how do black and mixed race readers ov tctc think

[Vraith]

Racism permeates thru the very fabric of human existence....How have we ever survived as a species?

I don't think this is true at all; racism is not genetic, it's cultural [learned behavior]. Historically, both race and culture were, to a great extent, geographical and every culture defines some kind of other, and race was an easy difference to spot.

As race and culture become more integrated, you'll see less racism [though I think there will always be sub-cultures and throwbacks who use race as a basis because you can do it without thinking...it's easy. Some will do it because they have to hate or blame someone, some as a manipulation for power].

Also, for every person who says "They're different, they're dangerous," there's another who says "They're different, how cool," "They're different...but are they really," or "They're different, what can I learn?"

[ParanoiA]

I may be out on a limb, but considering in-group/out-group instincts, perhaps racism is nothing more than the dying whimper of our innate resistance to racial homogenization.

[Vraith]

I may be out on a limb, but considering in-group/out-group instincts, perhaps racism is nothing more than the dying whimper of our innate resistance to racial homogenization.

I don't think this is innate either...I think it's learned/cultural.

[Vader]

Strictly (and biolgically) speaking there are no different human races.

[ParanoiA]

I may be out on a limb, but considering in-group/out-group instincts, perhaps racism is nothing more than the dying whimper of our innate resistance to racial homogenization.

I don't think this is innate either...I think it's learned/cultural.

Are you saying ingroup/outgroup sociology is learned/cultural? One has to wonder where the line between that and genetic adaptation lies. I think it's instinctive and I think it has everything to do with a genetic imperative to evolve successful pack genes. We group and subgroup to such complex systems of allegiance that it really can't be anything but instinctive, in my mind.

Wiki has a short bit on it, and I remember seeing a documentary on the research piece cited below.

In sociology, an ingroup is a social group towards which an individual feels loyalty and respect, usually due to membership in the group. This loyalty often manifests itself as an ingroup bias. Commonly encountered ingroups include family members, people of the same race, culture or religion, and so on. Research demonstrates that people often privilege ingroup members over outgroup members even when the ingroup has no actual social standing; for instance, a group of people with the same color shirts, when the other group has another color of shirt.[1] The term originates from social identity theory.

With all of that in mind, I have to contribute some element of racism to a nature impulse to divide or at least an impulse for an opportunity to divide along the lines of skin color. The thing is, we obviously have more than enough capacity to easily out think such instinct. Stealing is a natural impulse, yet most of us manage that one ok.

[Vraith]

I may be out on a limb, but considering in-group/out-group instincts, perhaps racism is nothing more than the dying whimper of our innate resistance to racial homogenization.

I don't think this is innate either...I think it's learned/cultural.

Are you saying ingroup/outgroup sociology is learned/cultural? One has to wonder where the line between that and genetic adaptation lies. I think it's instinctive and I think it has everything to do with a genetic imperative to evolve successful pack genes. We group and subgroup to such complex systems of allegiance that it really can't be anything but instinctive, in my mind.

Wiki has a short bit on it, and I remember seeing a documentary on the research piece cited below.

In sociology, an ingroup is a social group towards which an individual feels loyalty and respect, usually due to membership in the group. This loyalty often manifests itself as an ingroup bias. Commonly encountered ingroups include family members, people of the same race, culture or religion, and so on. Research demonstrates that people often privilege ingroup members over outgroup members even when the ingroup has no actual social standing; for instance, a group of people with the same color shirts, when the other group has another color of shirt.[1] The term originates from social identity theory.

With all of that in mind, I have to contribute some element of racism to a nature impulse to divide or at least an impulse for an opportunity to divide along the lines of skin color. The thing is, we obviously have more than enough capacity to easily out think such instinct. Stealing is a natural impulse, yet most of us manage that one ok.

