Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Interesting new take on Affirmative Action

raveneye · 01-30-2005, 11:33 AM

Another pertinent point that needs to be made in any discussion of AA: "race" per se is nonexistent. Researchers in the field of human evolution have rejected the entire concept of "race" as applied to human biology.

That doesn't mean that people don't discriminate based on what they believe are racial differences. But the fact is that the construct "race" has no biological basis. Rather human beings occupy a broad biological continuum with absolutely no evidence of any lines of division anywhere. The genetic differences that people psychologically associate with "race" are caused by just a few genetic loci that control trivial, superficial traits like melanin production. These loci are shared by the entire human population, and any person could have gotten any of these alleles from anywhere on the planet.

I can dig up over a dozen research articles on this if anybody is interested.

But the point I'm making here is that, if race is meaningless biologically, then "racial diversity" also is of questionable meaning. How can you have a diverse racial presence if separate races do not exist? What "racial diversity" really means, in the context of biological differences, is just a diverse mixture of genetic alleles controlling trivial, superficial physical traits. Those alleles could come from anywhere on the planet, they aren't owned by any particular "race."

So racial diversity is really just diversity in some superficial human traits that somebody recently decided are important. Those traits don't translate necessarily into any other kind of diversity. That includes cultural diversity, religious diversity, linguistic diversity, socioeconomic diversity, geographic diversity, intellectual diversity, political diversity, or any other kind of diversity that one might want to have on a college campus or working environment.

So, for example, you could achieve a full, complete "racial diversity" by sampling 100% from middle-class, English-only-speaking, Protestant, Republican, SUV-driving, Jeopardy lovers who like Maroon 5 and video games all entirely living now in Bloomington Indiana. That group, however, wouldn't be the best you could put together if what you were looking for was cultural diversity.

There are many many many more similarities than there are differences among the so-called "races". There are many many many differences within each so-called "race" than there are differences between them.

We need to look beyond the superficial if we're ever going to treat each other like we're all from one human race.

01-30-2005, 11:33 AM	#75 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	Another pertinent point that needs to be made in any discussion of AA: "race" per se is nonexistent. Researchers in the field of human evolution have rejected the entire concept of "race" as applied to human biology. That doesn't mean that people don't discriminate based on what they believe are racial differences. But the fact is that the construct "race" has no biological basis. Rather human beings occupy a broad biological continuum with absolutely no evidence of any lines of division anywhere. The genetic differences that people psychologically associate with "race" are caused by just a few genetic loci that control trivial, superficial traits like melanin production. These loci are shared by the entire human population, and any person could have gotten any of these alleles from anywhere on the planet. I can dig up over a dozen research articles on this if anybody is interested. But the point I'm making here is that, if race is meaningless biologically, then "racial diversity" also is of questionable meaning. How can you have a diverse racial presence if separate races do not exist? What "racial diversity" really means, in the context of biological differences, is just a diverse mixture of genetic alleles controlling trivial, superficial physical traits. Those alleles could come from anywhere on the planet, they aren't owned by any particular "race." So racial diversity is really just diversity in some superficial human traits that somebody recently decided are important. Those traits don't translate necessarily into any other kind of diversity. That includes cultural diversity, religious diversity, linguistic diversity, socioeconomic diversity, geographic diversity, intellectual diversity, political diversity, or any other kind of diversity that one might want to have on a college campus or working environment. So, for example, you could achieve a full, complete "racial diversity" by sampling 100% from middle-class, English-only-speaking, Protestant, Republican, SUV-driving, Jeopardy lovers who like Maroon 5 and video games all entirely living now in Bloomington Indiana. That group, however, wouldn't be the best you could put together if what you were looking for was cultural diversity. There are many many many more similarities than there are differences among the so-called "races". There are many many many differences within each so-called "race" than there are differences between them. We need to look beyond the superficial if we're ever going to treat each other like we're all from one human race.