Race and Racism
The Scientific, Political, Social, and Pedagogical Context for the claim that "Race does not exist."
gregladen | November 29, 2008These days, many people say that race is largely a social construct; while it may have a place in describing the population genetics of some species, is not particularly applicable to humans. I'm one of those people. The race concept is generally inapplicable or at best misleading when used as it often is with our species. This is why race should be abandoned in favor of other ways of describing human variation.
At the same time, there are political, social, and pedagogical reasons to put aside the race concept. Race is not that useful of a concept to begin with, and beyond that it has…
gregladen | November 2, 2008... didn't happen to include any black people. That was later. Look:
hat tip Miss Cellania
gregladen | November 2, 2008... what? The Spanish again? Uffda....
The ugly head of Spanish racism has returned to blight Lewis Hamilton's world championship challenge in Brazil.
Lewis Hamilton apparently an Englishman of African Ancestry race car driver guy.
Thousands have targeted Hamilton on a voodoo style website, taunting him about the colour of his skin in a vile campaign that reprised the abuse he received at the start of the year in Barcelona.
More than 16,000 racist messages using terms like "nigger" and "half-breed" have been posted on a Spanish website.
Here's some newsreel:
A spokesman said: "…
gregladen | October 27, 2008UPDATE: GO HERE for more info and an interesting analysis. Including a discussion of "why 88?" and "why 14?"
]
MySpace photo of Daniel Cowart of Bells, Tennessee, charged with plot to kill obama. Obviously, this sick fuck is a poster child for gun control.
As reported by MSNBC:
Law enforcement agents have broken up a plot by two neo-Nazi skinheads to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 88 black people, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Monday.
In court records unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn…
gregladen | October 20, 2008African American children may have reduced verbal ability compared to other children to a degree that is roughly equivalent to missing a year in school, according to a recently published paper.
Is this evidence of a racial difference?
The study by Sampson et.al., published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences included more than 200 children aged 6-12 living in Chicago, and followed these children over seven years. The study controlled for poverty, and interestingly, poverty was not found to be a good predictor of differences in verbal ability.
The researchers consider…
gregladen | October 19, 2008An active following of unrepentant racist scum. Click the Obama is a Monkey Man to read more about it at TUIBG.
gregladen | October 16, 2008Well, of course. She's a suburban middle class Republican hockey mom running on the Republican ticket for Vice President. But, do we have anything more specific to say about it at this time? Well, of course.
A complaint was filed this week with Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg over the governor's failure to make a required annual Juneteenth Proclamation.
The complaint was filed Wednesday by jazz musician Gregory Charles Royal, who claims state law required Gov. Sarah Palin to make the Juneteenth Proclamation in honor of the freeing of the last remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas, on…
gregladen | October 13, 2008 A very good day of grunting worms. Credit: Ken Catania So-called Gene-Culture Co-Evolution can be very obvious and direct or it can be very subtle and complex. In almost all cases, the details defy the usual presumptions people make about the utility of culture, the nature of human-managed knowledge, race, and technology. I would like to examine two cases of gene-culture interaction: One of the earliest post-Darwinian Synthesis examples addressing malaria and sickle-cell disease, and the most recently published example, the worm-grunters of Florida, which it turns out is best…
gregladen | October 12, 2008 This is Melisa Riviere. White People sometimes do hip hop. I have a reading suggestion for you. First a little background.
I've gotten into a few arguments on race and racism in my time, some on this blog. Racist thinking is all around us. Why just a few hours ago, a neighbor complained that his car had been robbed by the black kids that pass down our street now and then. How did he know it was the black kids? Because the people who robbed his car like hip-hop. How did he know that? Because they didn't take his rock cds. Oh, did they take his hip hop cd's? Well no, he doesn't…
gregladen | October 7, 2008The Science Museum of Minnesota recently developed an exhibit called "Race: Are we so different?" This exhibit is now at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and will be in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New Orleans, Kalamazoo, Boston and Washington DC between now and June 2011.
