Quote:
Originally posted by debaser
Sorry I have been gone for the week.
Race is not a social construct. There are very obvious physical similarities between people indiginous to a particular locale.
The reaction to race is a social construct, and a poor one at that. For one to judge a persons worth based solely on those physical traits is folly.
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The culture you grew up in dictates what you find as 'obvious' features. Features you think are obvious similarities are likely due to the inability or non-desire to differentiate between individuals of a different group.
If the features were obvious in fact and not in belief then various cultures would differentiate between races according to the same features. They don't--different cultures seperate different groups of people according to features we think are inconsequential--and vice versa.
I already cited the Brazilian belief system which grants significance to eye color along with other features to differentiate between races. That's just one example. Every culture differentiates between races according to features their respective cultures deem important. Those features are usually developed by the dominant group to differentiate the outgroups from the ingroup.
In short, your initial argument that a tri-racial differentiation is only held to by Western cultures. But I don't want to keep going back and forth--I've already stated most of this. I would much prefer you to answer the issues I raised in regards to the contradictory categorizations we already have.