From: Christian Weisgerber (naddy@mips.inka.de)
Date: Sun Dec 22 2002 - 17:45:15 MST
Robert J. Bradbury <bradbury@aeiveos.com> wrote:
> A while back we had some rather extensive discussion
> regarding "race". I believe I asserted that it didn't
> exist. In light of this NY Times article based on a
> recent study I may need to modify my opinion.
I don't think we should declare human races to be nonexistent just
because the idea is politically incorrect. Anybody who declares
that there are no systematic non-cultural differences between, say,
a group of indigenous North Europeans and a likewise group from
Subsaharan Africa needs to have his head examined.
I don't have a problem accepting that geographically separated
groups of people have evolved distinctive traits. Sure sounds
reasonable. Now, whether you can draw clear borders and just where
these are to be drawn (e.g. can you really lump all of Black Africa
together?) is another question.
However, and obviously, those distinctions start to collapse when
people originating from separated locations meet and interbreed,
something that has happened extensively for instance in the Americas.
In European languages we still have historical terms such as "mulatto"
and "mestizo" that have long ago ceased to be applicable because
modern populations are just too interbred.
Treating, say, the Afro-American population in the USA as a homogeneous
group, and one that is idential to Africans, is absurd. Afro-American
had ancestors from a multitude of different African ethnic groups
freely mixing with a multitude of European and other populations.
They do not have a common "negro gene". In fact, in the USA "race"
is primarily a _cultural_ distinction.
-- Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de
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