Woman pretends to be black

[Tim Cornelis]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/parents-of-local-american-civil-rights-group-president-say-she-is-not-black-and-was-born-caucasian-10315172.html

"A local National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) leader has been outed by her parents for being white." That's... kinda weird.

Comments on this news include, "if Bruce Jenner can be a woman, why can't this woman be black?" :rolleyes: or vile trans-exclusionary "feminist" bs, that both these 'assumed identities' are harmful to "bio women" (fu) and black people.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/claudiakoerner/a-civil-rights-leader-has-disguised-herself-as-black-for-yea#.wdwd11Bw6

[Q]

Good thing the NAACP is running tests and checks for only letting in purebreeds.

Wait...

[REDwhiteandblue]

Always be proud of who you are, this is wrong that she wanted to pretend to be Black.

I think if anyone can be male or female though you'd think anyone can be black or white? See there's some hypocrisy here I think from the Liberal community.

[human strike]

Always be proud of who you are, this is wrong that she wanted to pretend to be Black.

I think if anyone can be male or female though you'd think anyone can be black or white? See there's some hypocrisy here I think from the Liberal community.

Should I be proud to be white, male and British then?

It's actually not uncommon for people to redefine their race or ethnicity, but usually it happens kinda the other way round. For example, hundreds of thousands of Hispanics and [email protected] disappear with every US census as people choose to define themselves as white instead.

[Tim Cornelis]

I think if anyone can be male or female though you'd think anyone can be black or white? See there's some hypocrisy here I think from the Liberal community.

Transgenderism has a scientifically established physiological basis. Gender identity is physiological. To quote someone from the comments, "Race is genetic, gender is neural. Race is not randomly decided during formation, gender is. Race is traceable back for as many generations as it needs. Gender is not, it's a 50% chance along the old binary of sex and even less among the modern gender identity. Gender is simple because you brain tells you who you are and that's that. There was no way I, born of a black mother and father, be born Japanese. No matter how I change myself, I could never BE Japanese. I can appropriate from them all I want, but that would be it. I can't fake ancestry, culture, and genes, no matter how advanced our society becomes, it will never be possible. They aren't comparable." Don't agree 100% with what she says, but gender identity is rooted in neurological and brain structures.

And you think not being transphobic is "liberal"?


Good thing the NAACP is running tests and checks for only letting in purebreeds.

Wait...

Not sure what you mean by this?

[Redistribute the Rep]

it reminds me of this Guy who pretended to be black to get into medical school. It seems to be motivated by the racist idea that blacks have it easier in some cases.

[PhoenixAsh]

Well...I don't know what to make of it..and I won't assume to her reasons or motivations. What I do know is that this will be excessively used to undermine the NAACP.

[Q]

Not sure what you mean by this?
That I find it ironic, to put it mildly, that an antiracist organisation like NAACP is 'outing' someone as 'white'.

[Armchair Partisan]

That I find it ironic, to put it mildly, that an antiracist organisation like NAACP is 'outing' someone as 'white'.

She was not outed by the organization, but rather by her parents - I don't really know the background of the case, but I don't think her parents were members as well.

Now then. Why the actual fuck would she lie about her ethnicity? What good was it supposed to do?

[Quail]

This whole story is really bizarre... I'm looking at what twitter is saying and there are so many sickeningly stupid comments about it, especially the ones referring to Caitlyn Jenner. It's infuriating and giving me a headache.

[Tim Cornelis]

Indeed, she was outed by her parents, not the NAACP. But your comments sound eerily like whining about "reverse racism :crying: ". If the NAACP wants black people representing and spearheading activism against the marginalisation of black people then that is not really a problem. It would not do so on the basis of some preserving of racial purity of black people, but for reasons of guarding against whites monopolising the public discourse around racism. It would be like having employers representing employees in collective bargaining. You wouldn't support that either right?



it reminds me of this Guy who pretended to be black to get into medical school. It seems to be motivated by the racist idea that blacks have it easier in some cases.

I doubt it, since she was involved in antiracism and addressed racism faced by black people. Also, studies in the USA have racial quotas right? Then, yes, fronting as a black person can be advantageous in relation to being accepted into the study.

[RedSonRising]

Transgenderism has a scientifically established physiological basis. Gender identity is physiological. To quote someone from the comments, "Race is genetic, gender is neural. Race is not randomly decided during formation, gender is. Race is traceable back for as many generations as it needs. Gender is not, it's a 50% chance along the old binary of sex and even less among the modern gender identity. Gender is simple because you brain tells you who you are and that's that. There was no way I, born of a black mother and father, be born Japanese. No matter how I change myself, I could never BE Japanese. I can appropriate from them all I want, but that would be it. I can't fake ancestry, culture, and genes, no matter how advanced our society becomes, it will never be possible. They aren't comparable." Don't agree 100% with what she says, but gender identity is rooted in neurological and brain structures.

And you think not being transphobic is "liberal"?



Not sure what you mean by this?

I welcome the attempt to distinguish transgenderism from this type of racial co-opting, but to say race is a genetic reality is really backwards. Race is a pure social construct that is historically recent and changes over space and time. The racial categories we put people in that correspond to nationality, phenotype, doesn't necessarily indicate a broader genetic unity. Biological anthropologists often point out that there is more genetic diversity within "races" than between them. This isn't to say humans don't have genetic similarities among populations, but the correlation to phenotype is poor and never constant, and it only reinforces a racist society to insist that race is something fixed and inherent.


Also, studies in the USA have racial quotas right? Then, yes, fronting as a black person can be advantageous in relation to being accepted into the study.

They actually don't anymore, not for decades since they were ruled unconstitutional. White privilege even among the poor trumps the "benefit" minorities get through affirmative action.

[Tim Cornelis]

I welcome the attempt to distinguish transgenderism from this type of racial co-opting, but to say race is a genetic reality is really backwards.

That's why I said I didn't 100% agree with it.

and @affirmative action, okay didn't know that.

[Comrade Njordr]

Transgenderism I understand, not this.

[Comrade Jacob]

This confuses me. (and everyone else by the sounds of it)

[Redistribute the Rep]

I doubt it, since she was involved in antiracism and addressed racism faced by black people.

That doesn't make her immune to holding racist beliefs


Also, studies in the USA have racial quotas right? Then, yes, fronting as a black person can be advantageous in relation to being accepted into the study.

If by studies you mean universities, then, no, racial quotas in college admissions have been ruled unconstitutional. They can look at race as a factor in admitting them though, which some people lament as making it easier for a black to get accepted than a white person. Which isn't true, since blacks face social obstacles and are less likely to be a legacy.

Presumably she did this because she thought it would give her advantages. But white people still dominate these organizations. That she thinks she'd fare better as a black person might mean she is blind to some of the obstacles blacks face in trying to get their voices heard.

[RedSonRising]

That's why I said I didn't 100% agree with it.

and @affirmative action, okay didn't know that.

Oh alright, my mistake.

[Sasha]

people be crazy, think shit like this always happened, at least online there are hundreds of thousands of people pretending they are something they are not, but i also known people pretending IRL they had cancer, pretending to be jewish who's parrents died in the camps etc etc.
she needs help, but her parents are dickheads for stepping to the media (apparently she accuses them of abuse and pretends her adopted black brother that lives with her is her son, they just wanted to destroy her live to get back at her)

[Tim Cornelis]

That doesn't make her immune to holding racist beliefs

What I mean is, she emphasised, in her personal views and career, that black people are disadvantaged. I think those views are really hers, so that makes me doubt she thinks life as a black person is easier.


Presumably she did this because she thought it would give her advantages.

I very very very much doubt that. To so radically change your life and appearance, to spin such an elaborate web of lies, all on the basis of the idea that as a black you'd have an easier life, sounds really implausible. I mean, she ostracised her parents because this could reveal that she wasn't really black. That's an extreme step.

I think it's much more plausible that she had an extreme affinity with Afro-American culture and community but didn't feel part of it, so she changed. I think it's more plausible, in light of the habitual lying, that there's a dominant pathological or at least psychological component to all this.

[REDwhiteandblue]

Transgenderism has a scientifically established physiological basis. Gender identity is physiological. To quote someone from the comments, "Race is genetic, gender is neural. Race is not randomly decided during formation, gender is. Race is traceable back for as many generations as it needs. Gender is not, it's a 50% chance along the old binary of sex and even less among the modern gender identity. Gender is simple because you brain tells you who you are and that's that. There was no way I, born of a black mother and father, be born Japanese. No matter how I change myself, I could never BE Japanese. I can appropriate from them all I want, but that would be it. I can't fake ancestry, culture, and genes, no matter how advanced our society becomes, it will never be possible. They aren't comparable." Don't agree 100% with what she says, but gender identity is rooted in neurological and brain structures.

And you think not being transphobic is "liberal"?

Being male or female is not all about how you feel, there is genetic difference between males and females just like there is between races.

You can not be female if you are born male and you can not be male if you are born female.

This is just my opinion...I am not transphobic but I don't consider someome born a male a female and I don't consider someone born a female a male.

[Rosa Partizan]

Transgenderism has a scientifically established physiological basis. Gender identity is physiological. To quote someone from the comments, "Race is genetic, gender is neural. Race is not randomly decided during formation, gender is. Race is traceable back for as many generations as it needs. Gender is not, it's a 50% chance along the old binary of sex and even less among the modern gender identity. Gender is simple because you brain tells you who you are and that's that. There was no way I, born of a black mother and father, be born Japanese. No matter how I change myself, I could never BE Japanese. I can appropriate from them all I want, but that would be it. I can't fake ancestry, culture, and genes, no matter how advanced our society becomes, it will never be possible. They aren't comparable." Don't agree 100% with what she says, but gender identity is rooted in neurological and brain structures.

And you think not being transphobic is "liberal"?



Not sure what you mean by this?

There is actually no scientific proof that gender is determined by brain structures and equality feminists would strongly disagree. It would mean there are traits, attitutes and feelings that are inherently male or female and this is something that most branches of feminism have been fighting against. Radical feminists as well as queer feminists claim that gender is socialized.

[human strike]

My guess would be that she may suffer from a victim complex, but to be honest I don't think it's helpful for us to speculate about someone's mental health like that.

[Redistribute the Rep]

What I mean is, she emphasised, in her personal views and career, that black people are disadvantaged. I think those views are really hers, so that makes me doubt she thinks life as a black person is easier.

I very very very much doubt that. To so radically change your life and appearance, to spin such an elaborate web of lies, all on the basis of the idea that as a black you'd have an easier life, sounds really implausible. I mean, she ostracised her parents because this could reveal that she wasn't really black. That's an extreme step.


I don't think she thinks life is easier in general for blacks, but she may think it would help her image or give her more credibility as an NAACP leader. I suppose it could be that she just has an affinity for the culture but it seems strange for her to isolate herself from her parents over that

Someone knowing that blacks or other groups are disadvantaged doesn't make them immune to having problematic views.

[RedSonRising]

There is actually no scientific proof that gender is determined by brain structures and equality feminists would strongly disagree. It would mean there are traits, attitutes and feelings that are inherently male or female and this is something that most branches of feminism have been fighting against. Radical feminists as well as queer feminists claim that gender is socialized.

From my reading, that isn't quite true. The scientific information is certainly incomplete, but there are indeed some studies which indicate that brain chemistry correlates with gender identity. That doesn't necessarily mean that gender is a natural dichotomy with fixed traits though, and such studies in fact support the notion that gender exists on a spectrum.

[Rafiq]

Much of "brain chemistry" is subservient to the practical use of the brain. Neuroplasticity, for one, demonstrates this. Of course if gender differences didn't reflect physically, that would be ridiculous. But which proceeded the other?

[PhoenixAsh]

Hmmm...

Run that by me again...

If gender and race are both social constructs then there is no real reason why people can't recreate that social construct to a different reality? What is the difference exactly between having a different gender identity with having a different racial identity that causes the issue? What, if anything, pin points this difference?

I am not saying that there is no difference...but...I think the subject needs exploring.

We need to have an answer. The comparison is already being made with transgender identity. So either we reject that comparison for well founded reasons or we accept the comparison...on an equally well founded basis.

[PhoenixAsh]

Much of "brain chemistry" is subservient to the practical use of the brain. Neuroplasticity, for one, demonstrates this. Of course if gender differences didn't reflect physically, that would be ridiculous. But which proceeded the other?

Not entirely. Some traits still seem fixed although the brain can change its entire anatomical structure when prompted and most certainly adapts to environmental changes such as seasonal variations by reducing or enlarging areas as needed or remapping nerve signaling and hormonal excretion influencing behavioral patterns and responsiveness.

Aside from that...large parts of the brain are still not used or only partially used. There are a whole lot of capabilities that seem to start working in extreme conditions while the general lay out is already in place....and large parts whose function we still don't now exactly.

For example...humans seem to come standard equipped with echolocation functionality and capabilities. We don't use it. But we can. And some people do. We just...really don't know how yet...

[bcbm]

If gender and race are both social constructs then there is no real reason why people can't recreate that social construct to a different reality? What is the difference exactly between having a different gender identity with having a different racial identity that causes the issue? What, if anything, pin points this difference?


you dont see a difference in the function and assignation in the construction of gender and race?

[PhoenixAsh]

you dont see a difference in the function and assignation in the construction of gender and race?

Did you read the post or were you just selectively quoting?

Because so far...anything addressing the issue in this thread has been based on biological traits or rejecting these biological traits. And I don't think those were useful or coherent arguments that hold up.

[RA89]

Either she has issues and needs help or she's an idiot.

[Tim Cornelis]

When it concerns for instance homosexuality, the brain structure is not the result of neuroplasticity, as those structures are developed prenatally. I don't know if the same applies to transgenderism, but I think that's very likely. And if this or that strand of feminism rejects this, then it is a case of ideology rejecting science.

[bcbm]

Did you read the post or were you just selectively quoting?


can you answer the question?

[PhoenixAsh]

can you answer the question?

The question was already answered before you asked it. Which is why I followed up with a question about whether or not you read my post...

I find it a bit strange that you ask me to answer your question (which was already answered in the post you selectively quoted from) when you ignore my question.

So to recap...because other wise this isn't going anywhere:



If gender and race are both social constructs then there is no real reason why people can't recreate that social construct to a different reality? What is the difference exactly between having a different gender identity with having a different racial identity that causes the issue? What, if anything, pin points this difference?

I am not saying that there is no difference...but...I think the subject needs exploring.

We need to have an answer. The comparison is already being made with transgender identity. So either we reject that comparison for well founded reasons or we accept the comparison...on an equally well founded basis.

This...considering in the light that we have highly contrasting arguments in this thread which either are confirming or rejecting the notion of race being social...yet do preciously little on highlighting and clarifying, if any, the difference with transgender.

[Redistribute the Rep]

When it concerns for instance homosexuality, the brain structure is not the result of neuroplasticity, as those structures are developed prenatally.

Which structures are developed prenatally and then cease to be plastic? and why is this specifically said of those which concern homosexuality

[PhoenixAsh]

Question is if it is brain patterns or fetal androgen signaling and epigenetics. More or less translating as: due to hormonal influences and sensitivities the DNA and gene structure isn't really altered but change the promotor regions which influence sexual dismorphism.

Basically...to put it a lot less more simplistic:

Hormones influence how genes express themselves because they alter the protein strands that bind them...leading to both hereditary genetic structures as well as spontaneous development.

[Rafiq]

When it concerns for instance homosexuality, the brain structure is not the result of neuroplasticity, as those structures are developed prenatally.

What evidence exists to support the prenatal development of homosexuality as true? It seems quite an odd claim.

[Rafiq]

Hormones influence how genes express themselves because they alter the protein strands that bind them...leading to both hereditary genetic structures as well as spontaneous development.

All that demonstrates is that hormonal balances can make people more predisposed to homosexuality (as genders are associated with them, i.e. a man born with wide hips might be considered "woman-like" and so on).

This does not constitute evidence that homosexuality develops prenatally. Roza's claim was very simple: There is no evidence that gender structures are determined by brain structures. Chemical processes might make individuals more or less predisposed to certain gender archetypes, whether those are hereditary or not, but they don't determine them.

[Antiochus]

I am rly drunk so....

First off,how did she pretend? To me white black etc... Are totally phenotypic categories.

And yes hormones can aid in the expression of genes, but not just protein synthesizing genes, regulatory genes. Methylation is a well known phenomenon. It could very well be that homosexuals have both a genetic predisposition and a hormonal imprinting. It wiuld explain the broad human sexual preference spectrum.

Also dont drink absinthe kids ull get pregnant and die and be sent iff to a nunnery

[Redistribute the Rep]

I don't know who your post was in response to, but:


More or less translating as: due to hormonal influences and sensitivities the DNA and gene structure isn't really altered but change the promotor regions which influence sexual dismorphism.

The promoter region is a part of the DNA, and it's not changed during gene regulation. The rna polymerase's binding to it can be regulated, which I guess is what you're referring to. Also, the DNA itself can be altered, by methylation. Among various other types of regulation

[Creative Destruction]

Well...I don't know what to make of it..and I won't assume to her reasons or motivations. What I do know is that this will be excessively used to undermine the NAACP.

I'm not sure why this would undermine the NAACP. Someone else defrauded them, and that should reflect on the organization?

[Bala Perdida]

I don't much care for the situation or the NAACP. I guess I can say I don't take kindly to cultural appropriation but it doesn't look like she was doing that. Honestly, off her being white I'm surprised she would choose black as her look. I can't say how many white people I've ran into that have tried to pull latinx, and it just comes off sloppy racist and overall annoyingly offensive. Also when it's just flat out wrong "my settler grandma was born in California when it was Mexico so I'm part Mexican!" You are neither culturally nor ethnically tied to the people of Mexico, so quite saying that!

EDIT: After saying what she did/is doing in my head, she is very much cultural appropriating. What I was thinking was that she isn't living a lifestyle in accordance to black culture, which is pretty hard to do since black people don't have to much of a different culture in the US.

[PhoenixAsh]

I don't know who your post was in response to, but:

The promoter region is a part of the DNA, and it's not changed during gene regulation. The rna polymerase's binding to it can be regulated, which I guess is what you're referring to. Also, the DNA itself can be altered, by methylation. Among various other types of regulation

No I am specifically refering to gene structures...which aren't altered.

[PhoenixAsh]

All that demonstrates is that hormonal balances can make people more predisposed to homosexuality (as genders are associated with them, i.e. a man born with wide hips might be considered "woman-like" and so on).

This does not constitute evidence that homosexuality develops prenatally. Roza's claim was very simple: There is no evidence that gender structures are determined by brain structures. Chemical processes might make individuals more or less predisposed to certain gender archetypes, whether those are hereditary or not, but they don't determine them.

Yes we go back and forth over this.

Neither however is it proven that prenatal development is ruled out....or that social constructs develop gender in a determining fashion.

In any case the statement that gender is determined purely by social norms is flat out unlikely just because of hereditary factors.

This means that a DNA structure is required before environmental (!!! which is not the same as social) influences can trigger a dismorphism.

Which would explain the occurance of a generationally steady ~8% sexual dismorphism with a 55% mz to 5% ft hereditability rate....which means...that in the same social circumstances fraternal brothers have only a 5% chance of developing homosexuality....while monozygotes have a 55% chance to do so.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Either this woman is suffering from a delusion, in which case she needs help, or she's a deliberate con artist, in which case she should be condemned for engaging in blackface. Comparing it to being transgendered is ignorant.

[PhoenixAsh]

That is just the point though. This specific situation isn't really interesting at all except from a gossipy perspective...what is interesting is the conceptual status of race and gender which are now heavily discussed because of this instance.

What happens attm is a huge discussion across the political board about the nature of race and gender and the validity of both transrace and transgender...with one being used to either discredit or support the other. In other words; the comparison is being made between transrace and transgeder. Even within the left scene this debate is causing a very nasty divide...in which arguments shake the foundation of typical left wing perspectives on the nature of both gender and race.

And here is why:

Traditionally the revolutionary left states that both gender and race do not exist outside of social constructions. Gender is considered to be fluid and non-binary. When it comes to race...the opinions are not so clear...and suddenly there seem to be a whole lot of revolutionaries who struggle with explaining the difference and reverting back to biological arguments where race now is an expression of genetics. Those arguments hold real repercussions in politics.

Even when people make social arguments...these arguments seem eerily similar to arguments which are used against transgender being a valid concept by the right/religious etc. Which brings back the validity of the concept.

In other words...we need to have a valid perspective that is both consistent and holds up in debate without discrediting the arguments of the other case.

That means that blanket statements of being ignorant or it being obvious or whether or not we see a difference....are not actually addressing the issue but are dismissive of an actual answer.

And that answer should not be dependent on an individual case. Whatever the motivations of this specific individual are...does not negate the basis and position of the overall concept...nor should the basis and position of the overall argument be specific to this individual.

So what specifically makes transrace less valid than transgender?

[Armchair Partisan]

and suddenly there seem to be a whole lot of revolutionaries who struggle with explaining the difference and reverting back to biological arguments where race now is an expression of genetics.

...but I thought that "race", as a social construct, is about an expression of (real or imagined) minor genetic differences between humans. Insofar as we even care about race itself, or what race people identify with, that's what "race" means. What else would it be? An identity? Because I think there is already a word for that, another social construct, called "culture".

[REDwhiteandblue]

Either this woman is suffering from a delusion, in which case she needs help, or she's a deliberate con artist, in which case she should be condemned for engaging in blackface. Comparing it to being transgendered is ignorant.

lol how? It's the same thing basically...

[PhoenixAsh]

...but I thought that "race", as a social construct, is about an expression of (real or imagined) minor genetic differences between humans. Insofar as we even care about race itself, or what race people identify with, that's what "race" means. What else would it be? An identity? Because I think there is already a word for that, another social construct, called "culture".

One problem though...there is more genetic variation inside what is considered a race than in comparison between different races. So the genetic factor seems to be entirely premeditated on genetic variations which lead to phenotype expressions in skin color. Which...also vary widely within a given race structure.

The left traditionally argues against race being a thing...as do biologists and anthropologists...because of this.

But that said...the same could be considered to go for gender which is traditionally in binary thought expressed through X and Y chromosomes and intrinsically linked with biological sex. We departed from gender binary thought linked with genetic factors. And see gender as a fluid social construct which is now defined as the state of being male or female rather than linked with genetic and biological sex....and we definitely don't consider gender to be binary or to be linked to phenotipical and even genetic expressions.

So if we on one side argue that race is purely a social construct and at the other argue that race is an uncrossable and non fluid line then we argue against our own argument...

So don't get me wrong...I am looking for an argument that doesn't invalidate previously held ideology within the left or doesn't validate the arguments used against the other concept...such as lending credence to radfem transexclusion.

Because seriously...I don't see any argument right now that holds up to scrutiny and logical and critical thought....which doesn't do either one of the above.

[soup]

Bourgeois identity politics, ladies and gentlemen.

[Creative Destruction]

Also when it's just flat out wrong "my settler grandma was born in California when it was Mexico so I'm part Mexican!" You are neither culturally nor ethnically tied to the people of Mexico, so quite saying that!

White people in California say that? In Texas, they just say "We beat them. They need to get over it. Come and ta*chokes on shit*"

[Rafiq]

This means that a DNA structure is required before environmental (!!! which is not the same as social) influences can trigger a dismorphism.


And you fail to understand the point, still. Gender relations are not reducible, or owed to sexual dismorphism. Gender relations have changed historically, and sexual dismorphism has remained constant. How we conceive dismorphism is owed to gender relations, and not the other way around.

End of fucking story. Regarding what will determine a specific person's gender, of course there might be hormonal and even genetic predispositions to FITTING a gender. But the conditions which perpetuate this gender have nothing to do with genetics. For example, a women is more likely to be of the female gender than a male is, and vice versa. The female gender is symbolic.


Neither however is it proven that prenatal development is ruled out....or that social constructs develop gender in a determining fashion.

In fact there has been a stunning lack of evidence that homosexuality has a primarily genetic basis, while there has been a wealth of evidence to confirm the various factors which lead to homosexuality as having its basis in early childhood development. You keep using these stupid arguments... "Neither however is it proven that god is not real.... or that he is real". Do you understand logic? We've been over this. You don't have to DISPROVE a statement if it cannot affirmatively sustain itself. With all its variance, saying that it has its basis primarily in genetics would mean that there were specific genetic factors which accounted for the various, inexplicable variations in homosexuality trends. Various studies have found incredibly conflicting data regarding, for example, the likelihood of homosexuality in identical twins, with some studies putting it at 10% to others putting it to around more than half. To say that genes account for these variations violates occam's razor at every level, and requires a wealth of evidence. Meanwhile taking psycho-social factors into account, accounts for the variation.

But again, it is a false dichotomy to begin with. Social constructs are not some abstraction which "determine" this or that. For them to "determine" something implies a gap between them, and the subject which constitutes a part of the social order. There is none - the subject has no expression outside of the social order. One can just as easily respond to such an argument by saying "Well, where d'ya think social constructs came from? We were hard-wired towards them" and so on. Even with YOUR reactionary epistemology, the fact is that attributing homosexuality to having primarily a genetic basis has had incredibly poor explanatory power. So it would be time to move on to a stronger hypothesis.

