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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1143
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:20 pm: | 
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Sorry to bother you all with yet another on-line forum. But this is so relevant to so many of our discussions here that I just couldn't resist. Articles can be accessed on the sidebar to the left. They vary in terms of jargon and readability, but are worth at least a browse. I think I have in the past on these boards hailed the work of Troy Duster on this topic.
Enjoy!
http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/
In a March 14, 2005, Op-Ed piece published in The New York Times, Dr. Armand Marie Leroi, an evolutionary developmental biologist at Imperial College in London, challenged scholarly approaches that treat race as a social construction, arguing that recent research in the biological and the social sciences offers fresh evidence that racial differences are genetically identifiable. His editorial, "A Family Tree in Every Gene," expresses a more widespread tendency among certain communities of researchers to revise longstanding scientific understandings about the relationship between race and genetics.
The SSRC believes the subject of race and genomics warrants critical reflection and debate among researchers and the broader public, given its important implications across an array of disciplines in the biological and social sciences, its potential impact on a number of policy domains, as well as broader consequences for society at large. In an effort to contribute to this discussion, we have commissioned a series of short essays by leading researchers with a diverse set of disciplinary and analytic perspectives. We hope this forum will serve as a tool for scholars, educators, policy makers and students, and promote informed debate on what is no doubt one of the most important public issues of our time.
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Prettybabygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 386
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:32 pm: |
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I don't think it's relevant at all, Yvette. As Kola would say, "Is color real?"
I think that's the actual question, don't you?
Or let me put it another way. When dealing with Mariah Carey, many would forget all about race, because she looks white.
But what about when dealing black men being racial profiled by police or Black soccer players in Spain? Then what does race have to do with it?
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Prettybabygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 387
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:34 pm: |
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I just read the article and I'm sorry, but this is like saying since gay people are "born" gay--nobody should hate or discriminate against them.
How does this information stop our "color" from stigmatizing us Yvette?
Even when educated with this info, who really cares?
The "color" is still evident.
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1144
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:37 pm: |
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I think that's the actual question, don't you?
Insofar as the colorism topic frequently turns to questions of who is "genetically" blacker than who, yes I agree. |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 931
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:39 pm: |
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Race is real cuz I'm really Black. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1145
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:39 pm: |
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I do not post information assuming that everyone will care, but with the hopes that some may and some may find it interesting enough to discuss. There are over a dozen essays linked to as part of this forum. I repeat my opinion that they are worth a read. |
Prettybabygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 388
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:39 pm: |
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So you're saying "color" has nothing to do with racism???
I believe that race is just a phoney word for "color".
Notice nobody gives a damn that Europeans and Asians aren't the same race. Or that Latinos have no race.
Race really means "color", because there is no such thing as race.
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Prettybabygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 389
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:41 pm: |
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Yvette. Sorry. Forgive.
I wasn't meaning that you shouldn't post this. I love that you posted it!
I just get frustrated at people ignoring the real points that apply to "daily living".
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Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1146
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 09:48 pm: |
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Prettybabygirl, no apologies needed. I think this excerpt from Dr. Duster speaks to a lot of what Kola and others sometimes say here:
In presenting their justification for FDA approval of an ethnic/race-specific drug, the company (NitroMed) [HN4] announced, "The African American community is affected at a greater rate by heart failure than that of the corresponding Caucasian population. African Americans between the ages of 45 and 64 are 2.5 times more likely to die from heart failure than Caucasians in the same age range".
However, both age and survey population complicate this picture. The age group 45 to 64 only accounts for about 6% of heart failure mortality, and for those over 65, the statistical differences between "African Americans and Caucasians" nearly completely disappear (7). Researchers recently published a study that was explicitly designed to compare racial differences, by sampling whites from eight surveys completed in Europe, the United States, and Canada and contrasting these results with those of a sample of three surveys among blacks from Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States (8). Hypertension rates were measured in 85,000 subjects. The data from Brazil, Trinidad, and Cuba show a significantly smaller racial disparity in blood pressure than is found in North America (8).[HN5]
Even within the category African American, the highly variable phenotype of skin color complicates the hypertension and race thesis. A classic epidemiological study on the topic also found differences within the African American population--with darker-skinned blacks generally having higher mean blood pressure than lighter-skinned blacks. The authors concluded that it was not the color of the skin that produced a direct causal outcome in hypertension, but that darker skin color in the United States is associated with less access to scarce and valued resources of the society. There is a complex feedback loop and interaction effect between phenotype and social practices related to that phenotype.
