IslandMix

lol

You need a lesson in English. The phrase "Little more than" is the same as saying "more or less"...

Ananci is saying thay Race is more or less a social construct. Meaning... give or take a few examples of biological interpretation, race IS a social construct.

LAwd...

Why do I NEED a LESSON in ENGLISH? Where did I STATE that I did not UNDERSTAND what "LITTLE MORE THAN" means?

I CLEARLY UNDERSTAND what he has STATED but I forgot to WORD my response appropriately.

So ley me ask it again, CLEARLY. Since RACE is a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT are you SAYING that it is not a BIOLOGICAL CONSTRUCT?

MAybe U can ANSWER the QUESTION since you UNDERSTAND english.

Logic... not English...

Is race a social construct OR a biological one.

The "OR" there implies mutual exclusivity. Meaning one or the other. Ananci has clearly sided on social construct implying that he believes no basis for race in the biological sphere.

First it was ENGLISH.....now it is LOGIC....not ENGLISH.

LAWD.

Anyhow, why is there no BASIS for RACE in the BIOLOGICAL SPHERE?

Well at first I thought you needed a lesson in English. Then you posted you understood what his statement meant. So then I deduced it was logic you were lacking in to make the connection between the question asked and the answer given.
Well, U were WRONG o n BOTH counts.

Anyways... its not my argument fadda. I was just clarifying what the man posted.
So now it is not your ARGUMENT.

Mannnn, NEXT time, DOH ASSUME anything. GALLANG now, because it is OBVIOUS U cannot ANSWER the QUESTION.

Woyeeeeeeeeeee.

Just to add to what Bago has said

Race is little more than a social construct and a relatively recent construct at that. Prior to the 15th and 16th C there was almost no preoccupation at all with race as we know it. That changed when the Europeans needed to create constructs and institutions that justified their exploiting and enslaving of the Native Americans and Africans. yep

Now even though the seeds of modern day racism may have originated in Persia over 3000 years ago with their concept of light(good)/dark(evil) duality and even though the ancient Greeks and Romans did have certain prejudices, they were by no means racist or racialist in the way we understand these terms today. In fact, with regard to dark skin, it was a source of wonder and awe among many Greeks and they used "Ethiopians" (Ethiops - burnt face) as a friendly cariacature.

Modern-day racism certainly didn't exist in England and other parts of central and Western Europe up to the 15thC either. Otherwise how is it that Rome had at least three African popes (St Victor I, St Miltiades and St Gelasius with a possible fourth, Hadrian) and two African Emperors (Septimus Severus and his son Caracalla)? There were African Vikings, squires, knights and nobles and merchants.

But European society has always been characterised by xenophobic impulses; always a need to identify a hostile and adversarial Other. Some scholars believe that this can be traced back to the period at the end of the last Ice Age when the harsh wintry climate, barren land and scarce food stocks meant that roving tribes were constantly warring against each other in order to survive. As such, even when hundreds of years later when European tribes became more settled into city-states and nation-states, that ideology of "Othering" was firmly embedded into their psyche. So, when Europeans became their expansionist drives into the Americas, in order to justify their exploitation of the Native Americans and later on Africans, Chinese, Indians, etc, the concept of race was developed and evolved into some pretty sophisiticated ways by the end of the 19thC when the discipline known as anthropology came into being. By that time Europe, particularly England, France and Germany were embarking on some extreme nationalistic exercises and many "social sciences" were created or had been refined in a very racist and imperialist context. The intent was to use science to provide "proof" of the superiority of the Euro in politics, religion, military, economics, music, and so on.

Cheikh Anta Diop made a pretty good mockery of race in his book African Origin of Civilisation: Myth or Reality? i think i may check this book out and Civilisation or Barbarism, I recommend them both. I also highly recommend Marimba Ani's "Yurugu: an African-centred Critique of European cultural Thought and Behaviour"

First it was ENGLISH.....now it is LOGIC....not ENGLISH.

LAWD.

Anyhow, why is there no BASIS for RACE in the BIOLOGICAL SPHERE?

