and when I look at my students' faces I see the whole world of ethnicities, language and universal hopes and dreams. Many of them could very likely never check a box on race since they are so similar to how you describe your children. Thank you for such a clear and helpful essay.
“Ethnicity” is mostly just a euphemism for race. For example, “Ethnic studies” is basically “Race studies” with a paint job. The terms “race” and “culture” are sufficient, and clearly delineated. The concept of race has become morally polluted, particularly when it comes to expressing pride about race, which I feel is good; but ethnicity functions pretty much the same, but people seem to have different sentiments about the term. People will shy away from expressing pride of their race, but not their ethnicity. Ethnic pride is still seen as being acceptable. As is ethnic tribalism. Which is a shame. Just the same poison by another name.
I disagree. If it's being used as a euphemism, then that's sloppy usage. Ethnicity subsumes a variety of shared cultural traits, geography, history, etc. Race, at least according to the US Census is a grotesque biological fiction strictly. e.g. a wide variety of "races" can be of "Latin" ethnicity. Skin tones spanning whatever chart you like would happily check the "Latino/a" box on a census, even though they may be (and often are) racialized differently. I could go on, but it's a fairly clear delineation for me, and an important one, especially as I also advocate to jettison "race" and the process of "racializing" others (and one's self).
Ethnicity is typically used to refer to race + whatever. Its a way to smuggle in race into a person's identity. Anything you want to say about a person can be said without the term ethnicity, and it will be clearer. The fact that many races can belong to the same ethnicity is not relevant. Many races can belong to the same race. Consider the "white race"; it includes "Anglo-Saxon", "Germanic" or whatever other "races" -- ie arbitrary biological lineages people decide to cut up that spread in europe. "Latino", regardless of a person's geographical birth, "history", or culture will only make sense as an "ethnicity" if that person has some biological lineage connecting to people "native" to Mexico, central, and south america. The reason such a wide variety of skin tones can check off the Latino box is because people from a variety of racial backgrounds sexually intermingled with the native people of "Latin America." But if a Han Chinese infant were adopted by someone from Argentina, and was raised in some culture of Argentina, it would make absolutely no sense for them to check off "latino" in a census even though they may share other traits often saddled to "ethnicity" that some other Argentinian might have. And imagine if that Han Chinese person had children with an Arab adoptee in Argentina -- it would not make sense for their children to check off latino either. Ethnicity doesn't exist without race. But race exists without ethnicity. There is no way to jettison race and not jettison ethnicity. We should just jettison ethnicity. We have ideas that when combined, or separate, are much clearer -- e.g. race, culture, tribe, nationality.
Thanks for your comment. Indeed many people do treat ethnicity this way, and I have a friend whose parents are both Korean who was born in Mexico and considers herself Latina. These are not boundaries in the way you circumscribe. My definitions were pretty clear and hue toward what the census is using (for better or worse). Before talking to people about "race" I typically ask them to define what they mean to avoid confusion. Here is what I was referring to: https://www.verywellmind.com/difference-between-race-and-ethnicity-5074205
Oh Lordy. Well, I cannot argue with the fact that the Census does use such an .... inclusive... definition of ethnicity. From the census:
"The OMB requires federal agencies to use a
minimum of two ethnicities: Hispanic or Latino and
Not Hispanic or Latino. Hispanic origin can be viewed
as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country
of birth of the person or the person’s parents or
ancestors before their arrival in the United States.
People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or
Spanish may be of any race. “Hispanic or Latino” refers
to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or
Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin
regardless of race. "
Apparently, a a person of Han chinese ancestry can be born in South America, their parents can be from China, the child can only live in South America for 1 day, before they continue their migration to the US, and the child is ethnically Latino. Ugh, the stupid.
Sounds like Rachel Dolezal can be "ethnically black" as her identifying heart desires -- at least according to the US Census. If we use that definition of ethnicity, a person can validly claim to be "ethnically" whatever they wish. Ethnicity in that conception ends up being quite like the way "gender" is now used. Which, only solidifies my dislike of the term. People use it to express racial pride *and* people could, theoretically, use it to categorize themselves in irrational ways, like Rachel Dolezal. Ethnically black transwomen ARE black women.
I'm not sure where we're headed here. I offered you the example of my friend and a concrete point of discussion to jump off from, and a question posed to you. I received, charitably, not a civil exchange. I think we agree a lot of these terms have little meaning or utility. Have a great weekend.
Thank you so much for this. I'm a person of Sephardic, European, African, and Native American ancestry. Like you, I'm someone whose "race" people have a hard time identifying, so I've often been asked the question, "What are you?" I've been frustrated by the fact that anti-racists speak of race as if everyone dwells in a neat, racial pigeonhole. There is little nuance in public discussions of race, and almost no attention paid to those whose identity spans more than one racial category, leading us to an identity of "human" above all else. I hope to see more writers like you adding depth and complexity to the discussion.
Yes, it is bizarre to look at a world of 8 billion people and imagine that extent of human variation can be neatly histogrammed into 4 boxes. We are not playing cards. Take any of these categories and they become absurd in an instant...."asian" is supposed to cover - what? 3-4 billion people? What meaning is that supposed to convey? Everything from people deep in the Indian subcontinent to Thai to Chinese and fijian, Burmese, Japanese, and Mongolian peoples to folks in Europe, USA, etc. with varying heritage from these regions? People who look nothing alike and share no "essential" feature are to be binned together for...what purpose?
I am somewhat different and somewhat similar. I do not expect other people to know about or care about my "race" identification. For one thing, I've never had one. Being Jewish, my basic division of the world is Jewish non-Jewish and has nothing to do with color, except one thing. Since my background is obviously not 100% Semitic with my blond hair and blue eyes, growing up I always wanted to be darker. It had nothing at all to do with Blacks. That Black - White divide is totally and completely irrelevant to me except government tries to force into an irrelevant category. I refuse to put White since to me that means Goyim. I settled on "Other" and wrote in either "Jewish" or "Speckled" (I get freckles in the summer).
Why would I be anti-Black? Blacks never engaged in genocide against my People. On the other hand, I never found that Blacks as a group were outstandingly wonderful human beings. No group is outstandingly wonderful!
My mother drilled into me that each person is to be judged by their own individual character. Somewhere along the way her father's family was intermarried with Richard Henry Lee's who signed the Declaration of Independence. You'd think the Declaration had been handled down at Mt. Sinai and had become the first book of the Torah. So naturally, Martin Luther King was hero above all other American heroes.
Due to my light skin hue, I do get to hear a lot of stuff dark skinned people do not hear. Whites are not 1/100th as racists as Nancy Pelosi and her Woker Identity Politics insist. It was White people who wrote the Declaration with inalienable individual rights and Jefferson phrased the Declaration so that it would definitely include Blacks. In the late 1950's we thought that finally that day had arrived when each person would be an individual, but then came the perversion of the Poverty Program into a Dem patronage system based on race and ethnicity. Now, the mark of Cain has been placed on Whites, and Wokers wonder why race tensions are so high. Without Wokers, there would have been no Trump, and no DeSantis, No "Don't say Gay," and no GOP President in 2024.
Beautiful. Being of richly mixed descent myself, I have been racialized several different ways depending on context. It made the fiction of it clear to me early on. But some fictions persist despite their irrationality (Easter Bunny) or open harm (race). It is a bell that cannot be un-rung, but we should at least agree to stop ringing it again and again of our own choosing. It only does damage and I cannot think of a scenario in which the invocation of "race" has improved anything. One irony I sometimes like to point out to others is that it used to be considered the height of "scientific racism" to eagerly try to find physical characteristics to "sort" people into different groups. It was - to some degree - the advent of molecular biology that helped us to see that we stood together as one race. Witnessing a large body of people (mostly in the past 3 years) so eager to sort everyone anew into racial categories under the banner of "progress" is a moral revulsion to me. To watch 2 and 3 year olds play together boundlessly across identity markers and then a few years later have them be told in classrooms that their "race" is an important part of their identity truly saddens me. We have so many societal problems requiring our collaboration and the reflectivity of our skin, or breadth of our noses, or curliness of our hair stands in the way? Madness.