All good points. I think, though, that the relationship with instinct is simple for reptiles, more complicated for mammals, most for primates [people, literally, have fewer instinctual behaviors] In this context [race relationships]:
We have 2 [well, more, but most relevant here] things we're hardwired for: to recognize patterns [similarity, sameness], and recognize difference. But our reactions to the recognition are cultural/environmental/learned. And the mind, generalizes the specific to global...[I'd argue that real education/maturity is directly related to undoing the generalization]. At any rate, if/when differences=negative outcomes "instinctual" in or out/us or them takes place, if/when differences=positive outcomes, "intinctual" "welcome to our place" happens.
The totality is much more complicated than this because so many instances are involved, some have much more weight than others [and the weight is variable from individual to individual] and the generalized connections are not [or not always] logical, or linear. For example, where I live there is a Seneca Nation reservation. I know a number of other whites who have never spent any time with anyone who lives on a reservation that judge them all because NYS can't collect cigarette/gas taxes on the reservations.
They were not born instinctually knowing a single part of this chain of reasoning [not that there is any actual reasoning involved in it at all].

The "complex systems of allegiance" is exactly why I think it cannot be instinctual.

[ParanoiA]

I don't think this is innate either...I think it's learned/cultural.

Are you saying ingroup/outgroup sociology is learned/cultural? One has to wonder where the line between that and genetic adaptation lies. I think it's instinctive and I think it has everything to do with a genetic imperative to evolve successful pack genes. We group and subgroup to such complex systems of allegiance that it really can't be anything but instinctive, in my mind.

Wiki has a short bit on it, and I remember seeing a documentary on the research piece cited below.

In sociology, an ingroup is a social group towards which an individual feels loyalty and respect, usually due to membership in the group. This loyalty often manifests itself as an ingroup bias. Commonly encountered ingroups include family members, people of the same race, culture or religion, and so on. Research demonstrates that people often privilege ingroup members over outgroup members even when the ingroup has no actual social standing; for instance, a group of people with the same color shirts, when the other group has another color of shirt.[1] The term originates from social identity theory.

With all of that in mind, I have to contribute some element of racism to a nature impulse to divide or at least an impulse for an opportunity to divide along the lines of skin color. The thing is, we obviously have more than enough capacity to easily out think such instinct. Stealing is a natural impulse, yet most of us manage that one ok.

All good points. I think, though, that the relationship with instinct is simple for reptiles, more complicated for mammals, most for primates [people, literally, have fewer instinctual behaviors] In this context [race relationships]:
We have 2 [well, more, but most relevant here] things we're hardwired for: to recognize patterns [similarity, sameness], and recognize difference. But our reactions to the recognition are cultural/environmental/learned. And the mind, generalizes the specific to global...[I'd argue that real education/maturity is directly related to undoing the generalization]. At any rate, if/when differences=negative outcomes "instinctual" in or out/us or them takes place, if/when differences=positive outcomes, "intinctual" "welcome to our place" happens.
The totality is much more complicated than this because so many instances are involved, some have much more weight than others [and the weight is variable from individual to individual] and the generalized connections are not [or not always] logical, or linear. For example, where I live there is a Seneca Nation reservation. I know a number of other whites who have never spent any time with anyone who lives on a reservation that judge them all because NYS can't collect cigarette/gas taxes on the reservations.
They were not born instinctually knowing a single part of this chain of reasoning [not that there is any actual reasoning involved in it at all].

The "complex systems of allegiance" is exactly why I think it cannot be instinctual.

Hmm, well that's interesting. I've never thought of in/out group psychology to be a conditioned process. I will have to revisit all of this, because that's quite a game changer. If I'm reading you right, you're essentially saying that the only instinct we have is pattern recognition and every impulse beyond that is cultural/environmental.

I can see where culture and environment can condition raw data, but I'm having a hard time believing it effects the initiation of in/out group association. Pack behavior is so instictive in other animals, that it's a little odd to except ourselves from that same instinct, just because we can think around it.

I don't know. It's interesting. You've got me thinking so look out for the smoke.

[Vraith]

Essentially, yes...I think there are a couple other instincts, but not many.
And I agree we are 'pack-like' to some extent, but not born with a preference for a particular pack [like race, for example].
I'll be interested in what you have to say.

[peter]

Strictly (and biolgically) speaking there are no different human races.