[PhoenixAsh]

And you fail to understand the point, still. Gender relations are not reducible, or owed to sexual dismorphism. Gender relations have changed historically, and sexual dismorphism has remained constant. How we conceive dismorphism is owed to gender relations, and not the other way around. .

Dismorphism is a biological term. I don't care how you conceive it. It has specific meaning.

And on that note we are not talking about gender relations we are talking about gender. Two related but not similar topics. This is NOT hard to understand and it doesn't require endless discussion from somebody who obviously doesn't get the difference.


End of fucking story.

Indeed...learn the terms before you come back and confuse stuff again.



Regarding what will determine a specific person's gender, of course there might be hormonal and even genetic predispositions to FITTING a gender. But the conditions which perpetuate this gender have nothing to do with genetics. For example, a women is more likely to be of the female gender than a male is, and vice versa. The female gender is symbolic.

And which might require a specific DNA (rather than purely genes) prerequisite. Which would make biology determining whether or not the social even has influence.


In fact there has been a stunning lack of evidence that homosexuality has a primarily genetic basis, while there has been a wealth of evidence to confirm the various factors which lead to homosexuality as having its basis in early childhood development.

Which do no rule out genetic/DNA basis because...you might be aware of expression timing.



You keep using these stupid arguments... "Neither however is it proven that god is not real.... or that he is real". Do you understand logic?

I do. Do you? Because you lack the evidence to actually speak with authority on the subject to claim that it is an absolute. And that is no even starting about your stunning lack of actually understanding the terminology involved nor of your complete rejection of all thee indicators to the contrary in order to maintain your theory.



We've been over this. You don't have to DISPROVE a statement if it cannot affirmatively sustain itself.

And that is what I keep saying to you but what you fail to understand....YOUR theory is unable to sustain itself and is unable to account for a huge array of proven aspects. Yet you act like it does...and it doesn't. Which means that regardless of all your evidence you still can not entirely explain the concept on a pure social level. And this is in tradition with the complete overhaul in the 2000's of PSA's analytical model regarding the causes of homosexuality. If I were very childish I would drag PSA's very controversial history surrounding the classification of homosexuality and several overhauls of their classification system as well as their entire evidence base into this debate. I won't however.

The fact of the matter is that it doesn't, nor does it actually pin point anything which rejects the other factors completely. This seems hard for you to recognize.


With all its variance, saying that it has its basis primarily in genetics would mean that there were specific genetic factors which accounted for the various, inexplicable variations in homosexuality trends. Various studies have found incredibly conflicting data regarding, for example, the likelihood of homosexuality in identical twins, with some studies putting it at 10% to others putting it to around more than half. To say that genes account for these variations violates occam's razor at every level, and requires a wealth of evidence. Meanwhile taking psycho-social factors into account, accounts for the variation.

No it doesn't...and to show it ...you need to be able to pinpoint that you have the fewest assumptions about the origins within social constructions....and I dispute that you can.

Nor have I said genes account for the variations IF you have read my initial post. Which you didn't and even if you did I doubt you understand the terms being used.

NOR am I saying that genes are the ONLY factor. What I am saying is that YOUR single focus theory doesn't hold up nor accounts for th variables beyond hypothesising...and that considering BOTH factors to play an important role does account for all the variations.

so when you drag ocams razor into this debate....:rolleyes:


But again, it is a false dichotomy to begin with. Social constructs are not some abstraction which "determine" this or that. For them to "determine" something implies a gap between them, and the subject which constitutes a part of the social order. There is none - the subject has no expression outside of the social order. One can just as easily respond to such an argument by saying "Well, where d'ya think social constructs came from? We were hard-wired towards them" and so on. Even with YOUR reactionary epistemology, the fact is that attributing homosexuality to having primarily a genetic basis has had incredibly poor explanatory power. So it would be time to move on to a stronger hypothesis.

We would have a lo less problematic discussions of you actually read what I am saying instead of inserting your egotistical assumption which ultimately degenerate in your favorite past time to attack straw man arguments. Not to mention your subjective understanding of language which ultimately expands and contract when you see fit.

Either way the claim that humans expres themselves only in the social is not in itself a negation of the importance of biological factors influencing that expression on a social level....and that means dear Rafiq...that no matter how much you change the social....some behavior will not change.

[Rafiq]

.
And which might require a specific DNA (rather than purely genes) prerequisite. Which would make biology determining whether or not the social even has influence.

Again, you keep relying on a pathetically false dichotomy. There are no variations as to the degree of social influence upon something. Everything is expressed in a social fashion. Even something as inevitable as having two hands - there is no 'social influence' upon having two hands, but how your hands come to have meaning, and how they are expressed, is primarily social. So it is meaningless to talk about "whether or not the social even has an influence" because even as far as something as complex as gender, the ballpark is most definitely not in your favor - that is to say, if "genes" do have an influence, it is a rather minuscule one considering that their expression requires very specific conditions, and so on. From the actual, direct empirical studies that we do have, the likelihood of it having a primarily genetic basis is, again, very slim - and I speak directly about the various contradicting twin studies that are available. And the difference with this affirmative claim is that if it was truly something that was primarily genetic, there would be no contradictory evidence wherein twins were only 10% more likely to be homosexual if their siblings were. If it primarily had a genetic basis, then this would reflect in twins. But even in some of the most over-reaching studies (many of which were criticized for methedological errors, i.e. the greater likelihood of gay siblings to volunteer for the survey), the chance of a twin sibling being homosexual, if another was, was barely over 50%.

The error of bourgeois formal logic is exactly assuming a dichotomy between "genetics" and "social constructions". The term "nature vs. nurture" was even coined by the eugenicist Francis Galton, which proves exactly which ballpark it is in. Because if we pre-suppose that this dichotomy is real, i.e. that "some things are more influenced by the environment and others more influenced by genes", then the argument will always be in favor of the "nature" side, because one can just as easily claim that all social constructs have a genetic basis. The point is that it relies on false epistemological and theoretical presumptions about heritable traits themselves. In fact, the way heritability works is not like how pop-science likes to bullshit - about how there's a "gene for this" or a "gene for that". There are thousands of genes which work together, and which are contingent upon each other, so much so to the point where to attempt to qualify X combination of genes as to determine X trait is usually impossible. Regarding the hereitability of "intelligence", for example, even though they have not found any strands of DNA or genes in common that are significant in 'determining' it, they still insist it is heretible insofar as a specific, individually varied combination of genes determine it. But that is ridiculous because then the word "intelligence" itself would lose all meaning.. The only evidence to sustain pretenses to heritability here are the famously flawed twin studies. So that's just one example.

"Genes" and DNA do not determine much that is trans-historically conceivable. I am not even arguing that it is impossible that some genetically based hormonal levels can influence sexual orientation, I am arguing that there is a gap between sexual orientation, something social and structurally reinforced, and whatever biological predispositions one might have toward it. That is to say, someone who is homosexual today, by merit of being more predisposed to it biologically (and again, this known to not be a huge factor), might with the same exact biological predispositions not be a homosexual in ancient Rome. Because sexuality is so ambiguous to begin with, it has its basis in the inter-secting of the psycho-sexual social order, i.e. the excess of structurally reinforced gender archetypes - or the "binary". Ultimately, homosexuality itself is what proves that gender relations do not in any meaningful sense have a biological basis. As I've been over with you before, of course they INVOLVE biology, but they are not reducible to it in any meaningful sense. Can you understand this? When I say "Sexuality is not determined by genes", I'm not saying that genes aren't involved, if you analyze the linguistic structure of the sentence, it innately pre-supposes that there are other expressions of sexuality on a historic scale (in pre-capitalist societies) that you can compare present sexual relations to, wherein genes do not make a difference as far as their variance. Biology does not change, but sexual relations do. What might appear to be "unchanged" generally, is only unchanged insofar as that trait is necessiated by a given social epoch in a different way.


Which do no rule out genetic/DNA basis because...you might be aware of expression timing.

Firstly, we are talking about prenatal development. And again, this would violate Occam's razor because in the midst of a stunning lack of evidence of a genetic basis, to claim that it does have one and that all of the specific, observable developments are merely the convenient expression of something that you're already born with would have to rely on so many assumptions and ad hoc that the only thing that sustains it is the incessent demand that it MUST have a genetic basis. We can observe that it doesn't HAVE to have a genetic basis - so with the evidence available that accounts for variation in psycho-sexual development, with very specific external factors in place, what inclinations would lead someone to believe that it does? Why would it?


I do. Do you? Because you lack the evidence to actually speak with authority on the subject to claim that it is an absolute.

Again with your bourgeois epistemology that prattles of "absolute truth". It is absolute cack - the fact of the matter is that what sustains the idea of a god is fundamentally outside of the domain of scientific inquiry. yes it is an "absolute truth" that there is no god, because truth is purely a practical question. If the same predispositions to a god were subject to scientific inquiry, no one would believe in them. But again, that is besides the point - you don't have to disprove a god with "evidence", because for us to even take this assertion seriously, i.e. in comparison to say an invisible unicorn, has its basis in an unknown known. The burden of proof is upon those who make direct, empirically verifiable claims about this or that having a genetic basis, and so far, you've not shit that's produced. It's not like this is an "unfalsifiable claim", if what you say was true - then you would have been able to produce results (and not merely speculative twin studies, but ACTUALLY isolating DNA strands and genes). And you have not. So that is why other explanations become more viable. You are asking for empirical evidence that this would be an impossibility, but again, the burden of proof does not lie with us. We conceive it in terms of specific stages in psycho-sexual development because there has been a plethora of wealth to confirm this, and at the same time it is infinitely more viable vis a vis the explanatory weaknesses, and inconsistencies of biological determinists. There is an affirmative claim - that homosexuality has its basis in prenatal development. This claim warrants specific, verifiable empirical evidence. People have tried to confirm it. They have failed in doing so. So what's next? Magic? Meanwhile, the claim that homosexuality has its basis in specific stages in early psychological development DOES also warrant evidence, but not with regard to the claim that it has its basis in prenatal development. And the evidence is there. My point is simple: I can explain something in this fashion, and you can say "this could just as easily have its basis in prenatal development". I can say: Why would it? What inclines you to think this is equally viable as an explanation? For example, if you were to ask the same question - why would the claims of evolutionary psychologists have their basis in something socially relative, I can explain and go into great detail about why.



And that is what I keep saying to you but what you fail to understand....YOUR theory is unable to sustain itself and is unable to account for a huge array of proven aspects.


Such as...?


No it doesn't...and to show it ...you need to be able to pinpoint that you have the fewest assumptions about the origins within social constructions....and I dispute that you can.


You mis-interpret the definition of Occam's razor. The point is that it must have its basis in the most assumptions that remain holistically consistent, in a matter that can be scientifically consistent as a pattern. So I can have a plethora of assumptions, but I can back those assumptions up consistently and scientifically in a way that is rational and every bit equally contingent upon each other. And again, stop falsely attributing arguments to me - I know you can't help being a bourgeois ideologue, but the point of my argument is not that it has its "origins within social constructions" because social constructions are not abstractions, they are made by men and women.


NOR am I saying that genes are the ONLY factor. What I am saying is that YOUR single focus theo

Phoenix, we get it - we all know your bullshit golden road methodology in dealing with points of controversy. We all know how you keep prattling over and over again of an already false dichotomy which "neither side is wholly right" even though I have repeatedly knocked this bullshit epistemology down several, several times before. You call it a "single focus theory" but my whole point is that none of this functions in a mechanical way. Point: You cannot divorce "genes" from their practical expression on a social level, you cannot abstract them into the domain of the trans-historical because even if they seem like they are expressed in the same way, it is for entirely different reasons vis a vis an entirely different totality.


Not to mention your subjective understanding of language which ultimately expands and contract when you see fit.


Every time I hear you say "subjective" I fucking vomit. What is an "objective" understanding of language? Again, we've been over your shitty epistemology. There are no "objective" thoughts, because for something to be subjective is already a relation to objective reality. If you mean subjective in terms of an idea that is relative solely to me, that is an impossibility, because all the ideas I am expressing, were not "made" by me, and htey are expressed in a language that is conceivable to everyone, that concerns the collective space of reason shared by everyone to. "You're not being objective enough" makes absolutely no fucking sense, because I can just bite right back at your ass and tell you that "The claim that I am subjective is itself a subjective claim". I can play these postmodern games, and take it from your analytical friends, they can never be won by your lot because postmodernism is nothing more than the logical conclusion of shitty bourgeois epistemology.


that no matter how much you change the social....some behavior will not change.

That is simply not true - all behavior exists in relation to the social, and all behavior is expressed on a social level. What behavior is "trans-historical" that is not a stupid abstraction? You can say, for example, "war", but what does that MEAN? I get your argument - so stop fucking repeating it. We have two hands, and those in the Indus River Valley civilizations had two hands as well. But if history is conceived scientifically, in terms of respective totalities, you would know that nothing is divorced from its practical expression and use on a social level. So how we approximate, understand, attribute meaning and value our two hands is going to be relative to how they are used. So no, NOTHING "will not change" because for the social to change means for specific behaviors to have a new relation to it. It does not matter if they appear to be the same as a previous social totality, they belong to a new totality and therefore are not. That is why the error in assuming, for example, that rape has a biological basis is saying that "it has always existed". But why pick and choose such abstractions? No one would dare say that flying airplanes has a biological basis, but they will reduce it to the reality that mobility itself does. They pick and choose their least common denominators because bourgeois ideologues cannot fathom the reality of qualitative changes, only quantitative ones.

[Armchair Partisan]

Here's a tip for you two: after you type up something, check if it has any personal insults in it. If it does, delete your post and start over. It'll help you stay civilized and make your points without resorting to pointless flamewars (I know from past personal experience;)).

[Rafiq]

My question is simple: Do you accept that humans, collectively, create a reality that is irreducible to their individual physical constitution?

[BIXX]

Here's a tip for you two: after you type up something, check if it has any personal insults in it. If it does, delete your post and start over. It'll help you stay civilized and make your points without resorting to pointless flamewars (I know from past personal experience;)).

No

Why would we even want civilized discussion

[Armchair Partisan]

No

Why would we even want civilized discussion

Why would we want uncivilized discussion?

[bcbm]

The question was already answered before you asked it. Which is why I followed up with a question about whether or not you read my post...

I find it a bit strange that you ask me to answer your question (which was already answered in the post you selectively quoted from) when you ignore my question.

So to recap...because other wise this isn't going anywhere:




This...considering in the light that we have highly contrasting arguments in this thread which either are confirming or rejecting the notion of race being social...yet do preciously little on highlighting and clarifying, if any, the difference with transgender.

none of that is an answer to my question

[BIXX]

Why would we want uncivilized discussion?

Idk how that's even discussion lol

But I was half joking with my first comment. I know what you're intention was I think (discussion that actually moves us forward) on the other hand though I don't think all users deserve to have a good time here and deserve to be insulted.

[Bala Perdida]

White people in California say that? In Texas, they just say "We beat them. They need to get over it. Come and ta*chokes on shit*"We get some of that too, but in this area they seem to love our culture but hate us. I hear "oh yeah I'm basically Mexican because friend, nanny, gf, spanish class...." all the time, then they start talking shit about every other Latinx they've ever known and don't skip on mentioning that sed person is Latinx. Also I hate "burritos aren't Mexican, they're California cuisine" alright Mr. Wilson, wrap me un burro de cabeza y mojado. You said you were born in Malibu right?

[PhoenixAsh]

Again, you keep relying on a pathetically false dichotomy. There are no variations as to the degree of social influence upon something. Everything is expressed in a social fashion. Even something as inevitable as having two hands - there is no 'social influence' upon having two hands,

Really? In some cultures...certain actions require on of your hands to be chopped off....which kinds of conflicts with the statement of no social influence. Of course this is fickle but the problem you seem to have is that there is in fact a distinction as well as interaction between the social and the biological which does not actually rely on your clever semantics but has real value...especially when you are going to account for factors which you can not actually account for without acknowledging the mutual influence.


but how your hands come to have meaning, and how they are expressed, is primarily social. So it is meaningless to talk about "whether or not the social even has an influence" because even as far as something as complex as gender, the ballpark is most definitely not in your favor - that is to say, if "genes" do have an influence, it is a rather minuscule one considering that their expression requires very specific conditions, and so on.

Make a note that it is your subjective notation that the influence is minuscule from which you assert the idea that the ball park is not in my favor.

My assertion is that there is NO expression without a DNA basis and NO expression of that DNA basis without the environmental and social (again note the distinction) influences. That means that somebody can have a DNA make up...but that it doesn't express without external influences...and somebody can have external influences which do not trigger a development because a DNA make-up is missing. Whatever that make-up is...and whatever those environmental and social influences are.


From the actual, direct empirical studies that we do have, the likelihood of it having a primarily genetic basis is, again, very slim - and I speak directly about the various contradicting twin studies that are available.

Yes. However...so are the empirical studies which lead to the conclusion that the factors are merely social and external in nature. So...there we have the conundrum.


And the difference with this affirmative claim is that if it was truly something that was primarily genetic, there would be no contradictory evidence wherein twins were only 10% more likely to be homosexual if their siblings were. If it primarily had a genetic basis, then this would reflect in twins. But even in some of the most over-reaching studies (many of which were criticized for methedological errors, i.e. the greater likelihood of gay siblings to volunteer for the survey), the chance of a twin sibling being homosexual, if another was, was barely over 50%.

And yet there was a higher correlation between them than with other groups of twins or fraternal siblings. Which does in fact point to hereditary values.


The error of bourgeois formal logic is exactly assuming a dichotomy between "genetics" and "social constructions".

I am not however and that is your problem arrived at from assumption you continue to perpetuate.


The term "nature vs. nurture" was even coined by the eugenicist Francis Galton, which proves exactly which ballpark it is in.

Yes...and Freud for example saw homosexuality as problematic and derived from abnormal sexual development....and the entire field of PSA saw homosexuality as a disease until well in the late 80's after the rest of psychological fields had already removed it from psychological pathology. What is your point?

YOU brought up the distinction specifically in another debate.



Because if we pre-suppose that this dichotomy is real, i.e. that "some things are more influenced by the environment and others more influenced by genes", then the argument will always be in favor of the "nature" side, because one can just as easily claim that all social constructs have a genetic basis.

I on the other hand think that the two are inseparable. A notion which you fought tooth and nail in the other thread.


The point is that it relies on false epistemological and theoretical presumptions about heritable traits themselves. In fact, the way heritability works is not like how pop-science likes to bullshit - about how there's a "gene for this" or a "gene for that". There are thousands of genes which work together, and which are contingent upon each other, so much so to the point where to attempt to qualify X combination of genes as to determine X trait is usually impossible.

Sorry...did you just use the word "usually" ...meaning that it is possible...meaning that you just undermined your entire argumentative basis? Ok. Noted.


Regarding the hereitability of "intelligence", for example, even though they have not found any strands of DNA or genes in common that are significant in 'determining' it, they still insist it is heretible insofar as a specific, individually varied combination of genes determine it. But that is ridiculous because then the word "intelligence" itself would lose all meaning.. The only evidence to sustain pretenses to heritability here are the famously flawed twin studies. So that's just one example.

I am not regarding the heritability of intelligence.

MHGA2 creates a cross cultural increase in IQ scores average of 1.3 And the existence of that molecular structure on genes was confirmed in several independent studies.

So...your point?


"Genes" and DNA do not determine much that is trans-historically conceivable. I am not even arguing that it is impossible that some genetically based hormonal levels can influence sexual orientation, I am arguing that there is a gap between sexual orientation, something social and structurally reinforced, and whatever biological predispositions one might have toward it. That is to say, someone who is homosexual today, by merit of being more predisposed to it biologically (and again, this known to not be a huge factor)

Yeah...cut off right there...it is not known...but do please continue.


might with the same exact biological predispositions not be a homosexual in ancient Rome.

Might. Indeed. Because there need to be triggers which affect the expression.
But then again...somebody with the exact same upbringing and social affects might not be homosexual either....which is my point.

Because again...you look one sided at the twin studies.


Because sexuality is so ambiguous to begin with, it has its basis in the inter-secting of the psycho-sexual social order, i.e. the excess of structurally reinforced gender archetypes - or the "binary". Ultimately, homosexuality itself is what proves that gender relations do not in any meaningful sense have a biological basis. As I've been over with you before, of course they INVOLVE biology, but they are not reducible to it in any meaningful sense.

Nobody but you has even argued that. So again you are; as I have repeatedly told you again and again and again...and again; creating a straw man argument.

What it is however is a prerequisite factor...which as you rightly conclude....may involve elleles, proteine strands, molecular structures within genes, cross adaptations etc....but which are a necessary component which can not be dismissed as irrelevant based on the current level of knowledge.


Can you understand this? When I say "Sexuality is not determined by genes", I'm not saying that genes aren't involved, if you analyze the linguistic structure of the sentence, it innately pre-supposes that there are other expressions of sexuality on a historic scale (in pre-capitalist societies) that you can compare present sexual relations to, wherein genes do not make a difference as far as their variance. Biology does not change, but sexual relations do. What might appear to be "unchanged" generally, is only unchanged insofar as that trait is necessiated by a given social epoch in a different way.

I understand this quite clearly. I don't however agree with your conflation of the term sexuality with sexual relations.


Firstly, we are talking about prenatal development. And again, this would violate Occam's razor because in the midst of a stunning lack of evidence of a genetic basis, to claim that it does have one and that all of the specific, observable developments are merely the convenient expression of something that you're already born with would have to rely on so many assumptions and ad hoc that the only thing that sustains it is the incessent demand that it MUST have a genetic basis. We can observe that it doesn't HAVE to have a genetic basis

Eh...no...actually that is where you are wrong. We can't observe it. We can hypothesize about it. We can not determine it's exact genetic basis...neither however can we determine it's exact post natal influences....on the other hand social explanations do not account for heritability nor does it account for these social factors not always leading to the same result. Which means that they are not the only factor at play. Ocams razor in reverse.


- so with the evidence available that accounts for variation in psycho-sexual development, with very specific external factors in place, what inclinations would lead someone to believe that it does? Why would it?

Which very specific external factors are you hinting at? Because these very specific social factors have been consistently disproven even in fields themselves. So there are not very specific social factors...these social factors are assumed.

[quote]Again with your bourgeois epistemology that prattles of "absolute truth". It is absolute cack - the fact of the matter is that what sustains the idea of a god is fundamentally outside of the domain of scientific inquiry. yes it is an "absolute truth" that there is no god, because truth is purely a practical question. If the same predispositions to a god were subject to scientific inquiry, no one would believe in them. But again, that is besides the point - you don't have to disprove a god with "evidence", because for us to even take this assertion seriously, i.e. in comparison to say an invisible unicorn, has its basis in an unknown known. The burden of proof is upon those who make direct, empirically verifiable claims about this or that having a genetic basis, and so far, you've not shit that's produced. It's not like this is an "unfalsifiable claim", if what you say was true - then you would have been able to produce results (and not merely speculative twin studies, but ACTUALLY isolating DNA strands and genes). And you have not.

You do know what epigenetics and epi-marks is/are right? Because it has all appearance that you don't when you keep insisting on specific DNA strands. And you are of course well aware of the fact that in some cases a mere molecular addition or change within a gene can affect how that gene is expressed or how much of that gene is expressed. Which offers a well formulated theory for fluidity of sexual identity regardless of how the social constructions perceive that identity. It also answers why in some cases homosexuality is hereditary and in some cases it is not. This is a far cry from the blundering set of behavioral development studies which seem to endlessly try to explain why two MZ twins that have vastly different experiences and upbringings...still turn out homosexual...and MZ twins with exactly the same upbringing and situation do not. Because THAT is a factor you consistently seem to overlook or fail to mention when you talk about your empirical evidence for external factors.


So that is why other explanations become more viable. You are asking for empirical evidence that this would be an impossibility, but again, the burden of proof does not lie with us.

Let me turn that around on you. The standard notion is that there is a genetic basis. YOUR assertion is that there is not. The burden of proof falls on your shoulders. And so far you have failed to deliver any substantial theory that if fool proof and offers a watertight explanation accounting for all variances and complexities. This means that you are now turning the table of burden of proof.

Which is highly opportunistic....and of course whitewashes the fact that you yourself do not and can not deliver the body of proof.



We conceive it in terms of specific stages in psycho-sexual development because there has been a plethora of wealth to confirm this,

ARE you aware that PSA in the 2000's needed to overhaul their entire " empirical" evidence base for classification and contributing factors because they have proven to be wrong all along?


and at the same time it is infinitely more viable vis a vis the explanatory weaknesses, and inconsistencies of biological determinists.

No...it isn't. This claim doesn't hold and no matter how often you reassert it...it isn't actually true.


There is an affirmative claim - that homosexuality has its basis in prenatal development.

historically speaking...it is your claim that is affirmative.