A thoughtfully written, heartfelt, and insightful article. Thanks for posting this. I am currently writing my fifth book, Embracing Diversity as a Family: Preparing the Next Generation to Flourish. I plan to include a few statements from this, with citation, in my chapter: 50 Shades of Brown. We are all one race, the human race. With global travel, immigration, and current marriage choices, skin tone from the mix of our ancestors — wrongly termed "race" — has become irrelevant. We are all just people. All of us trying to survive and raise our kids to thrive in a toxic world. Have a great weekend!
I need to have vision of a post-racial world. An open source version of Angelica Dass is to use the standard RGB to describe skin colors. Take a selfie outdoors on sunny day to standardize lighting, view photo on computer, use a color measuring app to get RR.GG.BB color from nose (that’s what Angelica does), make an RR.GG.BB solid color screen resolution image, add text in upper right corner “I self-identify as RR.GG.BB”.
And then use that as your Zoom virtual background. Imagine a day when driver licenses have a field “Skin Color” = RR.GG.BB.
It’s not Color Blind, it’s Color Aware. If we accept and apply the One Drop Rule, then all of our ancestors were Africans. I don’t think racism can extinguish until we accept the unquestionable reality that “race” is not a meaningful or a helpful way to categorize humanity.
If we accept and apply the One Drop Rule, and accept that all of our ancestors were Africans, then it is clear that we all have African ancestry. How big is my drop? Your drop?
I discovered Angelica Dass in 2019, purchased a Pantone skin color set, and found not one color code of my set matched any of hers. I contacted Pantone hoping to purchase a set that matched. Pantone told me her color codes are not from Pantone but are proprietary.
So I concluded that we should use RGB. I bought an app for my iMac that reports RGB color of the screen image at the location of the cursor. I want to make a zoom virtual background that matches my RGB skin color and add text field that says “I self-identify as RR.GG.BB.”
The RGB standard calls for each color is encoded as two 8-bit binary numbers. I don’t have the graphics apps or skill to finish the job. Would this be a nice project for one of your classes?
Take a selfie in standardized lighting (Angelica uses 6000K lights) like outdoors ona sunny day. Measure RGB of nose (that’s what Angelica does). Make HD or better panel of that color. Add text. Export as jpeg. Import to zoom as virtual background.
Your beyond race essay expresses what is needed. The last time I checked BEYONDRACE.ORG was still available.
Another great irony is that the "Woke" crowd are increasing a national/Western obsession with this recent construct that is race, and turning regular people into what we might call racists. Those few people in the US that we might reasonably argue are still racist (mostly old, isolated, low education, limited travel) are in fact acting rationally: their world has gone, their norms are shattered, their lives are filled with suffering.
I doubt very much they have essentialist, Darwinian, supremacist views about black people. We can almost sympathize with them. They are not racist. They are sad and slightly lost. They have lost. This is good. They will fade away with their mid 20th century views on diversity.
The DEI crowd however are arguably the meaner side: they focus on payback, animus, cruel cancellation, cherry picking history to suit their views, forcing abstract, troublesome views on kids in schools, punishing people who slip up verbally, and for whats it worth, wasting billions in US productivity per year with inane, sometimes, insane DEI protocols.
Race was constructed by zealous Catholic Spaniards, reasonably for the time, in line with anti-Islam Crusading views. It was not an important historical attitude until the 1700s. By the 1800s, Europeans had been deluded into thinking they were a superior race. The Nazis took it further. We've now had almost 80 years of anti-racism (in the West, travel abroad and see what you get). We are succeeding. We had it won 5-10 years ago before the Identity Politics crowd turned us back decades.
I live just outside Riverside, in the county-so “Hi!”. As an old light skinned woman my fervent prayer is that my grandchildren will eventually see a lessening of this divisiveness. Sadly I fear there will always be something that can be used to divide us and divert our efforts to live fully in peace with each other. With others such as yourself perhaps we can change at least those we come in contact with and that is a beginning.
This article is a breath of fresh air, reminding us of the obvious - that any invented concepts of separation will drive an artificial wedge into society, undermining our interconnectedness and shared humanity. I appreciate your weaving of the Buddhist concepts into this piece. It has been disappointing for me to watch most Buddhist teachers and centers in the US embrace divisive racial ideologies.
First of all, thank you! Regarding the current trend in American Buddhism, yes, I have been hearing about that too...Hard for me to understand how one can reconcile Buddhist ideas with such a fixation on superficial identity and separateness.
Well, once you crack the Koan of how Buddhism served as a foundational ideology of Imperial Japan during World War 2, you may inch closer to enlightenment and no longer be so reverent toward Buddhism. Perhaps you will want to separate yourself from Buddhism. There are many such Koans--like easter eggs, waiting to be hatched in a less fettered mind.
Sometimes wedges and borders are best for a thriving and good society. You make it sound like "separation" is always a bad thing.
I am not surprised Buddhist teachers are embracing more foolish, pernicious ideology. Can you give an example of Buddhist teachers and centers embracing woke racism? I haven't looked into that; I'm curious.
I go to Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, MA. I am fine with them holding separate retreats for indigenous, LGBTQ, and people of color. What bugs me (and I wrote them about it) is when it’s an inclusive retreat that turns into celebration of victim cultures, with special affinity sittings, and “let’s give our historically unrepresented minorities the first opportunity to ask questions” and other such pronouncements. I believe Coleman Hughes told a similar story after visiting IMS.
Also, I heard Sam Harris’s talks with Joseph Goldstein and Tara Brach, unsuccessfully trying to convince them that society would be better off without obsessively dwelling on skin color.
Oh Sam Harris. He would probably be a lot more successful convincing them that Trump is an asteroid and photos of dead children on the harddrive of the children of presidents don't matter. I can see that as point of agreement for them.
There is a lot of empowerment technology embedded within Buddhist and eastern philosophy more generally.
For example Buddha's yogācāra uses the brain and nervous system for freedom. One collateral effect of the practices of yogācāra is greater broadly defined physical health, broadly defined mental health, broadly defined intelligence. Someone who practices yogācāra also automatically attracts high quality company. [There is a field of economic literature spawned by Glenn Loury called "relations before transactions" that describes the economic value of one's company.]
This would be very helpful for groups of people to sharply improve socio-economic outcomes.
Why isn't this the focus of social justice?
"Racism" in eastern philosophy is a subset of patterns with the brain, nervous system, deep subconscious. By breaking these patterns down, "racism" automatically dissolves.
The Buddha and the great masters after him described what some might see as the levels of dissolving "racism" as:
--sotāpanna
--sakadāgāmin
--anāgāmi
--arahant
At arahant, there is no more "racism." If the goal is to end global "racism", shouldn't the focus be on raising the global level of consciousness? So that everyone in the world accesses consciousness 24 hours a day?
Hi AnAn. Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I'm not familiar with all the language you use, but I share your sentiments and really appreciate your take on my article.
As an account of personal history and personal musings, this is passably interesting, but it is greatly weakened by two things.
First, it never articulates its logical conclusion: that we should disallow governments and public institutions at all levels from asking people to "check a race" box on any form. Nor does it evidence any realization that in California in 2002-2003 we voted on a ballot initiative -- Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative -- that would have done just that. Nor does it seem aware of the abundance of articles, op eds, petitions, etc. generated by that campaign.
Second, Amir weakens his case with this common and unscientific trope that is found widely in the "race is just a social construct" literature:
"In 2023, It appears painfully evident that the concept of different and distinct races is a myth. From a biological perspective, this is nearly indisputable." The phrase "and distinct" is an unclear hedge but in its absence, any man in the street would see the falsity of the statement.
From a strictly biological perspective, or more specifically that of physical anthropology or human population genetics, race (or subspecies) refers to the obvious slight genetic and phenotypic differentiation of subpopulations within a species that have been isolated from each other for a long period of time, e.g. for example tens of thousands of years. The degree of "distinctness" and its visibility is usually related to geographic distance and/or barriers, and that naturally influences the practical utility or value of assigning a formal name to each race or subspecies.
