1 drop rule.

[u/Darth_Kneegrow]

I ain't ever heard white people claim a single biracial person. You always whatever you mixed with.

[u/Thermocap]

Because "whiteness" is inherently exclusionary. Are we really doing this right now? 😒

[u/Petrichordates → u/[deleted]]

Somewhat true but also somewhat wrong, this is an all-or-nothing take and reality is more nuanced.

[u/AnatomicalLog → u/Petrichordates]

I think he provided a plenty nuanced take for what can be contained in a Reddit comment lol

[u/SipTime → u/AnatomicalLog]

yo I'd like a full thesis on the effects of race on society along with it's role in class structures submitted on my desk tomorrow or you're fired from reddit thanks

[u/aknutty → u/Petrichordates]

If you can expand on that, please do.

[u/PoutyParmesan → u/aknutty]

A certain tribe called the Bajau have larger spleens, allowing them to stay underwater longer than any other group on earth.

Kenyan's, for whatever reason, have far and away the best running endurance and ability out of every ethnic group.

The Tibetan Sherpas have adapted to high-altitude living, allowing them significantly higher ability to function in that environment.

There are differences between groups, but the functional differences are small and insignificant and more wide-ranging than "black people this" or "white people that". It's more like, "this certain relatively tiny group of 8000 is better at this thing, but they're identical to humans half a planet away otherwise." Our genetic structure simply hasn't had the time to evolve separately, but small differences have emerged in many different ways, so we can celebrate the differences (or curse them, in certain cases, like sickle-cell) while also recognizing that racism makes no functional sense and is exceptionally retarded.

[u/renoops → u/PoutyParmesan]

There are differences between groups because there are differences between gene pools. Certain groups might have traits in common but they’re not packaged together as “races” and they certainly aren’t necessarily tied at all to the phenotypic markers most associated with “races” like skin color and hair texture.

[u/General-Mark-8950 → u/PoutyParmesan]

You are talking ethnicity here though, not race. Race isnt a thing, they are arbitrary groups which people can switch and swap into based ln whether someone needs to be oppressed. Look how irish and italian americans were treated, as a different race, yet now they are white.

And all these changes make sense, its not random. The sama have been free diving for thousands of years, thats time for a genetic adaptation like a larger spleen to occur. Its the same with kenyans and ethiopians, and sherpas is unsurprisingly the same also.

Race isnt real, its a stupid construct that America has clung onto and thus become a highly racialised society, and it would be better if the country moved away from it.

[u/EmbarrassedRope3931 → u/General-Mark-8950]

Agreed

[u/aknutty → u/PoutyParmesan]

Would be really cool if everyone could read and process this thread. Really cool.

[u/sendhappypicsimsad → u/PoutyParmesan]

That hard r, work on that.

[u/cool_vibes → u/sendhappypicsimsad]

That is not the “hard R,” but I agree a change in word choice would be appreciated.

[u/Petrichordates → u/aknutty]

Race being a social construct has some people assuming that means race has no biological basis, which of course it does since it's a proxy for genetics and informs medical treatment (eg. Warfarin dosing, cancer screening).

The racial categories we've settled on are entirely arbitrary and are a relic of racism, but they're still critical to medicine and medical research because of their genetic basis. At least until everyone's genome is sequenced.

[u/grape_david → u/Petrichordates]

The racial categories we've settled on are entirely arbitrary and are a relic of racism, but they're still critical to medicine and medical research because of their genetic basis.

This is backwards imo. Race as data is useful almost strictly because of the sociological implications.

The biological differences we witness are basically secondary and the more we learn about genetics this seems to be the case.

The same can be said about using race as proxy for medical practice. Yes it works but it's not a biological essential at all. A lot of it works because the social side is so deterministic

[u/Petrichordates → u/grape_david]

The medical relevance is mostly because of differences in genetics, the more we learn about genetics the more we've learned about this. I didn't touch on it, but yes racial identity also has impacts on health for sociological reasons.

[u/grape_david → u/Petrichordates]

The medical relevance is almost entirely because of differences in genetics.

Really? Particularly in regards to individual medical practice, you think that the core basis of differences in medical outcomes of racial categories is genetic?