This claim warrants specific, verifiable empirical evidence. People have tried to confirm it. They have failed in doing so. So what's next? Magic? Meanwhile, the claim that homosexuality has its basis in specific stages in early psychological development DOES also warrant evidence, but not with regard to the claim that it has its basis in prenatal development. And the evidence is there. My point is simple: I can explain something in this fashion, and you can say "this could just as easily have its basis in prenatal development". I can say: Why would it? What inclines you to think this is equally viable as an explanation? For example, if you were to ask the same question - why would the claims of evolutionary psychologists have their basis in something socially relative, I can explain and go into great detail about why.

I could go into lengthy detail as to why your claim in prenatal development having no biological precursors or isn't facilitated by biological factors is not viable and doesn't provide a watertight explanation. In fact I have mentioned several reasons why it doesn't.

And this is my point. Neither genetics/dna or biology....NOR....social and environmental factors can actually offer an explanation that accounts for all variances and intricacies...both theories separate leave to many holes and unaccounted explanations and occurrences.



Such as...?

Heritibility; asynchronisity in development; sporadic occurrence in like conditions; disproportion in result links etc.


You mis-interpret the definition of Occam's razor. The point is that it must have its basis in the most assumptions that remain holistically consistent, in a matter that can be scientifically consistent as a pattern. So I can have a plethora of assumptions, but I can back those assumptions up consistently and scientifically in a way that is rational and every bit equally contingent upon each other.

Deep sigh...no...you actually can't. You believe you can. There is a difference. Fact is...this is the determination range for homosexuality in PSA...and I just make a random grab from the environmental factors that contribute to it:

1). Overbearing relationship with the mother
2). Distant cold relationship with the father
3). Distant cold relationship with the mother compared with a very close relationship with the father
4). Distant relationship with the father, sexualized (not necessarily sexual!!!) relationship with the mother
5). Sexualized relationship with the father

And the list goes on.

the fact remains that there are a whole legion of people who have exactly those experiences...who do not turn out t be homosexual.


And again, stop falsely attributing arguments to me - I know you can't help being a bourgeois ideologue, but the point of my argument is not that it has its "origins within social constructions" because social constructions are not abstractions, they are made by men and women.

Uhuh...yes...we don't disagree.


Phoenix, we get it - we all know your bullshit golden road methodology in dealing with points of controversy. We all know how you keep prattling over and over again of an already false dichotomy which "neither side is wholly right" even though I have repeatedly knocked this bullshit epistemology down several, several times before.

No...you haven't. Because your version of the side is completely wrong.


You call it a "single focus theory" but my whole point is that none of this functions in a mechanical way. Point: You cannot divorce "genes" from their practical expression on a social level, you cannot abstract them into the domain of the trans-historical because even if they seem like they are expressed in the same way, it is for entirely different reasons vis a vis an entirely different totality.

Which is what my argument was in the first place...which you contested tooth and nail and spend post after post trying to disprove. :rolleyes:

[quote]
Every time I hear you say "subjective" I fucking vomit. What is an "objective" understanding of language? Again, we've been over your shitty epistemology. There are no "objective" thoughts, because for something to be subjective is already a relation to objective reality.

Which is why, in the other thread I called you subjective...which you then automatically confused with subjectivism....and never actually addressed


If you mean subjective in terms of an idea that is relative solely to me, that is an impossibility, because all the ideas I am expressing, were not "made" by me, and htey are expressed in a language that is conceivable to everyone, that concerns the collective space of reason shared by everyone to. "You're not being objective enough" makes absolutely no fucking sense, because I can just bite right back at your ass and tell you that "The claim that I am subjective is itself a subjective claim". I can play these postmodern games, and take it from your analytical friends, they can never be won by your lot because postmodernism is nothing more than the logical conclusion of shitty bourgeois epistemology.

Your argument quite litterally was that the idea of biological factors playing a role was subjective. I am saying the exact same thing. Your predisposition to certain theories which have no actual factual basis (hence why they are theories and not laws) is also incredibly subjective.


That is simply not true - all behavior exists in relation to the social, and all behavior is expressed on a social level. What behavior is "trans-historical" that is not a stupid abstraction? You can say, for example, "war", but what does that MEAN? I get your argument - so stop fucking repeating it. We have two hands, and those in the Indus River Valley civilizations had two hands as well. But if history is conceived scientifically, in terms of respective totalities, you would know that nothing is divorced from its practical expression and use on a social level. So how we approximate, understand, attribute meaning and value our two hands is going to be relative to how they are used. So no, NOTHING "will not change" because for the social to change means for specific behaviors to have a new relation to it. It does not matter if they appear to be the same as a previous social totality, they belong to a new totality and therefore are not. That is why the error in assuming, for example, that rape has a biological basis is saying that "it has always existed". But why pick and choose such abstractions? No one would dare say that flying airplanes has a biological basis, but they will reduce it to the reality that mobility itself does. They pick and choose their least common denominators because bourgeois ideologues cannot fathom the reality of qualitative changes, only quantitative ones.

That tantrum really didn't make any sense. Nor does it make any practical sense...at all. You think it does. But it doesn't.

What you are consistently doing is creating a false dichotomy between behavior and the relations to that behavior....and THAT undermines your argument.

I have been pointing this out to you repeatedly. HOW we look at behavior and HOW we relate to behavior in a given epoch does NOT change the behavior. It changes how we look and react to it...how we perceive it. And how we value it. The behavior however...is the same.

[Rafiq]

Really? In some cultures...certain actions require on of your hands to be chopped off....which kinds of conflicts with the statement of no social influence.

if everything is expressed on a social level, then no, there is no "social influence". Even if something will inevitably be expressed trans-socially, that does not constitute it being "influenced" by the social, but literally defined by it. You're bringing up arguments I have already addressed, which have remained unaddressed - namely the fact that for the last time - it is not cultural difference which accounts for variation in realities, but social difference. "Cultures" do not come from nowhere - you can just as easily claim that cultures (or differences between them) are shaped biologically, which is completely stupid.


Make a note that it is your subjective notation that the influence is minuscule from which you assert the idea that the ball park is not in my favor.

My assertion is that there is NO expression without a DNA basis and NO expression of that DNA basis without the environmental and social (again note the distinction) influences.


No, various studies which have attempted to confirm the basis of gender genetically, have absolutely fucking failed. And frankly, what is so schizophrenic about your arguments is that previously you claimed that gender relations and gender are different. If gender has its basis in biology, or if the genetic basis of it is "not minuscule" than neither are gender relations themselves. Do you understand this fucking point? If genes do have an influence on sexual orientation, or prompting sexual orientation in whichever way, it has been shown to be a minuscule one. This is not my "opinion", this is not me talking out of my ass, this is something virtually all geneticists who have dealt with agree upon. Homosexuality cannot, absolutely cannot have its basis primarily in "genetics".I can't FUCKING believe how predictable you are! I literally thought you were going to say this... Again, for the last fucking time, if this is true, it is a truism which has no pertinence to the conversation at hand - yes the social cannot reproduce biological processes if biological processes did not exist in the first place, yes without the existence of two hands, and the physical body, there would be no social in the first place. What the fuck does that have to do with the argument at hand? The fact of the matter is that physiology, and DNA, have remained constant for the past 10,000 years and yet history has not, social differences and gender relations have not. And likewise, the predisposition for the abolition of the family, for women's sexual emancipation and so on has no basis in genetics today - which is my fucking point. Trying to isolate the "least common denominator", as already stated, is an IDEOLOGICAL game, it does not tell us anything about what is inevitably innate "despite" the social because all of those things would have ZERO expression, zero conceivably without social processes. Again, you predictably claim that the social processes themselves would not even be able to exist in the first place without their presence, but the difference is that humans construct a reality beyond themselves and likewise, the social totality DOES change and therefore the relationship to it, on a biological level, does as well. nothing "remains constant" despite the social because of the PRACTICAL UTILITY of something changes, then its quality changes as well. What you fail to understand is that genetics, biology, etc. THESE DO NOT CHANGE and these do not pre-determine their practical use. Having two hands does not pre-determine what you are going to do with those two hands, and so on. Likewise, if rape has always existed, it doesn't exist IN SPITE of social realities, but in each according epoch BECAUSE of them, because it has an accordingly different place in different according social, sexual totalities. That is my fucking point: If you want, I will spare you from addressing my whole post - just address this one point about rape! Social realities can AFFIRM the "same behavior" in different ways, that does not mean the behavior is pre-determined genetically. Again, we've been over this a thousand fucking times - there are animals who you can throw into a habitat, like the tortoise - and they will survive fine by themselves. A human only becomes a human by mimicking other humans.


Yes. However...so are the empirical studies which lead to the conclusion that the factors are merely social and external in nature.

Yet the difference is that the studies are not conducted vis-a-vis the idea that it has as "genetic basis" because they don't have to, for the last fucking time. Again YOUR false dichotomy prattles of "merely" or "wholly" or "partially", my point is that there is nothing without the social, and that the genetic is an indisputable given, i.e. the genetic has no way to express itself divorced from a social context, and yes - the social context itself could not exist without the genetic, but the point is that humans create a reality that is beyond themselves, contingent upon their inter-subjective relations, or moreover, social relationships to production. The point is that mere appearances are SYMBOLIC - the Stigmata which appear on the crazy Christian's palms and feet, won't physiologically correspond to the actual points of crucifixion on the body but are meant to represent them. Without the pre-condition of the existence of crucifixion as an actual reality, and likewise, the physiological effects of crucifying a person, OF COURSE its symbolic representation COULD NOT EXIST, but that is a basic truism - the point is that it cannot be conceived or represented without being... Interpreted in thought. When the statement is said: The biological cannot be expressed without the social, it is already implicit within that statement that the existence of the social pre-supposes its reproduction of the biological, and therefore could not exist without it. The difference however is that it is only the social which affirmatively shapes, constructs, and instills vitality into biological processes insofar as they can be EXPRESSED. SO NO, it is NOT a two way fucking street wherein you could say the exact same thing: "Well, the social can be reproduced biologically" - it cannot, because genes are passive, and the social is active, i.e. practical utility is affirmative, and the existence of it in the first place is not. If you're given a hammer, then how you use that hammer is not going to be exactly determined by the hammer, and the ways wherein it will be used that COULD ONLY be used by a hammer, rather than a jigsaw, is a triviality (i.e. for example, having two hands instead of three). Using that hammer to bash a tortoise's head in, does not tell us that the hammer 'determines' bashing the tortoise's head in, because it can be used in various other ways. It's true that you couldn't bash the animal's head in WITHOUT the hammer, but what's the point? So? That doesn't mean it "equally" determines that the head will be bashed in. That is the fucking point.


Which does in fact point to hereditary values.

But backtrack to what I fucking said: I DID NOT SAY that you cannot be genetically or hormonally predisposed to being homosexual, I said that while these things can, for example, enhance its likelihood - they CANNOT determine it. Get it? Your genes can make you more predisposed to fit into collectively shaped, socially relative sexual archetypes, but those archetypes themselves cannot be reducible to the genetic constitution of a human organism. Get it? Which you yourself are forced to acknowledge. Again, if you re-read my statement: If it primarily had a genetic basis, then this would reflect in twins. But even in some of the most over-reaching studies (many of which were criticized for methodological errors, i.e. the greater likelihood of gay siblings to volunteer for the survey), the chance of a twin sibling being homosexual, if another was, was barely over 50%.

So that was my fucking point. Because it is not primarily genetic, you cannot understand homosexuality if you divorce it from its social context. You can, however, understand it if you ignore genetics. Take for example this very basic statement: You can understand wiping your ass with your hands without knowing the physiological processes which make this possible, because these concern different domains of knowledge. I have hands, and I have an ass, and the ability for me to wipe my ass with my hand is a physical ability. But talking about whether it is "determined" physically is an idiotic question because it tells us nothing about wiping your ass with your hand in comparison to other practical uses of the hand and the anus. I am sure that every society has some kind of means by which humans will clean their ass - but does that mean that cleaning your ass is somehow innate? No, because divorcing the cleaning of one's dirty anus from its wider context (how one does it, why one does it, how it is conceived, etc.) is an impossibility without abstracting some kind of least common denominator (the cleaning of the ass). According to you, there is probably a gene for cleaning one's ass because you can isolate a least common denominator trans-historically. This is what I'm criticizing. This is the limitation of bourgeois-formalism - Someone can know virtually everything about the factors which induce homosexuality, without having to know how this reflects physiologically - that does not mean it DOES NOT reflect physiologically, but that it is not determined by it physiologically. Understand? Behaviors cannot be understood in a way that is isoalted from their practical existence, in reality, which means qualitive changes in behavior will exist in a qualitative change in the practical reproduction of life (i.e. mode of production). Bourgeois-formalists cannot understand this. Hence, "capitalism" has always existed because of the least common denominator of markets, hence "war" has always existed because of the least common denominator of organized conflict, and so on. The point of these abstractions is that their present expression in our society is not conceived in terms of its relation to a wider totality, but as the quantitative culmination of its evolution throughout history. Hence capitalism is seen as a result of the 'evolution' in the market, the airplane is seen as part of the 'evolution' in the mobility of humans, the state as part of the 'evolution' between the governed and the governing and so on. This is precisely what Althusser rightfully calls empiricism, mistaking the abstraction of the essence of the thing for the thing itself.


Yes...and Freud for example saw homosexualit

Listen, Ash, don't you fucking go on about Freud again. I covered this. Countless fucking times. There are an innumerable amount of witnesses. Homosexuality was not considered as a disease by psychoanalytic theorists as early as the 1930's, and I will fight you to the fucking grave over this. You've contradicted yourself OVER AND OVER here and it's so fucking hilarious - you accept that psychoanalysts accept bisexual theory, but yet apparently homosexuality is a disease. WHERE IS YOUR FUCKING EVIDENCE FOR THIS? I demand EVIDENCE right now, a SINGLE iota of evidence which confirms that Freud conceived homosexuality as a disease. I'm calling your fucking bluff - ON WHAT BASIS do you claim this? If it was on the basis of SHIT I already fucking addressed, then ADDRESS my rebuttal. You didn't. I can't fucking believe you've returned to this, If you're so fucking CONFIDENT about htis WHY HAVE YOU BEEN UNABLE TO ADDRESS MY FUCKING REBUTTAL OF IT? The idea that homosexuality is a disease is alien to psychoanalysis, ESPECIALLY THE PSYCHOANALYSIS THAT I CONCERN MYSELF WITH, WHICH IS THE LACANIAN FIELD. DO YOU FUCKING DENY THIS? DO YOU FUCKING DENY THIS? Are you trolling? Are you literally DELIBERATELY fucking lying? That previous thread might have been trashed, Pheonix, but It's still visible, and I'm going to keep re-quoting myself to the fucking grave if you KEEP THIS FUCKING SHIT UP:

So far, all you've given us is "Penis envy" and "castration complex", throwing around words of no significance. I guess, if I should re-word my initial statement, the question is: What is significant about homosexuality? Surely if homosexuality is explained in the "Wrong sense" then heterosexuality is as well. So why not just mention that you take quarrel with the psychoanalytic approach to concieving childhood development? Why did you CONSTRUE it as though it was homophobic, or somehow casts gays, and transgenders in a negative light? Let me quote you: [....] because you are a fan of Lacanian Psychoanalysis and that the basis for transgender is rooted in either Penis envy and yearning to the conceptual phallus and lamenting it's absence (in women) and castration fantasies because of hatred of the father (in men)? Rooting the transgender identity in the relationship with either the father or the mother. And definIng gender identities well and firmly on the line if feminine and masculine traits and identities. And that the desire to have sex with same sex partners is because you either wanted to have sex with your father or mother when you were actually supposed to want to have sex with the opposing sex patent during childhood? Or is it because you think homosexuality is a neurosis which (part of the PSA field thinks)?

Why RANDOMLY mention this, if not to claim that there is something uniquely negatively attributed to homosexuality by psychoanalysts? What is PARTICULARLY ridiculous, if the qualifications for ridiculousness amount to the involvement of phallic envy and castration complex, as well as the various pretended intricacies of childhood psycho-sexual development, that pertains to homosexuality? The heterosexual explanation, according to you, should be just as ridiculous because it is rooted in the same process. You then went on to contradict yourself by claiming: "Oh! Well they claim there are FIVE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT THAT CHILDREN SHOULD FOLLOW" and so on - revealing yourself either to be a schizophrenic or a dishonest coward. Then you'll hark on about how I'm creating "straw men" completely unaware of the fact that you're LITERALLY saying shit which implies things you might not want to actually consciously agree with - that is the point of exposing stupidity. So this doesn't have anything to do with your qualms with, theoretically, how this or that develops in childhood, because the discussion was uniquely about homosexuality, not childhood development in general. So far, the only qualifications for your rejection have been either that it sounds "weird" (you might be a child after all) or that there is no "data" to back it up (resting on false epistemological foundations, as well as the false accusation that I myself said this and merely claimed the technology was not then available, something I will address later in this very post), which would have made the probability of you just saying "I disagree" way more likely if you were trying to get your point across, but you didn't. Instead, you implied it was a homophobic doctrine, and you can cry on all you want about having never said this - it is what you implied and every fucker in the room can see it.


You had previously DENIED claiming that psychoanalysts thought of homosexuality as a pathology which could be cured, but apparently, now they've been treating it as a fucking disease: Let me make something absolutely fucking clear: your accusation that psychoanalytic theory deems homosexuality as a neurosis, as an argument, has its basis in the notion that there are "five distinct phrases of child development" which constituent some kind of "successful" means of psycho-sexual development (DO YOU FUCKING DENY IMPLYING THIS?), and that homosexuality has its basis in obfuscations, or more specifically, events which have inhibited these developments. The rhetorical argument that is being conveyed therefore implies that homosexuality is a mental pathology that arises out of a fundamental "deviation" from the standard, successful pscyho-sexual mode of development: but that is nothing more than not only a simplistic reduction of Freud, it is a VULGARIZATION of Freud ideologically. Whether or not there are psychoanalysts who actually believe this, the fact of the matter is that the basis of psychoanalytic theory, taken to its logical extent, fundamentally denies that there is a successful mode of pschyo-sexual development that is outside historical and social considerations. That is to say, successful psycho-sexual development ONLY EXISTS IN APPROXIMATION to the sexual standards of our society, which is what you don't fucking understand: You may have not directly claimed that it has anything to do with "natural success" but this is the ONLY conclusion we could draw from your argument, otherwise, it would be an absolutely trivial and worthless platitude - what is your point that homosexual development has its basis in X identifiable factors of development? Factors, by the way, which you have completely botched, misidentified and simplified to the point where it possesses the same degree of explanatory sufficiency as a high-school psychology textbook introduction to psychoanlaysis would. The fact of the matter is that you first claim that your accusation was devoid of drawing moral abstractions from psychoanalysis, and then you go to outright claim that "it is what a child is supposed to do according to PSA... or else it will develop problems", - in fact, this is what a child "should do" if the child is to better conform to society, which is why critical theorists would and have asked the question: What CONSTITUTES a problem and why is it a problem? You keep throwing around words, "penis envy, castration fear or the Oedipal complex" but you have absolutely abused these words, and they no longer have any meaning whatsoever in the way you're employing them - what you say is completely fukcing MEANINGLESS, you have absolutely no notion of how any of these relate to each other, their implications and so on - and to summarize, it is infinitely more unforgivable because we're not even discussing "standard" psychoanalytic theory, we are discussing post-structuralist schools, LACANIAN psychoanalysis! Wnat to know the truth? I literally laughed when I saw this. I might be going insane, but I actually, literally, physically busted out laughing at the idea that psychoanalysts claim that children should undergo some kind of "natural" devleopment so that htey won't have problems. If it is not a NATURAL means of development, Pheonix you fucking idiot, THEN HOW THE FUCK IS THE REAL POINT OF REFERENCE NOT GROUNDED IN RULING SEXUAL RELATIONS AND NORMS, RATHER THAN THE PATHOLOGIES OF INDIVIDUALS? FOR FUCK'S SAKE. So again, it only constitutes success insofar as it exists in relation to predominant structural realities, and that is it.

In fact, your idiotic reply, which was beyond stupid, FAILED to address the famous Freud letter:


Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation; it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function, produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them. (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime – and a cruelty, too. If you do not believe me, read the books of Havelock Ellis.

By asking me if I can help, you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in a general way we cannot promise to achieve it. In a certain number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of heterosexual tendencies, which are present in every homosexual in the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the quality and the age of the individual. The result of treatment cannot be predicted.

What analysis can do for your son runs on a different line. If he is unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life, analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency, whether he remains a homosexual or gets changed. If you make up your mind he should have analysis with me — I don't expect you will — he has to come over to Vienna. I have no intention of leaving here. However, don't neglect to give me your answer.


DID FREUD CONTRADICT HIMSELF? IF SO, HOW AND WHY? I ASKED YOU VERY SIMPY TO FUCKING APPROXIMATE AND EXPLAIN THIS LETTER - YOU INSTEAD RESPONDED BY SAYING: FREUD TREATED HOMOSEXUALITY TRYING TO CURE IT THROUGH HYPNOSIS. HE SUPPORTED TRANSPLANTING TESTICLES OF HETEROSEXUALS INTO GAY MEN!!!

And you left a citation with NO specific fucking references, no links, absolutely NOTHING DIRECT which substantiates this. You literally cited a WHOLE fucking book for the above statement without clarifying how exactly it supports your assertion. FUCKING pathetic.



YOU brought up the distinction specifically in another debate.

Want to start referencing OTHER debates now? I can do this all fucking day:

ACTUALLY READING the fucking arguments at hand, which, fi you did, would recognize that the notion of "cultural dominance" rests upon a false dichotomy and that even the DICHOTOMY of nurture vs. nature was conceived by biological determinists in the 19th century because the idea is inherently in their favor. I have made zero pretenses to the primacy of culture, and I have SPECIFICALLY and IN DETAIL outlined how and why. You're welcome to return to the previous thread, while you're crafting that reply of yours to see. I can guarantee that I will address it either immediately after it is done, or Tuesday, but more likely the former. My word on it.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2835683&postcount=296

First of all, let's clear one thing up: Whether it regards the "nurture vs. nature" debate or the so-called dichotomy between culture and biology, this is entirely alien to Marxism. Your argument, rather than providing any kind of substance, attempts to make pretenses to fanciful ideologically based epistemological falsities about taking the golden road about two categories which have constantly been rejected as to having any kind of causality for human behavior as an ends-in-itself whatsoever. It means nothing to say that culture influences behavior. Where does the culture come from? And why? It's merely an aesthetic tautology to attribute it any causality. "Culture" is a meaningless category in this regard, because it is not cultural difference which forms the basis of variance between human behavior, but different social relationships to production. Culture is ultimately, and in the last instance, subordinate to the social totality. Cultural patterns do not just "form" and influence itself, it is reinforced by definite social foundations that make it necessary. As much as we know from capitalism, if culture so much as gets an inch in the way of capital's hunger it is knocked down and replaced. The reason this is, as a category solely unique to the vulgar pseudo-darwinists (Ironically it was a scientific racist who coined the term "nature vs. nurture" is because the idea of culture is already explicitly accepted by biological deterministic as being something that is a product of the biological constitution of man as an animal, i.e in their pseudo-taxonomy of the human species, the ability for man to have 'Culture' and 'technology' and so on is ALREADY implicitly accepted as being a reality of his existence. So you're creating a dichotomy here which is already one sided.

Furthermore, I did not claim that all behavior does not regard biological mechanisms, I explicitly claimed that biology facilitates the expression of social behaviors. The point is that it does not DETERMINE them. For example, the biological reality of a women having her monthly might make her have a heightened sex drive because her genitals might become more sensitive around this time. The point, however, is that the sexual drive itself is not determined biologically, it is merely influenced by the reality of biology as vestigial. The fundamental divide, difference if you will between her sexuality and what her body is doing, is still there, sustained by her essence belonging to a social domain, rather than a biological one. And of course, without the biological mechanisms which facilitate the erection of a penis, how could there be sex? Does that mean we come to bizarre, and stupid conclusions about sexuality like the so-called "Child-rearing hips" being INHERENTLY more desirable which were later found to be a myth considering that there was no correlation between them and the ability to better rear children? The fact of the matter is that the psychological has no biological basis, because the psychological becomes only possible wrought out from the social. To claim otherwise is entirely paradoxical because it would reject being epistemologically consistent, i.e. "The claim 'human behavior has its basis in biology' is biologically determined by X" would fundamentally undermine the notion. So when you talk about this or that behavior being "biologically influenced", WHAT DO YOU MEAN and HOW DO YOU KNOW? That's the fucking point.