Well breds, if you know of a legitimate example of biological evidence for race, do let me know. I hope it can answer a few questions of mine. for instance, if race does exist outside of phenotype and is indeed biological, how is it that the first heart transplant involved removing the heart of a black man and placing it in the body of a white South African and the man did not die? And, mind you, we are only using the extreme poles of black/white; what about white/yellow (Asian) or even Saxon/Nordic, Serb/Croat, French/German, Anglo/Celtic, Indian/Pakistan, Zulu/Khoisan....yuh see where this nonsense is going?

I maintain that race has more to do with politics and ideology, including phenotypical appearences, than legitimate science. It has been twisted in all sorts of wierd ways using science as a prop in order to justify social inequalities.

Social Classification.

We were never black until Europeans attempted to beat the culture out of our ancestors, and replace our identities with the only way that they found easy to identify us - skin color. They defined Africans as the opposite of what they considered themselves. That has persisted until today, making it no surprise that the term black is thought by many to mean lower class.

Well, we're all part of the HUMAN RACE, no?

So BIOLOGICALLY we're all from the same RACE.

By the way, the ANCIENT EGYPTIANS said they're BLACK, so is that a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT?

While I understand what you mean, I'm almost positive that it didn't take a white man telling us "you're black" for us to realize we had similar features. I'm sure if any of these groups had contact with whites or even asians for that matter, they could AT LEAST tell that there was a colour difference and feature difference between them.

I mean, it wasn't enough of a difference to start acting ridiculous over but I honestly don't believe it took a white man saying "you're black" for Africans to realize they looked more similar to each other than anyone else. I just think because everyone looked like them where they lived, being black didn't mean anything UNTIL it was used against them. But to say they didn't know they were black sounds almost as crazy as sayin white people didn't know they were white until they started to enslave blacks.

I don't think you understand at all. "Black" was NOT an identity for African peoples. Firstly, the hundreds of different peoples on the continent viewed themselves by cultures. Secondly, people on the African continent range in complexion. When Europeans began with the "black" labeling, it was to make people opposite of themselves - they were white and these other dark peoples were black. They did not care what African cultures the people came from nor the languages they spoke - in order to subdue Africans, they had to beat the cultures out of them. That is exactly what they did their best to do - and label people as nothing more than a color. So NO, black did not mean anything until is was used against Africans.

That the color mentality so ingrained so many African peoples today shows just how successful those Europeans were. Do you really think that everyone on the African continent or even in West Africa looks the same? You don't see Asians walking around calling themselves yellow do you? They identify with their continent or origin and the countries and cultures they come from. No one would ever refer to them as a color, but recognize the vastness of Asia. If only more Africans/African descendants would see drop the European nonsense, and begin doing the same. It would do people much good...

I don't think you understand at all. "Black" was NOT an identity for African peoples. Firstly, the hundreds of different peoples on the continent viewed themselves by cultures. Secondly, people on the African continent range in complexion. When Europeans began with the "black" labeling, it was to make people opposite of themselves - they were white and these other dark peoples were black. They did not care what African cultures the people came from nor the languages they spoke - in order to subdue Africans, they had to beat the cultures out of them. That is exactly what they did their best to do - and label people as nothing more than a color. So NO, black did not mean anything until is was used against Africans.

That the color mentality so ingrained so many African peoples today shows just how successful those Europeans were. Do you really think that everyone on the African continent or even in West Africa looks the same? You don't see Asians walking around calling themselves yellow do you? They identify with their continent or origin and the countries and cultures they come from. No one would ever refer to them as a color, but recognize the vastness of Asia. If only more Africans/African descendants would see drop the European nonsense, and begin doing the same. It would do people much good...

Isn't this needless hair-splitting? Of course we are biologically of the same HUMAN race (duh). I think everyone here is aware that we are discussing the legitimacy of ranking and separation according to phenotype.

And about the Egyptians, uhh, the same Egyptians who in the tomb of Ramses III drew no distinction between themselves and other Africans? The same Egyptians who said quite plainly that their ancestors came from the beginnings of the Nile? And given the spiritual significance of blackness in the ancient world, are you sure what they were really saying?

TOTAL EUROCENTRIC NONSENSE.

What did the ANCIENT EGYPTIANS call THEMSELVES???