All that is completely independent of the fact that intermarriage over centuries and millenia, in some regions more than others, is making it ridiculous for governments and other social and political institutiions to divide people by race. We can revive Proposition 54 without denying scientific realities.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I do believe my view is based in science, and not a trope. However, I could be wrong. Please provide the current scientific evidence for separate races. How many are there and what are their names, exactly?
Given your apparent approval of an error-ridden, highly political blog by a grad student as representing good scientific information, plus the availability to you of Jeffrey Peoples' astute comments, I think the most useful thing I can do is suggest you do some reading starting with a short book, "Genetic Diversity and Human Equality" (1973) by one of the best known popuation geneticists of an earlier generation, Theodosius Dobzhansky. Then go back an browse the more encyclopedic "Origin of the Races" (1962) by Carleton Coon.
Looking forward to possibly having a discussion in real time. Perhaps we have more common ground than it seems here. This kind of public, performative conversation tends to encourage a dehumanized style that often leads to misunderstandings.
My impression would be that this would be useful only in participants all were better and more accurately informed on some history and core issues than is apparent in this discussion. Need a set common readings. Here's a starter:
Racial Categorization in the 2010 Census
A Briefing Before The United States Commission on Civil Rights Held in Washington, DC, April 7, 2006
As the present classification system evolved, Professor Prewitt explained, problematic features remained, making it difficult for the current system to inform coherent policies for the 21st century. Among the factors he identified as making the current system unstable:
1) the blurring of racial boundaries through inter-marriage; 2) the introduction of the multiple-race option in official statistics; 3) multi-culturalism as a way to describe the society; 4) the increased use of census categories in the quest to assert group identities; e) the rhetorical and legal references to diversity in education and employment; 5) the increase in demographic diversity resulting from recent immigration; 6) the growth of the Latino population, counted in many venues as a racial group but in others as an ethnic group;
7) recent studies of race as biologically significant; 8) DNA testing as a fashionable way to uncover individual ancestry; and 9) political efforts to eliminate race and ethnicity from the statistical system altogether. .... He concluded by urging the government to more clearly state the reasons and goals of measuring racial data, and to design the most relevant classifications feasible to meet those goals"
EXCERPT from Ward Connerly:
"Mr. Connerly shared his perspective as Chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute.
He found the classification and subdivision of the American people into racial categories highly objectionable, and stated that, unless they have scientific validity, racial categories were repugnant and socially regressive. Accordingly, he stated that he would immediately purge all classification of Americans based on skin color or any other attribute currently used to define race. However, he acknowledged that his view was not yet ripe for implementation, and thus geared his remarks to a proposal that would, in his view, improve the existing system.
"Mr. Connerly emphasized that any system of government classification must be based on self-identification, and that the government’s denial of an individual’s right to identifyhimself/herself denied the principle of self-identification. Mr. Connerly discussed OMB
guidance on racial categories, and praised the choice of multiple racial categories. He criticized the guidance requiring agencies to condense data reflective of individual choice and place individuals in preset categories for the sole purpose of comporting with government civil rights enforcement objectives. He likened this approach to the historic “one-drop” rule, and asserted that to provide freedom of choice only to limit what one might choose, is no freedom at all.
"Mr. Connerly criticized the presumption that only pure race individuals are confronted with
discrimination in the work place. He stated that those who identify as multiracial are
frequently subjected to discrimination, citing Tiger Woods as an example of one who had
been subjected to mistreatment throughout his public life by those who saw him as black and nothing more. He saw it as cruel for parents to contend with the agonies of separate racial identities for siblings whomay not look related, and stated that similar attitudes reveal themselves in the course of everyday transactions for multirace individuals.
"Mr. Connerly dismissed arguments that it is impractical to acknowledge multiracial identity until some critical mass of individuals embrace this identity, and averred that critical mass has already been reached. He concluded by stating that the time had come for the census to acknowledge the reality of multiracial identity and he urged the Commission to recommendthe addition of a checkbox for the category “multiracial” to the 2010 Census."
Thanks for the sources that are 50 and 60 years old, respectively. Please reach out, I think we might be able to have a healthy discussion. I proposed to Jeffrey that we have a zoom and record it and make our discussion public. I'd be happy to. If you are interested, please email me through the link on my website or you can find me on Twitter.
"In the biological and social sciences, the consensus is clear: race is a social construct, not a biological attribute. Today, scientists prefer to use the term “ancestry” to describe human diversity (Figure 3). “Ancestry” reflects the fact that human variations do have a connection to the geographical origins of our ancestors—with enough information about a person’s DNA, scientists can make a reasonable guess about their ancestry. However, unlike the term “race,” it focuses on understanding how a person’s history unfolded, not how they fit into one category and not another. In a clinical setting, for instance, scientists would say that diseases such as sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis are common in those of “sub-Saharan African” or “Northern European” descent, respectively, rather than in those who are “black” or “white”."
Im wary of assertions of "scientific consensus" these days of covid, 20 genders, and climate apocalypticism. Unfortunately, such claims are often used for political reasons; and its a logical fallacy. Scientists can all be agreed upon and they are wrong. I don't submit my mind thoughtlessly to "scientific consensus". And if any scientist does that, they are failing as a scientist. Furthermore, I looked at the link it claims to support its claim of consensus, and the New York Times article makes no such claims about a consensus. In fact it even eventually quotes a population geneticist that suggests the classifications are useful : "Yet not every researcher sees race as a meaningless or antediluvian notion. ''I think racial classifications have been useful to us,'' said Dr. Alan Rogers, a population geneticist and professor of anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. "
Thus the harvard article is deceptive. Its a political document. And it seems what this article is doing is changing the word from "race" to "ancestry" while pretty much maintaining the same function. A person could say that "diseases such as sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis are common in those with 'sub-Saharan African' racial heritage" and would mean the same thing. She is using the word ancestry, and conceptualizes ancestry in the same way that I, and many other people, already conceptualize race. But it says things like this:
"(A) The classification of people into different races is typically based on observable physical features, with skin color being the most prominently used characteristic. Racial classifications also draw upon non-biological characteristics such as culture, language, history, religion, and socioeconomic status. Thus, “race” is a term that lacks clear definition."
Which seems like gaslighting. While races have historically been separated with observable characteristics, those observable characteristics were thought to derive from differences in *ancestry*. People didn't go "He has x skin color so therefore he is y race"; they thought "he has x skin; y race has x skin; therefore he is y race." What racial classification is *based* on socioeconomic status or religion? I have no memory of ever being exposed to that notion. Ever since I learned the concept of race as a child, it was based on ancestry. That is the folk empirical notion of race. The possibilities of the complexity of that ancestry was quite narrow -- "black", "white", "asian", "latino" -- but it was still ancestry.
"Just as the alt-right is no longer an easily dismissed fringe group, their arguments have some factual basis, and cannot be swept aside as the babbling of the scientific illiterate. The alt-right is not clumsy in their use of science and genetics in their battle for their “ideals.” Those who oppose the alt-right, and other racist entities, must arm themselves with the same weapons: education, namely scientific and genetic literacy."
This part is just embarrassing. Why is this article even talking about the "alt-right"? The author is clearly not armed with scientific or genetic literary, but political indoctrination, and she is trying to spread that political indoctrination.
"Members of the alt-right are enthusiastic proponents of ancestry testing as a way to prove their “pure” white heritage (with Scandinavian and Germanic ancestry being among the most desirable) and to rule out undesired descent from any other groups (including, unsurprisingly, Africans and the Ashkenazi Jews, but even certain European groups, such as Italians and Armenians). "
Why does she think that changing the word from race to ancestry is going to stop white supremacists from thinking that there is something superior about their [racial] ancestry? Like you said, "Egos" are involved. It aint gonna be that easy.
With that all said I don't actually mind the word ancestry though; but it seems like "racial ancestry" is even more clear, as my ancestry could be as far back as the first humans or as close as my parents.
