"... that we develop new language for discussing the relationship between identity, ancestry, history and science. DNA analysis could help create that language by offering more nuanced ways of looking at individual origins and a more unifying narrative about our shared heritage.... [But race will not] magically disappear anytime soon.... [T]he social reality of race is undeniable. And genetics — or, for that matter, any science — has the potential to be misused, co-opted by racist ideologies and employed to bolster harmful narratives about racial purity or biological superiority. But if we can, at the very least, embrace the understanding that race (a toxic social construction) and ancestry (a shared genetic history) are not only distinct but also fundamentally opposed — and teach that in our classrooms — it could go a long way toward freeing us from some of the binds in which scientific racism have trapped us."
That's from "We Need a New Language for Talking About Race" by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Andrew S. Curran (NYT). Gates and Curran have a new book, “Who’s Black and Why? A Hidden Chapter From the Eighteenth-Century Invention of Race.'"
I added the boldface.
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76 comments:
"We Need a New Language for Talking About Race"
Hows about; we just Quit TALKING About Race so much??
New language? It already exists. They're inventing a new language to discuss race and anything else you care to talk about every 6 months. And They're a disaster.
I don’t care.
Read the article. It doesn't seem to say anything at all, except that these authors found out that genetics is cool and informative.
South Africa used to have race courts to sort through mixed ancestry to see where in the racial hierarchy you fit. Not sure if it worked.
Skip, there are better ways to fake relevance.
Anti-black racism is such short supply that there's a booming market for the ersatz kind.
Well...I cannot read it, not even using Brave browser, private tab, and a VPN. The Times has me locked out.
So this: It looks to be interesting, albeit hopeful from my end, that these two may not be spilling out the usual Collectivist rhetoric. Am I reading into your post to see that they are discussing the possibility of collectivism as a made up social construct? Can we get there? And that we actually are all a mix of various peoples- can we get there?
On the other hand, while the part you bolded out- that genetics — or, for that matter, any science — has the potential to be misused, co-opted by racist ideologies and employed to bolster harmful narratives... seems hopeful, one wonders if they realize that the left and the ruling elite class has been doing just that, for decades certainly, but in extreme fashion over the last (when did Obama come into office?)13 or so years?
Still, all that aside. I cannot help but know from experience that their theory is going to be used to club people over the head, separate them from the pack, and encourage those believers to shun the non-believers and remove them. I see it coming. Whether that's the intent of the authors or not.
The social fabric is threatened also by Critical Race Theory.
Critical Race Theory also has the potential to be misused.
None of this needs to be taught in any classrooms below the college level.
The Aristocracy cannot abide a united polity.
It is all race and all division all of the time for the Democrat party.
They can't be honest about anything they do.
So racism is their only argument.
This discussion wouldn't be so tense or ambiguous if we were talking about the similarities and differences between, say, birds or lizards. We have very solid and proven biological and behavioral research methods and comparison criteria.
The trouble is that -- since the UK's Sir Francis Galton invented human measurement methods in the 1800s following Charles Darwin -- all efforts to compare human groups have produced stable and often bleak findings. Some groups train and measure differently no matter what is tried. This was studied in universities until the bleakness overwhelmed every alternative explanation and narrative.
For example, consider the Stanford-Binet IQ Test:
https://www.wpspublish.com/sb-5-stanford-binet-intelligence-scales-fifth-edition
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/stanford-binet-intelligence-scale
The bleakness:
https://www.amren.com/blog/2019/11/race-differences-in-intelligence-in-20-charts/
Darwin and Galton were the left progressives of their era, in pushing science over Christianity and creationism. But science didn't produce moral, equitable, or happy answers. It produced nothing but uncomfortable truths.
Race was indeed invented in a crude fashion with the rise of science and the improved awareness resulting from world exploration. However, genetics will merely offer a more refined version of what came before. Look up research of correlations and covariates.
Nobody has ever made a cogent and rational argument why any of it matters. Until that argument is made, it’s just politics and entitlement.
