Is Race/Ethnicity real?

Question

DNA can show where your ancestors came from. Thats geography.

Are Pennsylvanians a race? Ethnicity is more valid but still just based on nations. Doesn’t mean anything. My ancestors were Irish and Welsh. What does that mean? Nothing.

It’s quite sad how segregated we are by skin color. It has no physical difference. But economics is political. Marx was right about that.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Probably yes. But it seems that race is formed by human populations isolated from other humans or mixing with other humans. Time and climate eventually takes its toll. Human evolution is always changing. They say Africans are the orginial humans but the Africans living today probably look very different than the Africans 40,000 years ago as himan evolution isn't static. I mean if you look at African Americans you can easily tell the difference between them and an actual African. Then you take other humans who lived with us as far back as 40,000 years ago. We bred with them and they bred with other groups creating mixed hybrids so it changed us. We're these other humans a different species or just other races of humans.

Maybe a good example of race is the turks. They started out in Mongolia and would be classed as mongoloid but they conquered central Asia, India and Asia minor and as they did that they took wives from those the conquered and had sons and their sons did the same and their sons did the same and with each successive generation they became less mongoloid and more Caucasian through time. If you trace Turkish people from Turkey right back towards siberia the further east you go thd more mongoloid they become.

So anyway humans haven't remained static as one race but have been litteraly roaming the planet for hundreds of thousands of years and most of what we know is based on what little we find in the ground.

purplepoppy · Accepted Answer

I think it's really, a blonde Norwegian is clearly different from an African pigmy. The question is why do we worry about it so much. Go back a thousand years and our ancestors were clearly moving around a lot and interbreeding with each other on a large scale.

AyChingao · Accepted Answer

I think realistically I would define it more as culture as to the cause of the percieved differences. A person's ethnicity, or genetics that cause differences such as skin color that might immediately flag them for "closer Inspection" , because... well... just look at 'em (This is true from dark to light and vice versa). OK so now you're looking, and they eat things that scare you, or seem inferior because "I would never eat that"... SEE!!! MUST be inferior to eat that... They worship a different imaginery friend... you get it.
Every difference becomes amplified, and if you see a whole group of them together, well that's just terrifying. This is OUR turf.
If you put a man from Africa and an African American in a room together. even though the genetics are almost identical, you'll find two very different people.
Unfortunately lots of people will see a group that is different AND less numerous as an easy target for intimidation / abuse. And then you throw someone who wants to use the differences as a divider for their own personal gain?
People in generak are assholes in groups. The individual may be reasonable. The mob? Not so much.

Avicenna · Accepted Answer

LOL, so you're finally admitting you're a Marxist (not that it wasn't obvious previously).

Given how race-obsessed you, of all people, are, your comments ring hollow.

But in answer to your question, what do biologists and anthropologists say?

Dargil · Answer

There is a spectrum of physical attributes, varying by regions.
Look at Norwegians versus Italians.
Look at Mongolians versus New Guineans
Look at Khoisan southern Africans versus Dinka from Sudan.

So I guess there is only one race (Human) with numerous subgroups.

Except that Democrats are mixed Sapiens/Neanderthal hybrids.

Syntosi · Answer

Neither race nor ethnicity is real. They are what is called a social construct, something we collectively agreed upon without any real world basis. This is pretty obvious when you think about it.

Tamera952 · Answer

I think so, but don’t know what it means. Not a lot. At the macro, biological level, as a species, we are almost identical & all so closely genetically related, that any exterior or superficial difference is almost non existent.

Sevenpointfive · Answer

just because we're slightly different monkeys don't mean we can't get along

Berethor · Answer

Of course it real if you are black or white, how is that not a physical difference?

ProbablyClueless · Answer

Anyone who has lived in PA can tell you that we're a special breed! ;)

TwoToTooTutu2 · Answer

It is very much real. It is just a system of classification based on common physical characteristics.

beefcakebradybatson · Answer

It's a social construct used by oppressors to keep down those they abhor.

FunkyMonkee · Answer

No. Everybody's white, there's just several different shades of white.

Anonymous · Answer

Race is real, ethnicity is more like a cultural thing. Nationality is a social construct.

WhiteBoyChill · Answer

Skin color is a physical difference that can be visually observed. I’m not really sure what you’re talking about.

Is Race/Ethnicity real?

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