Armstronglivs wrote:
That race is not fixed (over populations, not individuals) does not mean that it doesn't exist. The logic of your position is that there are in fact no "races", hence Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were of the same race. That would have surprised them both.
To the extent the race is based around skin colour (but not exclusively) means that is a biological feature. What is Caucasian if it does not apply to those who are white, what are Asians if that description does not apply to those of given racial characteristics rather than geography, and what are the black races if this does not apply to those of African racial heritage (like Frederick Douglass - but not Lincoln)?
I agree that In the world in which we live racial characteristics are not fixed or absolutes - intermarriage (and an uglier feature in rape through slavery) has seen to that. Hence, today we have people of colour rather than simply black people - or "white" people, or Eurasians. There is no racial "purity". Not do these racial distinctions suggest that the individuals within these broad groupings will necessarily share other characteristics - although we do see, for example, the domination of black races in many athletic sports. Are you saying there is no biological basis to that over-representation?
Race exists - it has for thousands of years - it still does - and it is part of our human variety - but it does not change our underlying common humanity. That we share a common humanity does not remove it. Only the racist sees it as a negative and not something about who we are that can be celebrated, along with any other part of our identity. We are all human - and we are all different in so many ways. Race is part of both.
You are a musician. In that you share something with Little Walter and Muddy Waters. But are you saying there are no racial differences between you?
If the same person, with the same ancestry, can be defined (or self-defined) as "white," "black," "colored," and/or "black and white," depending on a) the country they happen to be present in; b) the particular US census they happen to be responding to; c) their ignorance and/or knowledge of their true ancestry; d) their political orientation; e) the state of so-called racial science of the era in which they're living, then I think it's a bad idea to invest too much energy into asserting the scientific validity of race.
As I'm sure you're aware, there were no self-identified white people before a certain historical moment--late 17th century, I'd bet, when slaveholders in colonial Virginia began to get anxious. The Fields sisters work through all this in "Racecraft." There were a range of European peoples with fair skin, of course, but they weren't a race. The Irish--the "wild Irish--were a race; the English were a different race.
Race as a concept, and specifically the idea of whites as a race, and blacks or "negroes" as a race, was a function of racism. It was invented as a correlate of, and justification for, slavery.
But again: race as a concept works very differently in different countries. It reads the same bodies in strikingly different ways in different countries. This is why Thomas Chatterton Williams, the biracial (as it were) product of a "white" mother and "black" father, is taken as an Arab in Paris, where he lives. French eyes race his body differently than American eyes. His own daughters, the product of a biracial (as it were) father and "white" Frenchwoman, have blond hair and blue eyes. What race are they, in your view? An antebellum slaver, invoking the one-drop rule and the language of the time, would call them quadroons, and would view them as a type of particular valuable negro.
We're all somewhat more sophisticated now.
Here, fwiw, are contemporary Brazil's racial categories. Race--the diligent, "scientific," race-ing of human bodies--is a form of collective hallucination. And, again: the same body that an American heavily invested in race might term black, or white, is parsed entirely differently in Brazil. That tends sharply to undercut any claims one might make for the existential or scientific validity of race:
Category Frequency White Brown Black Amerindian Yellow Total difference between White and Black
branca (White) 54.28% 98.96% 0.73% 0.11% 0.07% 0.14% 100.00% 98,85
loira (Blonde) 0.05% 95.24% 0.00% 4.76% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 90,48
brasileira (Brazilian) 0.12% 91.20% 6.05% 2.27% 0.00% 0.47% 100.00% 88,93
branca + (adjectivated White) 0.14% 86.47% 9.62% 0.00% 3.91% 0.00% 100.00% 86,47
clara (of light colour) 0.78% 86.40% 11.93% 0.35% 0.14% 1.18% 100.00% 86,05
galega (Galician) 0.01% 70.99% 19.78% 0.00% 0.00% 9.23% 100.00% 70,99
castanha (Brown) 0.01% 63.81% 36.19% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% 63,81
morena clara (light Morena) 2.92% 38.35% 57.12% 1.46% 2.27% 0.81% 100.00% 36,89
jambo 0.02% 14.47% 77.96% 2.39% 5.18% 0.00% 100.00% 12,08
morena 20.89% 13.75% 76.97% 6.27% 2.62% 0.38% 100.00% 7,48
mestiça, mista (miscegenated, mixed) 0.08% 17.29% 59.44% 14.96% 7.60% 0.70% 100.00% 2,33
parda (Brown) 10.40% 1.03% 97.25% 1.40% 0.21% 0.10% 100.00% −0,37
sarará 0.04% 9.09% 60.14% 23.25% 0.00% 7.53% 100.00% −14,16
canela (of the colour of cinnamon) 0.01% 11.13% 57.55% 26.45% 4.87% 0.00% 100.00% −15,32
mulata (Mulatto) 0.81% 1.85% 71.53% 25.26% 1.37% 0.00% 100.00% −23,41
marrom, chocolate (Brown, chocolate) 0.03% 4.56% 57.30% 38.14% 0.00% 0.00% 100.00% −33,58
morena escura (dark Morena) 0.45% 2.77% 54.80% 38.05% 4.15% 0.24% 100.00% −35,28
escura (of dark colour) 0.38% 0.59% 16.32% 81.67% 1.42% 0.00% 100.00% −81,08
negra (Black) 3.14% 0.33% 6.54% 92.62% 0.50% 0.02% 100.00% −92,29
preta (Black) 4.26% 0.37% 1.73% 97.66% 0.17% 0.06% 100.00% −97,29
But look: let's set our disagreements on this particular issue aside for once and agree on the thing that we DO, in fact, completely and passionately agree on, which is that transwomen don't belong in women-only competitions and that their presence in those competitions is supremely unfair, unsporting, whatever you'd like to call it. I salute the strong position you've taken on this. Here, you speak for me--and many others, I trust.