- Krumhorn
(my preferred adjectives: brilliant/awesome)
Captain Obvious to the rescue to “save” us from the “toxic concept of race” As if no one before the 18th century ever noticed differences in humans - because everyone “knows” people are not tribal and play spot the difference naturally ( also before then most people didn’t travel more than 30 miles from their homes) And proving again that only academics are “smart” enough to believe any crack pot notion most people just laugh at for being ridiculous.
Humans are animals - we obey the same genetic rules as every other species on this planet ( even though we delude ourselves into thinking we are somehow magically exempt from those same laws) Gates and his buddy want to erase the word “race” when it’s a shorthand for what we call “breeds” in animals. Dogs are always dogs from chihuahua to Great Dane, cats ads always cats from Siamese to hairless and humans are always human from black, white, asian, et al. Pretending it’s a magical difference in humans is silly - DNA can identify your genetics regardless ( and probably tell where you live too )
But I see the old 3 card Monty being played here - deny the obvious as woke “science”.
I would bold the sentence after the one you choose. They are advocating a curriculum. Where have we seen this before?
Personally, I am a believer in the power of mutts. The whole race thing doesn't mean much to me...in any direction. Are you any good? Welcome aboard! Are you a bum or a faker? Go stand over there.
This whole debate about the power of melanin hits me as being stupid. Are IQs different among groups? Maybe. They sure are among individuals. But isn't behavior the ultimate test of fitness for purpose, as the Brits say?
Here's a pro tip: reading, writing, and hard work will take you a long way--farther than you ever dreamed.
“…discussing the relationship between identity, ancestry, history and science.”
There is no relationship between “identity” and “science”
I’m a boy, I want to be a girl. So I “identify” as one? Poof! I’m a girl!
By the way, Gates left out anti-white racism from his list of horribles.
"our society is deeply divided and when a surge of antisemitic, anti-Asian, Islamophobic and anti-Black racism threatens the social fabric..."
"... that we
None of those things is true. What has happened is that activists have found it useful to pretend these things are a problem. They invent surges so they can claim it's growing, pressing, threatening. Gates and Curran don't offer a solution to the problem. They are the problem.
Interesting to juxtapose your first two postings this morning.
How about we changed our language regarding race to 'human'?
"Islamophobic racism"
The concept of racism gets muddled when you have to get all the buzzwords into every accusation. What's next? "Episcopaliophobic racism?"
I enjoy Gates' family tree show. He is forced to tell many people of African ancestry that records are generally lacking, but then sometimes the staff have done amazing work to find out who "Tom" was, and then track marriages etc. For African-Americans, it seems there is always a white daddy in there somewhere. One guy, I forget who, laughed and said it looked like he was eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution or some such group.
Generally "culture" is taken to mean things that do not change quickly, unless there is a crisis or war, in many ways a bad thing. "Genetics" has been taken to mean something that changes even more slowly, over many generations. If people of African ancestry get the opportunity to train, they dominate Olympic running events, now representing many countries including Italy. But I believe "epigenetics" is showing that changes can happen in one lifetime. One identical twin lives differently from the other, has different health challenges, different life expectancy, and may take up a different "culture" by living among different people. A culture might emphasize excellence in some fields of endeavour, but not all, so it is wrong to expect a "normal curve" of careers in every group or so-called race.
The majority of antisemitic, anti-Asian sentiment in the US comes from black communities. It's not whites who are attacking Jews and Asians on the streets of NYC and San Francisco.
The whole quote feels like a desperate attempt to backtrack after the disaster of CRT. The progressive racists have been caught pushing toxic junk onto kids and see the backlash from parents.
Lost me at "develop a new language".
Everything is racist. Even DNA is racist. We had better stop trying to find out why blacks have more hypertension and prostate cancer. It's racist.
They're just sore at DNA analysis because it hasn't yet sequenced the gene that makes white people racist.
Will someone please point out when and where Trump ever spoke about racial purity?