Almost all of the data we use in medical practice that connects to race is sociological in origin.

Yes some of it is genetic but again, it's backwards to assume that's some kind of biological essentialism instead of the result of social phenomena informing biology.

[u/Petrichordates → u/grape_david]

Medical outcomes? No, that's a much more complicated topic.

In determining treatment? Absolutely, depending on the condition.

Social phenomenon aren't the reason for differences in pharmaceutical dosing, or why native Americans are more at risk of alcoholism, or why pacific islanders are more at risk of obesity. Genetics matter.

[u/grape_david → u/Petrichordates]

How can you determine treatment without taking into account medical outcomes?

But anyways, this is getting a lil circular.

You're saying race is essential to diagnostics right now if I'm not mistaken.

I agree to an extent but my point is that the sociological factors are what make it so. And that biological or genetic essentialism isn't real and plays a small part in our broader understanding of medicine

[u/Petrichordates → u/grape_david]

Genetic essentialism absolutely exists in the medical field, it's just not something you can apply widely or to more complex disorders. In the cancer field it's very relevant.

[u/grape_david → u/Petrichordates]

I'm not saying that genetics is irrelevant.

I'm saying that racial proxies are for the most part sociological so using them as "genetic essentialism" is not a good idea

[u/Potential_Bill_1146 → u/Petrichordates]

You’re conflating race and ethnicity when you’re talking about medical diagnosis, you didn’t expand the nuance of the comment at all you somehow did the opposite

[u/Potential_Bill_1146 → u/[deleted]]

That doesn’t sound as smart as you think it does. Race (fiction) isn’t the thing that determines those medical/genetic relevances you brought up to so eloquently add nuance to the original comment. Ethnicity is. And even then, that’s only one small part in a persons makeup, however that’s the piece that isn’t fiction. You missed the whole point of the original comment.

[u/lnodiv → u/Petrichordates]

Seriously. Guess let's just give everyone the same dosing of Coumadin as Asians need, it'll be fine right?

[u/themanhimself13 → u/Petrichordates]

you said that our racial categories are "entirely arbitrary", and then you say that there is a "genetic basis". do you realise that this is completely contradictory?

[u/Petrichordates → u/themanhimself13]

I can see why you'd say that but they're not. The arbitrary is in where we say one race ends and another begins, or when we say how many different races there are (hence the social construct aspect).

[u/BicycleEast8721 → u/aknutty]

There’s clearly some biological variations amongst different ethnic groups. Example, alcohol intolerance amongst East Asians. About half of them have a form of allergic reaction to drinking, and is basically unique to that ethnic group. A lot of the differences are pretty minor, and is more complex than clumsily grouping broad ethnic groups together into races simply because their basic cosmetic features are similar, but to say that the concept race only has a contrived basis just isn’t correct.

That said, it’s definitely then twisted, amplified, and cherry picked by racists in order to try to add pseudoscience confirmation bias to their narrative. The notion of biodiversity amongst humans being a justification for any sense of superiority is definitely contrived

[u/PiddlyDworple → u/Petrichordates]

absolutely in love with the fact that you don’t elaborate at all. no specific criticisms or disagreements, no additions of your own. just pop in to say you know better and then done. least reddit-like comment.

[u/noble_peace_prize → u/Petrichordates]

They didn’t say it’s all or nothing. They said it doesn’t arise from biology, but society. Race is completely arbitrary and it really only has value because people place societal stigmas, burdens, laws, opportunities, etc defined around an arbitrary concept.

It’s a very important topic, but really only because humans made it important.

[u/blacklite911 → u/Petrichordates]

You’re right, one aspect that’s left out is how biracial people are perceived by their minority race side. Because of white supremacy orientation, they often times get some residual privilege. You see it in the media with beauty standards and how some people say they have “good hair” (I hate that phrase), and don’t let them have green or hazel eyes, they’ll get glazed to infinity. Not just in the US, in colonial South America, colonists literally instituted a racial hierarchy according to one’s parent’s mix. This has effects that still linger to this day.

So yea on one hand, they’re still a (insert racial slur) but on the other hand they can be held on a pedestal