I agree - and without even the modifying preliminary 'strictly and biologically'. Race is one of those outmoded concepts that has no real meaning in our modern world (if it ever had meaning other than to justify the inate prejudice of societys that could not justify them by any other means) and should be discarded ASAP. (Culture of course is a different entity altogether.)
The concept was introduced (I think, though I may be wrong on this) by evolutionary biologists of the 18/19th century as an aid if you like, to understanding the process of speciation, and of course was siezed upon immediatly and exploited by those who in a time of high moral ferver, needed to justify their domination and exploitation of those different cultures they encountered in the expanding world of thier travells in pursuit of wealth and power.

[ParanoiA]

Essentially, yes...I think there are a couple other instincts, but not many.
And I agree we are 'pack-like' to some extent, but not born with a preference for a particular pack [like race, for example].
I'll be interested in what you have to say.

Well, I actually couldn't find anything that just comes out and says it. The articles I found on it go into detail about in-group identity and how that creates the out-group. They talk about self esteem and value derived from identifying one's self in a group - the qualities of the group become the qualities of the self.

I'm not seeing the conditioned initiation of grouping. Grouping and labeling is part of how our brains work. You mentioned above about "recognizing patterns". I guess what I'm seeing is an instinctive impulse to recognize patters and to parse them.

And that would be required for mating. Ingroup psychology must exist instinctively at least in some rudimentary form if for no better reason than to make sure it's a human we're mating with. I can't believe we screwed everything in the forrest and eventually figured out that other humans provide the best chance for reproduction and then conditioned this behavior for the rest of the species.

In short, the impulse to compete and our brain's mode of recognizing patterns, as you put it, would seem to mingle with conditioned behaviors and expectations. I don't see how you could separate instinct from in/out group behavior, just as well as I don't see how you could separate cultural and environmental influences.

I may be on the wrong track, perhaps, because I'm still speculating as opposed to reviewing good science. But I will say, I have to give more credit to conditioned influences than I did before.

I agree - and without even the modifying preliminary 'strictly and biologically'. Race is one of those outmoded concepts that has no real meaning in our modern world (if it ever had meaning other than to justify the inate prejudice of societys that could not justify them by any other means) and should be discarded ASAP. (Culture of course is a different entity altogether.)

I don't understand this at all. It's not an outmoded concept, it's a distinction. A quick Wiki query is in order:

The term race or racial group usually refers to the categorization of humans into populations or groups on the basis of various sets of heritable characteristics.[1] The physical features commonly seen as indicating race are salient visual traits such as skin color, cranial or facial features and hair texture.[1][2]

Conceptions of race, as well as specific ways of grouping races, vary by culture and over time, and are often controversial for scientific as well as social and political reasons. The controversy ultimately revolves around whether or not the socially constructed and perpetuated beliefs regarding race are biologically warranted; and the degree to which differences in ability and achievement are a product of inherited "racial" (i.e., genetic) traits.[3][4]

The problem with racial distinctions is not inherent, it's history. We're ashamed of how it was used, so now (as usual) the pendulum swings the extreme opposite direction and now we're pretending as if it's a meaningless tool for the wicked. One day, it will come to rest in the center once our baggage is buried with us.

I'm not bothered, offended nor worried that we are different. We are far more alike than we are different. Some races excell at some things and fail at others depending on their characteristics and the task being measured or observed. There's a reason why NFL football is dominated by black folks, around 75% if I remember correctly, yet only make up 14% of the population. And it's ok. No reason to lynch anyone or hang yourself, it's just life.

People are different, they are not equal. Sorry, nature is not concerned with our philosophical system of equality. And yes, that's ok. It doesn't make someone better than someone else - it only makes one better than the other at a specific task. And since race is essentially a pattern of traits passed on from generation to generation, then it's only obvious that within the unique make up of each individual lies a subpool of qualities pluralized in others.

To ignore that with group delusional psychology doesn't make any sense to me. That's not "correcting" racism, that's ignoring it. I wish we could stop lying to ourselves with flowery hippy logic and pretending we're visionaries fixing the mistakes of the past. We're not. We're more like scared little children, insecure in being a little different from one another.