So there is no primacy of culture whatsoever being claimed on my part. In fact the fetishization of culture is purely a neoliberal, post-globalization phenomena wherein various other "cultural domains" became a part of a singular world totality, which forced "scientists" to accept it as a point of relavnence. But culture is not an ends in itself, culture only expresses a deeper social reality, namely, the basis of survival and life - which, if biologically determined, would not allow for any cultural difference at all besides in consideration of geographic realities. Because capitalism is capable of making malleable "politics", "culture" and "technology" to its timeless existence, these categories are conceived as meaningful by bourgeois ideologues. But in previous societies there was seldom such a clear cut distinction between them that would warrant, by their own terms, to consider them separate categories - these are SOLELY capitalist abstractions. And they are not meaningful ones in explaining the PROCESS OF historical change, which you claim Marx sais "driven by biological imperatives":


Post #197 of the same thread.


Sorry...did you just use the word "usually" ...meaning that it is possible...meaning that you just undermined your entire argumentative basis?

No, it is entirely possible that some behaviors might have common DNA or genes as a means to make them highly predisposed. Alcoholism is one of them. Do we magically know how to produce alcohol, and do we magically know how to individually mandate who drinks it and who doesn't? In Muslim countries, some might very well be more predisposed to alcoholism, but you will NEVER understand alcoholism if you reduce it to the genes which make someone more predisposed to it because in these societies drinking it isn't a norm. Biological determinism assumes social realities to be static, or even worse itself genetically determined. It is beyond idiotic. This undermines nothing, my point is that regarding highly complex matters such as gender, or "intelligence", genes cannot explain much because how these are reflected physiologically involve thousands of different genes whose interaction with each other cannot be conceived if it is divorced from its wider application practically. The idealist formalism you're prattling of cannot even FATHOM the basic point at hand, which basically is that YOU CANNOT ABSTRACT PARTS of a totality to reduce everything to some kind of grand explanatory power. Saying "everything is determined by X" isn't wrong because it unfairly censors "other" possibilities, it is wrong because it is REDUCTIONIST and empiricist (in the Althusserian sense), it is wrong because it places primacy upon something which divorced from a wider totality has absolutely no substance.


MHGA2 creates a cross cultural increase in IQ scores average of 1.3 And the existence of that molecular structure on genes was confirmed in several independent studies.


No, it is linked directly to BRAIN SIZE which is then just assumed to be linked to intelligence. Africans on average have smaller brains than Europeans and Asians: So I want to hear Pheonix say it - are blacks, then, dumber than other peoples? In fact, what is particularly stupid is that a lot in the domain of neuroplasticity has shown that brain size can increase in approximation to its practical application, hence, HMGA2, a gene whose variance is simply INVOLVED with increases in brain size (and therefore, apparently, intelligence). But if it wasn't so hilariously stupid, I might actually cry instead of laugh: The fact of the matter is that the C that replaces the T in the sequence for the HMGA2 gene that allegedly accounts for variation in human intelligence has been shown to actually not account for intelligence at all, so much so that the original author of the study itself, which was primarily focused on finding brain illnesses, has removed intelligence as a factor involved all together. But of course, Pheonix, who apparently gets all his information from pop-science wouldn't know this. In addition:


The majority of the press around this study has been reporting that it found an “IQ gene”. However, the main part of the study didn’t look at IQ at all, only at various measured of brain size. The authors followed up their findings in a small subset of their data (1642 individuals) to see whether their two identified variants were correlated with IQ. One of them, a variant in the gene HMGA2, was found to show weak evidence of association with IQ, increasing it by an estimated 1.29 points. However, the degree of evidence for IQ association was much weaker than for intracranial volume, and could easily be a false positive (presumably why it wasn’t heavily emphasized in the paper itself).

There is further evidence that this association may not be real. The largest (I believe) genome-wide study of the genetics of IQ, published in Molecular Psychiatry last year, listed about 200 variants that showed even weak evidence of association to IQ. No variants in or near the HMGA2 gene were included on this list. Most common variants that increased IQ by more than about 1 IQ point would included on this list, suggesting that the HMGA2 either isn’t associated with IQ, or the strength of the association has been overestimated.

Combining the data from these two studies would have given over 5000 samples, which would be big enough to be properly test the association to IQ for the HMGA2 variant either way. Perhaps someone will do something like this soon – until then, I would not treat the HMGA2 as an established “IQ gene”.

http://genomesunzipped.org/2012/04/another-iq-gene-new-methods-old-flaws.php

But let's stop right there - my point did not regard IQ but INTELLIGENCE. The idea that IQ ACTUALLY measures something as vague as "intelligence" has been continually discredited, by now every idiot should know that IQ tests are complete fucking bullshit. Some studies, for example, demonstrate IQ as indicating conformity and subservience, rather than "intelligence" in this broad sense. Even if this gene was related to a 1 point increase in IQ, what the FUCK does that have to do with "IQ" having a genetic, or heritable basis? Nothing, because 1.3 points on average isn't shit, could just as easily be a fucking coincidence too considering how small the sample size was for those tested.



But then again...somebody with the exact same upbringing and social affects might not be homosexual either....which is my point.


What you pathetically fail to understand is that having the exact same upbringing and social affects is impossible for two entirely different people, because for two people to exist means that they are not occupying the same exact space, and subjective experiences as each other. So this is a STUPID point - yes, if two people had the exact same experiences, then they would most certainly be homosexuals, but the point is that it is IMPOSSIBLE to have the same experiences, and to have the same "upbringing". A black kid cannot have the same upbringing as a white kid, by merit of his genetically based skin color. But how his skin color has meaning on a social level, has nothing to do with genetics, so saying he is "genetically predisposed to be a victim of racism" is a meaningless statement because it tells us NOTHING about, for example, WHY he is a victim and WHY racism exists in the first place. The whole pint of this gene-fetishism is assuming that social realities remain constant and are unquestionable.


Because again...you look one sided at the twin studies.

Frankly, I do not, because I already accept that twins can be genetically almost identical. My point is that I do not share the pre-supposition that this will determine their behavior. So how am I being one sided? If homosexuality was genetic, then it would reflect well in twin studies. Surely you realize that the factors which lead to "intelligence" and the factors which lead to homosexuality are ENTIRELY different, and we can actually trace those differences. The individual psycho-sexual development of a child, and the practical ability for problem solving, learning, and the intuition to care about acquiring knowledge - which one do you think bears more individual proximity? The point is that twins do not share the same exact experiences necessary for psycho-sexual development, but they might as far as the conditions for learning go. And frankly, "twin studies" with regard to intelligence have not been firmly grounded to confirm their own theoretical premises. For example, in some twin studies wherein twins are "separated" from each other, they're only separated temporarily and often receive regular contact, and often times this is not even separation at birth but over the course of a few years in what is conceived to be key stages of development. I have not heard of a scientific, long-scale twin study for long lost twins born in entirely different contexts that have the same "intelligence", do you?


I understand this quite clearly. I don't however agree with your conflation of the term sexuality with sexual relations.


No, clearly you do. If sexuality is reducible to genetics, then so are sexual relations on a wider scale themselves, which you yourself stated are. So YOU'RE the one conflating these, not me.


....on the other hand social explanations do not account for heritability nor does it account for these social factors not always leading to the same result. Which means that they are not the only factor at play. Ocams razor in reverse.


Social explanations don't account for hereitability? What the FUCK are you talking about? If I concede something is heritable IN THE FIRST PLACE, what's your point? Social factors DO account for heretability, because they define how heritable traits are expressed, contextually. You keep trying to play this stupid postmodern game of reversals, but you fail to conceive that NOTHING can be divorced from its social context, and that has been my point all along. If you are qualifying something as a "social factor" that doesn't lead to the same result, you don't know what actually constitutes a fucking social factor properly. If you pre-suppose ignorance as to what constitutes an actual social factor, that is your fault. For example, people who point out that rich blacks are on average dumber than some middle class whites. This has nothing to do with genetics but the very IDENTITY of being black, forged through oppression and institutionalized racism - in the words of someone whose name I forgot - "You wake up in the morning looking in the mirror not just seeing a person, but a black person". This identity can inhibit, disencourage, trying to properly learn. So what's the point of controversy here? This doesn't violate Occams' razor because I've provided a consistent, scientific argument that rebukes the reductionist notion that race differences in IQ are solely attributed to income levels. But saying something like that it is determined genetically 'conveniently' at X stages of development when theoretically you can provide an explanation which doesn't necessiate it (or make it the logical conclusion) DOES violate Occam's razor. What do we NOT take into account, that you take into account? "Genetics"? Ok, then show me the genes. I claim your lot doesn't take into account the reality of institutional racism. Want me to show you? I can (just not "empirically" or in a way that is reducible to numbers). I can show you how historically whites were never always "more intelligent", I can show you how specifically it works.


Which very specific external factors are you hinting at? Because these very specific social factors have been consistently disproven even in fields themselves. So there are not very specific social factors...these social factors are assumed.


For example? What has been disproven? The external factors I refer to are language, ruling ideology, productive relations and so on - the symbolic social order itself. The specific external factors I refer to, are for example, familial relations - just to name one.


which seem to endlessly try to explain why two MZ twins that have vastly different experiences and upbringings...still turn out homosexual...and MZ twins with exactly the same upbringing and situation do not. Because THAT is a factor you consistently seem to overlook or fail to mention when you talk about your empirical evidence for external factors.


And JUST AS MUCH and in EQUAL frequency, even in the most highly correlated cases (again, shown to have methedological flaws), MZ twins DO NOT turn out to be homosexual, whether raised together or otherwise. What qualifies as the "exact same upbringing"? This is a CONTRADICTION! As I already claimed, two people in their psycho-sexual development CANNOT HAVE THE SAME UPBRINGING, and the only reason you MENTION this is because you FAIL to understand the nature of my rebuttal in the first place! Again, a black person is genetically distinct from a white person, and with the "same upbringing" they will become very different people - that is because it is IMPOSSIBLE to have the "same upbringing" by merit of being black. Hence nature vs. nurture is a false argument in the first place. Sexual identity CANNOT EVEN EXIST without the external subjective perception of it by the wider social order. Am I arguing with a child, literally?


The standard notion is that there is a genetic basis. YOUR assertion is that there is not. The burden of proof falls on your shoulders. And so far you have failed to deliver any substantial theory that if fool proof and offers a watertight explanation accounting for all variances and complexities. This means that you are now turning the table of burden of proof.


Again with the stupid fucking predictability, a standard notion does not constitute the basis of where the burden of proof lies, in fact, the "standard notion" in the middle ages was God and religion - the burden of proof STILL was in the hands of the priests, even if it was a standard, widely accepted notion. My opint is that you have made claims which by your OWN MERITS are verifiable, and you have failed to verify them. It isn't fucking hard to understand - you make a directly verifiable claim, and you can't verify it. That's your burden of proof. We don't have to ACCOUNT for something you can't even fucking sustain, and we are perfectly capable of sustaining proofs (NOT in vulgar empiricist terms) that account for the complexities of psycho-sexual development. That's the point. You concern something that is EMPIRICALLY OBSERVABLY INNATE, such as a gene or a DNA structure, we concern something that is ENTIRELY more complex. So the burden of proof is upon you to demonstrate this, not us. Here is what I said: The burden of proof is upon those who make direct, empirically verifiable claims about this or that having a genetic basis, and so far, you've not shit that's produced. It's not like this is an "unfalsifiable claim", if what you say was true - then you would have been able to produce results on your own terms of confirming them (and not merely speculative twin studies, but ACTUALLY isolating DNA strands and genes). And you have not. So that is why other explanations become more viable. That's how ad hoc works. You say "If X, then Y". If Y doesn't turn out to be true by merit of X, you have a false theoretical foundation. Meanwhile, your conception of our theoretical foundation, which is "identical upbringing" is laughably idiotic and a straw man (SPEAKING OF A REAL ONE) at that.


ARE you aware that PSA in the 2000's needed to overhaul their entire " empirical" evidence base for classification and contributing factors because they have proven to be wrong all along?


Such as where? They have never been proven wrong. Critiques of psychoanalysis talk of "unfalsifiability": As said previously - Cognitivism is the largest field right now, but that only reflects its popularity and funding, not its theoretical scope. In explaining sexuality, for example, the intricacies of this are very, very limited without external non-cognitivist theoretical references. And this all rests upon the presumption that somehow, cognitive science and psychoanalysis contradict each other, which again is not even something critics of psychoanalysis really claim, it being "unfalsifiable" and all. If it is directly contradicted by neuroscience, then guess what - that means it is FALSIFIABLE!

If psychoanalysis has been proven wrong, then it is FALSIFIABLE and therefore the basis of its criticism by empiricists is shattered to pieces.


I could go into lengthy detail as to why your claim in prenatal development having no biological precursors or isn't facilitated by biological factors is not viable and doesn't provide a watertight explanation.


How long do we need to keep running in fucking circles here? HOW LONG ASH? Yes, KEEP REPEATING the SAME THING. You haven't ADDRESSED my argument - which amounts to the reality that YOU CANNOT DISPROVE A NEGATIVE, YOU make the affirmative claim that it has its basis in prenatal development and by your OWN TERMS you have been unable to properly prove that. I don't have to DISPROVE IT because you have made the claim: "If it has its basis in prenatal development, then X evidence should confirm this" - but so far, where is X evidence? I don't have to REGARD that claim because it has failed to produce the evidence. If you say there's an invisible fucking unicorn behind me, which accounts for my mood swings, I do not have to take that seriously or "disprove it" to offer a better explanation for my mood swings, because saying there is an invisible unicorn REQUIRES AFFIRMATIVE EVIDENCE. In explaining behavior, I DO NOT HAVE TO REGARD THE FUCKING UNICORN AT ALL, I do not have to make a theory vis-a-vis an invisible unicorn to provide a better explanation.



Heritibility; asynchronisity in development; sporadic occurrence in like conditions; disproportion in result links etc.

What evidnece demonstrates that homosexuality is PRIMARILY genetic? I do not claim it does not REFLECT physiologically, or that it does not involve genes, but that IT IS NOT DETERMINED BY THEM.


Deep sigh...no...you actually can't. You believe you can. There is a difference. Fact is...this is the determination range for homosexuality in PSA...and I just make a random grab from the environmental factors that contribute to it:

1). Overbearing relationship with the mother
2). Distant cold relationship with the father
3). Distant cold relationship with the mother compared with a very close relationship with the father
4). Distant relationship with the father, sexualized (not necessarily sexual!!!) relationship with the mother
5). Sexualized relationship with the father

And the list goes on.

the fact remains that there are a whole legion of people who have exactly those experiences...who do not turn out t be homosexual.


Oh my god you don't want to fucking start with me. It is NOT reducible to any of these factors - where have we made such claims? We analyze processes which can consequentially INVOLVE propositions 1-5 that you have listed, but they are not REDUCIBLE to them as factors which influence the development of homosexuality. The evidence that homosexuality has its basis in early childhood development, is much stronger than the evidence we have that it has its basis in prenatal development. In fact the overwhelming majority of homosexuals do share similar experiences in early childhood development, and this has been well documented by psychoanlysts in the 20th century.


No...you haven't. Because your version of the side is completely wrong.

Which is the paradox of golden road garbage: "Two extremes are bad, the middle road is good. But they are both equally wrong, I am right - Oh wait, I just created a dichotomy! Better take the golden road again, and again, and again until I fucking erode my standards into becoming a Fascist".


Your argument quite litterally was that the idea of biological factors playing a role was subjective. I am saying the exact same thing. Your predisposition to certain theories which have no actual factual basis (hence why they are theories and not laws) is also incredibly subjective.


No, I HAVE NOT ONCE made any pretense to criticizing it on grounds of being "subjective". My epistemology DOES NOT REGARD THAT DICHOTOMY. And I have demonstrated that over, and over, and over again. I claimed that saying "X" is determined by biological processes was not "subjective", but plainly wrong. These are things which are NOT REDUCIBLE TO ANY SINGLE SUBJECT, so a pretense to "subjectivity" or "objectivity" is plainly USELESS:

I sigh at the fact that I've already addressed it. But let me settle this right the fuck now - you keep isolating the fact that I used "subjectivist" instead of "subjective" in this context: Your posts read like fucking vomit. I'm sorry, but what the FUCK are you talking about? I did not make any pretenses to subjectivity, YOU DID, I said that YOUR POSITIONS SPECIFICALLY were based on subjective political whims and not any kind of scientific process of evaluating 'data' as valid or invalid, which has nothing to do with calling evolutionary psychology subjectivist (a false dichotomy anyway, a postmodern one at that) but recognizing that there is no "distinction" in it which regards political correctness. The same theoretical premise which leads one to the conclusion that liking shiny objects is a trait that is selected for on an evolutionary level is the same premise that leads one to the conclusion that black women are objectively less attractive in the human species. Stop ignoring the study provided which supports this, and if that's not enough, I can give you 12 more which come to similar conclusions. That's my point. The only reason you don't buy into the racism, or sexism in Evolutionary psychology is because of political correctness, but if you wanted to be theoretically and epistemologically consistent, you would recognize that non-sexist data is not "worse" than sexist data in that both rely on the same theoretical presumptions about what behavioral traits have their origin in. You either a) deny there is ANY sexism or racism in Evolutionary psychology that is backed by "studies", which everyone knows is false (something you yourself admitted) or b) accept the racist and sexist conclusions out of scientific consistency.

I could have replaced "subjectivist" with "subjective" and it would have made no difference as far as the real argument was concerned. You're so desperate that all you can do is outline grammerical mistakes at this point.


The fact of the matter is that evolutionary psychology rests upon inherently ideological presumptions, while Lacanian psychoanalysis converts those designated assumptions into knowable facts, thereby eliminating the power which sustains the false theoretical premise of, for example, genes being responsible for what is clearly not genetic. This doesn't work the other-way-around, which suggests that it is not "subjective" or "just as true" as evolutionary psychology. I already addressed how you abuse words as well, targeting your epistemological foundations: Your distinction between the "subjective" and the "objective" is based on false epistemological foundations. No statement can be "objective" because what is objective refers to processes that are simply beyond the human mind. Meanwhile Marxists recognize that the subject itself is a PART of objective process, i.e. that the human mind, consciousness are not the ends-in-itself but constitute a wider part of reality. Everything is "subjective", it is a false dichotomy. Some things can BETTER approximate reality, scientifically, but that does not make it "objective". The "objective" exists independently of the mind, the mere relation between the mind and the objective is a subjective relation. That means that truth, and the logic of partisanship are one and the same - only with partisanship can truth be conceivable, because truth is a practical question.



HOW we look at behavior and HOW we relate to behavior in a given epoch does NOT change the behavior.

FINALLY you reveal yourself to be the bourgeois formalist that you are - OF COURSE it changes the fucking behavior AND THAT IS THE POINT. You cannot PICK AND CHOOSE which least common denominator constitutes trans-historical behavior because ALL BEHAVIOR EXISTS PRACTICALLY in relation to a WIDER TOTALITY. So YES it changes the fucking behavior, because by merit of having a different relation to a wider context hte BEHAVIOR ITSELF IS DIFFERENT. To say otherwise is a pure ABSTRACTION, mistaking reality for your projections upon it. Saying "humans want to eat" is MEANINGLESS without analyzing how humans eat, when they do it, how they justify it and so on. Of course they always do want to it - but understanding this divorced from its context tells us NOTHING about the process of feeding the masses.

[PhoenixAsh]

Saying "everything is determined by X" isn't wrong because it unfairly censors "other" possibilities, it is wrong because it is REDUCTIONIST and empiricist (in the Althusserian sense), it is wrong because it places primacy upon something which divorced from a wider totality has absolutely no substance.

Well thank you for admitting that I am completely right from the start. Finally. Jesus fucking Christ. It took you tens of thousands of words to arrive at the main criticism I leveled against you three threads ago in the first place.



The rest of your post was irrelevant. This is the core argument we have. That and what you now admit is that the social is determined by the biological. Which is also nice. Thank you for admitting that I was right from the start.

Lets address some other key misconceptions you have:

1) DNA is not unchangeable...the biological is not unchanging.
2) Never did I argue that DNA is the primary factor...my argument is that it is a vital component intrinsically linked. There is a huge difference.
3) When the biological determines the social and the social determines the biological this means that they are intrinsically linked. Two halves (not sides) of the same coin This also means I make a useful distinction based on what we are talking about....which is the WHY and not the WHAT of things.
4) Gender and gender relations are two different issues. They are linked but no the same and do not operate according to the same mechanisms. This is easy to understand and your conclusion is extremely flawed.
5) PSA totally saw homosexuality as a pathological disease until well in the late 80's...more than a decade after the rest of psychology no longer considered homosexuality as a pathology. Stekel, Bieber, Bergler, Socarides Etc.

[human strike]

Her twitter (assuming it is actually her) is talking a lot about "transrace" and being "born in the wrong skin."

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Her twitter (assuming it is actually her) is talking a lot about "transrace" and being "born in the wrong skin."
Her black adopted brother says he thinks she might have self-hatred for being white, which is more believable than this "transrace" nonsense (which she's no doubt bringing up only now as some form of defense).

[Slippers]

Yay people who know nothing about actually being trans in this thread talking about it like authorities on the subject.

Yay transphobia in this thread. /sarcasm

Learn about shit before you have a strong opinion on it. Or any opinion on it.

As for her twitter account; there are numerous fake twitter accounts of hers going around. I doubt it's hers. I'd be keeping my mouth shut in her spot.


Also; that a white person can appropriate blackness for their personal gain and then actually have people (and not a small number of people) defend them is disgusting.

[REDwhiteandblue]

Yay people who know nothing about actually being trans in this thread talking about it like authorities on the subject.

Yay transphobia in this thread. /sarcasm

Learn about shit before you have a strong opinion on it. Or any opinion on it.

As for her twitter account; there are numerous fake twitter accounts of hers going around. I doubt it's hers. I'd be keeping my mouth shut in her spot.


Also; that a white person can appropriate blackness for their personal gain and then actually have people (and not a small number of people) defend them is disgusting.

LOL. I hate to say this, because I am not transphobic, but it is really the SAME SHIT. I am not defending her, I'm just saying you're all a bunch of hypocrites! There are genetic differences between male and female, just as there are between races.

[PhoenixAsh]

I get your point.

Do you understand that this is literally what tarns-exclusive feminists say about transgender women?

[Slippers]

I get your point.

Do you understand that this is literally what tarns-exclusive feminists say about transgender women?

Do you understand that the situations are not at all comparable and that you thinking that they are suggests you don't know much about trans people, or what gender is? Hence me saying that people should do their research.

[PhoenixAsh]

Do you understand that the situations are not at all comparable and that you thinking that they are suggests you don't know much about trans people, or what gender is? Hence me saying that people should do their research.

Yeah. Sure. But this is of course a defensive platitude without actually providing an answer on how transrace isn't really a lived experience...so far that assertion seems to be based on the assumption that it is done for gain....and must have some ulterior motives.

This is however exactly the position many anti transgender groups take who refuse to acknowledge trans as a lived experience and a real issue...especially with respect to passing.

So if it is not a lived experience...fine...but WHY is it not a lived experience?

(Do note that passing as an other race is not an exclusive to white concept...not is it a new concept. Passing as another race is cross "ethnic" and goes back for decades and centuries.

Do also note that race is not fixed. Irish were not considered white a few decades back...nor were poor white people considered white in the US a few decades back...and one fifth of the population in the US that is now considered black was not considered black a few decades back)

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

“The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling. Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture.” - bell hooks

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

A good article from an actual transracial woman. Transracial being used in its actual meaning, not this made up one some of you are using.

http://www.thelostdaughters.com/2015/06/transracial-lives-matter-rachel-dolezal.html

[PhoenixAsh]

An interesting quote in an article dealing with cultural appropriation and sexual behavior.

However...in the context of this thread still based on the assumption that this is limited to white people...rather than cross ethnic/racial behavior....as well as based on the assumption that trans-race is not a lived experience.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

as well as based on the assumption that trans-race is not a lived experience.
Transrace doesn't mean what you think it does. It already has an established meaning. This new meaning is just trying to appropriate language from transgender people and actual transracial people.

[REDwhiteandblue]

Transrace doesn't mean what you think it does. It already has an established meaning. This new meaning is just trying to appropriate language from transgender people and actual transracial people.

Sorry but it's the same thing as transgenderism. lol you fail

white people cannot be black and males cannot be females, that's just the way it is sorry :P you want to challenge that, give me some proof for your ideas..

white people who pretend to be black are in it for themselves, just like males who pretend to be females are doing it for the attention and the attention only.

Well, many, anyway.

[PhoenixAsh]

Transrace doesn't mean what you think it does. It already has an established meaning. This new meaning is just trying to appropriate language from transgender people and actual transracial people.

I do. I also do know that within transrace there is sometimes a strong connection with the adopting families race and ethnicity to such an extent that some kids can not distinguish the difference or feel they are part of the adoptive parents ethnicity.

This individual case doesn't interest me. And I am not about to speculate on her motives unless she speaks on them herself. What is striking is that her brother self identifies as 25% black... Nonetheless the abstract remains...crossing a racial social divide...especially when trans-race...is this a real concept or not and what if there is difference is that difference.

Before you answer from this individual case alone...you should perhaps know consider a few points:

Passing as another race or ethnicity is not a new issue. It goes back decades and even centuries. It happens across cultures and (epoch relevant) race lines.