Because that is what this is about. Painting Trump and all of his supporters as racists.
I completely reject the notion of surges in Islamaphobia and anti-black racism. The outbreak of fake hate crimes is a clear indication that the demand for racism out paces the supply.
How many disenfranchised blacks can get past the NYT paywall?
what about police-phobic? Something the collective left fomented.
Taking a few bad police officers and using that premedical hatred to act in lawless ways, commit arson and theft, and even murder cops?
He left out anti-White racism, which surely exists in today's multiracial society.
So they're going to do to 'race' and 'ancestry' what was done to 'sex' and 'gender'?
And genetics — or, for that matter, any science — has the potential to be misused, co-opted by racist ideologies and employed to bolster harmful narratives about racial purity or biological superiority.
Could this possibly have anything to do with HLG's awareness of IQ data? Just a wild, possibly lunatic guess.
The odd thing is that racial-average IQ scores wouldn't matter at all in a society that valued procedural justice over social justice.
I reject the premise that we have a surge of anti-black, anti-Asian (at least as I imagine they mean it: white conservatives hating Asians), or Islamophobism. I do think antismeitism is occurring, but, again, not from whom they probably think.
Our society is deeply divided, but not because of actual racism, but from the perpetuation of the idea that we are racist. The left imagines racism and thus attacks the right with racist accusations. That is what the division is about.
Why isn't "antisemitic" spelled anti-Semitic in keeping with the spelling of the other identities? In the context of the caps used for the other identities isn't such a spelling a microaggression at the very least. I think Gates should apologize profusely.
I’m happy to see their book correctly identifies racism’s origin as the 18th century, underscoring that there is nothing to the claim that white people are genetically racist. We are in the midst of an uptick in racist thinking from the left solely due to the use of race to divide and bring down America to pave the way for that glorious socialist revolution.
Unfortunately, until we have better scientific data, the left is already trying to use epigenetics as proof of racist imprints on DNA.
Why are some blacks anti-Semitic and anti-Asian?
Is this a racial thing? A genetic thing? A cultural thing?
Skip is glib.
I can't tell the difference between a Russian and a Ukrainian. Neither, apparently, can a lot of Russians and Ukrainians. Doesn't matter. They're killing each other at a brisk clip. It's pretty to think that if we eliminate racial prejudices. we'll all get along.
"We Need Newspeak for Talking About Race"
FIFY.
Amadeus 48 at 8:06 AM
This whole debate about the power of melanin hits me as being stupid.
Nobody argues that IQ differences are caused by melanin.
Dr. Gates should be sure that his publisher sends a free coy of his book to Nikole Hannah-Jones, all the CRT teachers in the country, and the BLM leaders. Maybe, these people will temper their language and behavior when they realize they are part of the problem. These groups “threaten the social fabric” as much, if not more, than “white supremacists”
The black anti-whiteness and anti-police enforcement is the main problem at the moment in this country. When I see a cop killed, nine out of ten times, it’s a black guy who is the murderer. The vast majority of the hate crimes are committed by black criminals against the groups mentioned by Dr. Gates. It isn’t white supremacists who are going around beating and raping Asian women in NYC.
“Islamophobia” was a term created by the media. Of course, after 9/11 Americans were wary of Islamic young men (and women) who committed terrorist acts here in the USA (not only 9/11). There were a whole rash of terrorist attacks around the country. And we were literally at war with Islamic radicals who wanted to destroy us. But, recently, I have not heard of any crimes against this group caused by islamophobia.
No, the vast number of crimes and criminals causing hate crimes are young black men. And, black teenage girls. Remember the UBER driver??? I think the name of the UBER drive was, Mohammad Anwar (sounds Islamic).
Of course, there are white people who commit crimes and are racist. But, there is no denying that a crime against a black person committed by a white person is a full blown media meltdown. We hear about it 24/7 until “justice” is served. But, the noise is not as loud when it is black on white crime. And there is complete media silence when it is black on black crime because if the media paid attention to black on black crimes, we would have to extend the 30 minute local news to 60 minutes.