[Barnetto]

Richard Dawkins has a very good (in my opinion) take on this set out (I think) in the Ancestor's Tale. The point is that our brain is wired to find distinctions and groupings (ingroups and outgroups, if you like) and especially group opposites (black/white, hot/cold etc) as it does tend to help make sense of the world on a grand scale. The problem is that our brain tends to over-apply this technique (unless we make effort to stop and think carefully).

He calls it the "tyranny of the discontinuous mind". There is an example in there based on human racial differences and the particular absurdity of calling Colin Powell a "black" man.

The important point is that race isn't irrelevant per se (it's very interesting in many respects - for example in relation to why athletes of ultimate west african origin have more fast twitch muscle making then, on the whole, better sprinters) but it is irrelevant to many many areas of life (and especially to how you treat and view other human beings).

[peter]

I don't understand this at all. It's not an outmoded concept, it's a distinction.

C'mon ParanoiA. Your very next quote describes exactly what I was refering to. ie The variations in our uderstanding of what is meant by 'race' are so great depending on who is doing the defining (and on what ends they are seeking to serve) that in the modern age of shifting populations and greatly increased 'genetic drift' the concept is virtually meaningless.

[ParanoiA]

Richard Dawkins has a very good (in my opinion) take on this set out (I think) in the Ancestor's Tale. The point is that our brain is wired to find distinctions and groupings (ingroups and outgroups, if you like) and especially group opposites (black/white, hot/cold etc) as it does tend to help make sense of the world on a grand scale. The problem is that our brain tends to over-apply this technique (unless we make effort to stop and think carefully).

He calls it the "tyranny of the discontinuous mind". There is an example in there based on human racial differences and the particular absurdity of calling Colin Powell a "black" man.

The important point is that race isn't irrelevant per se (it's very interesting in many respects - for example in relation to why athletes of ultimate west african origin have more fast twitch muscle making then, on the whole, better sprinters) but it is irrelevant to many many areas of life (and especially to how you treat and view other human beings).

Ooh, I really enjoy Dawkins. I might have to check this out. Maybe it will shed some light on the whole instinctive grouping thing.

[Vraith]

I'm not seeing the conditioned initiation of grouping. Grouping and labeling is part of how our brains work. You mentioned above about "recognizing patterns". I guess what I'm seeing is an instinctive impulse to recognize patters and to parse them.

And that would be required for mating. Ingroup psychology must exist instinctively at least in some rudimentary form if for no better reason than to make sure it's a human we're mating with. I can't believe we screwed everything in the forrest and eventually figured out that other humans provide the best chance for reproduction and then conditioned this behavior for the rest of the species.

Oh yes, parsing [sp?] occurs, both for the pattern and difference recognition hardwired aspects. But the place the lines are drawn...maybe better: the categories they are placed under, are conditioned/environmental.
And on mating: 1st of all, the way you said that cracked me up
I don't see that a biological instinct that prefers mating with humans also means a biological instinct for which human one mates with.
[and there have always been at least men...less certain for women...who would screw anything in the forest...though I'm pretty sure reproduction wasn't the point... ]
Anyway, I'm going out on a limb here...this seems logical to me, but isn't necessarily so: IF we were hardwired with specific mating preferences, we would probably all still be black. For modern man, dark skin in itself had a positive effect on survival, and very light skin a negative effect in the tropics, but outside of those areas skin tone has no positive or negative effects on survival...so the preference for mating with others with dark skin would have remained.

[ParanoiA]

Oh yes, parsing [sp?] occurs, both for the pattern and difference recognition hardwired aspects. But the place the lines are drawn...maybe better: the categories they are placed under, are conditioned/environmental.

Ok, I can dig that. To me, this is the same as saying in/out group psychology is hardwired instinct, but the choices and preferences are cultural and environmental. So the actual groups you associate and prefer and so forth, is totally conditioned.