Transrace is a relatively new term when international adoption and child development became an issue. However adopting children of another race or ethnic background is not new and also dates back in history.

There are numerous arguments made against identification with another race based on arguments that are either enforcing racial lines; race as a biological construct. In this specific case the arguments that are given are word for word the same as the arguments given for trans exclusion.

[BIXX]

I'm gonna be honest I think everyone's focus on this from a biological perspective is how we are failing to get to a logical way of saying that this lady should fuck right off. Instead we should be looking, IMO, at the emergence of queerness/non-whiteness, the historical oppressions that coincide with these things, etc...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Alright, I admit that I haven't read the entirety of this thread, so it's possible that this has been brought up before, but I think there is an obvious difference between gender and sex.

Gender is "preformative" - it has to be reproduced personally and day-to-day. It also pertains to behaviour and presentation, both of which are things that can be changed easily. Race and ethnicity, on the other hand, while as much of a social construct as, well, everything in human society, are usually relatively "stable", and while they still need to be reproduced on the scale of society, they don't need to be reproduced every day like gender. They pertain to perceived heredity and phenotype, neither of which can be changed easily.

And even when ethnicity is purely "preformative", like in the case of the Frank-Roman distinction in early Merovingian Gaul, this doesn't mean that merely identifying as another ethnicity is enough. Generally, I think people are afraid of hurting someone by denying their self-identification far too much, and it leads to ridiculous extremes like being trans-black or trans-fox or whatever.

So yeah, I don't have any idea about the mindset of this person, but what she did isn't analogous to being transgender or transsexual. (Another thing that I want to mention is that, while transsexuality might go back as far as the Neolithic, "trans-ethnics" were "discovered" on the Internet.) I also think we should perhaps consider why she tried to present herself as black - this ultra-empiricist epistemology some people on "the left" seem to assume that privileges personal experience over analysis.

[PhoenixAsh]

^ now that is an answer that I was looking for.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I also think we should perhaps consider why she tried to present herself as black - this ultra-empiricist epistemology some people on "the left" seem to assume that privileges personal experience over analysis.

This was going to be my answer haha.

[Bala Perdida]

I don't much care for the situation or the NAACP. I guess I can say I don't take kindly to cultural appropriation but it doesn't look like she was doing that. Honestly, off her being white I'm surprised she would choose black as her look. I can't say how many white people I've ran into that have tried to pull latinx, and it just comes off sloppy racist and overall annoyingly offensive. Also when it's just flat out wrong "my settler grandma was born in California when it was Mexico so I'm part Mexican!" You are neither culturally nor ethnically tied to the people of Mexico, so quite saying that!

EDIT: After saying what she did/is doing in my head, she is very much cultural appropriating. What I was thinking was that she isn't living a lifestyle in accordance to black culture, which is pretty hard to do since black people don't have to much of a different culture in the US.
I wanted to add that among other things that are wrong with cultural appropriation, there's the whole point that they are doing it for benefit. They get to pretend be something else because they find it 'exotic', 'fun' or they see some sort of credibility to gain from it. Yet they don't experience the pain and the stigma that comes out of being a POC. Their appropriated culture or community isn't much of a safe haven or comfort zone as it is for many POC. For them it's a people they can exploit, or an entertaining 'voyage' of sorts.


Sorry but it's the same thing as transgenderism. lol you fail

white people cannot be black and males cannot be females, that's just the way it is sorry :P you want to challenge that, give me some proof for your ideas..

white people who pretend to be black are in it for themselves, just like males who pretend to be females are doing it for the attention and the attention only.

Well, many, anyway.
Umm... no! There is a whole masculine culture that violently doesn't tolerate biological males transitioning or behaving as females. If so many of the male to female trans people are trans for attention, they are getting the wrong kind. Just being a male who doesn't act like a tool gets you shit, I can't imagine how bad it must be for people who live in an absolute opposition to this patriarchal culture. Also, most trans people go through an identity crisis that makes so many of them suicidal, it's usually not an overnight thing from what I've seen. So saying that cultural appropriation and being transgender are the same thing is ignorant, misinformed, and being an overall piece of shit. If you were being sarcastic, then maybe you should make more fucking obvious than making most of your posts consistent with your piece of shit views.

[Quail]

Umm... no! There is a whole masculine culture that violently doesn't tolerate biological males transitioning or behaving as females. If so many of the male to female trans people are trans for attention, they are getting the wrong kind. Just being a male who doesn't act like a tool gets you shit, I can't imagine how bad it must be for people who live in an absolute opposition to this patriarchal culture. Also, most trans people go through an identity crisis that makes so many of them suicidal, it's usually not an overnight thing from what I've seen. So saying that cultural appropriation and being transgender are the same thing is ignorant, misinformed, and being an overall piece of shit. If you were being sarcastic, then maybe you should make more fucking obvious than making most of your posts consistent with your piece of shit views.

Don't worry, they've been banned now.

[Bala Perdida]

Don't worry, they've been banned now.
The things I miss out on when I read off my phone's browser.

[Sendo]

Outside of the racial/social/radical analysis context, I'd like to share some thoughts based on my own experiences and some of the individual psychology at work.

Being considered by most of the world's people as white, I am judged so and reap the according benefits, especially in Western Europe or North America. As much of a social construct as it may be, in 2015, I am "white" in the sense I get material advantages that others don't and I am spared from things others aren't (Klansmen will never appear at my door and make me fear for my life).

I do, by choice, live in Korea (the South in case that matters to anyone but it has no relevance to the argument). I am a racial minority and that is apparent. As much as I try, I will be noticed as being different and it'd be nice to not have a substantial minority of people rudely stare at me or cross the street to avoid me.

Now, intellectually I know it's better to be minority white in majority non-white setting than vice versa. But on an emotional level, sometimes I just want to be racially invisible. I don't hate my face or wish to be yellow exactly. But there are times where I wish my hat obscured my face a bit better or I could magically make everyone on the street just see me as Northeast Asian man unless I reveal otherwise.

I know whites are more guilty of asking awkward questions to blacks than vice versa. (esp: hair). But that doesn't mean that the reverse never happens. Race also shapes how you're viewed.

I could see someone ignoring th e historical and social context and just wanting to racially slip into the crowd. If you're into Afro-American culture and associating with mostly black people since college onward, it's not inconceivable that one would try to fit in.

It's just an extension of wearing chinos and a blazer instead of a khaki suit* to a certain event in the summer in a certain cultural setting because last time you got it wrong and last time everyone commented on it or looked at it--regardless of it being a compliment or not you just didn't want to attract attention. Similar thing.

Of course, one needs to step back and see the above example as NOT being the same as racial impersonation.

*I don't want to catch hell for this. No remarks, please, about suits being icons of the ruling class or not being proletarian or too expensive or a symbol of privilege. You can spend a few hundred on a couple *good* suits and a rotation of shirts and have them for years and years. Ever go to a funeral in a farming town in the USA? Everyone's got their Sunday best on, not mud-stained overalls. Time and a place for both.

[Sendo]

Umm... no! There is a whole masculine culture that violently doesn't tolerate biological males transitioning or behaving as females. If so many of the male to female trans people are trans for attention, they are getting the wrong kind. Just being a male who doesn't act like a tool gets you shit, I can't imagine how bad it must be for people who live in an absolute opposition to this patriarchal culture. Also, most trans people go through an identity crisis that makes so many of them suicidal, it's usually not an overnight thing from what I've seen. So saying that cultural appropriation and being transgender are the same thing is ignorant, misinformed, and being an overall piece of shit. If you were being sarcastic, then maybe you should make more fucking obvious than making most of your posts consistent with your piece of shit views.

I'm not as versed as others in trans psychology or experiences, but if someone is surgically altering their bodies and adopting a different gender/sex on their identity papers because they can't fit in as is, if that's the reason, then that's a sad indictment of society. I'd hope and encourage physically/biologically male people to act however they want and not make their bodies conform to another gender/sex because "wearing makeup is for girls" and take voice lessons to make that conform to their new bodies.

It's their choice and all and I can't really relate and who am I to dictate, etc etc I know. If the reason to transition is because society makes them uncomfortable being a man who wears high heels or whatever, then the situation is sad is all. I've always been of the radical feminist persuasion that behaviour doesn't have to match body types and it's all a social construct and no one's complete without embracing all aspects of humanity--including "masculine" strength, anger, stoicism and "feminine" caring, sensitivity, nurturing.

Of course, the Rachel Dolezal case is quite different and a lot of things don't apply from one to the other.

But though their histories are different, you can feel some sympathy for identification questions they've coped with. Dolezal's story has things which are worthy of rebuke, but there's humanity in both. I think it's simply a case of Rachel Dolezar feeling uncomfortable in her own skin (pardon the pun)and her feeling so strongly she missed the larger social context in which she was darkening herself or selfishly didn't care. I don't think she is doing it to manipulate anyone. Especially since the NAACP doesn't seem to be the one upset about being "infiltrated" by a white person.

[Tim Cornelis]

She has now 'come out' as identifying as black.

[Quail]

She has now 'come out' as identifying as black.

Link?

[Tim Cornelis]

Link?

It's Dutch:

http://nos.nl/artikel/2041789-blanke-activiste-ik-voelde-me-als-kind-al-zwart.html

I will look for an English one then.

here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/16/us/washington-rachel-dolezal-naacp/index.html

[mushroompizza]

What a waste of a news story, just think of all the paper they wasted on this shit, its just some weirdo who helped the community.

[human strike]

Her Twitter is full of talk of "transrace" stuff (assuming it is genuinely her Twitter).

Apparently evidence has emerged that in 2002 she sued Howard university for discriminating against her... because she was white.


Alright, I admit that I haven't read the entirety of this thread, so it's possible that this has been brought up before, but I think there is an obvious difference between gender and sex.

Gender is "preformative" - it has to be reproduced personally and day-to-day. It also pertains to behaviour and presentation, both of which are things that can be changed easily. Race and ethnicity, on the other hand, while as much of a social construct as, well, everything in human society, are usually relatively "stable", and while they still need to be reproduced on the scale of society, they don't need to be reproduced every day like gender. They pertain to perceived heredity and phenotype, neither of which can be changed easily.

And even when ethnicity is purely "preformative", like in the case of the Frank-Roman distinction in early Merovingian Gaul, this doesn't mean that merely identifying as another ethnicity is enough. Generally, I think people are afraid of hurting someone by denying their self-identification far too much, and it leads to ridiculous extremes like being trans-black or trans-fox or whatever.

So yeah, I don't have any idea about the mindset of this person, but what she did isn't analogous to being transgender or transsexual. (Another thing that I want to mention is that, while transsexuality might go back as far as the Neolithic, "trans-ethnics" were "discovered" on the Internet.) I also think we should perhaps consider why she tried to present herself as black - this ultra-empiricist epistemology some people on "the left" seem to assume that privileges personal experience over analysis.

The term "transrace" being used in this way may not have existed before the Internet, but there's an interesting history of white women adopting a black identity in Haarlem during the Haarlem Renaissance and I'm sure there are probably other examples from history that predate the Internet.

[PhoenixAsh]

^ There are. From several cultures and races. For several reasons.

It gives some insight to look at mixed race children. What for example with Black Vietnamese babies after the Vietnam war. I forgot the term...bui doi???

Either way....These children are always categorized based on appearance. Some are classified as bui doi (??? ) or mixed. Some as black. Some as Vietnamese/Asian. When grown up and taken put their direct family comparison. MOST however identify themselves as Asian (either because of social pressure or because they feel asian) and some identify as black (when they did get US citizenship for example) or still identify as Asian outside their country.

[Tim Cornelis]

I think this is a very plausible theory:

"Dolezal attended Howard University, a historically black school, where, an adopted brother stated, she did not assimilate — but rather had problems fitting in. Her adopted brother Ezra told Buzzfeed News that “she used to tell us that teachers treated her differently than other people and a lot of them acted like they didn’t want her there,” Ezra said. “Because of her work in African-American art, they thought she was a black student during her application, but they ended up with a white person.”

The website The Smoking Gun uncovered late Monday that Dolezal went as far as filing a lawsuit against Howard in 2002.

The lawsuit named the university and professor Alfred Smith — then chairman of Howard’s Department of Art, in which Dolezal was a student — as defendants in the lawsuit. Prior to the suit’s dismissal in 2004, Dolezal’s claims against Howard included “discrimination based on race, pregnancy, family responsibilities and gender [whe she was was].”

The court opinion also noted that Dolezal claimed that the university’s decision to remove some of her artworks from a February 2001 student exhibition was “motivated by a discriminatory purpose to favor African-American students over” her.

“I suspect Rachel discovered at Howard that it isn’t enough to love black culture and profess one’s solidarity with the movement for black equality; that indeed, black folks don’t automatically trust us just because we say we’re down; that proving oneself takes time, and that the process is messy as hell, and filled with wrong turns and mistakes and betrayals and apologies and a healthy dose of pain,” says Tim Wise, an antiracist author and educator. “And I suspect she didn’t have the patience for the messiness, but armed with righteous indignation at the society around her, and perhaps the one in which she had been raised out west, she opted to cut out the middle man.”

Instead of working with others, Dolezal chose to simply become black and to actually speak for those others. “It was her way of obtaining the authenticity to which she perhaps felt entitled just because of her sensibilities, and which she felt had been denied her by those whose approval she sought,” says Wise.

https://www.yahoo.com/health/can-rachel-dolezal-really-be-transracial-or-is-121599723722.html

Wise also importantly notes that, “Whether intended or not, make no mistake, by negating the history (and even the apparent possibility) of real white antiracist solidarity, Dolezal ultimately provided a slap in the face to that history by saying that it wasn’t good enough for her to join.”"

This sounds very plausible. Also because I recognise myself in it. In the early stages of my political development and hadn't dealt with my "white privilege" (I don't think it's a very useful term, but lacking a better) fully (still sort of a 'manarchist' also back then), I sometimes was tempted to lie on the internet about being a woman or POC as a shortcut to gaining credibility in speaking of matters of race and gender when I was called out. I think ultimately I just went with the "but if I were black and said that thing then..." :rolleyes: . So I think Wise is probably correct in his suspicion. But maybe some other things factored into it, her allegedly abusive parents (not sure if their abuse has been confirmed) or something, making her make such an extreme decision and overhaul.

[Better]

I can not speak for Rachel Dolezal but I can for myself as a transracial person. I am happy that more people are learning about transracialism. Look, all humans share the same origin at some point, thus it's really down to the individual. Black people do not think differently from White people. This is a racist assumption and it's really too bad we have people here on this website who truly believe that. I'm not suprised. Notice it's White people saying that you cannot be transrace.

It seems like white people tend to see the world in black and white were White people will act a certain way and Black people will act another way. Until we start judging the individual rather than judging races there will always be problems.

I identify as Black because I have the freedom to..and there is no reason why I shouldn't. People can identify how they want. I am also transgender. I would love to have a civil discussion about this. If there are people who oppose transracialism, they can come to me and I will answer their questions...

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Do you feel that you experience the world in an identical fashion as someone with black skin? Someone who doesn't share the same freedom to redefine their race? You have the same types of interactions with police, hiring managers and everyday people on the street that they do? Can I ask what race you were before identifying as black?

Sent from my SGH-T769 using Tapatalk

[PhoenixAsh]

Better....aren't you also arguing in the thread you necro'ed and in one of your current three posts...that biological race exists?

[PhoenixAsh]

Do you feel that you experience the world in an identical fashion as someone with black skin? Someone who doesn't share the same freedom to redefine their race? You have the same types of interactions with police, hiring managers and everyday people on the street that (..)

What is defined today as black hasn't been consistent throughout the last decades. In 1950 what was considered black was different from what is considered black today. As was what is condidered white. And not everybody that is black gets the same treatment and not everybody that is considered white is treated as white....that is because the phenotypical spectrum of race is a huge range encompassing people who are near white skin to people who fit the stereotype.

The question creates a dichotomy between black and white as if they are fixed points...but they aren't, they are defined in opposition to each other. Which led for example to 1/5 of the black race not being identified as black.

A better and more realistic question would be: if they had the same experience as non white people.

Which is either way imo not a defining characteristic of race but rather the conclusion that race is defined in opposition to the stereotype of the opressing stereotypical idea of the ideal about race...and originates with the oppressing group.

That group will define what does and does not belong and defend that demarcation. This makes Better's choice (if he is for real and not simply a troll) just about as free as any other persons choice...The oppressing group will not accept the change. As is witnessed by the reactions to Dolezal.

The person who choses to not be white when the oppressing group is white...will be rejected as dillusional and can even be harassed, assaulted etc to force them back into the division (as has historically been the case with people transgressing racial lines)

Conversely the oppressed groups will equally create a social identity which defines who does and does not belong. Which often leads to some people being rejected by the oppressed race as belonging to their race when the oppressing group squarely categorizes them as such.
Or oppose individuals when they apparently to transgress the racial lines.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Nothing about that post suggests to me that this poster is anything other than a white person. Not a person with a multi-ethnic background struggling with identity or public misconception. I get what youre saying, but in this case it does actually sound black or white. And if this person and I walk down the street together in Anywhere, USA no one is going to regard us as "the same" is my guess.

Sent from my SGH-T769 using Tapatalk

[PhoenixAsh]

I think this user is very likely trolling the board with an edgy story. He defends the biological nature of race and the poses race as a choice. These two are mutally exclusive.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Maybe either way fuck that poster lets restrict them to the Spanish subboard

[Tim Cornelis]

Just because you have the freedom to doesn't mean it's moral. I can claim transrace, and identify as Black, and reap the benefits of white supremacy as phenotypically white person while also using (abusing) measures in place to alleviate structural marginalisation of black people because I say "I'm black on the inside". Whiteness with all the positive with none of the negative, what a disgrace.

[Comrade Jacob]

Transracial doesn't make sense and damn the people saying "hurr durr hurr, it's the same and transgendered people".
Race is not something you can chose to be. Race =/= culture. She could say she identifies as "culturally black" I guess but she still is white ethnically.
What annoys me the most is that she's set lighter-skinned blacks back a bit by doing this.
Many Light-skinned blacks have had a lot of "oh, you are not really black" and that undermines their less of privilege compared to whites.


I hope this makes sense, it's quite a sensitive issue.

[PhoenixAsh]

Yeah...but people seem to be hung up on the notion that this only happens by white people....which is not the case.

We care about this issue one way or the other BECAUSE this person is white. The reason why this is even news is rather racist actually and a sign of white supremacy reasserting itself.

IF she had been Asian claiming to be Black....does anybody here think this would have had the mainstream attention it has now? IF it had been a black person aiming to be white? (Incidentally...if She has NOT been a woman in a power position that attacks and threatens the racial status quo?)

No it wouldn't. At all. It would probably not even have been mentioned outside some blogs or fora. Probably one or two days...ridicule. End of story.

This is a protracted debate on which several sides affirm race as something real, tangeable and uncroseable. As something that you either are or are not and which defines a person.

Most (not all) arguments in this debate can be distilled back to two main roots of origins: race traitor or falsely appropriating.

BOTH these arguments ultimately endorse race and rely on racism and are founded on the believe that there is something substantial to either betray or take...that is a unified term and defined item. They affirm the notion of race; unintentionally maybe...but they do none the less.

The left...liberal and revolutionary...have abandoned the previously held doctrine that race is purely a social construction that is fictive and fluid.

That position has been entirely abandoned in this debate in favor of finding NEW definitions of race which are NOT universal, entirely fictive subjective and dependend on individual cases.

So race is now defined by "commonality of experience?"
Really? What the actual fuck????

So basically race is defined by sharing a common culture? Like the Dutch culture? Like the English culture?

LIKE THE NATIONALIST CRAP WE ARE FIGHTING DAILY BY STATING THERE IS NO COMMON CULTURAL EXPERIENCE?

[PhoenixAsh]

The comparison with Transgender can easily be made. NOT because they are similar....but because of the similarity between the arguments made to discredit social boundary crossing identities and (re)enforcing a social binarity on them to maintain the fictive division between oppressor and oppressed. That division ONLY exists because it is actively enforced, policed and made meaningful and substantial.

The arguments (to this very day) against transgender traditionally denies it being a thing. It litterally says that you either belong to one group or another and that when you are a woman in a male anatomy you therefore can't be a woman (or vice versa)....and your motivations and identity either stem from pathology OR because you want to profit in some way.

It has been used for decades and required real struggle to get even the acceptance level that we are at now. And STILL these arguments are made...by either Transexclusive feminists (whose arguments are word for word the same as the arguments used here: profit, gain, portraying, adopting, masquerading, dillusional, false identification etc.) or the supporters of gender binary patriarchy.

BOTH gender and race are social constructs. While we argue vehemently to this effect deconstructing gender divisions of the one....we retreat to enforcing the divisionary lines of the other by endorsing the reality.

So instead of arguing: why the hell do we even have a racial division that we use to oppress non whites without any basis...we are making a 180 and condemning people who cross that racial divide.

edit:
How the fuck does it happen that Revleft's arguments are exactly the same as those of ScumF?? This item is ONLY relevant in the face of racism because of racism.This items should be used by the left to show the ludicrous nature of racial division. It should be laughed away as merely an other attempt to legitimizing the racist social structures. That it is unimportant whether or not an individual identifies as one or the other because that identification is ONLY relevant in a structure that makes it relevant and endorses the division which should not be there and should not exist in te first place. Wtf revleft?

[Better]

Better....aren't you also arguing in the thread you necro'ed and in one of your current three posts...that biological race exists?

Yes, they do exist. Although it's not that important. Humans are closer to each other than we would like to think. Humans are always looking for ways to make themselves special or different from other humans, the reality is that we are very, VERY similar. And the idea that Black people think any differently than other people is racist of course and it's simply not true. There are biological races but it has little effect on the brain, how someone thinks is purely environmental.

[Better]

Do you feel that you experience the world in an identical fashion as someone with black skin? Someone who doesn't share the same freedom to redefine their race? You have the same types of interactions with police, hiring managers and everyday people on the street that they do? Can I ask what race you were before identifying as black?

Sent from my SGH-T769 using Tapatalk

1. No, I do not feel that I experience the world in an identical fashion as someone with Black skin, mostly because I don't try to make it seem like I am Black, when people see me they think I'm white. Now, if I were to make myself look more like a Black person, then yes.
2. Black people most certainly do have the freedom to redefine their race. An example is Michael Jackson, if people didn't know he was Black they would think he was White as an adult. And he would experience the world like a White person would.
3. I would have th same types of interactions if I made myself appear more Black like Rachel Dolezal has done, I'm sure she was treated like a Black person as long as people thought she was Black. It's all about how people see you, it's the skin color really. And that's why racism is illogical.
4. Before identifying as Black I was White, I guess.

[Better]

Just because you have the freedom to doesn't mean it's moral. I can claim transrace, and identify as Black, and reap the benefits of white supremacy as phenotypically white person while also using (abusing) measures in place to alleviate structural marginalisation of black people because I say "I'm black on the inside". Whiteness with all the positive with none of the negative, what a disgrace.

No.

A white person who appears as Black will suffer the discrimination and won't have the privileges of being White, that is reserved for people who appear to be White.

What is it with you people? You have yet to counter my arguments. All the point you have made, I have countered. Keep trying. For some reason you just don't like the idea that someone who is one race can become another race, it is similar to transphobia I don't care what people say.

The fact of the matter is that if someone becomes another race on the outside (and the inside they already are in a way) they will be treated like other people of that race. I will suffer the discrimination that Black people suffer if I were to make myself appear more like a Black person. Why would someone do that? It is just how I feel.

Do you understand?

[PhoenixAsh]

Yes, they do exist. Although it's not that important. Humans are closer to each other than we would like to think. Humans are always looking for ways to make themselves special or different from other humans, the reality is that we are very, VERY similar. And the idea that Black people think any differently than other people is racist of course and it's simply not true. There are biological races but it has little effect on the brain, how someone thinks is purely environmental.

So what defines a biological race to you? And what is the defining biological factor of "white" and "black" and "Asian"?

And do you realize when something exists biologically it becomes real and tangible and therefore is impossible to actually cross?

[Better]

I think this user is very likely trolling the board with an edgy story. He defends the biological nature of race and the poses race as a choice. These two are mutally exclusive.

Not at all. You misunderstand what I said.

There are biological races.

HOWEVER

it is not very important. That is, there is a very little difference between biological races, we are much closer than you think. It certainly does not affect how people think, which is what really matters. If someone were to identify as Black, then they would be Black. I am arguing that the fact that there are biological races, makes little difference. It has much more to do with the mind and how people look, how others see that person and how that person identifies themselves.

I am arguing that while biological races do exist, not to the point where people cannot become another race, because more than anything it's about how the people identify and how others see them.

Do you understand?

[Better]

Maybe either way fuck that poster lets restrict them to the Spanish subboard

Wow lol. Quite ironic, just because you disagree with me, you want to ban me. Haha. I have countered all of your arguments. How could you say I am a troll or am stupid when I have won this debate? You cannot come up with anything to counter my own arguments, so that means I've won.