Stuart - you are incorrect from a biological perspective. If you want to argue for 200K year old subpopulations, that is an anthropological fact but does not map onto modern classifications of "race". Populations do cluster broadly by geographic regions, genetic variation is larger within such groups than it is between them. You cannot infer genotype from phenotype. Nature genetics Tishkoff/Kidd (2004), Lewis et al. Science (2022), findings of race, genetics, ethnicity working group in AGHG (2005), genetic structure of human populations (Rosenberg et al) (2002), I could go on forever. You are simply incorrect.
For humans as for other animals, the amount of overall genetic variation within a population relative to that between populations is not relevant to the reality of races or subspecies. There is a ground squirrel species in Arizona where this is a consistent small difference in coloration between individuals on the south side of the Colorado River. They have been called different subspecies only because the consistent difference in coloration reflects that there has in recent times very little mixiing of the southern and northern forms.
Hi Stuart, this may be your anecdotal experience but this is not how it's discussed biologically or in genetics, as I discussed. If you wish to define your own terms, you can be correct within the domain of your own definitions, but just not correct in a scientifically rigorous way. Have a great weekend.
My "anecdotal experience" consists of ca. 60 years as a biology prof and researcher. Do not underestimate how often how often articles in even the glossiest journals are NOT "scientifically rigorous."
Of course this type of argument from authority assumes I do not also have the relevant PhD + experience, which is an odd assumption given the literature I cited. You haven't made any attempt to address the substance of the claim, which shows the weakness of it. And the "60 years" thing of course cuts both ways. There was no molecular biology in textbooks 60 years ago because it simply didn't exist. The prima facie evidence for the racial claims do rest on the fruits of molecular biology. Re: glossy journals - sure, Nature, Science, they can produce less than rigorous results. But they certainly tend to do so. And I cited other "non glossy" journals, as well, and could cite hundreds more as my view is supported in the literature. Best wishes.
But by the logic of your second point Stuart, there are billions of races, with all of our distinct differences. (I don't quite see why the author had to express that policymaking conclusion, since its deeply implicit in this issue we are all concerned with).
I'm not sure it matters what anthropologists or geneticists know; what matters is how the public and policy makers are using the term.
Surely, we all know race is referred to as 'white, black, Latino etc.' in the US, in conversation and in governance.
As Amir wrote, there is only one race, the human race.
There are of course countless ethnicities and visible variations over time, as we can all agree, but there simply are not different races.
Even if there had never been millennia of ceaseless mingling and interaction, sexually or socially, and even if 'the Asians had lived over there, the whites over there, the I don't know, olives over there,' there would still only be one human race, descended from common ancestors.
I have never heard of Prop 54 and I've worked in this area for decades. Interesting.
For a brief authoritative account of the Prop 54 campaign, see the 17-page epilogue in the 2007 edition of Ward Connerly's "Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences." That book should be in the library of every intellectually serious subscriber to FBT.
“ The concept of separate and distinct races, as we currently understand it, is somewhere around 400 years old, which counts for roughly 0.1% of our human history on Earth.”
This is false. The concept of race probably goes back before recorded history. We can observe it in the Bible in the racialization of Hebrews as being of “Abraham’s Seed”, and the genocide committed by followers of Moses on various people of the Levant.
We can also observe it in various Greek literature, as the Greeks viewed themselves as of the same “blood” in contrast to various “barbarian” people.
We can also see it… well in most major civilizations and their literature.
“ Humans have a hard time letting go, especially when our egos are so embedded in a certain kind of worldview. To invoke Buddhism once again, this clinging to delusion is a major cause of suffering. Many people are searching for their original face before their parents were born, but with their eyes closed. ”
It seems from your repeated allusion to Buddhism that you are are clinging to the delusions of Buddhism. Buddhism tends to make people particularly delusional about their “egos.” Delusions, when they are shared by a community of people, sometimes provide some people with comfort, not just suffering, and provide a source of shared pride and sense of moral goodness. “The four noble truths” is one such delusion. Regardless of the pleasures it provides to some, it also can contribute to superfluous suffering and social corruption as can be most easily observed in old Tibet, modern Burma, Bhutan, which in the 20th century committed ethnic cleansing of native Nepalese, yet still fashions itself as the happiest place on earth. Ultimately I think Buddhism is a pernicious weed, moreso than Scientology.
The concept of race is not hard to understand, and it doesn’t matter if it’s believed to exist or not—people needn’t be tribal about it. Race refers to our broad based biological lineages, and “races” refer to people who share more or less overlapping biological lineages. The categories themselves that we now refer to, such as black, white, and asian, aren’t particularly refined, but it doesn’t make the concept of race delusional, it makes current usage of the concept sloppy.
When the Buddhist Bhutanese government decided to violently expel native Nepalese people from Bhutan—it was their race and their religion (not Buddhist) that guided it. It would be a delusion to argue that the Nepalese who were expelled had no general racial difference than those who expelled them—and regardless it would be an irrelevant argument to make. Racial tribalism should be denounced even though race has some conceptual and empirical sense to it. And so should Buddhism be denounced, as it is foolish and pernicious.
Right on, Brother Amir. Your view comes close to Shelby Steele who says that any clutching after race is a grab for power. Both right and left get upset when you try to say, "Well, there really is only the human race. A short Central African Republic Black man can mate with a 6'4" Swedish female and have a kid, no problem; there is no genetic or racial interference going on." Of course we all do share large family-type, 'look-alike' attributes - Asian facial features, Black skin tones, White skin tones, hair textures and everything in between - genes are wonderful dice and should be celebrated (and shaken and rolled!). I wish everyone would chill out and read Richard Rodriguez' book, "Brown"; I know you would love it - cheers!
I agree and yet I disagree. The agreement is how we conceive ourselves-- we have a choice and can exercise it. The disagreement begins with humanity offering and compelling different cultural forms -- from lineage and clan, to tribe, to religion, etc. I start my class when I get to identity with a reading from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel. She recounts how she sits under a tall tree with her grandmother. She's six but has already memorized her lineage some 300 years back. Her grandmother tells her, "you are your lineage." Another myth? From some perspectives we would say "yes and that too is a myth." There is a comfort in those myths for many. Others can mute the myth and let the individual flower. So, yes. I agree and disagree.
Thank you! A good point to consider. The past is a phantom. And, it's a powerful one. No harm in identifying with one's lineage. I take your point there and agree. Why not continue that lineage so far back to the first humans? Or, our primate ancestors? Or our single-cell bacteria? We are all over those things in a sense, yet we are also right here, right now.
I think this is the best argument for eliminativism that I have ever read. You write with clarity and the power of conviction. I share your conviction, and I thank you for sharing yours.
Thank you! I got the chills.
What is eliminativism?
A philosopher might quibble with this, but here is a stab at a definition - Eliminativism is a normative position with regard to racial categories, one that argues the best way forward for human beings is to work toward eliminating racial categories - basically to stop categorizing each other by race, and relying on race as a meaningful way of understanding each other. This doesn't mean that we ignore the historical effect that racial categories have had. We just work toward making them less important and less meaningful, as much as we can. I have found the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on race to be very helpful. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/ But all I've done here is say much less well what Amir Zaki said so elegantly! ;)
I appreciate this explanation -- thank you!
Other than Laura's definition, which I think is a good one; and it seems to align with what I've observed its use in the wilds -- eliminativism seems to also come paired with the notion that not only should racial categories not be used, that the concept of race itself is erroneous and has no empirical foundation. It seems that both those points -- that racial categories should not be used as a meaningful way of understanding each other and that race is empirically unjustifiable -- are argued in Amir's essay. I am sympathetic to the first point, and think the second point is incorrect. And even though I think the second point is incorrect, I think it should be a view that students should be exposed to in any "ethnic studies" curriculum, along with other competing conceptions.
Thank you for this clarification. I agree that people should be exposed to both notions, whether or not one agrees with both.
Amir: This was so well said. I have the pleasure of having met Carlos Hoyt (and his lovely wife) at a workshop last September and his model of revising the US census questions is brilliant and reflective of honest, fact-based data-gathering. I teach in a large private university and when I look at my students' faces I see the whole world of ethnicities, language and universal hopes and dreams. Many of them could very likely never check a box on race since they are so similar to how you describe your children. Thank you for such a clear and helpful essay.