Who can dispute the proposition that we need new thoughts that haven't yet occurred to us to solve all of our problems? And they will be such wondrous thoughts that they won't bring new problems. Deus ex machina, anyone?
SJW Science sounds a lot like Communist Science. Stalin shot "Scientists" who violated Marxist dogma. Even if they were correct. Seems like more of the same, except the names have changed and you get fired instead of a firing squad.
"Nobody argues that IQ differences are caused by melanin."
Are you sure about that? Many are arguing that people who identify or are identified as black (which in America includes many with white ancestors) have lower IQs as a group. But what group is that?
I believe behavior is destiny, and reading, writing, and hard work will take most people farther than they ever dreamed.
Now, gods, stand up for mutts.
This will just open the door to rampant cladism and clinism!
celeciahere at 0906,
Good comment. Charles Murray's 2021 Facing Reality underscores all your points which the leftist policy makers will give a good leaving-alone.
"We Need a New Language for Talking About Race"
Actually, in Newspeak, Race/Racist/Racism are all referred as Crimethink; which is Doubleplusungood
We've had the New Language for quite some time; it will simplify things if we just Use it
Also, we have ALWAYS been At War with Eurasia
Only by siding with our friends, the Eastasians, can we continue this Peace in the Ukraine
But if we can, at the very least, embrace the understanding that race (a toxic social construction) and ancestry (a shared genetic history) are not only distinct but also fundamentally opposed
They're not opposed, though, fundamentally or otherwise. The best you can get, if you strawman up your definition of "race" is maybe that they're orthogonal. But as most people understand it, race and ancestry line up conceptually like 80-90%? Maybe more? Race is like a first order approximation of ancestry -- crude and imprecise, but directionally accurate.
That said, I think he's (reasonably) worried about narratives of superiority not purity. Genetics and ancestry analysis is highly unlikely to bolster narratives of racial purity. I read David Reich's book, and his team's analyses are all about teasing apart the mixtures that led to today's populations (races, ancestry groups, whatever). No one is pure and unmixed.
The superiority fear is more justified because the whole science works by tracing genetic differences between populations (well, and looking for ancient dna to narrow down where and when the mixing occurred.) As soon as you have difference, someone can infer or impute a hierarchy of superiority and inferiority on it. But squirming away from "race" won't solve that problem. You could get the same thing tracing ancestry groups. Or individual ancestors. That's where kings come from.
--- free coy of his book to Nikole Hannah-Jones, all the CRT teachers in the country, and the BLM leaders. Maybe, these people will temper their language and behavior when they realize they are part of the problem.
If only that were possible! I don't think it's a realization for them, Cecilia. It's an aspiration. And one they know they've achieved. More payola please.
I listen to a lot of genetics podcasts and read a great deal on the subject. The problem is not that people are misusing that data in the traditional sense. A few are, and these are trumpeted as if they represent a huge mass of people just about to spill over into fascist behavior. Writers and speakers spend so much time telling you not to be racist, and inserting caveats about what you should and shouldn't be allowed to think that it takes up the first 30% of any article or podcast now. (Except a few, such as Razib Khan and the fabulous heterodox academics he interviews.)
Part of this prejudice is not just that liberals worry that white racism is always just about to explode across the landscape, but because huge swaths of academia - all of Education and Sociology, for example - believe that environment is everything and nature accounts for nothing. Entire careers are founded on this, even when race is off the table. The Jenga tower is trembling, and they know it.
The danger is not that non-racist people who handle dangerous information deftly might get cancelled and vilified - that has already been happening for fifty years. The danger is that data will be even further reinterpreted to say what it does not, and nothing else will be allowed. The consequences would be that legitimate medical research on physical conditions will be increasingly disallowed if they include anything smacking of genetics.
No one would be screaming if the truth were comfortable.
