Racist?

It isn't clear to me that you understand what 'peer review' actually means. It might be more clear if you would link directly to your source, instead of to a wikipedia page. That Semetic people have 'always' been classified as Caucasian is false. That is the problem with racial classifications. Various groups and individuals disagree on where the dividing line stands between clasifications.

I think Coyote addressed this succinctly enough, but I did want to point out that I put 'always' in quotations to point out that they were not -> 'always' <- place.

I never said that I think semitic people are not white. Project much?Apparently you have no idea what the definition of ‘always’ is. It is a rather stupid argument to say something ‘always’ happens, then turn around and say your view is ‘arbitrary’. Your statements go beyond just being pointless and senseless, to being just plain BS. Just the fact that you classify wikipedia as a ‘peer-reviewed’ source tells me and a whole lot of other people that your failure in the evidence department is beyond weak. The fact that you admit that your classification of Semitic people as ‘White’ is arbitrary blows whatever remains of your supposed evidence out of the water.Moving on And you continue If your view is ‘arbitrary’, why claim that others are incorrect? How the hell can you claim to ‘have all the evidence’? Just because you draw lines on a map doesn’t make you the final arbiter of racial classifications. It astounds me that you can continue to spout out such ignorant tripe.There are some many issues with the ending paragraph in msg 257 that I can not answer every one that came up. Specifically, those questions you posed for certain individuals I tried to leave off. There are a couple of underlying assumptions you seem to make in your supposed questions. The first being that the path to being a safe, secure and productive community was and should be relatively short and easy for immigrants or minorities. The record on 19th and 20th century immigration does not bear that out. In fact, it took almost 100 years from the time the Italians' mass immigration began in the late 19th century before it became clear that as a group they would make it, educationally and occupationally, into the American mainstream.The second assumption you seem to make is that all groups have and always have been treated the same, regardless of arbitrary distinctions about race. You’re wrong on that account as well. Unlike the ‘nominally’ white immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, Asians and most non-white groups were prevented from naturalization and subject to antimiscegenation laws until much later. It wasn’t until about the mid-20th century that equal access to naturalization was codified in the Immigrant Act of 1965, for all immigrants. But even though considered ‘legally’ white, the ‘nominally’ white migrant people, were subject to racism. (The Second Generation from the Last Great Wave of Immigration: Setting the Record Straight. By Nancy Foner, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Richard Alba, State University of New York at Albany, October 2006) The Immigration Act of 1965: Intended and unintended consequences of the 20th Century. By Roger Daniels, U.S. Department of State publication, Historians on America, 03 April 2008 Yes. Focusing just on Italians and Jewish people, we find that limited opportunities to advance economically and educationally in their newly adopted society created ripe conditions for criminal behavior. In New York, during the early 20th century, 1/6th of felon arrests were Jewish. For several decades after World War II, the dominant figures in organized crime were second-generation Jews and Italians, often working in concert.
(The Second Generation from the Last Great Wave of Immigration: Setting the Record Straight, By Nancy Foner, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, Richard Alba, State University of New York at Albany, October 2006) Could you clarify this statement? Are you suggesting that we should or shouldn’t classify Chinatowns as ‘the hood’? Or are you asking if there is or isn’t comparable rates of crime in such a designated area? Stereotype much? Your prejudices have no bearing on the facts. You could just as easily ask an African-american how safe they would feel walking down a street at night in any predominantly white neighborhood, especially in the Southern United States (and not just because of the ‘civilian’ population). Where the fuck do you come up with this crap? It is patently obvious that you are racist, by any objective measure. African-americans feel entitled? Entitled?!?! You’re fucking right that African-americans should feel entitled, but not the way you presume they want to be. They absolutely deserve the right to being treated the same as anyone else. In no uncertain terms are they not entitled to that. They fucking are entitled to not being discriminated by the fucking government of the United States. They are fucking entitled to a blind justice system. They are entitled to fucking equal pay and equal opportunities. That you could just spout out such god-awful shit boggles my mind and reminds me how plainly ignorant and racist you are absolutely. It took the Italians almost 100 years before they were considered part of the mainstream community. They weren’t the only ones who took that and/or longer. According to you, there is more than one culture or race that couldn’t get their shit together.

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the only other group that I think is even close to blacks in thier inability to assimilate, is native Americans

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You can’t even keep your own made-up facts straight.