Looks like there is a lot of people here who loathe transrace people, and have misconceptions about them, and are deep down racists. You are no different than the early transphobes, just wait until more people are transrace, and then a celebrity will become transracial, only then will people start to understand Sad. Sad that it takes a celebrity to come out as transrace in order for you people to have any sympathy for us. How hypocritical, you people were just complaining about how people were transphobic until it became more popular. Just wow.

[Better]

Just because you have the freedom to doesn't mean it's moral. I can claim transrace, and identify as Black, and reap the benefits of white supremacy as phenotypically white person while also using (abusing) measures in place to alleviate structural marginalisation of black people because I say "I'm black on the inside". Whiteness with all the positive with none of the negative, what a disgrace.

Of course, if you were to make yourself appear more like a Black person, you would no longer have your white privilege...this is how powerful racism is. It's all about how a person looks.

[Better]

Transracial doesn't make sense and damn the people saying "hurr durr hurr, it's the same and transgendered people".
Race is not something you can chose to be. Race =/= culture. She could say she identifies as "culturally black" I guess but she still is white ethnically.
What annoys me the most is that she's set lighter-skinned blacks back a bit by doing this.
Many Light-skinned blacks have had a lot of "oh, you are not really black" and that undermines their less of privilege compared to whites.


I hope this makes sense, it's quite a sensitive issue.

Transracial makes a lot of sense, please read what I have been saying. I am the voice of reason. It is the same as transgender because you could make the argument that you have to be biologically female to be female, or biologically male to be male. It's not true. It's all about how you feel and how you appear to others. Males who dress like females and look like females will suffer the same discrimination as females, will have higher chance of some creep trying to rape them (who think they arent transgender) etc....it's the same with transracial people. You make yourself appear like a Black person, your white privilege is automatically gone, because white privilege has everything to do with your skin color.

I dare you to counter my arguments. I have made some very good points and I don't like repeating so make sure you look back at all my arguments in this thread.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Lol are you serious man? I'm not reinforcing race as a social construct, I'm acknowledging its existence as a social reality for everyone who isn't white. Can you imagine if this situation were to be reversed? A person with dark skin who insisted they were white would probably be assaulted or killed, not simply ridiculed in the media. I'm not angry at this woman, but no man shes fucking delusional. The same goes for the poster if they aren't a troll.

[Tim Cornelis]

PA, you're being ridiculous. Race is socially constructed, not individually. It exists in the collective imagination, not the individual one. It cannot be changed and opted out on an individual basis, and, moreover, 'identifying as black' seeks to reconstruct notions of race, not deconstruct. What she did is simply not acceptable. What is race, who is black, who is white, what is considered fat, or tall, is socially determined, and the consequences of social and socially constructed reality are real, not imagined.

I don't see why if when the races involved would have been reversed or different, media attention would be less. The media jumped on this because of the 'bizarre'-factor, sensationalism drives it. And then leftist circles took notice and used it to discuss matters of race and identity.

And gender isn't a social construct. It has a physiological basis. Gender roles may be socially constructed, but gender isn't.

[PhoenixAsh]

Lol are you serious man? I'm not reinforcing race as a social construct, I'm acknowledging its existence as a social reality for everyone who isn't white. Can you imagine if this situation were to be reversed? A person with dark skin who insisted they were white would probably be assaulted or killed, not simply ridiculed in the media. I'm not angry at this woman, but no man shes fucking delusional. The same goes for the poster if they aren't a troll.

Yes. I am dead serious and yes...you are actually endorsing race as a social construct by making it a tangible issue and item and something that can not be crossed. You are doing it...right here...in this post. You do so by acknowledging it's existence for anybody who is not white...by validating the demarcation when it is crossed....and by validating the unifying concept of "the other".

You create a group as a unified entity...which is not a unified entity. You do so on the basis of a supposed shared experience....which isn't actually a shared experience because 20% of black Americans are not perceived to be actually black.

You are also defining who is white...as a unified group...when the vast majority of the people who are considered white today were not considered to be so in the recent past or guaranteed to be considered as such in the future of racial division.

Now...the construction of your argument is based on her being white. The ONLY reason you take this position is because she is white....because that is your argument here...and you feel she unjustly appropriates something tangible or what should be tangible or something that exist outside of the social construct. A fact which I have addressed in my previous post.

In doing so...you not only invalidate the concept for everybody who identifies with another race for whatever reason from another race (Think this through) but you also create a validation for the existence of a white race which lines can not be crossed.

In all aspects your argument entirely relies on these divisions....by perpetuating them....and validating a fictional system that ONLY exists because of the definition by the oppressing side. Your argument violates a principle...we do not fight racism because it is unjust or people are repressed but because it doesn't exist in reality and only exists in a false narrative of division for further exploitation of class.

The obvious reality is:

She can not cross a race line...because there is NO race outside of the system. This only has meaning in this system and by rejecting it...you validate the system because you are using the nature of the system as an argument.

Rejecting the notion as dillusional when somebody identifies as "the other" for whatever reason demarcates the racial (and for that matter...gender) divides of the system....rather than the logical outcome of the system creating identity categories that have value.


When she was black and would have said she was white....something that has occurred many, many times throughout US history....she would have gotten reprisal. Just like Dorezal gets reprisal. And yes...she did gain threatening emails and messages and death threats were made...this however does not define race. It defines the nature of (white supremacist) racism and does not justify a rejection of transgressing racial lines in and of itself.

The argument you are actually making is: "it is not fair that somebody who was not white doing it would have been getting harsher reprisal" ... So?

The argument is also entirely based on the US situation....which is not readily comparable to racism in other white countries...so it lacks a general analysis and becomes situational...the revolutionary position on race is however not situational.


Now lets look at this historically.


WHAT if somebody from Italian Sicilian descent decides they do NOT identify as white but as Black? What would YOUR position be in that case? Because Italian Sicilians WERE considered black and were fully addressed by the Jim Crow laws and up until the early half of the 20th century they were considered to be fully Black. Today Italians of Sicilian decent are part of the fourth largest group that make up white America and are fully considered to be white. Yet there has been a large transitional period of a few decades lasting up until 1980 where they had an intermittent status...often still considered to be black (and not merely "non-white")....So they have a historic reason and shared experience and therefore EVERY validity according to your arguments to call themselves black...especially if they were born before 1960.

Irish were considered black...not only that...they were called "inside out negro's". in fact the term mulatto became widely used in the North to refer specifically to biracial Irish/black children. The Irish stopped being black by adopting the strategy to become worse than their masters. And heavily repressed those they saw as black...defining their whiteness in opposition to the aspect of the "other" with whom they were once grouped...and enforce this on the very "biracial" children....by denying them the right to identify as Irish.

So you see...the arguments here...perpetuate that story...that division...

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Whole lot of ... goin on in that post. We normally agree a lot of things man, but that is some idealist claptrap if I ever read any. Race is a reality, it doesn't matter that its socially constructed or not. The only thing that means is that it can be deconstructed at some point in the future, but if you think you're just going to decide to do it on an individual level and that's that, well no you're 100% wrong. Try to contextualize yourself and the statements you're making.

[PhoenixAsh]

Whole lot of ... goin on in that post. We normally agree a lot of things man, but that is some idealist claptrap if I ever read any. Race is a reality, it doesn't matter that its socially constructed or not. The only thing that means is that it can be deconstructed at some point in the future, but if you think you're just going to decide to do it on an individual level and that's that, well no you're 100% wrong. Try to contextualize yourself and the statements you're making.

Yeah. I am and if you took the bother to read it I am for example...not taking the contextual position of endorsing race as a construct by focusing on an individual case and rejecting that individual case based on racial arguments.

Your arguments however are in the context of things completely and utterly invalid.

You have mentioned issues such as:

1). Shared experience
2). Appropriation
3). Defined characteristics
4). Profiting
5). Mental instability

I have addressed all these issues. Gave you very real examples or very real arguments where none of these arguments are actually legitimate...even IF taken in the context of racism.

You won't be able to make a consistent definition of either white or black. Or a definition that historically holds up to that definition even if you only go back a few decades.

It turns out that a lot of people who are now considered white were very much subjected to Jim Crow laws...and considered black as recent as thirty years ago. And the same goes for what is no considered black where at least 20% was not considered black and still is often not identified as black.

This means that race is absolutely NOT real...racial division is real...by virtue of it being policed and demarcated and defined by who is the oppressing party.

But you have yet to answer the control questions I asked...so let me ask them again and add a few;

1). Somebody from Sicilian Italian descent identifying as black?
2). Somebody from half black and half Irish decent identifying as either black or as white?
3). Somebody of half Asian and half black decent identifying as one or the other? (specific within Vietnam...where the choice often reflects the fact that you are less discriminated against...and therefore qualifies as "profit" )
5). What race are Hispanics? (before you answer this one...be well aware of the facts...that Hispanics are considered a race that can be part of any race)
6). What race is George Zimmerman? (He is categorized as 6 different races depending on who you ask)
7). Can a white woman give birth to a black person? (answer is yes...)
8). Can a black woman give birth to a white person? (answer is no...)
9). Does mixed race actually exist as a legal category? (only recently...before that you had to chose...because US law stated a person can only be one race)
10). People born before a specific year will say that if you have any black person in your ancestry you are black. People born after 1970 will say that if you have a black and white parents...you are mixed race.


So what do you mean...when you say race is real?

[PhoenixAsh]

PA, you're being ridiculous. Race is socially constructed, not individually. It exists in the collective imagination, not the individual one. It cannot be changed and opted out on an individual basis, and, moreover, 'identifying as black' seeks to reconstruct notions of race, not deconstruct. What she did is simply not acceptable. What is race, who is black, who is white, what is considered fat, or tall, is socially determined, and the consequences of social and socially constructed reality are real, not imagined.

Quite agree...and you are enforcing that social construct as legitimate. That is my point. And you are doing so based on arguments that race is a reality beyond the social.


I don't see why if when the races involved would have been reversed or different, media attention would be less. The media jumped on this because of the 'bizarre'-factor, sensationalism drives it. And then leftist circles took notice and used it to discuss matters of race and identity.

The bizarre factor would be a lot less bizarre of you realized that this has actually been a very, very, very common thing....not to mention a defining characteristic of the history of race. Race has NEVER been fixed. EVER.

And the origin of the story about identity resides with the right using it to attack social constructs.



And gender isn't a social construct. It has a physiological basis. Gender roles may be socially constructed, but gender isn't.

Gender has no physiological basis Tim. The difference between sex and gender is that exact physiological basis which is often only a chromosomal reality. Gender is influenced by and MAY include sex but not reducible to it.

[Tim Cornelis]

Quite agree...and you are enforcing that social construct as legitimate. That is my point. And you are doing so based on arguments that race is a reality beyond the social.

Denying the social reality of race, by pretending there is a level playing field, which is the implication of what you're suggesting, reinforces current assymetrical power relations between races. If I'm enforcing this social construct as legitimate, and I understand you correctly, then logically, things like affirmative action is a bad thing because it reinforces racial inequality. So the consequence of what you're suggesting is to pretend that the social reality of race should be ignored, which, again, reinforces racial inequality.


The bizarre factor would be a lot less bizarre of you realized that this has actually been a very, very, very common thing....

Can you give another example, or evidence, of a person identifying as another race and altering their appearance to resemble that race (and habitually lying about it).


not to mention a defining characteristic of the history of race. Race has NEVER been fixed. EVER.

But that's another discussion. This concerns socially reconstruction definitions of race, such as Italians being defined as white. Of course race hasn't been fixed in history, but, again, another discussion.


And the origin of the story about identity resides with the right using it to attack social constructs.

That's on them.



Gender has no physiological basis Tim. The difference between sex and gender is that exact physiological basis which is often only a chromosomal reality. Gender is influenced by and MAY include sex but not reducible to it.

Gender is determined by brain structure, therefore is physiological. I recently also saw a study on gender fluidity, if I recall correctly, where it was found that it has a physiological basis.

Also this: http://www.sciencealert.com/brain-gender-is-more-fluid-than-originally-thought-research-reveals

[PhoenixAsh]

Denying the social reality of race, by pretending there is a level playing field, which is the implication of what you're suggesting, reinforces current assymetrical power relations between races. If I'm enforcing this social construct as legitimate, and I understand you correctly, then logically, things like affirmative action is a bad thing because it reinforces racial inequality. So the consequence of what you're suggesting is to pretend that the social reality of race should be ignored, which, again, reinforces racial inequality.

No it is not a level playing field. I specifically addressed this point.

And if you had read the posts I wrote you would have seen that that playing field needs to be attacked, questioned and delegitimized...rather than being reinforced by spending both time on deligitimizing individual cases rather than reflecting it back on the structure and especially not by rejecting the individual over and long racist principles of division.

So the consequence of what you are doing is legitimizing the structure by enforcing it on an individual...while I propose to attack the structure by pointing how ridiculous the structure is and how much it is based on false non existent divisions.


Can you give another example, or evidence, of a person identifying as another race and altering their appearance to resemble that race (and habitually lying about it).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/06/a-surprising-number-of-people-change-their-race-and-ethnicity-from-one-census-to-the-next/

And that is in the US. We haven't even began talking about non whites who rarely even register when they associate with non white races....especially outside the specific country and specific racial construction.

Then of course we have the ultimate favorite subject...Michael Jackson...which even crosses into the "post" race narrative. But was widely accepted by white America as somebody trying to appear to be white and lying about it...and eventually gained a certain status of " fuck it...we don't actually care".

http://www.today.com/id/31572574/ns/today-today_entertainment/t/jacksons-complex-story-transcended-race/#.VYSJ3fmqqko

I am also specifically arguing that the ONLY reason this got media attention is because she was white crossing the racial lines...and because she was a woman challenging the status quo from a position of power. We wouldn't have batted an eye if she was black adopting the race of another minority...and wouldn't at all be interested if she had been black adopting a white status to the extent as we are now.

This entire issue is a white supremacist means to reduce the real issues and attitudes of racism by somehow creating the importance of this individual case and how evil and misguided this is and pastes it over a very real issue in that specific state: the continued violent repression and assertion of racial division. In other words...the transgressions by a white person against racial integrity and structures are falsely made the focus point rather than the continued excessive violence (in comparison with other parts of the US) in her district by whites.



But that's another discussion. This concerns socially reconstruction definitions of race, such as Italians being defined as white. Of course race hasn't been fixed in history, but, again, another discussion.

No...actually it is NOT another discussion....and it took a very, very, very long period of half a century before Sicilians were considered white...and crossed the spectrum depending on subjective characterization.

This makes their shared experience with and definition of being black relevant. What if a Sicilian was to self identify as black?


That's on them.

But not the origins as Ethics suggested.


Gender is determined by brain structure, therefore is physiological. I recently also saw a study on gender fluidity, if I recall correctly, where it was found that it has a physiological basis.

It has a physiological component...but is not reducible to it because the eventual expression of the physiological is determined by environmental factors and defined by the social factors.

That said...race either exists...which makes it physiological...or it doesn't exist...which makes it entirely social. If it doesn't exist then it is a fictive reality. If it is a fictive reality your point is mood. If it is physiological then racism is in fact correct and has a legitimate basis.

Now...I can show a whole range of studies that will say that race has physiological factors. Which is absolutely correct. Except for one thing...they do not lend themselves to a unifying definition of what that race is supposed to be. THAT is entirely up to social definition. As it is with gender.


Also this: http://www.sciencealert.com/brain-gender-is-more-fluid-than-originally-thought-research-reveals[/quote]

That article is very interesting but actually undermines your argument.

Also it doesn't define what they mean with male and female phenotype...this usually refers not to behavior but to anatomical structures. Which makes the referenced article contradictory with the linked article...and the linked article using feminine and masculine behavior (social definitions) as synonymous with phenotype (anatomical definition).

[Rudolf]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/08/06/a-surprising-number-of-people-change-their-race-and-ethnicity-from-one-census-to-the-next/


You should be careful using that to back up your point tbh. I'm always putting crap down on forms i don't really want to fill in. My favourite has been declaring my ethnicity as 'homo stultus' (stupid human). And i know i'm not the only one that takes the piss with censuses.




Then of course we have the ultimate favorite subject...Michael Jackson...which even crosses into the "post" race narrative. But was widely accepted by white America as somebody trying to appear to be white and lying about it...and eventually gained a certain status of " fuck it...we don't actually care".


I thought the thing with M.J. was he had vitiligo and iirc depigmentation so your skin looks to be even is a treatment for it.

[PhoenixAsh]

You should be careful using that to back up your point tbh. I'm always putting crap down on forms i don't really want to fill in. My favourite has been declaring my ethnicity as 'homo stultus' (stupid human). And i know i'm not the only one that takes the piss with censuses.


Of course. Who doesn't? But did you read the article carefully?

Especially these passages:

"New immigrants," Liebler and coauthors write, "sometimes undergo a transformation of their self-identified race as they come to understand, and perhaps accept, how the American public sees them."

&

At a conceptual level, our results highlight an oft-stated (but rarely incorporated) declaration – race and ethnicity are complex, multifaceted constructs. Taking this idea seriously puts the results of our research in a different light. If social science evidence is correct, people are constantly experiencing and negotiating their racial and ethnic identities in interactions with people and institutions, and in personal, local, national, and historical context. These racial and ethnic identities are not always able to be fully translated to a census questionnaire fixed-category format. Perhaps it is not surprising that people change responses and instead it is surprising that so many are consistent in their race and Hispanic origin reports to the Census Bureau.

But the real informative kicker is the base paper:

http://www.census.gov/srd/carra/Americas_Churning_Races.pdf


Where research into racial self identification is sourced.






I thought the thing with M.J. was he had vitiligo and iirc depigmentation so your skin looks to be even is a treatment for it.

I know. Yet nobody believed that at the time...and it wasn't until MJ had his hair done, nose remodeled (and melted), etc before people started to believe it. In the meantime MJ was considered somebody who crossed racial lines....and white society all thought it very adorable.

[waqob]

She is black if she says so. Many people suffer from transracial identity crises. Transracialism is a real issue and if you make fun of her or other transracial people you are an ignorant hateful bigot.

[Zoop]

She is black if she says so. Many people suffer from transracial identity crises. Transracialism is a real issue and if you make fun of her or other transracial people you are an ignorant hateful bigot.

Transracialism has a very specific meaning. It is used as a term to describe adoptions where the parents are of a different race to the children they adopt. It does NOT mean a middle-class, privileged white kid identifying as black. That's absurd, and yet that's what a lot of people understand it to be. No matter how badly they want to identify as black, it doesn't change the fact that they aren't.

Now some draw comparisons between this false understanding of transracialism and transgenderism. Here's why they aren't comparable in any way, coming from a trans, black woman:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/rachel-dolezal-not-transracial/

[waqob]

Transracialism has a very specific meaning. It is used as a term to describe adoptions where the parents are of a different race to the children they adopt. It does NOT mean a middle-class, privileged white kid identifying as black. That's absurd, and yet that's what a lot of people understand it to be. No matter how badly they want to identify as black, it doesn't change the fact that they aren't.

Now some draw comparisons between this false understanding of transracialism and transgenderism. Here's why they aren't comparable in any way, coming from a trans, black woman:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/06/rachel-dolezal-not-transracial/

Times have changed. It has a second meaning now. And I'm not comparing it to transgenderism.

[Bala Perdida]

Transracial doesn't make sense and damn the people saying "hurr durr hurr, it's the same and transgendered people".
Race is not something you can chose to be. Race =/= culture. She could say she identifies as "culturally black" I guess but she still is white ethnically.
What annoys me the most is that she's set lighter-skinned blacks back a bit by doing this.
Many Light-skinned blacks have had a lot of "oh, you are not really black" and that undermines their less of privilege compared to whites.


I hope this makes sense, it's quite a sensitive issue.
Well, when in this sense the culture is a bit different. Being that the Black culture that grew out of the what is the USA is heavily similar to the dominant white culture. So identifying as "culturally black" requires the person (who in this case isn't ethnically black) to say exactly what black culture is. Unless they ties everything back to Africa (which even then is something many black people in the USA don't do) I can pretty much guarantee what they say is going to be some racist shit. If they feel comfortable and valued within the black community, they can show their respect and admiration for that community. In this sense, identifying as "culturally black" seems more fucked up than doing so ethnically. Other than that the rest of the post is pretty solid, especially in the case of light skinned black people.

Also important to add, in the case of 'dominant to oppressed' identifying as "culturally [insert race]" is cultural appropriation which is damaging and offensive to people of that race/ethnicity. There's also the question of cultural racism which is an obstacle that heavily discriminates against people from other countries. That (identifying in terms of culture) would only be understandable if the person in question was to assimilate, in other words move to that country of origin and establish themselves there for long term living. Until the everyday interactions are exclusively (or at least recognizably) of the cultures of the people of that country/region.

[PhoenixAsh]

uhuh.

Race
Culture.


Could people explain to me how each of these ties into each other.

Explain to me what black culture is. Explain this to me in a way which ties every black person in this world together in a unified sense. Then explain to me how Italians and Irish fit in there...for example.

Explain to me what Dutch culture is. I live here....and I can't give you an answer to that questions. I can...but I won't come further than: cheese tulips wooden shoes and water and weed.

So please...kindly explain to me what culture is.

And then explain to me how Revleft turned into a ScumF derivative...because there is very little difference in the argumentation

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Yeah. I am and if you took the bother to read it I am for example...not taking the contextual position of endorsing race as a construct by focusing on an individual case and rejecting that individual case based on racial arguments.

Your arguments however are in the context of things completely and utterly invalid.

You have mentioned issues such as:

1). Shared experience
2). Appropriation
3). Defined characteristics
4). Profiting
5). Mental instability

I have addressed all these issues. Gave you very real examples or very real arguments where none of these arguments are actually legitimate...even IF taken in the context of racism.

You won't be able to make a consistent definition of either white or black. Or a definition that historically holds up to that definition even if you only go back a few decades.

It turns out that a lot of people who are now considered white were very much subjected to Jim Crow laws...and considered black as recent as thirty years ago. And the same goes for what is no considered black where at least 20% was not considered black and still is often not identified as black.

This means that race is absolutely NOT real...racial division is real...by virtue of it being policed and demarcated and defined by who is the oppressing party.

But you have yet to answer the control questions I asked...so let me ask them again and add a few;

1). Somebody from Sicilian Italian descent identifying as black?
2). Somebody from half black and half Irish decent identifying as either black or as white?
3). Somebody of half Asian and half black decent identifying as one or the other? (specific within Vietnam...where the choice often reflects the fact that you are less discriminated against...and therefore qualifies as "profit" )
5). What race are Hispanics? (before you answer this one...be well aware of the facts...that Hispanics are considered a race that can be part of any race)
6). What race is George Zimmerman? (He is categorized as 6 different races depending on who you ask)
7). Can a white woman give birth to a black person? (answer is yes...)
8). Can a black woman give birth to a white person? (answer is no...)
9). Does mixed race actually exist as a legal category? (only recently...before that you had to chose...because US law stated a person can only be one race)
10). People born before a specific year will say that if you have any black person in your ancestry you are black. People born after 1970 will say that if you have a black and white parents...you are mixed race.


So what do you mean...when you say race is real?

I said she was deluded not mentally unstable, don't put words in my mouth. Race is real in that every time I go outside I'm forced to acknowledge it. Not as something that is malleable and fun, but something alien that I have to submit to. I'll grant that white people probably do not experience this often, which might convince you that situations like this are possible but they really aren't. I don't even really feel the need to argue all that forcefully because its such a ridiculous idea.

[khad]

Lol are you serious man? I'm not reinforcing race as a social construct, I'm acknowledging its existence as a social reality for everyone who isn't white. Can you imagine if this situation were to be reversed? A person with dark skin who insisted they were white would probably be assaulted or killed, not simply ridiculed in the media. I'm not angry at this woman, but no man shes fucking delusional. The same goes for the poster if they aren't a troll.
What's truly appalling about this is that there are no racial requirements in the NAACP, so this woman seems to have assumed that her black colleagues were so racist that it would have been impossible to accomplish anything of import in that organization as a white activist. That's just racist.

[Thirsty Crow]

What's truly appalling about this is that there are no racial requirements in the NAACP, so this woman seems to have assumed that her black colleagues were so racist that it would have been impossible to accomplish anything of import in that organization as a white activist. That's just racist.
I think the crucial expression here is "seems to". Were there any statements of her own with regard to the motivation? If there weren't, I'm afraid the only thing people are left with is more or less reasonable speculation - which is speculation still.

Anyway, my take on this is that this action is very weird - not because of a particular, assumed (both in the physical sense and in the sense of essential assumptions about) ethnic or racial identity (African-American), but because of the very such essentializing going on.

It begs the question, why? What is it about the organization and the community coalescing around it that could have encouraged it? If I were to observe this from a personal angle, hell no way that my skin color would factor in in any way or form when doing some rethinking about my own identity. It's a non-factor, completely caused by the accidental genetic make-up of my parents. Culturally, I "appropriate" elements of widely differing cultures - regionally and geographically, ethnically and yes "racially", though I try to pay attention to the standards of those communities according to which this kind of thing is judged as either in poor or good taste, as either respectful or disrespectful.