Thank you for your comment! Carlos Hoyt's work is formative for me.
“Ethnicity” is mostly just a euphemism for race. For example, “Ethnic studies” is basically “Race studies” with a paint job. The terms “race” and “culture” are sufficient, and clearly delineated. The concept of race has become morally polluted, particularly when it comes to expressing pride about race, which I feel is good; but ethnicity functions pretty much the same, but people seem to have different sentiments about the term. People will shy away from expressing pride of their race, but not their ethnicity. Ethnic pride is still seen as being acceptable. As is ethnic tribalism. Which is a shame. Just the same poison by another name.
I disagree. If it's being used as a euphemism, then that's sloppy usage. Ethnicity subsumes a variety of shared cultural traits, geography, history, etc. Race, at least according to the US Census is a grotesque biological fiction strictly. e.g. a wide variety of "races" can be of "Latin" ethnicity. Skin tones spanning whatever chart you like would happily check the "Latino/a" box on a census, even though they may be (and often are) racialized differently. I could go on, but it's a fairly clear delineation for me, and an important one, especially as I also advocate to jettison "race" and the process of "racializing" others (and one's self).
Ethnicity is typically used to refer to race + whatever. Its a way to smuggle in race into a person's identity. Anything you want to say about a person can be said without the term ethnicity, and it will be clearer. The fact that many races can belong to the same ethnicity is not relevant. Many races can belong to the same race. Consider the "white race"; it includes "Anglo-Saxon", "Germanic" or whatever other "races" -- ie arbitrary biological lineages people decide to cut up that spread in europe. "Latino", regardless of a person's geographical birth, "history", or culture will only make sense as an "ethnicity" if that person has some biological lineage connecting to people "native" to Mexico, central, and south america. The reason such a wide variety of skin tones can check off the Latino box is because people from a variety of racial backgrounds sexually intermingled with the native people of "Latin America." But if a Han Chinese infant were adopted by someone from Argentina, and was raised in some culture of Argentina, it would make absolutely no sense for them to check off "latino" in a census even though they may share other traits often saddled to "ethnicity" that some other Argentinian might have. And imagine if that Han Chinese person had children with an Arab adoptee in Argentina -- it would not make sense for their children to check off latino either. Ethnicity doesn't exist without race. But race exists without ethnicity. There is no way to jettison race and not jettison ethnicity. We should just jettison ethnicity. We have ideas that when combined, or separate, are much clearer -- e.g. race, culture, tribe, nationality.
Thanks for your comment. Indeed many people do treat ethnicity this way, and I have a friend whose parents are both Korean who was born in Mexico and considers herself Latina. These are not boundaries in the way you circumscribe. My definitions were pretty clear and hue toward what the census is using (for better or worse). Before talking to people about "race" I typically ask them to define what they mean to avoid confusion. Here is what I was referring to: https://www.verywellmind.com/difference-between-race-and-ethnicity-5074205
Oh Lordy. Well, I cannot argue with the fact that the Census does use such an .... inclusive... definition of ethnicity. From the census:
"The OMB requires federal agencies to use a
minimum of two ethnicities: Hispanic or Latino and
Not Hispanic or Latino. Hispanic origin can be viewed
as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country
of birth of the person or the person’s parents or
ancestors before their arrival in the United States.
People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or
Spanish may be of any race. “Hispanic or Latino” refers
to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or
Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin
regardless of race. "
Apparently, a a person of Han chinese ancestry can be born in South America, their parents can be from China, the child can only live in South America for 1 day, before they continue their migration to the US, and the child is ethnically Latino. Ugh, the stupid.
Sounds like Rachel Dolezal can be "ethnically black" as her identifying heart desires -- at least according to the US Census. If we use that definition of ethnicity, a person can validly claim to be "ethnically" whatever they wish. Ethnicity in that conception ends up being quite like the way "gender" is now used. Which, only solidifies my dislike of the term. People use it to express racial pride *and* people could, theoretically, use it to categorize themselves in irrational ways, like Rachel Dolezal. Ethnically black transwomen ARE black women.
I'm not sure where we're headed here. I offered you the example of my friend and a concrete point of discussion to jump off from, and a question posed to you. I received, charitably, not a civil exchange. I think we agree a lot of these terms have little meaning or utility. Have a great weekend.
Thank you so much for this. I'm a person of Sephardic, European, African, and Native American ancestry. Like you, I'm someone whose "race" people have a hard time identifying, so I've often been asked the question, "What are you?" I've been frustrated by the fact that anti-racists speak of race as if everyone dwells in a neat, racial pigeonhole. There is little nuance in public discussions of race, and almost no attention paid to those whose identity spans more than one racial category, leading us to an identity of "human" above all else. I hope to see more writers like you adding depth and complexity to the discussion.
Yes, it is bizarre to look at a world of 8 billion people and imagine that extent of human variation can be neatly histogrammed into 4 boxes. We are not playing cards. Take any of these categories and they become absurd in an instant...."asian" is supposed to cover - what? 3-4 billion people? What meaning is that supposed to convey? Everything from people deep in the Indian subcontinent to Thai to Chinese and fijian, Burmese, Japanese, and Mongolian peoples to folks in Europe, USA, etc. with varying heritage from these regions? People who look nothing alike and share no "essential" feature are to be binned together for...what purpose?
I am somewhat different and somewhat similar. I do not expect other people to know about or care about my "race" identification. For one thing, I've never had one. Being Jewish, my basic division of the world is Jewish non-Jewish and has nothing to do with color, except one thing. Since my background is obviously not 100% Semitic with my blond hair and blue eyes, growing up I always wanted to be darker. It had nothing at all to do with Blacks. That Black - White divide is totally and completely irrelevant to me except government tries to force into an irrelevant category. I refuse to put White since to me that means Goyim. I settled on "Other" and wrote in either "Jewish" or "Speckled" (I get freckles in the summer).
Why would I be anti-Black? Blacks never engaged in genocide against my People. On the other hand, I never found that Blacks as a group were outstandingly wonderful human beings. No group is outstandingly wonderful!
My mother drilled into me that each person is to be judged by their own individual character. Somewhere along the way her father's family was intermarried with Richard Henry Lee's who signed the Declaration of Independence. You'd think the Declaration had been handled down at Mt. Sinai and had become the first book of the Torah. So naturally, Martin Luther King was hero above all other American heroes.
Due to my light skin hue, I do get to hear a lot of stuff dark skinned people do not hear. Whites are not 1/100th as racists as Nancy Pelosi and her Woker Identity Politics insist. It was White people who wrote the Declaration with inalienable individual rights and Jefferson phrased the Declaration so that it would definitely include Blacks. In the late 1950's we thought that finally that day had arrived when each person would be an individual, but then came the perversion of the Poverty Program into a Dem patronage system based on race and ethnicity. Now, the mark of Cain has been placed on Whites, and Wokers wonder why race tensions are so high. Without Wokers, there would have been no Trump, and no DeSantis, No "Don't say Gay," and no GOP President in 2024.
Beautiful. Being of richly mixed descent myself, I have been racialized several different ways depending on context. It made the fiction of it clear to me early on. But some fictions persist despite their irrationality (Easter Bunny) or open harm (race). It is a bell that cannot be un-rung, but we should at least agree to stop ringing it again and again of our own choosing. It only does damage and I cannot think of a scenario in which the invocation of "race" has improved anything. One irony I sometimes like to point out to others is that it used to be considered the height of "scientific racism" to eagerly try to find physical characteristics to "sort" people into different groups. It was - to some degree - the advent of molecular biology that helped us to see that we stood together as one race. Witnessing a large body of people (mostly in the past 3 years) so eager to sort everyone anew into racial categories under the banner of "progress" is a moral revulsion to me. To watch 2 and 3 year olds play together boundlessly across identity markers and then a few years later have them be told in classrooms that their "race" is an important part of their identity truly saddens me. We have so many societal problems requiring our collaboration and the reflectivity of our skin, or breadth of our noses, or curliness of our hair stands in the way? Madness.