I don’t know why this is so hard for you to grasp. If you claim that your position is ‘arbitrary’, you can’t then claim that only the evidence for your position is true. Making shit up and then claiming that only the evidence you provide is true is laughable. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim you never classified Jewish people, and then turn around and classify them. If it isn’t obvious by now that you make shit up as you go, it’s abundantly clear now. But, overlooking your glaring inconsistencesWhat physical evidence and reasoning do you propose for your classification? I suggest that we are not going to progress if we can’t agree on what is a ‘credible’ source. And I’ll head this off quick -> Your say so ain’t evidence. It would help if you could list those traits. Then I suggest you don’t know what the definition of racist means. That is only half of what constitutes racism. It is also the belief that racial characteristics determine capabilities and traits. E.g. All Jewish people are greedy. All white people lie. It hasn’t been taboo to discuss the problems that plague minorities. If that was the case then you wouldn’t find the tons of research that attempt to uncover the issues that they confront. What it might be is a tender issue because of the inherent racism and indignities that many minorities have had to deal with in trying to achieve the American dream.Your problem is you don’t even understand your own racism.

There are two problems that I can see. The first being that the population of africans with modern human morphology first evolved in africa about 100-200k years ago and subsequently spread throughout africa. The population that left africa roughly 50k years ago and that may have interbred with neanderthals were for all intents and purposes sub-saharan african. The most likely area that they would have first come into contact with their neighbor neanderthals would have been in the middle east, which leads to the second problem. It was after this interbreeding was well underway that modern humans then diverged again. So by your criterion, there are only two so-called races, those that carry 1-4% of neanderthal genes and those that do not.The fact remains, that you have yet to produce any evidence that there are sufficient differences among modern human populations to be able to identify traits, or abilities based on any racial classification.Edited by DBlevins, : No reason given.Edited by DBlevins, : fixed html grammer error

First, my reply to AE was pointing out that it is sub-saharan migrants who first encountered and possibly interbred with the neanderthals and NOT europeans and asians. Secondly that when asked for genetic differences between 'blacks and whites', he pointed to a paper which he apparently either didn't comprehend or didn't read because it doesn't say what he thinks it says. The possible interbreeding occured in the middle east and possibly as Homo Sapiens migrated into Europe, and there is no indication it happened in asia (Neanderthal populations did not extend into asia.)As far as your point, I have to ask why you think evolution stopped in Africa but continued in Europe and Asia? I mean, if we are going to follow your logic, what you are basically saying is that people of African descent stopped evolving 50,000 years ago, and it is the people of European and Asian descent who continued evolving. Which isn’t much different than calling people from Africa — Barbarians or Backwords or less developed than the rest of the world (Something that the colonial countries used as an excuse to exploit, steal, rape and murder). Which really just ignores the real crux of the problem. The problem that you don’t seem to understand. And that is the simple, undeniable fact that race does not exist! It is made up! Arbitrary! Huh?Regardless of whether there is evidence the pink unicorn exists, it is STILL there....? If you were to gather all the data that you believe classifies people into race and draw them onto a contour map, you're going to find something interesting. And that is that there are NO sharp boundaries between groups. The gradients will be relatively smooth and roughly evenly spaced. You can not get a reasonable and natural classification of human populations with any classification scheme. The reason why you have some people arguing for 3 distinct races and others for more is that they use different classification criteria based on different characteristics they consider important. What they get are different groupings for the same people. It's arbitrary!Let me ask you this. Where would you classify the Australian Aboriginal people? With the Kung! or with people from SE asia? Why?

No it isn’t. It follows from what you said. You said that Homo Sapiens continued to evolve after they interbred with Neanderthals. You were implying that the reason we don’t have just two ‘races’, is that blacks did not continue evolving while the others did.Here it what you said and my reply. Notice the bold. So, my question to you is, ‘Why do you think that those who stayed in Africa stopped evolving?’Which leads us to this statement Homo Sapiens in Africa continued to evolve. In fact, because it was a small group of Homo Sapiens who left Africa, the genetic differences between all groups subsequently out of Africa have less genetic differences amongst themselves, while the groups that stayed in Africa are much more diverse. This founder effect is why the majority of the diversity is in Africa and NOT outside it.The fact is that Homo Sapiens evolved IN Africa, then migrated. We are ALL Africans.As a side note, I’d like to point out that it would have been likely that we would have seen a more distinct genetic differentiation between populations of Homo Sapiens if we did not have such a propensity to migrate to new areas, and build boats and other forms of locomotion. That being the case, we love to share our genes and any differences that might pop up are quietly suppressed by that wave of gene flow.

