Race mixing
 

So I think we have all heard that if society on a international level keeps progressing in the same footsteps as it is now, there will be so much race mixing, that in 'X' amount of years there will be no different ethnicities.

I think that brings up alot of questions, since obviously people will change course, and there will probably never be a single ethnic race worldwide.

I believe that it is going to cause even larger rifts in society than we have today. Causing these smaller "White" sects of the world to believe they are better than X Y and Z race, and especially better than the majority interbred race. Blacks thinkin they are better than this that and this... etc and so on for these little sects of races.

I think if that sort of thing happens, there will be an honest "we are the last" mentality in these tiny sects that will only breed within their race, just to keep their race alive. The way it is now, there is no need for that, whites are everywhere, blacks everywhere, no need to breed for survival of your race. Yet they still have the mentality. So obviously when you need to, there is a certain, even more violent, survival instinct that will take over the people, amplified even more because they really ARE keeping their race alive. Depending on how small the sect, I think the more violent they are will relate directly to how small they have become.

Hmmm thats my spewage for the day.....

Well this is highly speculative on the one hand, and on the other hand, is pretty naive for thinking that there aren't already small pockets of people fighting to preserve their culture.

I know you didn't say "culture," but I can't envision this situation without seeing a race of people fighting to preserve their culture first before any thoughts of genetics come in. This leads me to another thought: I don't think that our nature would encourage us to reproduce only out of one gene pool when it means we risk extinction.

At any rate, I think this is a silly scenario. Just look at any First Nations/Native American reserve. The powers that be have removed their means of fighting to preserve their heritage, so based on this example, I can't see a small minority reacting "more violently," since the means of their revolt have been taken from them (amongst other things).

Race is a cultural construct in itself, so aberkok is right. There is no such thing as race, there are only arbitrary categories created by humans to explain surface biological variation. People fighting for their "culture" (language, religion, beliefs/behaviors passed down from one generation to the next), maybe, but I'd like to think that people will evolve socially in the other direction... to recognize the value of hybrid vigor, and to embrace difference as a way of preserving our species (again, as aberkok said).

Personally, I look forward to the day when we're all brown. I'm glad my parents mixed up their ethnicities to make me, and ktspktsp and I will do our best to continue that tradition with our children. Exogamy, exogamy, exogamy!! :)

Then how do the forensics people know if skeletal remains are black, white, or Asian?

Well, they wouldn't know, if they were looking at my skeletal remains, or ktspktsp's, or our children... or a whole lot of other folks who don't "fit" the mold set by the three primary "races."

Forensic anthropology can compare bones to the "most average" sample of someone from one "race" (= people who lived in one geographic area for a long time and therefore bred amongst themselves, replicating their genes over and over again to create a dominant variety of biological characteristics, which is usually called "clinal variation" rather than race, in bio anthro), but if someone doesn't look anything like any of the three primary "races," then the forensics people are screwed, at least down that line of inquiry. They have to use other evidence to try and deduct who that person was.

It's important to not conflate genotype with phenotype, here. Human phenotype variation, including bone structure, does not equal "race." Race is what humans create to label different phenotypes, which result from clinal distribution... not hard and fast divisions between populations, which is what race purports to be.

In practice, the application of such forensic criteria ultimately comes down to whether the skull "looks Negroid," "Caucasoid," or "Mongoloid" in the eye of each U.S. forensic practitioner.

ahhhh :)

Exactly. One forensic anthropologist might look at my bones and say that I was Asian, while another might say that I was white. They would both be right, and wrong... but neither category is helpful in identifying what I really am, because there is no one category that would fit me (at least not in North American labels for phenotypic characteristics).

According to genetic work-ups of both me and ktspktsp (done through my university department, which has one of the strongest biological anthropology programs in the country--I am a cultural anthro, but I pay attention to their research), our children will have ancestral genes from Asia, Africa, and Europe. Try figuring out their bones, or anything else phenotypically. :D

(Damnit, I had a perfectly good post going, but failed to navigate properly)

I believe it's really just us here, and agree with abaya saying, "Personally, I look forward to the day when we're all brown," and with mixedmedia saying, "Everybody just gotta keep fucking everybody 'til (we're) all the same color". (Sorry to misquote you, mixed)

It's just us here.

Do you love yourself, or do you not?

aw, that's okay...it wasn't my quote anyway, it's Bulworth's (aka Warren Beatty)

I like this. In a perfect world, there would be no "them".

At the end of the day, all that matters is behavior, which isn't genetic (at least the ones on a macro scale). Skin color is irrelevant; you're either an asshole or not.

I'll leave you all to decide which side of that fence I sit.

No, I'm afraid I don't think fighting for culture is the same as fighting for race. There is a huge difference, There are WAY more people who would fight for their race, and not their culture.

I for one, would fight for my race, way before I'd fight for my culture, and the majority of people are the same way.

There is no 'race' out there fighting for its survival... culture yes.. but race no. Everyone knows race is a much larger emotional stimulator, look at how much it gets used in the society today.