Thank you. I couldn’t agree more.
A thoughtfully written, heartfelt, and insightful article. Thanks for posting this. I am currently writing my fifth book, Embracing Diversity as a Family: Preparing the Next Generation to Flourish. I plan to include a few statements from this, with citation, in my chapter: 50 Shades of Brown. We are all one race, the human race. With global travel, immigration, and current marriage choices, skin tone from the mix of our ancestors — wrongly termed "race" — has become irrelevant. We are all just people. All of us trying to survive and raise our kids to thrive in a toxic world. Have a great weekend!
Thanks! Please keep me posted on your book. I appreciate the comment
I need to have vision of a post-racial world. An open source version of Angelica Dass is to use the standard RGB to describe skin colors. Take a selfie outdoors on sunny day to standardize lighting, view photo on computer, use a color measuring app to get RR.GG.BB color from nose (that’s what Angelica does), make an RR.GG.BB solid color screen resolution image, add text in upper right corner “I self-identify as RR.GG.BB”.
And then use that as your Zoom virtual background. Imagine a day when driver licenses have a field “Skin Color” = RR.GG.BB.
It’s not Color Blind, it’s Color Aware. If we accept and apply the One Drop Rule, then all of our ancestors were Africans. I don’t think racism can extinguish until we accept the unquestionable reality that “race” is not a meaningful or a helpful way to categorize humanity.
I did not check the wording adequately.
If we accept and apply the One Drop Rule, and accept that all of our ancestors were Africans, then it is clear that we all have African ancestry. How big is my drop? Your drop?
A wonderful statement about skin color is the work of Angelica Dass. https://angelicadass.com/photography/
Thanks for sharing those. I just finished my lecture to my students on the history of portraiture. I will let them know about this project .
a nice backstory here is that she began the project assuming that she could photograph and identify people by "race" and she ended up disproving her own thesis. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/4000-skin-colors-in-pantone-squares-1254683/amp-page
Now I remember seeing that work before. The Pantone part reminded me.
I discovered Angelica Dass in 2019, purchased a Pantone skin color set, and found not one color code of my set matched any of hers. I contacted Pantone hoping to purchase a set that matched. Pantone told me her color codes are not from Pantone but are proprietary.
So I concluded that we should use RGB. I bought an app for my iMac that reports RGB color of the screen image at the location of the cursor. I want to make a zoom virtual background that matches my RGB skin color and add text field that says “I self-identify as RR.GG.BB.”
The RGB standard calls for each color is encoded as two 8-bit binary numbers. I don’t have the graphics apps or skill to finish the job. Would this be a nice project for one of your classes?
Take a selfie in standardized lighting (Angelica uses 6000K lights) like outdoors ona sunny day. Measure RGB of nose (that’s what Angelica does). Make HD or better panel of that color. Add text. Export as jpeg. Import to zoom as virtual background.
Your beyond race essay expresses what is needed. The last time I checked BEYONDRACE.ORG was still available.
Beautifully argued.
Another great irony is that the "Woke" crowd are increasing a national/Western obsession with this recent construct that is race, and turning regular people into what we might call racists. Those few people in the US that we might reasonably argue are still racist (mostly old, isolated, low education, limited travel) are in fact acting rationally: their world has gone, their norms are shattered, their lives are filled with suffering.
I doubt very much they have essentialist, Darwinian, supremacist views about black people. We can almost sympathize with them. They are not racist. They are sad and slightly lost. They have lost. This is good. They will fade away with their mid 20th century views on diversity.
The DEI crowd however are arguably the meaner side: they focus on payback, animus, cruel cancellation, cherry picking history to suit their views, forcing abstract, troublesome views on kids in schools, punishing people who slip up verbally, and for whats it worth, wasting billions in US productivity per year with inane, sometimes, insane DEI protocols.
Race was constructed by zealous Catholic Spaniards, reasonably for the time, in line with anti-Islam Crusading views. It was not an important historical attitude until the 1700s. By the 1800s, Europeans had been deluded into thinking they were a superior race. The Nazis took it further. We've now had almost 80 years of anti-racism (in the West, travel abroad and see what you get). We are succeeding. We had it won 5-10 years ago before the Identity Politics crowd turned us back decades.
I live just outside Riverside, in the county-so “Hi!”. As an old light skinned woman my fervent prayer is that my grandchildren will eventually see a lessening of this divisiveness. Sadly I fear there will always be something that can be used to divide us and divert our efforts to live fully in peace with each other. With others such as yourself perhaps we can change at least those we come in contact with and that is a beginning.
Thanks!
Balanced, thoughtful, clearly presented. Thank you!
This article is a breath of fresh air, reminding us of the obvious - that any invented concepts of separation will drive an artificial wedge into society, undermining our interconnectedness and shared humanity. I appreciate your weaving of the Buddhist concepts into this piece. It has been disappointing for me to watch most Buddhist teachers and centers in the US embrace divisive racial ideologies.
First of all, thank you! Regarding the current trend in American Buddhism, yes, I have been hearing about that too...Hard for me to understand how one can reconcile Buddhist ideas with such a fixation on superficial identity and separateness.
Well, once you crack the Koan of how Buddhism served as a foundational ideology of Imperial Japan during World War 2, you may inch closer to enlightenment and no longer be so reverent toward Buddhism. Perhaps you will want to separate yourself from Buddhism. There are many such Koans--like easter eggs, waiting to be hatched in a less fettered mind.
Your comments are fascinating.
I am fascinated that you are fascinated.
I'd be interested in discussing Buddhism with you sometime-if you desire.
Anytime.
Cool. I shall send you a private message on the Twitter.
What are your thoughts on: https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/being-without-race/comment/16723193
Sometimes wedges and borders are best for a thriving and good society. You make it sound like "separation" is always a bad thing.
I am not surprised Buddhist teachers are embracing more foolish, pernicious ideology. Can you give an example of Buddhist teachers and centers embracing woke racism? I haven't looked into that; I'm curious.
I go to Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Barre, MA. I am fine with them holding separate retreats for indigenous, LGBTQ, and people of color. What bugs me (and I wrote them about it) is when it’s an inclusive retreat that turns into celebration of victim cultures, with special affinity sittings, and “let’s give our historically unrepresented minorities the first opportunity to ask questions” and other such pronouncements. I believe Coleman Hughes told a similar story after visiting IMS.
Also, I heard Sam Harris’s talks with Joseph Goldstein and Tara Brach, unsuccessfully trying to convince them that society would be better off without obsessively dwelling on skin color.
lol affinity sittings. Not very "insightful".
Oh Sam Harris. He would probably be a lot more successful convincing them that Trump is an asteroid and photos of dead children on the harddrive of the children of presidents don't matter. I can see that as point of agreement for them.
Lucy and Jeffrey, this is very sad.
There is a lot of empowerment technology embedded within Buddhist and eastern philosophy more generally.
For example Buddha's yogācāra uses the brain and nervous system for freedom. One collateral effect of the practices of yogācāra is greater broadly defined physical health, broadly defined mental health, broadly defined intelligence. Someone who practices yogācāra also automatically attracts high quality company. [There is a field of economic literature spawned by Glenn Loury called "relations before transactions" that describes the economic value of one's company.]
This would be very helpful for groups of people to sharply improve socio-economic outcomes.
Why isn't this the focus of social justice?
"Racism" in eastern philosophy is a subset of patterns with the brain, nervous system, deep subconscious. By breaking these patterns down, "racism" automatically dissolves.
The Buddha and the great masters after him described what some might see as the levels of dissolving "racism" as:
--sotāpanna
--sakadāgāmin
--anāgāmi
--arahant
At arahant, there is no more "racism." If the goal is to end global "racism", shouldn't the focus be on raising the global level of consciousness? So that everyone in the world accesses consciousness 24 hours a day?
Hi AnAn. Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I'm not familiar with all the language you use, but I share your sentiments and really appreciate your take on my article.
Left you a message:
https://freeblackthought.substack.com/p/being-without-race/comment/16723193
As an account of personal history and personal musings, this is passably interesting, but it is greatly weakened by two things.