[PhoenixAsh]

I said she was deluded not mentally unstable, don't put words in my mouth. Race is real in that every time I go outside I'm forced to acknowledge it. Not as something that is malleable and fun, but something alien that I have to submit to. I'll grant that white people probably do not experience this often, which might convince you that situations like this are possible but they really aren't. I don't even really feel the need to argue all that forcefully because its such a ridiculous idea.

It is possible and I have been trying to tell you that. It is possible because people have been doing it for centuries for whatever reason...These people adopted an identity based on another racial group and most of these people were not white.

What the problem is is that race is defined by the oppressing group...and therefore become real in a sense that these groups are enforcing those lines. Usually the structures are different from.country to country and US race lines are definitely not the same as the Dutch race lines. Your experience of your race would vary hugely.

This dominant group is in Western countries usually a white group, but doesn't have to be outside these countries. In Vietnam, China and Japan for instance the racial factors are pretty much defined by non whites. Same in some Arab countries.

Racial structures however are fluid and deconstruct rapidly outside the country. This means that when you are a hutu you probably view yourself as an entirely different race than Tutsi...in America you will be grouped as black.

The reverse definition of race is also true. When the dominant group demarcate the lines and creates the inclusion or exclusion factors the excluded group will create an identity shaped around this excluster. This identity may correlate with the exclusion but usually becomes exclusive itself.

In The Netherlands Suriname and Antialian are seen as black and the same with temperamental differences. DON'T ever think these groups identify with each other...because that will get you in a heap of trouble with either of them.

Race does not exist. Racism does. And racism exists by virtue of policing the racial lines.

Now....you haven't actually answered my question...can a Sicilian identify as black?

[PhoenixAsh]

Also deluded is attacking the mental capacities of a person....saying what they do is crazy and a sign they aren't thinking correctly.

This is a core argument which pops up relatively often especially in cases were people cross enforced social lines. ...it is most often used against people who identify outside gender binarity for example

[Bala Perdida]

uhuh.

Race
Culture.


Could people explain to me how each of these ties into each other.
Basically since the social construct of race and ethnicity is based on people of with similar physical characteristics coming from a similar region, culture is basically their day to day lives and way of doing things in the region they decend from. Like food, music, clothing, variation of language etcetera. Although many cultures involve various races/ethnicities, certain practices and cultures are attributed to a certain people. Also culture itself can be a form of defining race for many people. Like asking Latinx people who aren't necessarily Meztisx to the US stereotype to speak spanish. Also how flying a Mexican flag in the US can get you in some deep shit.



Explain to me what black culture is. Explain this to me in a way which ties every black person in this world together in a unified sense. Then explain to me how Italians and Irish fit in there...for example.
It doesn't exist in a form that ties all black people in the world together. It varies by region, mostly in western countries, based on the dominant heritage among black people in the region. For the most part here in the US it's subject to stereotypes, but there are some southern practices among black people that are unique to them. Also the black power movement brought in an embracing of a pan-African image. As for the Italians and Irish, they don't fit in it now adays. Although before I guess they lived in the same slums.



Explain to me what Dutch culture is. I live here....and I can't give you an answer to that questions. I can...but I won't come further than: cheese tulips wooden shoes and water and weed.
I can't answer that, but in other countries I'm assuming that's mostly up to stereotypes. Like people pretending to speak with a dutch accent when they are apparently 'honoring' your culture or joking.


So please...kindly explain to me what culture is.
I'll come back to this one I'm running low on time.



And then explain to me how Revleft turned into a ScumF derivative...because there is very little difference in the argumentation
Not sure.

[PhoenixAsh]

Basically since the social construct of race and ethnicity is based on people of with similar physical characteristics coming from a similar region, culture is basically their day to day lives and way of doing things in the region they decend from. Like food, music, clothing, variation of language etcetera. Although many cultures involve various races/ethnicities, certain practices and cultures are attributed to a certain people. Also culture itself can be a form of defining race for many people. Like asking Latinx people who aren't necessarily Meztisx to the US stereotype to speak spanish. Also how flying a Mexican flag in the US can get you in some deep shit.

I get what you are saying but that doesn't define race. Nor does it accurately portray culture beyond a set of behavioral patterns and "way we do things" that are incredibly specific to communities.

Black in the US as a race isn't dependent on culture. That means a white kid who grew up in a black neighborhood and shares every aspect of the culture in that neighborhood is still white.

Black is also not dependent on skin colour. As several very pale faced individuals and groups have been part of the black race in US history and are now considered white...and some non black skin types are still seen as black.

If race were dependent on skin colour then changing skin colour would mean changing race. If race was dependent on culture then appropriating culture or living that culture would mean you change race. If it is dependent on heritage...then that means that Sicilians and Irish could become black...because that is about the extent of the heritage all black people share in the US: racism and being categorized as black at one point or another. If it is a factor of both culture and skin colour then changing both would mean crossing racial lines.

For that matter....the black race in the US varies more within its own race genetically than compared as a race to other races.

But it isn't. Your race changes (can change) automatically when you enter another country that has different racial structures. Hence why Hispanic in the US is seen as a race on one side...and at the same time isn't really a race because you can be white and black or Jewish Hispanic.


It doesn't exist in a form that ties all black people in the world together. It varies by region, mostly in western countries, based on the dominant heritage among black people in the region.

But that doesn't narrow down what culture really is. Is it a shared set of behavior?


For the most part here in the US it's subject to stereotypes, but there are some southern practices among black people that are unique to them.

Which means that if it is tied to race...there are two different black races in the US. Northern and Southern Black race. But I bet that even within these groups the culture is an amalgamation of different practices and behaviors that aren't uniform or experienced in the same way.


Also the black power movement brought in an embracing of a pan-African image. As for the Italians and Irish, they don't fit in it now adays. Although before I guess they lived in the same slums.

But that would make race a part of shared living conditions.



I can't answer that, but in other countries I'm assuming that's mostly up to stereotypes. Like people pretending to speak with a dutch accent when they are apparently 'honoring' your culture or joking.

Well...no Dutch person can answer the question what Dutch culture is. There is no one opinion on it and it entirely depends on behavior that isn't commonly shared but is stereotyped and defined as opposed to something else. It also doesn't define whiteness....since that would mean we would have different white races within The Netherlands.

[Better]

So what defines a biological race to you? And what is the defining biological factor of "white" and "black" and "Asian"?

And do you realize when something exists biologically it becomes real and tangible and therefore is impossible to actually cross?

No. What I am saying is that even though biological races do exist, it doesn't matter. It has no effect on the brain.

Race is biological because different races of people have different skull shapes, etc. But it is all not very important.

[Better]

Lol are you serious man? I'm not reinforcing race as a social construct, I'm acknowledging its existence as a social reality for everyone who isn't white. Can you imagine if this situation were to be reversed? A person with dark skin who insisted they were white would probably be assaulted or killed, not simply ridiculed in the media. I'm not angry at this woman, but no man shes fucking delusional. The same goes for the poster if they aren't a troll.

Yet, you have not countered any of my arguments. You think I'm wrong? Prove it!

[Better]

Transracialism has a very specific meaning. It is used as a term to describe adoptions where the parents are of a different race to the children they adopt. It does NOT mean a middle-class, privileged white kid identifying as black. That's absurd, and yet that's what a lot of people understand it to be. No matter how badly they want to identify as black, it doesn't change the fact that they aren't.

Now some draw comparisons between this false understanding of transracialism and transgenderism. Here's why they aren't comparable in any way, coming from a trans, black woman:

Just lol. You are spouting nonsense, you think we're wrong PROVE IT stop saying we're wrong and actually prove we're wrong. Man arguing with you is like arguing with children! "You're wrong because I say so!" waaaaah

Middle class white person who makes themselves look Black will suffer the same discrimination that any other Black person does. What part of that do you not understand? Waht you fail to realize is that once they start identifying and appearing as Black, their white privilege is out the door. What part of this do you not understand?

"No matter how badly they want to identify as black, it doesn't change the fact that they aren't."

You could make the same argument about transgender people. Seriously, how can you be pro-transgender but anti-transrace? I mean, it is very similar. I don't know why you racist clowns want to make it seem so different. You think I'm wrong? Prove it. None of you have yet countered one of my arguments.

[PhoenixAsh]

No. What I am saying is that even though biological races do exist, it doesn't matter. It has no effect on the brain.

Race is biological because different races of people have different skull shapes, etc. But it is all not very important.

:confused: Do they?

Because that infers regionality, ethnicity and probability. But there is a huge variation in a racial structure such as "black".

Aboriginals have a decidedly different generalized skull shape and features and bone structures from Aboriginal Papuans. And even then the anthropological and forensic departments can not accurately tell the difference unless it is stereotypical and beyond the fact that they are probably one or the other. And these two are relatively close together. There is even a greater problem in accurately relating the generalized skull features of Africans with non African black people...as well as the excruciatingly difficult identification of ethnic background within the African continent itself...as is evident by the huge discussion about the ethnicit of Tut Anch-Amon. If you were to focus on South America...the problems become even greater...as there is little difference between Indian cultures and neighboring groups.

The anthropological science derived from it is roughly accurate...but is so based on generalized stereotypes and acceptable differentials. This means that it is not a general rule which applies....and more importantly doesn't accurately correlate with race. It is based on specific generalization of regional characterizations from previously closed communities.

[Rafiq]

Firstly, Phoenix is correct to note that the existence of race has nothing to do with biology. He has also raised a good question: If race is purely a social construct, why can't something like a "trans-racial" identity exist? So far, I have only seen Tim properly respond to this - race may be socially constructed, but this does not ground its basis in the individual choices of men and women - it exists in our collective sphere of designation.

The same argument might be made for sexuality and gender as well, however - gender is absolutely not reducible to the individual choices of men and women. The difference here, however, is that race does not have to be regulated in pertinence to that which we are all capable, or inclined towards (i.e. sexuality), because bound up with it are inevitably class considerations. Racists, for example, often like to make the distinction between "niggers" and "blacks". It is the former notion which sustains their racism - they could most likely care less about a young, conservative and well-behaved Nigerian immigrant. Their racism is profoundly sustained by the demographic, social category of the American black. You are not black because of the color of your skin. You are not even black because of primarily physiological considerations. You are black insofar as blackness designates a definite belonging to a community, wherein you are associated with their history, their identity - a relation intrinsically bound up in contrast with the white identity. Think about it: What is a "black" man? When slaves were brought to the Americas, they belonged to a wide array of different nationalities, ethnicities and historic epochs. What conjoined them into a single identity was their chains in common. Likewise, what conjoined Englishmen, Portuguese, Germans and Belgians together was their fundamental contrast in common with colonized and enslaved peoples.

So why is it outrageous to have a "trans-racial" identity? Because it encapsulates the reality that race truly does not exist - because the minute one becomes "racially conscious" they should have no racial identity. It arrogantly trivializes and betrays an aura of superiority, to whimsically choose one's "race", because those blacks bound by their racial identity are only bound insofar as they have not yet learned to properly escape. Almost every successful black liberation movement, if one looks more closely, was racially unbound: The black panthers, for example, assumed the facade that they did because it related to their demographic, because the black race was real insofar as it concerned a collective who wanted to escape from it. But for someone to "choose" to be black would be been an affront to their struggle, because the black identity would merely be reduced to some kind of cosmetic preference.

The point is very simple: We are only white, or black, or whatever you want, because we have to be. We, as Communists, act in spite of this reality, not because of it. Our goal should be to strive away from these categories, and to only adopt them insofar as we cannot do this. That is why all Communists were never really able to completely ERASE their national backgrounds - after the October revolution the Red Army would go on to adopt the Budenovka, which greatly resembled the old Kievan Rus helmet. What is beautiful here is that these helmets were allegedly designed for the old Imperial Army, which rejected it and clung on to its old uniforms. The emerging Red Army, with the desire to make itself distinct from the Imperial army, and the armies of all previous epochs, adopted the Budenovka precisely to do this - in the processes making them more historically authentic! The real way to break free from race, or nationality, is to subordinate these cosmetic categories to the cause of Communism (arguably what the Black panthers precisely did). That is to say, an appearance that which serves as the face of a deep fire which is absolutely unbound by these. To be "trans-racial" in this context is almost comparable to blackface in early hollywood as far as the authentic desire to "change your race" goes. The point is that to encapsulate these racial differences as non-existent by identifying with one, you are mocking the very real implications they have for people.

[Decolonize The Left]

You are black insofar as blackness designates a definite belonging to a community, wherein you are associated with their history, their identity - a relation intrinsically bound up in contrast with the white identity.

Isn't this the very point, however, this is precisely why "transracial" is a meaningless term: it necessitates the oblivion of history. I, a white guy, cannot appropriate a history which does not belong to me and hence can never be black. Blackness is a historical phenomenon - it has a real, definite, and material history. To say that one can be "transracial" is to wash this history away, to declare it immaterial and therefore irrelevant.


So why is it outrageous to have a "trans-racial" identity? Because it encapsulates the reality that race truly does not exist - because the minute one becomes "racially conscious" they should have no racial identity.

While this may be true theoretically, it is false practically because racial identity is enforced upon all by historical culture. Thus one cannot be practically "racially conscious" until we have evolved past history in a meaningful and progressive way. Thus I agree with your claims, but caution against the imposition of theory upon a landscape which is not welcoming.

[Rafiq]

To be clear, what I mean precisely by the absence of a racial identity is to be unbound by it insofar as it becomes consciously subordinate to definite political aims. I would consider the Black Panthers to have no racial identity: Because their know what history they have inherited, they knew the conditions of the blacks in the ghettos - which is why they were able to act not because of, but in spite of their respective individual identities - as a means of transcending them into a cosmetic political statement that was meant to, for example, convey their resistance toward the plight of the blacks, the deplorability of the ghettos, all problems which belonged o the universal, collective space of political struggle conceivable by ethical standards unbound by any "race". My point is that it becomes evident that race is not real on an individual level- but that the reality of race in the practical sense remains and is addressed on a political level.

The point is that to adopt the 'race' of another peoples, is to ignore the causes of why they belong to that 'race' in the first place - and to reduce it to a mere cosmetic preference is an affront to their existence.

[Decolonize The Left]

To be clear, what I mean precisely by the absence of a racial identity is to be unbound by it insofar as it becomes consciously subordinate to definite political aims. I would consider the Black Panthers to have no racial identity: Because their know what history they have inherited, they knew the conditions of the blacks in the ghettos - which is why they were able to act not because of, but in spite of their respective individual identities - as a means of transcending them into a cosmetic political statement.

The point is that to adopt the 'race' of another peoples, is to ignore the causation of why they belong to that 'race' in the first place - and to reduce it to a mere cosmetic preference is an affront to their existence.

Understood and well-stated.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I think the crucial expression here is "seems to". Were there any statements of her own with regard to the motivation? If there weren't, I'm afraid the only thing people are left with is more or less reasonable speculation - which is speculation still.


We're talking about a woman who sued her university for discriminating against her whiteness. I think it's pretty clear what the motivation was

http://abcnews.go.com/US/rachel-dolezal-sued-howard-university-alleged-discrimination-favored/story?id=31787446

[PhoenixAsh]

Yes.

The problem with the racial structures implemented in society is that they only exist in so far as they are policed and regulated. They stop existing once there is not more policing and regulation...

The definition who belongs to a race and who does not is completely dependent on the dominant group within society. If they consider somebody to be of a certain race then that is the social reality. The subordinated groups may have different opinions about who does and does not belong (there were times when mixed race babies were not considered black by large swats of black people) but their notion is inconsequential to the super structure in a given country and to the social position a person is allowed to hold or not.

Individual cases are of no consequence. And when some non white person decides to identify with another non-white race this will not be problematic or even note worthy. It won't be because it doesn't threaten the overall super structure. This is why people don't realize how common this actually is. Such racial changes become problematic when somebody of the dominant race is going around identifying themselves as another race...that threatens dominance...because it shows the reality.

And that reality is that the identification with a race can ONLY exist within a racist structure. Which is why I said that this case should not be used to reject the notion of individual racial identity fluxes...but used to show how illogical and idiotic the system of race, and consequently of racism itself, is. There is no race outside of racism and outside racism you can't become another race...race only gets a shape because of the intrinsic definition and values created by society in order to create hierarchical layers in society which can be exploited to the benefit of the top group.

There is one dimension which is often named and that is that race relies on phenotypical characteristics. This is not the case. Race goes beyond that. But policing race relies on race being identifiable. This means that people who phenotypically are not considered black not having the same experience as people who approach the stereotype even though they belong to the same race in that society. And that means that if people are aware that you are black, perceive you are black and think you are black...you will get the same treatment as black even if you aren't black. And that when you are perceived as white you will get a white treatment...until people know you aren't actually white.

If we would take this individual instance outside of the race system in the US and transplant it into the race system of the Netherlands...Dolezal would not be considered black even at the point in time where everybody in the US though she was black and perceived her as black...even the black community. She would be thought to be black if she said she was...and people would go: "huh" even then. Dutch racism is essentially build around nationality and colonial heritage...creating noticeable subdivisions within our disposition towards a non-white person depending on their historical national origin. And that leads to hilarious and tragic instances where white people born in one of the former colonies will not be seen as completely white in a lot of instances....even if they are very, very, very white...and this holds real repercussions for them job wise and promotion wise.

Which is why I said that denouncing this individual for transgressing racial boundaries is enforcing the boundaries themselves by making them have value outside of the structure of racism. But inside the structure of racism this is a logical consequence because what she does is only possible because of racial structures....and the fact that we have the discussion is policing the racial lines....and a symptom of white supremacy...

That is why I asked the question what she is doing wrong. There is not one answer here, and on that point I disagree with Rafiq, that does not enforce in some way race as a real thing or use the structure of racism itself to argue this.

The left has been struggling with this topic just about everywhere. And the arguments invariably boil down to the same arguments you can go read on sites such as SF.

The only acceptable answer however is that she can't do this because race doesn't exist....except within racism that creates races in the first place and therefore makes trans race line movement possible. The very first question to ask...and actually the only question to ask is: what is race. Can you define race for me. Can you explain why then this and this occurs/occurred...and proceed along those lines. Eventually you will come to a point where race/culture stop being.

[PhoenixAsh]

Isn't this the very point, however, this is precisely why "transracial" is a meaningless term: it necessitates the oblivion of history. I, a white guy, cannot appropriate a history which does not belong to me and hence can never be black. Blackness is a historical phenomenon - it has a real, definite, and material history. To say that one can be "transracial" is to wash this history away, to declare it immaterial and therefore irrelevant.

But that will lead us to the conclusion that your history is the same history up to a certain point for groups now considered black but white before. And that it isn't the same history as certain groups that are now considered to be white which were previously considered black.

Examples of these groups are:

Sicilians.
Irish.
Poor white working class...in certain countries.
Hispanics

This means that there is no real black or white history that is commonly shared exclusively. History, even though I studied it, is not real. It is an adaptable narrative that is used and has been used to highlight certain developments.



While this may be true theoretically, it is false practically because racial identity is enforced upon all by historical culture. Thus one cannot be practically "racially conscious" until we have evolved past history in a meaningful and progressive way. Thus I agree with your claims, but caution against the imposition of theory upon a landscape which is not welcoming.

This part is not true...entirely. Racial identity is not forced upon us by historical culture alone. If that was the case...the Irish would still be black....they are entrust upon people within a certain social dimension within a given nation which don't rely on history at all but on socio economic realities.

Irish were for example considered black because they threatened the social economic positions of white established groups and threatened their precarious position.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

It occurs to me that there's a lot of attempting to rationalize something which is fundamentally irrational going on with this whole story. Forgive me if that's what I'm about to do, as that's not my intention.

Am I not right in assuming that the only reason Dolezal presenting a Black identity would be/was taken as rooted in authenticity is because of the one-drop rule?

The one drop (of blood) rule, which states that a person is Black so long as they descend from a Black ancestor, upheld in the Plessy v. Ferguson US Supreme Court decision (1896), still has a degree of influence the way we learn race today. The situation with this rule does give more agency to white-passing individuals--insofar as they can chose to have it both ways: either let people take them for white or make their 'true' race of belonging known.

Walter Francis White, who was head of the NAACP back in the day (1930s-'50s), ought to be remembered here too. White had 5 Black great-great-great grandparents out of 32. His parents were enslaved at birth. He was white-passing, blonde with blue eyes, but identified as 'Negro'. So there's that history and I don't think the NAACP has forgotten him. One difference though seems to be that while White played up his passing privilege to further the cause (infiltrating and investigating lynching scenes, for example), Dolezal tries to diminish her ability to pass with tanning products, perm, and hair dye, and seemingly lied about who her biological parents were.

Now Dolezal has gone a step beyond that, and said that despite her true biological parents, she is Black. This idea might not be totally alien in Afrocentric scholarly thought. For example, Dr. Richard King uses the phrase, "Western Asiatics, also known as Europeans, also known as European-Africans".

But since using 'race' to refer to different groups of humans is wrong, a misuse of a scientific/biology term . . . It seems to me that "race" is actually used to as a label for national groups. 'Black' could mean African-American, indigenous people of Australia, or Rromani people in Spain and Finland. Now, there's two basic approaches to nationality: (1) ethnocultural unity constitutes the nation, which leads to political unity as an expression of this nationhood (and nation states) and (2) political unity is what constitutes a nation and cultural unity is expressed as a consequence of that unity.

International law gives everybody the right to change their nationality (as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 15), but not every nationality has its own state (political unity), nor does each state correspond to a singular nationality. And even if bourgeois law gives people the "right" to change nationality, it's not very easy to do in practice. Nations-states issue passports or other documents that serve as proof of belonging, but a nationality without autonomous territory has more subtle ways of belonging. It cannot have operate on the principle of jus soli, right to nationality based on where you're born. So Black identity in America does still seem to operate on the principle of jus sanguinis, the right of blood. But even a nationality that operates on this idea can still have a naturalization process.

[Better]

:confused: Do they?

Because that infers regionality, ethnicity and probability. But there is a huge variation in a racial structure such as "black".

Aboriginals have a decidedly different generalized skull shape and features and bone structures from Aboriginal Papuans. And even then the anthropological and forensic departments can not accurately tell the difference unless it is stereotypical and beyond the fact that they are probably one or the other. And these two are relatively close together. There is even a greater problem in accurately relating the generalized skull features of Africans with non African black people...as well as the excruciatingly difficult identification of ethnic background within the African continent itself...as is evident by the huge discussion about the ethnicit of Tut Anch-Amon. If you were to focus on South America...the problems become even greater...as there is little difference between Indian cultures and neighboring groups.

The anthropological science derived from it is roughly accurate...but is so based on generalized stereotypes and acceptable differentials. This means that it is not a general rule which applies....and more importantly doesn't accurately correlate with race. It is based on specific generalization of regional characterizations from previously closed communities.

Well I don't really care whether they exist or not because even if they do, it makes little difference. I hope they don't exist.

[Better]

Firstly, Phoenix is correct to note that the existence of race has nothing to do with biology. He has also raised a good question: If race is purely a social construct, why can't something like a "trans-racial" identity exist? So far, I have only seen Tim properly respond to this - race may be socially constructed, but this does not ground its basis in the individual choices of men and women - it exists in our collective sphere of designation.

The same argument might be made for sexuality and gender as well, however - gender is absolutely not reducible to the individual choices of men and women. The difference here, however, is that race does not have to be regulated in pertinence to that which we are all capable, or inclined towards (i.e. sexuality), because bound up with it are inevitably class considerations. Racists, for example, often like to make the distinction between "niggers" and "blacks". It is the former notion which sustains their racism - they could most likely care less about a young, conservative and well-behaved Nigerian immigrant. Their racism is profoundly sustained by the demographic, social category of the American black. You are not black because of the color of your skin. You are not even black because of primarily physiological considerations. You are black insofar as blackness designates a definite belonging to a community, wherein you are associated with their history, their identity - a relation intrinsically bound up in contrast with the white identity. Think about it: What is a "black" man? When slaves were brought to the Americas, they belonged to a wide array of different nationalities, ethnicities and historic epochs. What conjoined them into a single identity was their chains in common. Likewise, what conjoined Englishmen, Portuguese, Germans and Belgians together was their fundamental contrast in common with colonized and enslaved peoples.

So why is it outrageous to have a "trans-racial" identity? Because it encapsulates the reality that race truly does not exist - because the minute one becomes "racially conscious" they should have no racial identity. It arrogantly trivializes and betrays an aura of superiority, to whimsically choose one's "race", because those blacks bound by their racial identity are only bound insofar as they have not yet learned to properly escape. Almost every successful black liberation movement, if one looks more closely, was racially unbound: The black panthers, for example, assumed the facade that they did because it related to their demographic, because the black race was real insofar as it concerned a collective who wanted to escape from it. But for someone to "choose" to be black would be been an affront to their struggle, because the black identity would merely be reduced to some kind of cosmetic preference.