I find research in this area very fascinating--not to mention complex. I am by no means an expert in the area of genetics. (Bioethics is only part of my minor program, and genetics only a sub-area of that.) But I do think that increasingly these issues related to the Human Genome Project and other projects will necessitate our becoming a lot more aware of the issues. A lot of people stand to make a lot of money off of our communities. We need to not be asleep at the wheel.
And that's my sermon for the evening! LOL
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Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1380
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 10:13 pm: |
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Yvettep: excuse my laziness, for I can not read too much on the computer screen or I will surely go blind. I would like to say, however, that the presence of biological differences among socalled racial groups doesn't necessarily mean these differences constitute distinct races.
In other words, is heart failure an African American problem...or the problem of people of African descent across the world? Is it social and economic? |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 932
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, July 19, 2006 - 10:28 pm: |
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It's interesting reading if you're interested in the social sciences. Which I am not. And after having been Black all my life - I don't need some white man like this:
R.C. Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Professor Emeritus of Zoology at Harvard University, has written a number of books and articles on evolution and human variation, including Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA and The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment
to tell me about the day-to-day experiences that I encounter as a Black person, which I'm fully aware of first hand. Not by observing some lab rats running thru a maze trying to find their way out.
Ph.Ds can make serious bank writing essays about how dark skinned people have more stress and health problems than light skinned people, and how white ppl perceive Blacks in a negative light, how white drivers don't brake for little Black children in the crosswalk - but we know this already. Those Ph.Ds can't tell me shizit. Because I'm really Black. EVERY DAY. |
Yvettep
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1147
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 08:00 am: |
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It's interesting reading if you're interested in the social sciences. Which I am not.
Are you interested in medicines to treat such conditions as heart disease? Are you interested in medical interventions for ovarian cancer? Are you interested in cures for Alzheimer's disease? Are you interested in access to life and health insurance? Are you interested in educational testing for gifted talented and special education classes for Black (and other) children? Are you interested in access to colleges and universities? Are you interested in the juvenile and adult criminal justice system?
All of these areas--and many, many more--are ones in which current and future issues related to genomic science have/will be applied. Including issues having to do with genomics and race.
And P.S.: I only wish it were true that most PhD's can make "serious bank"! Or maybe I'll just be one of the lucky ones who actually do! LOL |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1382
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 08:46 am: |
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Mzuri:
It's interesting reading if you're interested in the social sciences. Which I am not. And after having been Black all my life - I don't need some white man like this:
Thats the problem! You have confused the experience of being a black person with "race."
The category Race attempts to classify humans into distinct groups... it does not tell you what it means to be black.
Yvettep:
But is heart disease about race or about being african american and color? If something is about race, should it not apply to all black people? This here is the dilemma!
We know that African Americans have been here since 1619 and before. Now, is it not plausible that our experience as an exported, exploited African family over time had contributed to our proclivity to live less long than whites, to have a higher rate of heart attacks, etc... that is the biological combined with the social...
And that if we look at Africans in an African country, blacks in Brasil, and blacks in Australia we would have different outcomes or the same? If it is indeed race, shouldn't the the outcome be the same across region and perhaps time?
Is the level of oppression and exploitation included in this. What about Africans and other groups that have had limited encounters with the white man?
...in other words, is it more biological (race) or is it social (that is racism...the act of murdering and exploiting black people)?
There is another kind of work that does not presume race as some of these people do, but are interested in the fact of racism--this is uncontestable--and how it has contributed to the health of black people! |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 933
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 09:10 am: |
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Actually was referring to the topic at hand. And as it pertains to me and my immediate family, I'm not interested. Perhaps I should spend more time composing what I post here, but I won't since I think my point was clear. This is a discussion forum and I'm not writing dissertations here. We weren't discussing ALZ, special ed, criminal justice or the world monetary system. We were discussing whether race was real and when I woke up this morning, my ass was still Black. All the talking, writing and musing in the world won't change that.