If you get a chance, go see it.
In the meantime, a review of this exhibit has just been published in the current issue of Museum Anthropology, authored by Mischa Penn, Gil Tostevin, and yours truly, Greg Laden.
As one of the authors, it is obvious to me that this paper is brilliant! But I…
gregladen | October 5, 2008 "If it does not fit, you must acquit" Circumstances can create consequences. If Homer Simpson happens to be opening and closing his mouth in a chewing motion and happens to run into a lemon meringue pie, and thusly happens to eat said pie, it is not Homer Simpson's fault that the pie is eaten.
If some black kid happens to be standing on the corner with his friends in South L.A. during a police sweep of the neighborhood, gets nervous and walks against the "Don't Walk Sign" and gets pulled in for jaywalking, it is not society's fault or the fault of the police that this kid who has never…
gregladen | October 4, 2008
The Jackson County School Board has taken action against a teacher who apparently made racial commentary on presidential candidate Barack Obama.
According to parents and students in Greg Howard's seventh-grade social studies class, Howard on Friday, Sept. 26 asked the class a question regarding Obama's call for change, and proceeded to write out what the letters C-H-A-N-G-E stood for.
"She told me that he wrote on the board 'Can You Help A (expletive) Get Elected, and then laughed about it," said Shelia Christian, a mother of one of Howard's students.
Jackson County Superintendent Danny Sims…
gregladen | September 2, 2008"It is true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could abort every black baby in this country..."
Republican Secretary of Education William Bennet, 1985 to 1988
Hat tip: Javier,who tells me that this video is "from the same guy who did the Expelled/astrology parody."
gregladen | August 23, 2008Jamaican sprinters make people who are not really thinking about this jump, like pole vaulters, to the conclusion that there must be a gene for running fast that somehow evolved ... like Olympic Beach Volley Ball seemingly from sterile sand ... despite the numerous hurdles for such an event to happen. Such is the nature of amateur science.
As much as I'd like to make a contribution to this discussion right now, I'm engaged in other activities that preclude a knee-jerk reaction. So for now, I offer this repost of an earlier piece on running and genetics. As a wet blanket. Enjoy the wet…
gregladen | August 22, 2008Or so it would seem.
Hat tip: Phil
This blog continues to boycott the Olympics. Hey, I've been in the woods for a few days, are the Olympics still going on? Seriously. Are they?
gregladen | August 21, 2008On August 21, 1863 William C. Quantrill and a band of 450 proslavery yahoos raided Lawrence, Kansas and butchered 182 individuals, including children.
Quantrill and his men staged numerous raids into Kansas during the early part of the Civil War. He was quickly labeled an outlaw by the Union for his attacks on pro Union forces. He was involved in several skirmishes with Jayhawkers (pro Union guerilla bands) and eventually was made a Captain in the Confederate Army. His attitude towards his role in the Civil War drastically changed in 1862 when the Commander of the Department of Missouri,…
gregladen | August 21, 2008It was important that this man was thrown in jail. It is very bad that he is not spending more time there. Let me tell you why.
The South African man convicted of feeding one of his ex-workers to the lions is due to be freed on parole shortly, after three years in jail.
Mark Scott-Crossley was originally given a life sentence for murder but this was reduced after a judge said there was no proof the man was alive. [at the time the victim was thrown into the lion cage]
The remains of Nelson Chisale's body were found in the lion enclosure, causing a national outcry.
The case highlighted the…
gregladen | August 18, 2008On this day in 1964...
South Africa has been barred from taking part in the 18th Olympic Games in Tokyo over its refusal to condemn apartheid.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the decision in Lausanne, Switzerland, after South Africa failed to meet an ultimatum to comply with its demands by 16 August.
The IOC originally withdrew South Africa's invitation to Japan during the winter games in Innsbruck, Austria.
It said the decision could be overturned only if South Africa renounced racial discrimination in sport and opposed the ban in its own country on competition between…