By small sects, to clarify, I don't mean little groups of 100 here and there. I mean something like 70% population = interbred all the same 30% broken down into the main few races, black, white, asian, indian.

You honestly think, say... maybe the whites, say they have 13% of that 30% are white, will not be violent if say a interbreed thinks he is going to marry a white girl? Or even just to show superiority if an interbreed comes into a 'white town'?

I totally disagree with you. I can't even think of anyone today who fights for their 'race'...only their culture.

The sooner we're all the same color, the better. I find racial differentiations absurd, and I believe that most celebration of culture and heritage is pointless adherence to tradition that holds us back from truly integrating.

Is it bad that reading the OP sent me into the mindset where all I could think about was movies involving inbred hillbillies (no offense intended to any hill living members present) that are abducting strangers to the area for food / breeding purposes?

I have a feeling it is.

On a serious note, it will probably happen racial barriers are slowly breaking down in the majority of areas and eventually the population will not have one single parent racial group. Whether those few communities of 'pure' descent become the new minorities or maintain their superiority.

Then again I am slightly biased I'm of English, Spanish, Scottish descent, I speak French, English and Japanese and I'm learning arabic, latin and indian dance - shows how much I care for racial / cultural groupings

I am pretty sure that if the Human Race creates for itself the opportunity to spread out beyond our home planet there will inevitably be pockets of people with phenotypical varience. I mean, a group who settle on Titan and breeds there for 10,000 years without much input from the outside will have genetic drift. There will eventually be a strong difference from another group who settles on Ceres. I don't care what the original population looks like, genetic drift will create a distinct look of Titanians or Cereans or whatever. The 12,000 AD version of the Galapagos Islands. There will be folks in that future who will feel their particular "look" or "race" needs to be preserved. And it will, as it then evolves as they pack up a "pure sample" and move further and further away from the mainstream and drift and drift . . .
I think our decendants existance will be wonderful and terrible and very exciting. A lot of very exteme and insular things will go on. But so long as we can keep from killing ourselves off before we get out there, we as a Human Race will have an amazing time :thumbsup:

How are they absurd? Race involves more than skin color as it involves history, culture, language, region of origin etc.

Word. Bring on the Brown, baby. :D I'll say it again... it's all about exogamy. :thumbsup:

good point.

Well unless you actually read my posts...

I am a firm believer in the notion that the most beautiful people are the ones who come from mixed parents. Its hard to find someone like that who isnt attractive and alluring. With that said. My kids are going to be HOT.

Race is a dumb concept. Its especially dumb when applied to people of a religion (Jews). To imagine someone fighting for their race makes me just roll my eyes. Its a shame that people take their meager grasp on genetics so seriously.

Dude, ktspktsp and I need to hook up our future kids with your future kids. We'll have the most beautiful grandkids ever. :D

Till I'm blue in the face... EXOGAMY is the key to the survival of our species. :thumbsup:

I want to make beautiful mixed "race" babies.

In fact... I want a woman of each ethnotype different from my own to line up and prepare for the legion-maker!

This thread makes me happy.

I wish racism would go -poof-!

Like hell.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...&highlight=red

I'm not trading her for beige.

In the long run I'm not sure if it even matters. If we were all the same color and looked the same we would still have 'out groups' and still figure out ways to kill each other. Long before there were racial issues the peoples of Europe, Asia, Africa etc all had no problem killing each other for a variety of colorful reasons.

There is some value to sticking to your own race as well beyond social. While genetic variation amoung humans is minor compared to a lot of animals (bottlenecks ftl) the genes that make up 'races' are all genes that work together well. While some say that mixed race children can be quite 'attractive' and I've seen some that are stunning, some of the ugliest children I've seen are mixed race as well. Its a bit of a genetic crap shoot. The 'successes' will be better than average and the failures will be worse.

In the end our desires on this are unimportant. What creates a race is geographic segregation (and to a lessor extent sexual selection).

The easier transportation comes, the more 'mixing' there will be. Had mankind remained privative longer odds are we wouldn't have had separate races but seperate species. As it turns out our 'remixing' has been able to happen prior to the races evolving into their own species.

Will we ever be beige? Possibly, as long as we have civilization to keep the environmental adaption of race unimportant and transportation easy maybe in a few 1000 years race will be more of a interesting footnote.

Its going to be a LONG LONG while though, and I'd say we have a better chance of all 'getting along' through more mundane means than interbreeding before that happens.

I can get behind that. It's far more complex than skin color, unfortunately.

You're right, Ustwo, in that as much as we hippies would like to propagate brownness as the next serum for world peace, of course humans are always going to find new ways to hate each other... it's one thing our species is particularly good at doing. I'd still like to think that having one less reason to discriminate superficially (the idea of race) would help us all get along, but who knows... none of us will be around to see what really happens. Hopefully, we can teach our kids differently, though.

If we could only breed out ignorance.....ahhh, thoughts of a perfect world

-Will ;)

Sure, we'll find new ways to hate each other... but it'll be creative!

Starbelly Sneetches!

