I mean, really, skin color? Why not hair color, or eye color, or fingernail shape? Actually, if people really wanted to get serious about hating each other for inconsequential genetic traits, they ought to make skull configuration the Big Hairy Deal. "Long-heads rule! Round-heads suck!"
Heh, the basic consensus of most reputable scientists nowadays is that 'race' doesn't really even exist as a discrete biological category-- you could just as easily classify people into separate races on the basis of, say, the prevalence of the sickle-cell anemia gene, which would put Mediterreanean and sub-Saharan African people into the same racial group.
(http://www.antiracistaction.ca/race3.html is entertaining, on this issue.)
I've got sort of a thing going on where I know intellectually that there's nothing to stereotypes, but my awareness of them makes me uncomfortable and, in some cases, I worry that they might be true, even if there's no mitigating evidence-- like if we get stuck on a math problem, I'll start to worry that it might be because 'girls can't do math.' x_X Not to any disabling extent, but... it's there, yeah, the social programming. (OTOH, we seem to have avoided a lot of the social programming in regards to what women's priorities should be, and how they should aspire to look.)
I don't know what to make sometimes of the fact that there are several people in our system who aren't 'white,' though I probably overanalyze it. If they were all filling gratuitous stereotypes (which I have unfortunately seen before with multiples), that would be cause for legitimate concern, but I see the ones who share my headspace as being simply people, before they're a specific race or gender. What frustrates me is that I can't always be colorblind in 'non-head' interactions. Hm.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-04-16 05:50 am (UTC)Heh, the basic consensus of most reputable scientists nowadays is that 'race' doesn't really even exist as a discrete biological category-- you could just as easily classify people into separate races on the basis of, say, the prevalence of the sickle-cell anemia gene, which would put Mediterreanean and sub-Saharan African people into the same racial group.
(http://www.antiracistaction.ca/race3.html is entertaining, on this issue.)
I've got sort of a thing going on where I know intellectually that there's nothing to stereotypes, but my awareness of them makes me uncomfortable and, in some cases, I worry that they might be true, even if there's no mitigating evidence-- like if we get stuck on a math problem, I'll start to worry that it might be because 'girls can't do math.' x_X Not to any disabling extent, but... it's there, yeah, the social programming. (OTOH, we seem to have avoided a lot of the social programming in regards to what women's priorities should be, and how they should aspire to look.)
I don't know what to make sometimes of the fact that there are several people in our system who aren't 'white,' though I probably overanalyze it. If they were all filling gratuitous stereotypes (which I have unfortunately seen before with multiples), that would be cause for legitimate concern, but I see the ones who share my headspace as being simply people, before they're a specific race or gender. What frustrates me is that I can't always be colorblind in 'non-head' interactions. Hm.