This implies the concept is utterly meaningless from a taxonomic perspective. As opposed to, say, the concept of species, which has a specific definition and exists at a particular taxonomic level. (Note that one cannot ‘lump species into vast continental-scale agglomerations or split them as finely as you like.’)
WHAT RACES? You still haven’t defined the term in a meaningful way.
Even to whatever extent they’re true, these claims are utterly irrelevant to what it means to be an American. May I refer you to the Constitution for confirmation of this.
Are you arguing that there are no races by any definition, or that there is no meaningful difference in physiological attribute other than skin pigment, or what?
I haven’t stayed current with this disagreement going on, as one day absence yields hundreds of posts.
Can you clarify?
There were definite quotas in place for a large part of US history, laid out by the Fed govt on both how many, frrom what geographic area (not sure if country of origin level), medical fitness, and occupation.
These are googleable
You’re just dancing around the term race because it’s a loaded term. You want to use the word ‘ancestry’ instead go right ahead. You already haven’t denied biological realities of ‘ancestry’ so we’re really not particularly far off from opinion.
It was written by a White nationalist. That’s the prism under which you should read the constitution. You don’t have to necessarily agree with white nationalism of course.
If you are talking about the Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924, yes. 1917 established a literacy requirement (note: not a language specific requirement) for people over 16. 1924s act was the first seriously restrictive immigration act based on geography.
I am talking about immigration during the founding years of the Republic, as that is what raj was talking about at the time (“colonists…immigrants came later” which is already spurious anyway).
1700s - early 1800s there was really no “choosing” at all. In fact up until the 20th century there was not much resembling substantive “choosing” of “stock” populations. The Chinese Exclusion of the late 1800s (post Civil War, not pre) is the only one thar comes to mind, and that was AFTER (not before) a flood of chinese immigrants came in.
Raj’s position was that the Founding Fathers and early history of this country “chose” stock populations for immigrations. He has harped on this in a number of threads with the last one being the explicit language of the post I responded to.
This is ridiculous and historically illiterate to boot, notwithstanding any prejudices the Fathers may have had.
ED already covered it, and the whole idea that “colonists” are substantially different than “immigrants” in the early history of the 13 original colonies is debatable…at best.
When people refer to America they are referring to the European-seeded polity known as “United States.” There was no country to immigrate to before European colonists.
Research about the Indians at that time, they weren’t particularly advanced, in fact they were primitive, cruel and torturous.
Yeah I agree. Spend a week away, >500 unread posts and ED and Raj are arguing about the genetic existence of race.
My oversimplified view:
Humans come in different colors, cultures, beliefs etc…
Humans are a social animal, but very tribalistic. This makes sense through a Darwinistic lense. People care about their own progeny (genes) surviving and carrying on. To hell with those other tribes’ genes. So banding together with people that are like you gives your progeny the best chance at survival (historically).
This carries forward today whether progressives like to admit it or not. That’s why you can find a “little italy” and Chinese, white, black etc… neighborhoods in every city in the US. Even in the absence of racist public policy humans self-segregate.
Whether or not “race” exists genetically, it exists culturally. I think the more driving thing culturally is the “tribe”. In modern times “tribe” would be all of the values and norms you get encoded with growing up.
If you take identical twins of any color and raise one in a functional hard working family and the other in a violent crime family they will have very different values. Which do you let in the country?
We can’t really compare the post-Progressive Era United States of America with the United States of America of the founding generation.
Immigrants, at one time, weren’t given a tax-funded safety net and benefits. They are now, merely for being present.
Private citizens(and their businesses) could discriminate against immigrants(and citizens, for that matter) for whatever reason/s they wanted.
Fix the two issues above and let in whoever still wants in(and isn’t a serial killer, serial rapist, serial arsonist, serial burglar, etc. in his native country…in case that needs to be specified).
No, race is all too real. What I am arguing is that there is little to no biological/genetic basis for the concept. Rather, the term as it is used refers to a social construct.
If race were a genetically valid concept, one would expect that genetic variation between racial groups would be greater than genetic variation within racial groups. But in fact, this is not the case–there is vastly more variation within so-called races (85%) than between them (15%). Further, even if we look at the 15% between-group variability, we find that this number virtually disappears when we look at races originating from geographically-adjacent areas. In other words, there is a modest, gradual change in the relative frequency of certain genes when we compare peoples of one area to those of the next–as opposed to the relatively sudden differences in frequency that would be expected if race had a genetic basis.
When we (ie, humans) note that groups hailing (ancestrally) from geographically diverse locales manifest differences in phenotype (eg, different skin tones or facial features) that strike us as salient, it seems intuitively obvious to us that there must be a categorical difference between these groups–hence the concept of race. But the fact is, the opposite is true–these seemingly striking differences simply represent extreme examples of noncategorical gene clustering that occurs along a continuum. It is akin to an alien meeting a bunch of jockeys and then a basketball team, and concluding on the basis of the striking difference in height that the two groups must represent different species.
You say that race is such that it can be applied to an entire continent of people or be ‘split as finely as you like,’ but I’m the one dancing around the term? Please.
Read my response to @treco above, and you’ll see we’re worlds apart.
That is such an absurd suggestion, I don’t even know how to respond.
You notice they jump from 1790 all the way to 1875? There’s a reason for that, and it is that no such restrictions were passed. Again, I mentioned that I was specifically referring to the time period of the 1700s - early/mid 1800s. The Chinese Exclusion Act wasn’t until 1880 or so, and again happened after the immigrants were already flooding in. There was no “choosing” pre-emptively, which was the entire thrust of Raj’s post. He’s made the argument several times now in different threads, referencing the founding fathers and their era.
I’m well aware of the Naturalization Act of 1790. But it did not restrict IMMIGRATION to the USA whatsoever. It restricted full citizenship. These are two very different things. Raj commented on immigration, not citizenship. I will add that I have already been on record numerous times as supporting the notion that all countries have the moral standing in addition to the legal standing to regulate who they let in and who they let become citizens.
No, race is all too real. What I am arguing is that there is little to no biological/genetic basis for the concept. Rather, the term as it is used refers to a social construct.
If race were a genetically valid concept, one would expect that genetic variation between racial groups would be greater than genetic variation within racial groups. But in fact, this is not the case–there is vastly more variation within so-called races (85%) than between them (15%). Further, even if we look at the 15% between-group variability, we find that this number virtually disappears when we look at races originating from geographically-adjacent areas. In other words, there is a modest, gradual change in the relative frequency of certain genes when we compare peoples of one area to those of the next–as opposed to the relatively sudden differences in frequency that would be expected if race had a genetic basis.
When we (ie, humans) note that groups hailing (ancestrally) from geographically diverse locales manifest differences in phenotype (eg, different skin tones or facial features) that strike us as salient, it seems intuitively obvious to us that there must be a categorical difference between these groups–hence the concept of race. But the fact is, the opposite is true–these seemingly striking differences simply represent extreme examples of noncategorical gene clustering that occurs along a continuum. It is akin to an alien meeting a bunch of jockeys and then a basketball team, and concluding on the basis of the striking difference in height that the two groups must represent different species. [/quote]
While it’s certainly true there is more variation within races than between them, there are statistical differences in characteristics (not absolute) between groups. Some of these characteristics have shown to have a genetic basis.
Secondly a tiny percentage of genes makes a huge difference. We are only a few percentage of genes different from other primates but it doesn’t lessen the physical or behavioural differences between the two. A little goes a long way.
edit: Should add there’s 0.1% difference genetic difference between men and women. Does that make the concept of sex also meaningless?