Race without color (suspect, Brown, dollar, economic)

[jade408]

I know lots of people believe there are some "inherent" differences in the "races" but are we really using the right classification system?

This article (an oldie) poses some alternates, and the groupings are really different.
Race Without Color | DiscoverMagazine.com

But there is no agreement on the number and delineation of the sub-races, or even of the major races. Are all five of the major races equally distinctive? Are Nigerians really less different from Xhosas than aboriginal Australians are from both? Should we recognize 3 or 15 sub-races of Mongoloids? These questions have remained unresolved because skin color and other traditional racial criteria are difficult to formulate mathematically.

Some examples:

• sickle cell and anti-malaria genes
• lactose tolerance
• fingerprints

If we classify human populations by their fingerprints, most Europeans and black Africans would sort out together in one race, Jews and some Indonesians in another, and aboriginal Australians in still another. But those geographic variations in fingerprint patterns possess no known function whatsoever. They play no role in survival: whorls aren't especially suitable for grabbing kangaroos, nor do loops help bar mitzvah candidates hold on to the pointer for the Torah. They also play no role in sexual selection: while you've undoubtedly noticed whether your mate is bearded or has brown nipples, you surely haven't the faintest idea whether his or her fingerprints have more loops than whorls.

Something to think about!

[ibis67]

Cheap attempt to change the current paradigm. Race is the way it is today because humans have the gift of vision. No classification system will change that.

[Hot_Handz]

If we were just arguing about races of nonhuman animals, essentially the same uncertainties of classification would arise. But the debates would remain polite and would never attract attention outside the halls of academia. Classification of humans is different "only" in that it shapes our views of other peoples, fosters our subconscious differentiation between "us" and "them," and is invoked to justify political and socioeconomic discrimination. On this basis, many anthropologists therefore argue that even if one could classify humans into races, one should not.

It's happening anyway....even in light of sciences resistance to it.

And the million dollar question is....why does it happen? Humans haven't been able to answer it in 2.5 million years.

[TylerJAX]

The senses can be deceiving.

[Hot_Handz]

I suspect humans will become virtually homogeneous through race mixing before an "optimum level of tolerance" is achieved through propaganda in regards to all the racial ailments of society.

And at that point there will be a new apex criterion by which humans are discriminated or divided against.

[readyjack]

I used to think that it would be better to stop classifying races(i think they are bs), but it occurs to me that it won't do any good until no one cares how they are classed, and by that point.....