The point is very simple: We are only white, or black, or whatever you want, because we have to be. We, as Communists, act in spite of this reality, not because of it. Our goal should be to strive away from these categories, and to only adopt them insofar as we cannot do this. That is why all Communists were never really able to completely ERASE their national backgrounds - after the October revolution the Red Army would go on to adopt the Budenovka, which greatly resembled the old Kievan Rus helmet. What is beautiful here is that these helmets were allegedly designed for the old Imperial Army, which rejected it and clung on to its old uniforms. The emerging Red Army, with the desire to make itself distinct from the Imperial army, and the armies of all previous epochs, adopted the Budenovka precisely to do this - in the processes making them more historically authentic! The real way to break free from race, or nationality, is to subordinate these cosmetic categories to the cause of Communism (arguably what the Black panthers precisely did). That is to say, an appearance that which serves as the face of a deep fire which is absolutely unbound by these. To be "trans-racial" in this context is almost comparable to blackface in early hollywood as far as the authentic desire to "change your race" goes. The point is that to encapsulate these racial differences as non-existent by identifying with one, you are mocking the very real implications they have for people.

You talk about Black means to be a part of the history but all these arguments can be made for transgender people as well...everything you have said can also be applied to transgender people.

[Better]

Isn't this the very point, however, this is precisely why "transracial" is a meaningless term: it necessitates the oblivion of history. I, a white guy, cannot appropriate a history which does not belong to me and hence can never be black. Blackness is a historical phenomenon - it has a real, definite, and material history. To say that one can be "transracial" is to wash this history away, to declare it immaterial and therefore irrelevant

You can say the exact same thing about Transgender people...

Isn't this the very point, however, this is precisely why "transgender" is a meaningless term: it necessitates the oblivion of history. I, a male, cannot appropriate a history which does not belong to me and hence can never be female. Femaleness is a historical phenomenon - it has a real, definite, and material history. To say that one can be "transgender" is to wash this history away, to declare it immaterial and therefore irrelevant.

See what happens when I replace tranrace with transgender?

[Better]

Fact of the matter is, when someone decides to be Black, when they start identifying and appearing as Black, they do become a part of that community, and suddenly they do share the history. It really is all about skin color no matter how you people want to twist things around.

[Better]

Rafiq is saying a white person can not be Black (or the other way around) because Black people think a certain way and vice versa. Isn't that a bit racist? Otherwise, how could a person not be transrace?

[Rafiq]

Rafiq is saying a white person can not be Black (or the other way around) because Black people think a certain way and vice versa. Isn't that a bit racist?

No, because race is not some kind of misunderstanding - it reflects a definite social reality. Because the appear of race (told as something innate, biological) and its actual function contradict each other in reason, that does not disqualify its existence on a social level. A white person cannot be black because a white person cannot be white either. Does this make sense?

Or for a better example, let us take the Kurds and the Arabs, a people who are almost identical. An Arab in Iraq cannot identify as a Kurd, for even the presence of the desire to do so would disqualify the actual basis of Kurdishness. Blacks don't choose to be black, and possess all of the connotations of it. They must accept its reality, and in the struggle for emancipation starts from here, not from running away from what is inevitably perceived collectively by the apparatus of culture.

[Tim Redd]

Good thing the NAACP is running tests and checks for only letting in purebreeds.

Wait...

Wait, the NAACP is not "running tests and checks for only letting in purebreeds" (whatever 'purebreeds' means). The national NAACP has issued a statement that stands with her not against her.

I don't understand the opposition the woman is getting from any quarter or race.

To me it's admirable that she wants to identify with an overall oppressed race/group. And she does not just identify with Blacks, but she fights against the discrimination and oppression they face due to overwhelming racism in US.

[Antiochus]

Wait, the NAACP is not "running tests and checks for only letting in purebreeds" (whatever 'purebreeds' means). The national NAACP has issued a statement that stands with her not against her.

I don't understand the opposition the woman is getting from any quarter or race.

To me it's admirable that she wants to identify with an overall oppressed race/group. And she does not just identify with Blacks, but she fights against the discrimination and oppression they face due to overwhelming racism in US.


Oh please, this woman is a joke. She has a fetishism towards Black people this is not the same as actually sharing in their struggle. She is a Lawrence of Arabia clown, complete with the dress. Why else would she tan her skin and change her hair?

[PhoenixAsh]

Oh please, this woman is a joke. She has a fetishism towards Black people this is not the same as actually sharing in their struggle. She is a Lawrence of Arabia clown, complete with the dress. Why else would she tan her skin and change her hair?

Assumptions.

But word for word the same criticism against transgender and cross dressers.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

This is my last post on this topic. The fact that you two keep trying to link this to transgender folks, to me, says more about your views about transgender people than my own. There's nothing to suggest this woman experienced the kind of internal crisis which leads someone to become transgender. She did this for purely cynical reasons. I can't help but notice that the only people who think this is possible are white, people who never have to actually confront race in their day to day relations. PA, you don't even live in the US, you're clueless about how race functions here regardless of how much you and other Europeans might read about it on it internet. To top it off we now have some bozo in this thread explaining to people with actual black skin that he can become black just because he says so. This thread is a caricature of the radical left. The next time you find yourselves wondering why you're so ineffectual, why you can't attract people of color to your organizations, please remember this thread.

[Antiochus]

But word for word the same criticism against transgender and cross dressers.

Ugh, just shut up, seriously. Never mind the obvious like the fact that LGBT people have a physiological imperative in their sexual/gender preferences, this women does not. It is VERY telling that you and the ultra-conservatives are trying to link this to transgender people by making the argument that they are 'both crazy' and some sort of sign of moral decline.

I don't need to assume. Her OWN PARENTS state that she saw herself as white until she was ~30. She SUED THE SCHOOL she was at claiming they discriminated her because she was White. She wears a fucking weave and tans her skin because she has a FETISH, what possible functional use could that have? She is doing nothing less than Black face. Her claim that she used 'brown crayons' as a child has been totally shown to be absurd and false (again, her own parents).

[Decolonize The Left]

But that will lead us to the conclusion that your history is the same history up to a certain point for groups now considered black but white before. And that it isn't the same history as certain groups that are now considered to be white which were previously considered black.

Examples of these groups are:

Sicilians.
Irish.
Poor white working class...in certain countries.
Hispanics

The logic of your argument seems inverted. By this I mean that you are taking a phenomenon (that Irish people were treated as poorly as Africans in early US history) and from this concluding that they were considered black. But this is not the case. Despite the fact that Irish, and many other immigrants as you note well (we should bring in American Indians at this point), shared many cultural inequalities with Africans, they did not share the same history. Portions of their history were shared, yes; and portions more were similar--they all were lesser than the dominant class but this doesn't make them black. Race is a social construction which arose in a particular material, historical setting--this setting also happens to be the time when Africans were kidnapped and brought to the US. Thus the history of blackness in this country is fundamentally tied to the history of slave trade. Irish folk were never black in this sense.


This means that there is no real black or white history that is commonly shared exclusively. History, even though I studied it, is not real. It is an adaptable narrative that is used and has been used to highlight certain developments.

I don't understand what the first sentence quoted above means, but, this aside, history is very real. Despite it being a narrative, and I share this interpretation, it is real indeed. The problem is that we forget that there is reality underneath the narrative and take the narrative for truth, when, for example, it is not the war which is real but the experiences of the soldiers.

I am in the camp that 'race' (as we know it today) emerged in the 1500s and took active form with the slave trade as white slave owners needed a way to deal with the problems which stemmed from the children that they had fathered with their slaves. These children were biologically theirs but the product of rape, thus the slave owners used the concept of 'race' ("one drop of blackness") to effectively disown their illegitimate offspring and preserve the economic and social class structure. From this perspective, the very concept of 'race' is tied directly to skin color (as opposed to generic ethic discrimination which has been around for ages) and is the direct material history of African-Americans.

[Decolonize The Left]

You can say the exact same thing about Transgender people...

Isn't this the very point, however, this is precisely why "transgender" is a meaningless term: it necessitates the oblivion of history. I, a male, cannot appropriate a history which does not belong to me and hence can never be female. Femaleness is a historical phenomenon - it has a real, definite, and material history. To say that one can be "transgender" is to wash this history away, to declare it immaterial and therefore irrelevant.

See what happens when I replace tranrace with transgender?

Inadequate analogy.

As I just finished explaining to PA (please read my post above), 'race' emerged at a definite historical period. This is not the case with gender, at least, I am not familiar with an argument that states that gender (as we know it today) emerged at such-and-such a time. Looking it up now, the earliest appearance of the term is the 1300s, but it is no stretch to claim that gender roles have existed throughout human history in some form or another. This is not the case with race, to my understanding.

But yes, overall, the argument does run that race/gender/etc are social constructions, and to be trans-whatever is to supersede these constructions, constructions which are historically bound, and thus to supersede history (and therefore meaning, as we are a culture which finds its meaning in and through history). So to be trans- is to be meaningless in the sense that our culture does not yet recognize such a meaning construction. I think Rafiq's point that it is how these terms are used, and how trans- is used, which is of most importance. To be trans-whatever is to break the continuum of history and therefore is dangerous (both to the person and the context); to do so without adequate politicization is to endanger a whole community.

[PhoenixAsh]

This is my last post on this topic. The fact that you two keep trying to link this to transgender folks, to me, says more about your views about transgender people than my own. There's nothing to suggest this woman experienced the kind of internal crisis which leads someone to become transgender. She did this for purely cynical reasons. I can't help but notice that the only people who think this is possible are white, people who never have to actually confront race in their day to day relations. PA, you don't even live in the US, you're clueless about how race functions here regardless of how much you and other Europeans might read about it on it internet. To top it off we now have some bozo in this thread explaining to people with actual black skin that he can become black just because he says so. This thread is a caricature of the radical left. The next time you find yourselves wondering why you're so ineffectual, why you can't attract people of color to your organizations, please remember this thread.

Look at you trying to make assumptions about the "racial" make up of my "organization" or assuming we are holding head counts to worry about whether or not our groups "racial" make-up has a "correct" POC quote like adding more "skin variation" (because that is what you reduce race to here) would somehow make us magically more effective (while you have no freaking clue what our group does or whether or not we are effective at what we do) or even wonder how our group (which only allows people on invitation) can attract more POC.


We have 17 ethnicities (out of the top of my head...and that doesn't calculate for sub-ethnicities) and depending on which distinct classification system of race you use have either 3 to 8 races in our group. White according to lineage is the minority in our make-up. Although I am sure a lot more would be found white is we totally incorporate the US racial classification system. But most of them do not identify as "white" and would probably be insulted if you would classify them as such.

I would LOVE for you to tell my girlfriend she is white for example, even though she has light skin...and would pass for white just about everywhere...that would be very interesting and probably result in a very angry lecture about the differences of Slavic and White...and how you would get it in your head to confuse the two.


But I absolutely love how you seem to be under the impression that we have to understand how race works in the US for our arguments to be correct. Especially since that makes several huge false assumptions...aside from the fact if we do or do not understand how race functions in the US:

1). The US is not unique. It did not invent racism nor does it hold a monopoly on racism and white supremacy. And while the classification of races varies from other regions...the principle is the exact same as everywhere else in the world.

2). Understanding the specific expression or racism nor understanding the experience of that specific form of racism is not relevant for the arguments we are making. I am sure you speak with a lot more knowledge when we are talking about how black people experience racism in the US...but that is not the topic nor relevant to what is being said.

The reason why? Because the argument is that race does not exist outside the entirely social construct of racism. Which means that whatever the motivations of this specific person are, are irrelevant. I don't care if she does it because she lost a bet, because she secretly wants to exploit positive discrimination or because she truly thinks and feels she is black...the ONLY fact why she can even ponder being of a different race is because of racism which created subjective divisions and called that race. IF however you accept racial structures as an actual thing...then she absolutely CAN decide to change race...because YOU, or anybody else for that matter, can not define race in a consistent, accurate and historically uniform way.

Meaning that race is completely arbitrary as I have shown you repeatedly by saying that in the US a mere 30 years ago several now white groups were very much considered to be black, or negro for that matter....and several people who were previously considered white are now considered black.
Not to mention that a lot of people who are considered black in the US would not be considered black in (parts of) Europe as well as several people who are considered white (like for a more specific example Zimmerman) would not be considered white in Europe.

This does not negate the experience of racism. Racism is pretty much a thing and a real issue. But racism itself is based on arbitrary, fictive divisions that have no basis other than the power of definition and the power of being able to police the arbitrary lines.

When you say "explaining to people with actual black skin that he can become black just because he says so" you reduce race to skin. Which is NOT actually how race works in the US. It is how racism and racial policing works. But not what actually constitutes the "Black Race". And you know this...otherwise you would have to acknowledge that changing your skin does indeed make you black or white....so "skin" is not the defining characteristic.

Yet you make NO mention of the thousands of thousands of people who redefine their racial or ethnic origins that are non-white. Mixed race. Hispanics (which are both a race and an ethnic group in the US depending on where you are in the US). Amer-Asians. etc. Groups which can, and do in fact, regularly change their racial identification.

The ONLY viable argument you have is that she can't change her race in a racist structure because race lines are policed and defined, however subjectively, for you. And that argument...relies on policing the race lines....and perpetuating the notion of race lines themselves as something which are somehow real and subscribing to their notion.

The rest of the arguments are purely emotive or based on speculation:

1). It is a slap in the face of people who can't redefine their race
2). Black identity is real and correlates with race
3). She does it for profit/benefit etc.

And sorry...I don't actually care.




Then we come to the equation with Transgender. Where you say this "There's nothing to suggest this woman experienced the kind of internal crisis which leads someone to become transgender. She did this for purely cynical reasons."

Nobody needs to provide evidence for their identity. If and when somebody states that they are a woman that is their identity. I or anybody else don't actually have any right to evaluate their genuinity or assess their inner emotional turmoil. Nor does it matter if she identified as male for the last 30 or 40 fucking years. She doesn't at this point. Period. End of fucking discussion.

And this entire sentence speaks of some entitlement that somebody needs to provide fucking proof of who they say they are...even if EVERY physical appearance tells you something else.

And that is the point. Your assessment about their identity and the genuinity of their identity is irrelevant. It is an assumption. You CAN'T look inside her head. You DON'T know. And whether or not you find their stated reasons enough of an evidence for you to believe them is completely besides the point.

The whole freaking argument about proof, assessment of stated evidence is what Transgendered people go through. Now I can't speak from personal experience obviously...but how Transgendered people were and often are required to dress as their stated gender identity and pass as their identity in order to provide evidence to convince some psychologist and some doctor that they have the identity they have...that doesn't differ from the attitude in this fucking thread.

We have a user here who experiences gender confusion and issues right at this fucking point. Do we have to assess their mental state, arguments and words to validate this? No. I think not.

And the idea and notion that somebodies motivations are based on profit and benefiting from the identification are EXACTLY the arguments used by transexclusive feminists to enforce the divide between what they see as "real women" and "transwomen"

The whole discussion about her motivations is fucking ridiculous....and inconsequential...like it is somehow important how an individual identifies.

Both gender and race are social constructs. They exist by the merit of being policed and enforced in a system that relies on stratification and attaching values to the stratifications....and which leads to alienation from who we are.

THAT is the basis of the argument of why these two are similar.

Have you EVER considered that people argued a few years back (and still do) that you actually can't change your gender? That transgender was accepted as a thing outside the binary? That there even was an option of registering your gender as "other" than man or women?

No. Why not? Because people thought it was a fluke. Somebody playing. Being confused. Dilluded. Deranged. Not right in the head. Profiting.


So want to fuck off from this thread...fine....don't try to pretend that our arguments are invalid because we are white or don't know how the fucking racial system works in the US....especially when those arguments are based on arguments which result from racial categorization.

[PhoenixAsh]

Ugh, just shut up, seriously. Never mind the obvious like the fact that LGBT people have a physiological imperative in their sexual/gender preferences, this women does not. It is VERY telling that you and the ultra-conservatives are trying to link this to transgender people by making the argument that they are 'both crazy' and some sort of sign of moral decline.

Fuck of Antiochus. Perhaps you should learn to read what is being written. When I say they are the same it is because the rejection of the notion that it is even possible are the same....and that the arguments match to a teeth the bullshit Transgendered people have to go through.

So fuck off when you try to make me say the absolute opposite of what I am saying.


I don't need to assume. Her OWN PARENTS state that she saw herself as white until she was ~30. She SUED THE SCHOOL she was at claiming they discriminated her because she was White. She wears a fucking weave and tans her skin because she has a FETISH, what possible functional use could that have? She is doing nothing less than Black face. Her claim that she used 'brown crayons' as a child has been totally shown to be absurd and false (again, her own parents).

Ow...you mean like Transpeople who discover their gender identity after several decades of having actively identified but felt uncomfortable with the gender they were assigned?

And really? Her parents are a credible source to you? The ones who she has been embroiled with in a family feud for years and now suddenly decide to "out" her at the eve of her testimony against their sexually abusive son?
Sure....they are really a credibly source.

[PhoenixAsh]

The logic of your argument seems inverted. By this I mean that you are taking a phenomenon (that Irish people were treated as poorly as Africans in early US history) and from this concluding that they were considered black.

No...I mean they were actually considered black. They were actually classified as blacks and were subjected to Jim Crow laws as the Sicilians were.


But this is not the case. Despite the fact that Irish, and many other immigrants as you note well (we should bring in American Indians at this point), shared many cultural inequalities with Africans, they did not share the same history. Portions of their history were shared, yes; and portions more were similar--they all were lesser than the dominant class but this doesn't make them black.

It did for the racial system in the US.


Race is a social construction which arose in a particular material, historical setting--this setting also happens to be the time when Africans were kidnapped and brought to the US. Thus the history of blackness in this country is fundamentally tied to the history of slave trade. Irish folk were never black in this sense.

And changes with the material setting. As apparently they were all subjected to Jim Crow laws. Categorized as black officially and socially.



I don't understand what the first sentence quoted above means, but, this aside, history is very real. Despite it being a narrative, and I share this interpretation, it is real indeed. The problem is that we forget that there is reality underneath the narrative and take the narrative for truth, when, for example, it is not the war which is real but the experiences of the soldiers.

Neither war nor the experience of the soldiers actually portray the events correctly. They portray the narrative of the events in a specific light form a specific perspective.

If we describe war from the perspective of the soldiers the story would not describe the concept of war in its entirety. You could even argue that it is even individualistic history. We can extrapolate things from specific stories...but they still don't paint the entire picture.


I am in the camp that 'race' (as we know it today) emerged in the 1500s and took active form with the slave trade as white slave owners needed a way to deal with the problems which stemmed from the children that they had fathered with their slaves. These children were biologically theirs but the product of rape, thus the slave owners used the concept of 'race' ("one drop of blackness") to effectively disown their illegitimate offspring and preserve the economic and social class structure. From this perspective, the very concept of 'race' is tied directly to skin color (as opposed to generic ethic discrimination which has been around for ages) and is the direct material history of African-Americans.

Yeah however that leaves the fact that this does not correlate accurately with historic development which made Sicialians and Irish officially black and subject to the Jim Crow laws because of this.

Nor does this actually portray the emergence of current races in the US which started before America was actually more than a set of colonies...or even colonies....and was transplanted from racial views already existing in Europe.

Of course slavery did influence attitudes and mentality about race but again...it doesn't paint the whole picture and for it to be accurate some very unpleasant factors need to be left out.

[Better]

No, because race is not some kind of misunderstanding - it reflects a definite social reality. Because the appear of race (told as something innate, biological) and its actual function contradict each other in reason, that does not disqualify its existence on a social level. A white person cannot be black because a white person cannot be white either. Does this make sense?

Or for a better example, let us take the Kurds and the Arabs, a people who are almost identical. An Arab in Iraq cannot identify as a Kurd, for even the presence of the desire to do so would disqualify the actual basis of Kurdishness. Blacks don't choose to be black, and possess all of the connotations of it. They must accept its reality, and in the struggle for emancipation starts from here, not from running away from what is inevitably perceived collectively by the apparatus of culture.

Your logic can also be applied to transgender people.

[Better]

This is my last post on this topic. The fact that you two keep trying to link this to transgender folks, to me, says more about your views about transgender people than my own. There's nothing to suggest this woman experienced the kind of internal crisis which leads someone to become transgender. She did this for purely cynical reasons. I can't help but notice that the only people who think this is possible are white, people who never have to actually confront race in their day to day relations. PA, you don't even live in the US, you're clueless about how race functions here regardless of how much you and other Europeans might read about it on it internet. To top it off we now have some bozo in this thread explaining to people with actual black skin that he can become black just because he says so. This thread is a caricature of the radical left. The next time you find yourselves wondering why you're so ineffectual, why you can't attract people of color to your organizations, please remember this thread.

Bullshit.

Why don't you actually PROVE I'M WRONG if you think I'm wrong. You haven's said anything to counter my arguments, just ad hominem.

[John Nada]

Dolezal's parents said their family was of German and Czech descent, possibly with some Native American ancestry. Not uncommon in Montana. Depending on what tribe and the blood quorum arbitrarily set, she might be considered Native American. There has been chiefs of tribes that would be considered white in many countries, and look white. In fact, some tribes have black members who's ancestors were either bought as slaves or escaped slaves who joined the tribe.

However, in Germany there's this sub-culture of white(as in European) Germans who role-play as Native Americans, as they imagine it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_hobbyism_in_Germany There was(apparently still is for some) this orientalist fascination with Native Americans in Germany, starting in the 19th century. Some of the people in this sub-culture end up thinking they're really Native American, even when they're nothing but white German and know absolutely nothing about any Native American cultures. Sometimes some of these wannabe Indians end up thinking they know more about "real Indians" than actually Native Americans who don't live up to their ideal. Perhaps she looked into this, and this is where the idea of becoming black came from?

One of the first Europeans to settle in the mainland Americas was Gonzalo Guerrero (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Guerrero). His crew got shipwrecked and captured in a battle with the Mayans. Him and a priest were the only survivors. He eventually assimilated into Mayan culture, even became an important leader. By the time another group of Spaniards found him, he didn't identify with Spanish culture. Guerrero already had a Mayan wife and kids.

Now that was before the modern US concept of race. However various parts of Latin America have different concept of race. A lot of people considered black or Native American in the US would be considered white or Mestizo in many other countries, and some who're considered Mestizo would be considered Native American or black in the US. Sometimes members of the same immediate family can look like different races.
Bullshit. Why don't you actually PROVE I'M WRONG if you think I'm wrong. You haven's said anything to counter my arguments, just ad hominem.Since all races act the same, what does changing your race entail? They all have the same neurophysiology, what do you change?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Bullshit.

Why don't you actually PROVE I'M WRONG if you think I'm wrong. You haven's said anything to counter my arguments, just ad hominem.

:lol: i feel no need to prove you wrong. In fact if I were you, I would recount my position to as many black people as I could in face to face settings.

[bcbm]

Yeah however that leaves the fact that this does not correlate accurately with historic development which made Sicialians and Irish officially black and subject to the Jim Crow laws because of this.

do you have a source on irish and sicillians being 'officially black' and subject to jim crow? not saying you're wrong but i can't find any sources detailing this and i'd like to read more. certainly by the end of the civil war, at least in the north, there was a lot of animosity between irish immigrants and black americans and the irish were well on their way to achieving 'whiteness.'


Nor does this actually portray the emergence of current races in the US which started before America was actually more than a set of colonies...or even colonies....and was transplanted from racial views already existing in Europe. i think its a correct description in that modern racism is directly tied to the slave system, though i think the 'why' part is a little misleading. the plantations in the americas were originally heavily reliant on indentured servants of various races but europeans (like the irish) died pretty quickly from the climate in the carribbean and those indentured who did survive eventually got to go free. chattel slavery of africans developed out of this need for a long term workforce that could survive in the climate. in north america there was also a lot of concern about intermingling of the indentured and establishing racial lines helped a divide and conquer strategy. it was based on ideas already floating around in europe but slavery was what cemented race as we know it today.


Of course slavery did influence attitudes and mentality about race but again...it doesn't paint the whole picture and for it to be accurate some very unpleasant factors need to be left out.even when groups like the irish were concerned 'black' though it was often tied in to pretty crude racial stereotyping and pseudo-science (like all racism):

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/tanehisicoates/Scientific_racism_irish.jpg

immigrants were associated with blackness because blacks were already an 'other' kept out of white society and nativists found the comparison useful

[newdayrising]

To quote someone from the comments, "Race is genetic, gender is neural.

I don't think race is something one can just pick, but I also don't think race is genetic. Race is a fluid social perception that is usually connected to physical appearance and is somewhat linked to a prevalence of certain genetic markers. There's no objective definition of who's a member of a certain race that doesn't depend on time and place.

There are plenty of people perceived as black who are mostly of European ancestry as well as people perceived as white who are genetically more "African" than certain black people but don't look the part.