I can only go by what I know first hand. If you are a Ph.D and you're not making money, then you need a turnaround. You should definitely apply your scholarly wisdom, public speaking and writing abilities, street smarts, passion and wherewithal and turn it into cayzash. Unless of course you just prefer being broke. |
Urban_scribe
Regular Poster
Username: Urban_scribe
Post Number: 28
Registered: 05-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 09:12 am: |
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My understanding of race is that it is a socio-ethnic concept rather than a scientific fact.
There is no such thing as being genetically Black or genetically White. However, one can have African DNA or European DNA. But having African DNA does not make one Black no more than having European DNA makes one White; as DNA is scientific fact but Blackness and Whiteness are social and cultural concepts.
The race we see with our eyes is a result of our personal social/cultural biases. For example, PBG stated that Mariah Carey looks White. To me MC does not look White, she looks Hispanic. The overwhelming majority of Hispanics' backgrounds consist of African, Amerindian and European ancestry. And that's what I see when I look at Mariah Carey and others who look like her. Again, we look at people and determine their race based on our own concepts of what race looks like. This would also explain why Hispanic is not considered a race but an ethnicity - due to their heritage an individual Hispanic's race is too difficult to pinpoint. Hispanics determine whether they're Black Hispanics or White Hispanics based on how they were raised. This often creates conflict when we encounter Hispanics who are as dark as Blacks (and darker) yet do not consider themselves Black because they were not raised as Black.
Thusly, it is impossible to look at anyone and determine their race with any real accuracy. Yet, we're all guilty of doing exactly that everyday based on how we were taught to perceive race and as a result humankind as a whole suffers. |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 934
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 09:19 am: |
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Yukio - If I'm confusing race with being Black, then my Black ass is just confused. |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 935
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 09:27 am: |
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And BTW, I'm one of those Black people who happens to believe that Blacks are superior to whites. But I guess I'm confused about all of that as well. LOL. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1384
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 09:50 am: |
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Mzuri:
Since this is a multicultural black site, you don't really know what it means to be black, but what it means to be black [african american, region, etc...?] in the U.S.
African Americans think they have ownership on blackness but we don't! There are other notions that are as legitimate [not that all african americans think alike of course].
With that said, you are living the experience of an African American in the U.S.
Race identifies, or at least it is suppose to, biological differences that distinguish one group from another group.
In other words, you experiences in this country are NOT the result of your biological make-up, but how people, yes people, have assigned negative or positive meanings to the color of you skin, hair texture, etc.... |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 937
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 09:57 am: |
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Okay. But I was Black when I lived in Europe too. I haven't always been here in the U.S.A. And since it's our biological differences that distinguishes us as Black people, and causes us to have the "Black experience" it is difficult for me to separate the two. Being Black and race are intertwined for me.
Yes, I know what race is. Supposedly that determination is not made by the color of our skin but by the texture of our hair, and in Asians - their ear wax - which has a different consistency than the ear wax of Negroids and Caucasoids. And supposedly you can be dark skinned and still be classified as Caucasoid.
But I'm still Black! And if we wake up tomorrow to some grand announcement that race is really just an illusion and we are all created equal, NOTHING is going to change. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 5190
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 11:12 am: |
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I wonder what the PURPOSE of such studies will be. Because it should seem apparent to all that there DIFFERENCES amongst human beings. And those differences are born from myriad physiciological, geographical/climate, dietary, etc. differences amongst man/womankind.
But I think the fact that, say, your average healthy Asian man can impregnate your average healthy White woman just as easily as he could an Asian woman (or an Black or Indian woman, for that matter) proves we're all BIOLOGICALLY ONE species of animal...
...or we are, essentially. ONE "race".
But I concede it is possible I am over-simplifying things. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 5191
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 11:18 am: |
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Am I the only one who thinks we could identify and remedy ailments and issues that are more likely to occur amongst people of full or partially African descent WITHOUT getting too bogged down in whether "race" exists or how such should be defined? |
Prettybabygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 390
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 12:09 pm: |
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No Abm. That's what I was say'n.