I can't get through the paywall - I assume they worked in a disparaging reference to Trump?
There is no such thing as “racial purity” after this many years of life evolving on Earth. Just drop it, Hank.
Here's a pro tip: reading, writing, and hard work will take you a long way--farther than you ever dreamed.
The equity movement's precise purpose is to supply wealth to those unwilling to do those three things.
"Nobody argues that IQ differences are caused by melanin."
Are you sure about that? Many are arguing that people who identify or are identified as black (which in America includes many with white ancestors) have lower IQs as a group. But what group is that?
Lower IQ is caused by DNA, not melanin. However melanin is caused by that same DNA, so there is a correlation. The Group is American Black.
I believe behavior is destiny, and reading, writing, and hard work will take most people farther than they ever dreamed.
So do I. Which is why current Black culture in America is so tragic.
He left out anti-White racism, which surely exists in today's multiracial society.
I've been told that only White people can be racist. Of course there probably are White people who are racist against White people. (Affirmative Action anyone?)
I, for one, am sick and tired of talking about race. EVERYTHING is RACIST now according to progressives. Stick your racism up your asses, because the racist is the one who see race in EVERYTHING. That is all progressives have left.
To talk about race in the current climate you have to know what to overlook.
Those are the things that make you a racist.
"Race" and "ancestry" are actually pretty well correlated. If you let genetics in and people are honest, this isn't going to go the way Gates and Curran want it to go.
Hey jim5301- Are you going to ban crayons now? How about the Spanish language???
The black crayon carries the labeling "negro" for Spanish-language users because that is the word for "black" in Spanish. It is not a racial reference, but a translation. The same crayon also is labeled "noir," which is the French word for black.
Mike Sylwester,
Nobody argues that IQ differences are caused by melanin.
Not so. Louis Farrakhan certainly does, for one; he claims that Blacks' superior IQ stems from melanin. "Sun People" vs. "Ice People" and all that. Not what you meant? Oh, sorry.
There is zero point in listening to the authors after they lump in "Islamophobia" with all the others, because Islam isn't a race, period. Indonesians and people from the Indian subcontinent (=Asians!) and Arabs (=whites! At least in this country) are all Muslims, as are many peoples in sub-Saharan Africa, as are Uyghers (=more Asians!), as are people of all races in the US. Islam is a faith.
We need a new language for raw hysteria. It looks like Dr. Gates has found it.
Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry) is a dogmatic belief of the established Pro-Choice religion that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, and normalizes color blocs (e.g. people of color), color quotas (e.g. Jew privilege), and affirmative discrimination.
That said, diversity [dogma] under the Pro-Choice "ethical" (i.e. relativistic) religion of the Progressive Corporation recently suffered a legal setback with a win by "People of Asia" in the court to recognize and reject affirmative discrimination by color (e.g. skin) or class.
Diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion
And genetics ... harmful narratives about racial purity or biological superiority.
I never hear anything about "racial purity" except when boneheads bring it up as a strawman.
"They" - Gates and his ilk - constantly harp about race, as in the article under discussion, and about the supposedly "underserved" or "underperforming" groups, and blame it on everything except the actual cause, which is genetics: that dishonesty is what's harmful. It's also why's no are no non-trivial changes in any of the race-hustlers' concerns from year-to-year or decade-to-decade...but that's what keeps their race-hustling activities going strong, increasing in fact, even as they demonstrate that they don't and can't cause any positive changes.
a surge of antisemitic, anti-Asian [racism]
From blacks and muslims.
Computer AI can determine a person's race from simple X-rays because race is real and biological:
"One conception of race is that it is skin deep, and is no more than a matter of skin pigmentation. By implication, such a categorisation is superficial, trivial, and unlikely to be an explanation of any presumed racial differences in behaviour.
... excerpt of publication
This is an astounding paper. It appears to reveal that, using artificial intelligence, deep learning methods lead to the detection of race in X ray images, even if all possible giveaway signals are stripped out of the image. That is extraordinary. The next point of interest is that the authors have made it very clear that they are alarmed that this is possible, and warn that it might lead to evil consequences."