Why point out that those Homo Sapiens who bred with Neanderthals further evolved if your argument now is that ALL Homo Sapiens continued evolving, which would not be disputed? At best you were needlessly inarticulate and if you are actually saying that group B further split into Group B and C, why wouldn’t Group A continue to split into Group A and D? In other words, why do you say that ALL Sub-saharan Africans can still be grouped into one race? First, it follows from our understanding of population genetics, genetic drift, anthropological data, and nuclear DNA and mtDNA analysis, etc. It isn’t in dispute.Second, for further reading:

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African exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity. Stringer, C. 1997. Henry Holt, New York.
Geography predicts neutral genetic diversity of human populations. Franck Prugnolle, Andrea Manica, and Franois Balloux. Curr Biol. 2005 March 8; 15(5): R159—R160.
Origins of Modern Humans: Multiregional or Out of Africa? Donald Johanson. http://www.actionbioscience.org/...tion/johanson.html#primer.
Home page | Institute of Human Origins

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The list is endless and fascinating. Also some of the references I looked at from your own wiki link make clear about the great amount of diversity in African populations in their abstracts. Take the time to take a gander. No, what I am saying is that a contour map of genetic similarity will have roughly evenly spaced gradients. You will not see sharp boundaries between groups. Not only that, but there is no natural classification scheme that will categorize Homo Sapiens. Different characteristics have different groupings/geographic regions. There is more difference on average among individuals in a regional groups than there is between them and other regional groups.Second, you can have high genetic diversity while still possessing ancient mtDNA haplogroups. It isn’t an either/or situation.
All that being within a group that has the L haplogroup means is that you have an ancient lineage of mtDNA.Which leads me to ask. If you classify a group based on mtDNA Haplogroups, why not classify a group based on Hemoglobin S? Or why not the prevalence of the LAC*P gene? All three of these groups would have different geographical frequencies: or or Which one of these do you use to classify a group? How many groups would you have if you took each different gene and mapped it? How many overlaps would you have? How would you divide them? Then why contrast the one group with all others? Unless you are suggesting that the Group A population is now the Group D population and there are no other Group individuals left? Are you really suggesting that there would not be a Group E,F, or G population? If so, what is your evidence? Why would you support the idea that having neanderthal genes would make you distinct from this one group? I do not contend that there are two races. I was simply following the logic of AE’s argument: That one of the so-called multiple ways Africans are distinct from all others is that the others bred with Neanderthals. This kind of classification scheme leave you with two races. Ie. one group with Neanderthal genes and one without. See above. There are no sharp boundaries. There are only gradients of genetic similarity.I hope I have made myself more clear and have understood your argument as best I can for now.

If you really wish to understand the position that there is no such thing as ‘race’, you might want to look into population genetics and stats, etcThat doesn’t mean you couldn’t understand it if you decided not to look into these things, but it would help you in formulating a knowledgeable position. Your point does rely on sharp boundaries, you just don’t realize it. If we are looking for evidence of a division of humans into races then we would expect that there would be sharp boundaries between the ‘races’, and that is not the case. Instead we see gradients of diversity. That is basically the point. What would make you choose one scheme over another? The fact is that if you DO choose one classification scheme over another you get a DIFFERENT grouping for the people. If I chose resistance to Malaria as a way to classify Group A, I couldn’t use Lactose tolerance to justify the same group because not all individuals in Group A would be Lactose tolerant. I’m not sure I appreciate being called a parrot. What it is saying is that if you took a sample of a local group of people you would capture the majority (~85%) of variation within our genome. Basically, if you took two individuals from some localized group you would most likely find that they are less related to each other than they are to individuals from another localized group on the other-side of the world. There are a few reasons for this. One, we are a relatively new species. Natural selection and genetic drift hasn’t had enough time to create differences between humans. Second, we are a gregarious species and tend to migrate which has allowed for a generous amount of gene flow. Third, we have a LARGE population which tends to genetically drown out any major differences that crop up. Because while you can go deep into the genome of individuals and classify them according to whether they have one gene or another, it doesn’t lead to any one group having such a large difference from another group that you could classify them by race. Just because they have a Haplogroup A carrying individual doesn’t mean that he also has Hemoglobin S. In fact you can find Haplogroup A in all so-called racial groups. Any division by genetic difference would lead to an amazing diversity of groups which doesn’t help you at all. It would be meaningless. Because if ALL humans have continued to evolve how can you seperate ALL sub-saharan Africans into ONE race?The fact is that genetics DO NOT support racial classifications. There are NO sharp boundaries that would support classifying races by genetic differences.P.S. As an example, people from Northern China are more similar genetically to European populations than they are to Southeast Asian populations.