Wow. Man, I love that book. Didn't think anyone else remembered... :thumbsup:

If I'm remembering correctly, genetic race is determined by a maximum of 17 genes in the genome. Geographic separation has led to gene pool homogenization of certain racial groups, I don't define myself by the color of my skin or what country my family lived in generations ago. I don't see what needs to be celebrated about ancestors having been born in a certain country, and I certainly don't feel any sense of pride in that nation's accomplishments.

When I said "the sooner we're all the same color..." I was referring more to the breakdown of peoples' ideas that their differences are anything other than superficial than an actual hope that we're all the same color.

I thought this was kind of ironic because the answer to your question was the last 3 words of what you quoted. Forensic examination of corpses determines race by examining surface biological variation.

You're quite right. "Nordic" (white) Americans have much more in common genetically with black Africans than black Africans do with black Middle-Easterners.

I LOVE hybrid babies. My best friend is half Japanese, and so is her cousin. Her cousin has an 18-month-old who is just adorable. He is only 1/4 Japanese, so he looks exotic. Very cute!

I wish I could have a hybrid baby. As it is, I'm doomed to have boring white babies.

I want to get the genetic testing done to find out the background of my DNA, just because I think it would be cool. Plus, there is a part of my family tree that has a huge genealogical question mark on it, because that branch of the family got chased out of Virginia for being too wild, and we have no records of what the family did in Virginia to know who they married, or who we are descended from. We have genetic markers that indicate we might be descended from a mixed marriage, but otherwise, we're clueless about what we could be. Our last name on that side is German, but that is really about all we know for sure.

I think it's important to know where we come from, but I think it's also important to blend cultures and develop new traditions. I grew up in a household with close ties to the Netherlands, with one parent being an immigrant. My mother is your typical American mutt, as indicated above. We had an interesting melange of traditions. A Dutch Christmas is different from American Christmas, but to blend things together we sort of hybridized the holidays. Normally, Dutch children receive gifts on Sinterklaasdag, not Christmas. Christmas is a religious holiday (despite the rampant secularism of Dutch culture) and for sharing with family, not for gift-giving. In respect of that, we do our gift-giving on Christmas Eve, and spend Christmas Day with the family, doing family things. Interestingly, Thanksgiving is actually more important to my Dutch-American family than Christmas--it is the one holiday where both sides of the family have consistently gotten together every year (with one or two exceptions) since I was a small child. Both my Dutch grandfather and American grandfather loved Thanksgiving.

Let's go mix things up so I can start celebrating other holidays! I've already added Obon to my list.

that whole race mixing won't happen for at least another thousand years or so. the only country with a substantial mix of all races and ethnicities is the US. other countries are primarily one group of people, or a few groups of people that are fairly similar. i don't see japan, for example, becoming anything but primarily japanese for a while at least.

An Akita probably has more in common genetically with a Chihuahua than a Gila Monster. That doesn't mean there aren't very obvious differences between Akitas and Chihuahuas. Humans share quite a bit of DNA with chimpanzees. We're still a difference species, though.

There is no such thing as "race".

Every person is genetically different to every other in some ways - even twins... certain culture's and characteristics may characterise ethnic groups, but the level of identification is hardly scientific. Muslims and Hindu's who have exactly the same shade of skin in India certainly consider themselves very different.

The idea that their are "races"... groups of people ULTIMATELY defined by ethnic characteristics is out-dated and absurd.

I hear people on the Rikki Lake using terms like "the Spanish race" when they talk about immigrants from Mexico or Cuba. Of course, we consider them to be ridicolous, but the whole concept of "race" is as foolish as they are in essence, so they do sum it up very well.

They still show Ricki Lake? Must be in syndication--they haven't made a new episode since 2005.

There are genetic differences which go beyond skin color are there for 'races'.

Enough time these 'races' would have diverged into difference species had we not developed better means of travel in the last 2000 years.

While people misuse the term frequently that does not mean that there are not some basic characteristics that make a race a race.

Going your route, taken to an extreme would put pretty much every creature on earth as the same species, as there isn't much difference between us and say a Chimpanzee, or the other apes, then the monkeys etc. This is wonderful and new age, but I'll still be eating beef without worried about the cow being related to me via a few million generations.

Race may become meaningless in the future with enough interbreeding, but its not that point yet.

That depends on what you mean by "ULTIMATELY". A Japanese person will look more like a Chinese person than Nigerian will. Norwegians bear a closer resemblence to Germans than Malaysians.

the difference between humans and chimps is a soul.

as for Ustwo's point... you can test yourself how well it works.

Decide what race you consider yourself to be. Then take a DNA test to look at your "racial" background... if you are like 95% of people you will find youre ancestor's are from everywhere.

Which gene is the soul gene? Is the existance of the soul a biological fact?

The fact that people may have distant ancestors from "everywhere" doesn't change the fact that many of us can be easily identified as white, black or Asian.

What is Asian?

Most of Russia is in Asia, are most Russians "Asian"?

Do Pakistani's belong to the same race as Vietnamese?

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/im...Li-Posters.jpg
Asian

http://dukat.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/geek.jpg
Caucasian (which includes many people indigenous to Russia).