First, it never articulates its logical conclusion: that we should disallow governments and public institutions at all levels from asking people to "check a race" box on any form. Nor does it evidence any realization that in California in 2002-2003 we voted on a ballot initiative -- Proposition 54, the Racial Privacy Initiative -- that would have done just that. Nor does it seem aware of the abundance of articles, op eds, petitions, etc. generated by that campaign.
Second, Amir weakens his case with this common and unscientific trope that is found widely in the "race is just a social construct" literature:
"In 2023, It appears painfully evident that the concept of different and distinct races is a myth. From a biological perspective, this is nearly indisputable." The phrase "and distinct" is an unclear hedge but in its absence, any man in the street would see the falsity of the statement.
From a strictly biological perspective, or more specifically that of physical anthropology or human population genetics, race (or subspecies) refers to the obvious slight genetic and phenotypic differentiation of subpopulations within a species that have been isolated from each other for a long period of time, e.g. for example tens of thousands of years. The degree of "distinctness" and its visibility is usually related to geographic distance and/or barriers, and that naturally influences the practical utility or value of assigning a formal name to each race or subspecies.
All that is completely independent of the fact that intermarriage over centuries and millenia, in some regions more than others, is making it ridiculous for governments and other social and political institutiions to divide people by race. We can revive Proposition 54 without denying scientific realities.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I do believe my view is based in science, and not a trope. However, I could be wrong. Please provide the current scientific evidence for separate races. How many are there and what are their names, exactly?
Given your apparent approval of an error-ridden, highly political blog by a grad student as representing good scientific information, plus the availability to you of Jeffrey Peoples' astute comments, I think the most useful thing I can do is suggest you do some reading starting with a short book, "Genetic Diversity and Human Equality" (1973) by one of the best known popuation geneticists of an earlier generation, Theodosius Dobzhansky. Then go back an browse the more encyclopedic "Origin of the Races" (1962) by Carleton Coon.
Dobzhansky believed in Theistic Evolution. Is that also your position?
Nope.
Looking forward to possibly having a discussion in real time. Perhaps we have more common ground than it seems here. This kind of public, performative conversation tends to encourage a dehumanized style that often leads to misunderstandings.
My impression would be that this would be useful only in participants all were better and more accurately informed on some history and core issues than is apparent in this discussion. Need a set common readings. Here's a starter:
Racial Categorization in the 2010 Census
A Briefing Before The United States Commission on Civil Rights Held in Washington, DC, April 7, 2006
https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/docs/Racial_Categorization.pdf
EXCERPT from Kenneth Prewitt
As the present classification system evolved, Professor Prewitt explained, problematic features remained, making it difficult for the current system to inform coherent policies for the 21st century. Among the factors he identified as making the current system unstable:
1) the blurring of racial boundaries through inter-marriage; 2) the introduction of the multiple-race option in official statistics; 3) multi-culturalism as a way to describe the society; 4) the increased use of census categories in the quest to assert group identities; e) the rhetorical and legal references to diversity in education and employment; 5) the increase in demographic diversity resulting from recent immigration; 6) the growth of the Latino population, counted in many venues as a racial group but in others as an ethnic group;
7) recent studies of race as biologically significant; 8) DNA testing as a fashionable way to uncover individual ancestry; and 9) political efforts to eliminate race and ethnicity from the statistical system altogether. .... He concluded by urging the government to more clearly state the reasons and goals of measuring racial data, and to design the most relevant classifications feasible to meet those goals"
EXCERPT from Ward Connerly:
"Mr. Connerly shared his perspective as Chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute.
He found the classification and subdivision of the American people into racial categories highly objectionable, and stated that, unless they have scientific validity, racial categories were repugnant and socially regressive. Accordingly, he stated that he would immediately purge all classification of Americans based on skin color or any other attribute currently used to define race. However, he acknowledged that his view was not yet ripe for implementation, and thus geared his remarks to a proposal that would, in his view, improve the existing system.
"Mr. Connerly emphasized that any system of government classification must be based on self-identification, and that the government’s denial of an individual’s right to identifyhimself/herself denied the principle of self-identification. Mr. Connerly discussed OMB
guidance on racial categories, and praised the choice of multiple racial categories. He criticized the guidance requiring agencies to condense data reflective of individual choice and place individuals in preset categories for the sole purpose of comporting with government civil rights enforcement objectives. He likened this approach to the historic “one-drop” rule, and asserted that to provide freedom of choice only to limit what one might choose, is no freedom at all.
"Mr. Connerly criticized the presumption that only pure race individuals are confronted with
discrimination in the work place. He stated that those who identify as multiracial are
frequently subjected to discrimination, citing Tiger Woods as an example of one who had
been subjected to mistreatment throughout his public life by those who saw him as black and nothing more. He saw it as cruel for parents to contend with the agonies of separate racial identities for siblings whomay not look related, and stated that similar attitudes reveal themselves in the course of everyday transactions for multirace individuals.
"Mr. Connerly dismissed arguments that it is impractical to acknowledge multiracial identity until some critical mass of individuals embrace this identity, and averred that critical mass has already been reached. He concluded by stating that the time had come for the census to acknowledge the reality of multiracial identity and he urged the Commission to recommendthe addition of a checkbox for the category “multiracial” to the 2010 Census."
Thanks for the sources that are 50 and 60 years old, respectively. Please reach out, I think we might be able to have a healthy discussion. I proposed to Jeffrey that we have a zoom and record it and make our discussion public. I'd be happy to. If you are interested, please email me through the link on my website or you can find me on Twitter.
https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/
"In the biological and social sciences, the consensus is clear: race is a social construct, not a biological attribute. Today, scientists prefer to use the term “ancestry” to describe human diversity (Figure 3). “Ancestry” reflects the fact that human variations do have a connection to the geographical origins of our ancestors—with enough information about a person’s DNA, scientists can make a reasonable guess about their ancestry. However, unlike the term “race,” it focuses on understanding how a person’s history unfolded, not how they fit into one category and not another. In a clinical setting, for instance, scientists would say that diseases such as sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis are common in those of “sub-Saharan African” or “Northern European” descent, respectively, rather than in those who are “black” or “white”."
Im wary of assertions of "scientific consensus" these days of covid, 20 genders, and climate apocalypticism. Unfortunately, such claims are often used for political reasons; and its a logical fallacy. Scientists can all be agreed upon and they are wrong. I don't submit my mind thoughtlessly to "scientific consensus". And if any scientist does that, they are failing as a scientist. Furthermore, I looked at the link it claims to support its claim of consensus, and the New York Times article makes no such claims about a consensus. In fact it even eventually quotes a population geneticist that suggests the classifications are useful : "Yet not every researcher sees race as a meaningless or antediluvian notion. ''I think racial classifications have been useful to us,'' said Dr. Alan Rogers, a population geneticist and professor of anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. "
Thus the harvard article is deceptive. Its a political document. And it seems what this article is doing is changing the word from "race" to "ancestry" while pretty much maintaining the same function. A person could say that "diseases such as sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis are common in those with 'sub-Saharan African' racial heritage" and would mean the same thing. She is using the word ancestry, and conceptualizes ancestry in the same way that I, and many other people, already conceptualize race. But it says things like this:
"(A) The classification of people into different races is typically based on observable physical features, with skin color being the most prominently used characteristic. Racial classifications also draw upon non-biological characteristics such as culture, language, history, religion, and socioeconomic status. Thus, “race” is a term that lacks clear definition."
Which seems like gaslighting. While races have historically been separated with observable characteristics, those observable characteristics were thought to derive from differences in *ancestry*. People didn't go "He has x skin color so therefore he is y race"; they thought "he has x skin; y race has x skin; therefore he is y race." What racial classification is *based* on socioeconomic status or religion? I have no memory of ever being exposed to that notion. Ever since I learned the concept of race as a child, it was based on ancestry. That is the folk empirical notion of race. The possibilities of the complexity of that ancestry was quite narrow -- "black", "white", "asian", "latino" -- but it was still ancestry.