And on mating: 1st of all, the way you said that cracked me up
I don't see that a biological instinct that prefers mating with humans also means a biological instinct for which human one mates with.
[and there have always been at least men...less certain for women...who would screw anything in the forest...though I'm pretty sure reproduction wasn't the point... ]
Anyway, I'm going out on a limb here...this seems logical to me, but isn't necessarily so: IF we were hardwired with specific mating preferences, we would probably all still be black. For modern man, dark skin in itself had a positive effect on survival, and very light skin a negative effect in the tropics, but outside of those areas skin tone has no positive or negative effects on survival...so the preference for mating with others with dark skin would have remained.

I didn't mean to imply all that downstream logic. I just meant that for a person to see another person as "the same as me", which has to happen to keep dogs from screwing cats, suggests some small element of group association going on there - and thus serves as a logical form of evidence for instinct. Otherwise, how would a human man know that this human woman is the appropriate mating association for reproduction? (No, I'm not disparaging homosexuality here, just pointing out that reproduction is different from sexual enjoyment).

But, to your futher point anyway...I remember reading that out-group rogues have a mating advantage sometimes in that genetic diversity is inherent in our psychology as well and is thought to provoke females to mate outside of their group. Maybe that plays a role in racial diversity? I'm not sure how to apply that globally...

[Vraith]

Another important factor that neither of us has really accounted for is where power fits in, situations where female preference has little or no impact. Rape during war, slavery and other situations, the killing off of competetive males, aristocrats or chiefs with choice of a woman, or multiple women...it's been ugly out there...and this has an odd relationship with preference and in/out groups, similar in outcome to what you said about the rogue advantage, but by force instead of choice.

[ParanoiA]

Another important factor that neither of us has really accounted for is where power fits in, situations where female preference has little or no impact. Rape during war, slavery and other situations, the killing off of competetive males, aristocrats or chiefs with choice of a woman, or multiple women...it's been ugly out there...and this has an odd relationship with preference and in/out groups, similar in outcome to what you said about the rogue advantage, but by force instead of choice.

Yeah, very good points.

[Barnetto]

[Ooh, I really enjoy Dawkins. I might have to check this out. Maybe it will shed some light on the whole instinctive grouping thing.

It is in The Ancestor's Tale - I checked - personally I think that the "tyrrany of the discontinuous mind" is a very powerful idea. (It's not exactly on topic, as it refers more generally to our preference for black/white over shades of grey, but it's related....)

Without wading in over my head, I think it is generally impossible to completely divorce the genetic/instinctive elements from the cultural. There is usually some combination of the two in any scenario you pick. But I'm with you on the underlying importance of instinct in the way our brain operates - it's not a machine - it has a genetic/cultural history and the way we tend to operate betrays the way the brain adapted to deal with the cultural/environmental conditions that were (a) faced by humans way back when before modern societies and (b) that were reproductively succesful (without the need for reproductive success to require behaviour according with modern ethical standards).

The important thing is that we can and generally do (as individuals) manage to transcend the baser elements of human nature. We realise that we have a choice, we can unlearn what might be otherwise inappropriate instinctive responses.

Like you, I have a problem where people refuse to recognise/ acknowledge the existence of instincts that might be distateful. To acknowledge is not to affirm or condone. Recognition is merely a first step in transcending such behaviour. That is ultimately what being human is.

[Vraith]

I don't mean in any way to imply that we have no genetic/instinctual behaviors, Barnetto. I am saying that the flow of evolution has been, with each step up, a movement to lessen the number and specificity of instincts.
For example, one of the big cats...I think Cheetah, but it could be the leopard/jaquar...literally CANNOT "go for the kill" unless the prey is running away.
I AM saying that there are very very few specific instintual behaviors for humans, and race hate/preference is not one of them.
And I am saying that most of our so-called instincts are an empty box. The size and shape of the box sets boundaries, but the behaviors within it are mostly conditional...and the further a creature is up the chain, the flimsier and emptier the box, and the more holes in it that connect to conscious control: instinct can be trained/modified. And this is, in fact, the reason that humans take so long to become adults.
And I am saying that lack of instinctive behaviors is precisely the reason we are so adaptable to environments...intellect would be completely meaningless if instincts kept you from acting on it.

[jackgiantkiller]

u2 have hijacked this post