I think the question of "race" is a non-question. There is no race. There is "color" as Kola so eloquently points out. And color is not a social construct.
Due to human nature fearing anything different--humans are automatically hung up on "color" or "slanted eyes" or "apple booty" vs. "flat booty".
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 436
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 12:31 pm: |
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Wow! I like these posts. Very interesting.... |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 5195
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 12:34 pm: |
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PBG,
I'm not discounting what you've previously said. But it seems too often we become so hellbent upon asserting a position that we appear to be squabbling for little reason at all. |
Yukio
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Yukio
Post Number: 1386
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 12:36 pm: |
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Mzuri: You are right. I agree with you. They are intertwined, but they are not the same. Thats all I'm saying.
Yes, I know what race is. Supposedly that determination is not made by the color of our skin but by the texture of our hair, and in Asians - their ear wax - which has a different consistency than the ear wax of Negroids and Caucasoids. And supposedly you can be dark skinned and still be classified as Caucasoid.
That is an old understanding of race...maybe more than 50 yrs. old, in fact. This old understanding presumes that these differences that you detailed, and others, make up racial differences. Put another way, just because there are biological differnces between one social group and another does not mean that these differences are based on race.
None of this changes your experience as a black person either here or Europe. I have never disputed that. But as I said to ABM, if we focus less on race and more on racism then we can get somewhere.
Because your experiences as a black person in the U.S. or Europe is the product of racism, specially the transatlantic slavetrade, slavery, jim crow, colonialism, etc....
You biological make-up had nothing to do with this. Europeans and Africans did this for political and economic power. And Europeans legitimized these practices for themselves [like the Nazi did for themselves], and they began to believe it themselves that we were suppose to be slaves, and they made laws to legitimized this, and an economy--with our free labor--and they used this for industrial capitalism--all of this is related to the interconnectedness of the assumption of race, racism, and what it means to be black in the New World.
To say that race is the same as being black, as I see it, is to say that it wasn't white supremacy but it was, in fact, our biological make-up which is responsible for our plight! There is a big differnce in this!
Prettybabygirl,
But it is not color on which europeans exploited black people. Your error is to presume that something has to be "REAL" in order for it to influence people to do things. You are wrong! This is what confuses many of you....people believed that the world was flat...mark jackson thought the white Tom Chambers couldn't dunk! Need I say more? |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 954
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 08:52 pm: |
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No. Uh uh. I saw that ear wax shizit on Discovery Channel or TLC recently. It hasn't been 50 years. Anyway, I get your point and I ain't trying to argue. All I'm saying is that regardless of how many studies are done or how much hypothesizing - it's just another day in the hood. LOL.
I just got back from a meeting. There's a business convention/expo next week and the chamber of commerce is hosting. We had a planning session and afterwards the lady in charge introduced me to a white man. She told him a bit about my business and the man looked at me in disbelief. I stood up, shook his hand and started talking about my thing - blah blah and I'm listed in the yellow pages and this is my URL and blah blah - and he was like the twilight zone. It seems that white ppl cannot fatham Blacks as business minded. Especially not Black women. Like all we could do is mop floors. Black/white/race. Scenes like that just crack me up. |
Prettybabygirl
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Prettybabygirl
Post Number: 391
Registered: 04-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, July 20, 2006 - 11:22 pm: |
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Abm, read what you wrote and then read what I wrote.
I was agreeing with you and giving an example of what you had just said. 
Not squabbling.
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 460
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 22, 2006 - 04:58 pm: |
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"It seems that white ppl cannot fatham Blacks as business minded. Especially not Black women. Like all we could do is mop floors. Black/white/race. Scenes like that just crack me up."
Good point. Such is the reality of living in a white dominated world. It is up to us to combat and tear down these crippling stereotypes. I wish you luck in whatever your business is. And yeah, you’re right again with the public perception of a black woman doing anything successful and professional. Even though I empathically disagree with her politics (and I don't like her boss), I do applaud Condoleezza Rice for the high profile professional image she has acquired. I know this will piss some readers off, but I would rather for my daughter to emulate Condoleezza Rice vice Mo'Nique or Lil' Kim. Sorry, but that's how I feel.
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