"Just as the alt-right is no longer an easily dismissed fringe group, their arguments have some factual basis, and cannot be swept aside as the babbling of the scientific illiterate. The alt-right is not clumsy in their use of science and genetics in their battle for their “ideals.” Those who oppose the alt-right, and other racist entities, must arm themselves with the same weapons: education, namely scientific and genetic literacy."
This part is just embarrassing. Why is this article even talking about the "alt-right"? The author is clearly not armed with scientific or genetic literary, but political indoctrination, and she is trying to spread that political indoctrination.
"Members of the alt-right are enthusiastic proponents of ancestry testing as a way to prove their “pure” white heritage (with Scandinavian and Germanic ancestry being among the most desirable) and to rule out undesired descent from any other groups (including, unsurprisingly, Africans and the Ashkenazi Jews, but even certain European groups, such as Italians and Armenians). "
Why does she think that changing the word from race to ancestry is going to stop white supremacists from thinking that there is something superior about their [racial] ancestry? Like you said, "Egos" are involved. It aint gonna be that easy.
With that all said I don't actually mind the word ancestry though; but it seems like "racial ancestry" is even more clear, as my ancestry could be as far back as the first humans or as close as my parents.
Thank you, jeffrey. "Thus the harvard article is deceptive. Its a political document." That says it all.
Still anxiously awaiting the current and compelling scientific evidence to support your claims.
Stuart - you are incorrect from a biological perspective. If you want to argue for 200K year old subpopulations, that is an anthropological fact but does not map onto modern classifications of "race". Populations do cluster broadly by geographic regions, genetic variation is larger within such groups than it is between them. You cannot infer genotype from phenotype. Nature genetics Tishkoff/Kidd (2004), Lewis et al. Science (2022), findings of race, genetics, ethnicity working group in AGHG (2005), genetic structure of human populations (Rosenberg et al) (2002), I could go on forever. You are simply incorrect.
For humans as for other animals, the amount of overall genetic variation within a population relative to that between populations is not relevant to the reality of races or subspecies. There is a ground squirrel species in Arizona where this is a consistent small difference in coloration between individuals on the south side of the Colorado River. They have been called different subspecies only because the consistent difference in coloration reflects that there has in recent times very little mixiing of the southern and northern forms.
Hi Stuart, this may be your anecdotal experience but this is not how it's discussed biologically or in genetics, as I discussed. If you wish to define your own terms, you can be correct within the domain of your own definitions, but just not correct in a scientifically rigorous way. Have a great weekend.
My "anecdotal experience" consists of ca. 60 years as a biology prof and researcher. Do not underestimate how often how often articles in even the glossiest journals are NOT "scientifically rigorous."
Of course this type of argument from authority assumes I do not also have the relevant PhD + experience, which is an odd assumption given the literature I cited. You haven't made any attempt to address the substance of the claim, which shows the weakness of it. And the "60 years" thing of course cuts both ways. There was no molecular biology in textbooks 60 years ago because it simply didn't exist. The prima facie evidence for the racial claims do rest on the fruits of molecular biology. Re: glossy journals - sure, Nature, Science, they can produce less than rigorous results. But they certainly tend to do so. And I cited other "non glossy" journals, as well, and could cite hundreds more as my view is supported in the literature. Best wishes.
last part of second sentence omitted: "and those on the north side."
But by the logic of your second point Stuart, there are billions of races, with all of our distinct differences. (I don't quite see why the author had to express that policymaking conclusion, since its deeply implicit in this issue we are all concerned with).
I'm not sure it matters what anthropologists or geneticists know; what matters is how the public and policy makers are using the term.
Surely, we all know race is referred to as 'white, black, Latino etc.' in the US, in conversation and in governance.
As Amir wrote, there is only one race, the human race.
There are of course countless ethnicities and visible variations over time, as we can all agree, but there simply are not different races.
Even if there had never been millennia of ceaseless mingling and interaction, sexually or socially, and even if 'the Asians had lived over there, the whites over there, the I don't know, olives over there,' there would still only be one human race, descended from common ancestors.
I have never heard of Prop 54 and I've worked in this area for decades. Interesting.
For a brief authoritative account of the Prop 54 campaign, see the 17-page epilogue in the 2007 edition of Ward Connerly's "Creating Equal: My Fight Against Race Preferences." That book should be in the library of every intellectually serious subscriber to FBT.
“ The concept of separate and distinct races, as we currently understand it, is somewhere around 400 years old, which counts for roughly 0.1% of our human history on Earth.”
This is false. The concept of race probably goes back before recorded history. We can observe it in the Bible in the racialization of Hebrews as being of “Abraham’s Seed”, and the genocide committed by followers of Moses on various people of the Levant.
We can also observe it in various Greek literature, as the Greeks viewed themselves as of the same “blood” in contrast to various “barbarian” people.
We can also see it… well in most major civilizations and their literature.
“ Humans have a hard time letting go, especially when our egos are so embedded in a certain kind of worldview. To invoke Buddhism once again, this clinging to delusion is a major cause of suffering. Many people are searching for their original face before their parents were born, but with their eyes closed. ”
It seems from your repeated allusion to Buddhism that you are are clinging to the delusions of Buddhism. Buddhism tends to make people particularly delusional about their “egos.” Delusions, when they are shared by a community of people, sometimes provide some people with comfort, not just suffering, and provide a source of shared pride and sense of moral goodness. “The four noble truths” is one such delusion. Regardless of the pleasures it provides to some, it also can contribute to superfluous suffering and social corruption as can be most easily observed in old Tibet, modern Burma, Bhutan, which in the 20th century committed ethnic cleansing of native Nepalese, yet still fashions itself as the happiest place on earth. Ultimately I think Buddhism is a pernicious weed, moreso than Scientology.
The concept of race is not hard to understand, and it doesn’t matter if it’s believed to exist or not—people needn’t be tribal about it. Race refers to our broad based biological lineages, and “races” refer to people who share more or less overlapping biological lineages. The categories themselves that we now refer to, such as black, white, and asian, aren’t particularly refined, but it doesn’t make the concept of race delusional, it makes current usage of the concept sloppy.
When the Buddhist Bhutanese government decided to violently expel native Nepalese people from Bhutan—it was their race and their religion (not Buddhist) that guided it. It would be a delusion to argue that the Nepalese who were expelled had no general racial difference than those who expelled them—and regardless it would be an irrelevant argument to make. Racial tribalism should be denounced even though race has some conceptual and empirical sense to it. And so should Buddhism be denounced, as it is foolish and pernicious.
Right on, Brother Amir. Your view comes close to Shelby Steele who says that any clutching after race is a grab for power. Both right and left get upset when you try to say, "Well, there really is only the human race. A short Central African Republic Black man can mate with a 6'4" Swedish female and have a kid, no problem; there is no genetic or racial interference going on." Of course we all do share large family-type, 'look-alike' attributes - Asian facial features, Black skin tones, White skin tones, hair textures and everything in between - genes are wonderful dice and should be celebrated (and shaken and rolled!). I wish everyone would chill out and read Richard Rodriguez' book, "Brown"; I know you would love it - cheers!
Thanks for the kind words, Dex! I will look into the Rodriguez book and add it to my growing stack! Peace.
I agree and yet I disagree. The agreement is how we conceive ourselves-- we have a choice and can exercise it. The disagreement begins with humanity offering and compelling different cultural forms -- from lineage and clan, to tribe, to religion, etc. I start my class when I get to identity with a reading from Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel. She recounts how she sits under a tall tree with her grandmother. She's six but has already memorized her lineage some 300 years back. Her grandmother tells her, "you are your lineage." Another myth? From some perspectives we would say "yes and that too is a myth." There is a comfort in those myths for many. Others can mute the myth and let the individual flower. So, yes. I agree and disagree.
Thank you! A good point to consider. The past is a phantom. And, it's a powerful one. No harm in identifying with one's lineage. I take your point there and agree. Why not continue that lineage so far back to the first humans? Or, our primate ancestors? Or our single-cell bacteria? We are all over those things in a sense, yet we are also right here, right now.