URL for the article I posted:
https://www.unz.com/jthompson/x-raying-race/
But if we can, at the very least, embrace the understanding that race (a toxic social construction) and ancestry (a shared genetic history) are not only distinct but also fundamentally opposed
And we'll believe that why you lefties stop being racist pigs.
So long as you define "Diversity" by "race", and score "Equity" by "race", you are demanding that everyone be judged by the color of their skin, not the content of their character.
You Lefties drop the racism, and then we'll talk
"we need a new language" usually means the speaker is about to redefine commonly used words to mean what he needs them to mean to get you to agree with his argument.
"We need a new language for talking about race."
Why not Esperanto? It's not busy.
"But if we can, at the very least, embrace the understanding that race (a toxic social construction) and ancestry (a shared genetic history) are not only distinct but also fundamentally opposed..."
I always liked the notion of "race" as a big extended family. I guess Gates and Curran don't. Or else the "a shared genetic history" is a "we're all in the family of humanity" thing. Reading the essay, that appears to be the case.
Also, reading the essay, I'm not sure how Gates' ancestry traces "equally to Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe" if there was a single Irish man who fathered his great-great-grandmother’s oldest son and a single English woman who had a child from a Sub-Saharan African man during the time of slavery.
"We need a new language" has a Sapir-Whorf flavor. New words will make a new reality.
Race ABSOLUTELY matters. There are thousands of race grifters that would be rendered unemployable if race was less critical.
"We need a new language for talking about race."
Maybe this will keep people from wondering why our cities run by black, democrat politicians are such cesspools...
"And genetics — or, for that matter, any science — has the potential to be misused, co-opted by racist ideologies and employed to bolster harmful narratives about racial purity or biological superiority."
What HLH is saying here, is that the truth hurts.
We need a new language for talking about something that was "invented in the 19th century"? Does he mean Maxwell's equations?
Computer AI can determine a person's race from simple X-rays because race is real and biological
https://www.wired.com/story/these-algorithms-look-x-rays-detect-your-race/
I just read an article about this. It appears legit.
Race as a biological, genetic fact has double meanings now. It does not exist in relation to some social situations but does exist in relation to others. It does exist with respect to ancestry and finding roots; it does exist in relation to medical treatments specific to race. It does not exist with respect to achievement which rather is related to toxic social situations holding back certain groups; it does exist as a diversity valuable to education and businesses but this diversity is socially constructed also. Genetic race as categories would contain different grouping than the social categories but diversity regulations require the use of the social categories whether one is speaking of ancestry or achievement. It's a mess and a typical product of the New England mind in its decadence.
The question I ask myself these days is whether a given policy will deliver the promised outcome. And the most important question is: Will CRT-based curriculums quickly close the achievement gaps in the schools among groups as these curriculums explicitly promise or will they widen it? I am certain they will widen it. How can not teaching arithmetic close the gap between those who do learn it at a school without CRT and those who do not learn it due to CRT? How can the STEM gap be closed when a large sub-group doesn't know arithmetic. In short, I consider that the Department of Education has just one job - to explain correctly and to put a process in place that will close the grade school gap. Disparate impact begins in the third grade and will never disappear till the third grade achievement gap disappears.
Michael: We had better stop trying to find out why blacks have more hypertension and prostate cancer. It's racist.
It's Popeye's.
The dark night of Critical Race Theory is constantly descending on law school and landing in Kindergarten.
The question I ask myself these days is whether a given policy will deliver the promised outcome. And the most important question is: Will CRT-based curriculums quickly close the achievement gaps in the schools among groups as these curriculums explicitly promise or will they widen it? I am certain they will widen it
That's because you've made a false assumption. You're assuming the purpose of CRT is to improve the education of Black kids. It isn't. they've given up on that. Now the goal is to make everyone else as ignorant as the Black kids.
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