The Abbreviated History of Racial Profiling
 

First, I'm not gonna apologise for anything I say here. If you condemn another human being because of his skin color, the anatomy of his face, or his family tree, YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT.

You can thank the French diplomat and essayist Joseph Gobineau for the racial definitions that we abide by today. He thought this up in the late 1800's, so if you think there is some ancient written word of God that says you as a white man are better than the yellow and black men, you're sadly mistaken. Joseph divided people into 3 categories; white, yellow and black. He wrote that the people of the white race were Aryans, superior and pure, possessing supreme virtues such as honor and love of freedom. Joseph insinuated further that these qualities were held within individuals ONLY if their race remained pure and unmixed. The yellow race people were thought to be business and working class people. Blacks, of course, were servants and slaves.

If you weren't aware of this, this is the first instance of Jews being categorized as a race. They were thought to be a product of racial mixing, in fact. Before this French bastard came along, Judaism was a religion and a community, NEVER a race. That's a whole other post, but follow me on this... it's only in the last century that Jews were classified by their bloodlines rather than their actual personal beliefs.

So, this post was spurred by the recent pollin Sexuality regarding interracial couples. I feel that those who believe that interracial relationships are bad... are ignorant of the roots of actual racial profiling. You're listening to what essentially comes down to the word of a Frenchman from the 19th century. Your church/parents/influence adopted these ideals from nothing more than a few essays written by Joseph Gobineau. I assure you, this man had no more credibility than you or I. He just had an idea that people latched onto at the time.

Please rethink your position on this issue.

Believe me Hal, I'm from an area where this is a HUGE issue. It makes me sad and it pisses me off, but there really isn't shit I can do about it. I'm case-hardened now, while I still don't appreciate any form of racism, I don't even flinch when I hear derrogatory remarks anymore. It's not cool I know, but it is the way of things.

But I still defend the South to the bitter end. While many people are ignorant in this fashion, there are a vast majority of us who realize their ignorance, and strive to differ from them in that area. Please form no negative feelings about the South based on my statements. You will find close-minded assholes wherever you go.

I have no problem with interracial couples...my parents are an interracial couple and I was raised to accept any and everyone, no matter what their background is. I think it's sad that there are people (in this century) that choose to dislike someone or something because they are afraid of or don't understand it.

being in an interracial AND interfaith marriage, it's ALL a crock of shit. In fact, let me change my sig back to what it used to be because of this thread.

BUT, please do note, that Jews were persecuted throughout history regardless of this Frenchman's position.

They were persecuted as a religion and a community, NOT as a race. If they denounced judaism and left their community, they were accepted as equal men by the Catholics. Not that that's paradise or anything, but it just goes to show how vile racial hate really is.

perscution is persecution.

and even if you don't think that it's a race, look at the personification of the orthodox and hassidics and it can easily be misconstrued as a race.

I don't know what's goin' on cyn.. you're on a different tangent. This thread is about racial profiling, not judaism and it's various sects.

Not a tangent, I can see why some people misconsture Jews being a race.

Most Hassidics dress similar and then on top of that look very much alike. Hassids are a Jewish sect from Eastern Europe, they have very slavic facial features, and then the culturally demanded items like beards, curled sideburns.

Orthodox Jews, have facial features (stereotype: Nose) that you look at and don't think "Israeli".

Unlike Catholicism where diversity is extremely present, I can see how ignorant people can easily consider Jews a race out of hand.

Cyn, my post is partially about how the term 'race' even came to be associated with these people. The point of it is that.. if this French bastard hadn't ever published these things, we possibly would still today view them as simply a religious sect. The fact that such facial features are associated with Jews was brought about as a mutation of these publications by the Germans. As stated, Gobineau got the ball rolling.

I am all for interracial relationships marriages and everything no matter what anyone says.

The last time I checked, the concept of "race" had been relegated to the anthropological graveyard. It's a throwback to earlier times when prejudice was rampant, institutionalized, and uncontested. What remains is the incorrect grouping of individuals into categories based on varying interpretations.

...

"Many physical anthropologists believe that, because there is as much genetic variation among the members of any given race as there is between different racial groups, the concept of race is ultimately unscientific and racial categories are arbitrary designations. "

allrefer.com reference

...

Here's more:

http://www.yahoodi.com/peace/race.html

Ah fuck the whole "race" concept. As far as I'm concern, we're all human and we're all one race.

I don't give a fuck if you're white, yellow, black, blue, green, pink, orange, purple or the whole other color on the spectrum, we're all goddam humans and aint nuttin ever gonna change that!

Hey, how come it's automatically the "aryans" who are at fault? The poll says nothing about who voted for what, they could be mexican asian rabbis for all we know.

Seems like racism is always pushed on us honkies when the issue comes up.

that's right. you wanna see some good racism look at the Asians, there's some bad blood there, especially from those that survived the Japanese occupation of WWII

I'm not saying that its not there for good reason, but a lot of black people in the South are really racist. But I don't blame them, I guess. Although it doesn't make it right. No race should be allowed to be racist.

This is the best sentence in this thread and a point that seems to be regularly overlooked.

Throughout history, slavery was based on captors versus captives. Once it was found that Africa was a "good" source of cheap slaves, the association between skin color and inferiority/superiority really took off. It started to happen before the 19th century.

As for real racial differences, skin color isn't a racial trait, it's a regional trait, and the only real differences are bone formation and molar structure. There are 4 distinct races. Much of what we call racism is really extreme ethnocentrism.

Mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosomes sez we all came from Africa! so we all have something in common. no point in being racist

I was waiting for someone to bring up the slavery issue. Ya see, while all of that was going on, it wasn't actually documented and published to where the entire human species was divided into races and given specific classes and standards. While racial discrimination has ALWAYS existed, the profiling and ranking did not take place until.. Gobineau.

/me agrees with Halx and will try not to pollute the thread with HIS thoughts....

I've always wondered, where did the term "Jew" start being used? I noticed that in the Old Testament the word "Israelites" were used to describe the race. But then the word "Jew" didn't appeared til the New Testament.

Was the word "Jew" or "Jewish" just to mean all those who followed that particular religion (Judaism)?

As for interracial marriages, the only "negative" thing I have to say that is that sometimes the marriage could be more difficult if the two people are from very different cultures. I don't mean that it is a bad thing, just that it may require more time & effort for the two parties to adjust to each other.

I am a little surpised that in this generation / culture that people may still see interracial marriages in a negative light. I'm from a pretty traditional asian family but I don't see why I can't marry someone who isn't asian.

It is not just the "French guys" publication that brought about racism. It is the fact that people read his "stuff" and chose to buy into it.

We are all part of the human race. The U.S. is the "great melting pot." So, why do we have to check what race we are on every *!#%* government form? Isn't that perpetuating what this Gobineau started?

there is another gent that perpetuated what Gobneau started as for purposes of being able to track criminals. I cannot recall his name at the moment.