Having lived in a majority white city where they divided themselves between countries of origin, this would happen.
Until a large Hispanic influx northeast PA had Italian sections, Irish sections, Lithuanian sections, Polish sections, etc. When my ex’s grandmother met me she asked me “what are you?” despite us both being white.
In the show All In The Family, Archie isn't just bigoted against non-caucasians; he's bigoted against the polish, Irish, Italians, etc... He's less bigoted against those groups than he is against non-whites, but still bigoted. He's also bigoted against catholics
Exactly. This is why people say race is a construct.
If we all became the same race then some self labeled ingroup would construct (i.e. create) new criteria to label others as an outgroup eventually creating new races.
I remember a little while ago when it was in the news for a very short time that they found several mass graves in PA of Irish who were brought over to be indentured servants. I don't remember if they had determined what the cause of death was, whether it was illness or murder, but it stopped being news pretty quickly because no one really cared.
Cholera, mostly, but also violence. It says they were turned away from getting help because the locals feared contagion, so perhaps that's some of the violence. They also made practically no money but had a generous whiskey allotment, which would likely contribute to violence. They were working on Duffy's Cut for some time, and the mass grave has been described as a garbage dump for bodies, not like they were lined up and shot or something, not that it makes it any better.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/irelands-forgotten-sons-recovered-two-centuries-later-9194680/
Black people denigrating blacker people, Indians denigrating darker Indians, and so on. Yeah, we're tribal, evolved that way.
These people all bent over the word "race". Meh. Give it a rest. The word used to be in common parlance, now I never here it IRL, despite being told us Southerners are the most racist people on Earth.
People use the word "race" in conversation? Hard to get my head around! Not doubting you, but we don't talk like that. OTOH, we're seriously race (heh) mixed in NW Florida. My block is a nearly perfect cross-section of black, white, Asian demographics for the area. LOL, my wife being the 1% Asian rep. :)
No Hispanic folk, but they were really rare before 2004. No joke, there were hardly any Mexican restaurants before they flooded in to save us from the destruction.
OTOH, we're seriously race (heh) mixed in NW Florida
Maybe you're so used to it, you don't notice. Or maybe it's said in other ways, eg, "Certain races do this thing or think that way." Or maybe it's more subtle, "That's just their culture." "That's just how their people are."
It's also maddening when discussing medical issues. "Why does my race have to be brought into it?” "Because certain ethnicities have problems with this particular medical condition moreso than others." "Because I'm more susceptible to x and I can't do y with you."
Might be a German thing, but race and racist don't have the same base for nothing. You don't talk like that here and I've only heard it in the us. Maybe Scots bite their tongue taking to a German about those things.
Plural of anecdote... Yes I know, forgive me for not documenting all the times I've heard it. Maybe people posture, depending on the surrounding people. Maybe they feel more free to be more honest as tourists. Perhaps both.
Fun fact, there is more genetic variation within Africa than there is in the rest of the world combined. This is because only a small lineage of humans ended up migrating out of Africa.
There's no logical difference, but there's all the emotional difference in the world. We evolved to be suspicious of that tribe over on the other mountain. And well we should have been! They might just come over and slaughter us for our women and land.
Besides, we didn't evolve to operate in groups larger than about 150. Past that, other people become objects in our minds. We can't be truly close to more than that many people. What is the Monkeysphere? ( <- solid article on all this)
It's why I understand the immigrant hate. Earth's population has more than doubled in my lifetime. "Who ARE all these people and why are they from another tribe?! It was already crowded!"
Only way we get over the hate ironically consists of two seemingly opposed plans:
We need less people, or at least spread 'em out. Mammals get freaky when crowded.
Get different sorts of people mixed up. People hate the idea of immigrants, "Meh, the ones I know are great people. It's those others who are bad guys."
We'll get there. There have been massive strides in my lifetime alone.
We're not going extinct. Humans are the toughest beasts on the planet, the AR-15 of animals. Not the best at anything, not by a long shot, but we're perfect multi-purpose lifeforms. Hell, we survive in every ecosystem on Earth. Insects can't even claim that!
But yeah, I've commented enough in the past on what we're taking out with us. Lived through seeing 73% of animals go POOF! since 1970, seen my local ecosphere crashing out over the last 5. I want to cry and scream! And no one is aware. When I talk about it IRL, people are captivated, "You're right. Hadn't noticed that. Wow." You can see their gears turning, truly a new thought.
We're not going extinct. Humans are the toughest beasts on the planet, the AR-15 of animals. Not the best at anything, not by a long shot, but we're perfect multi-purpose lifeforms. Hell, we survive in every ecosystem on Earth. Insects can't even claim that!
I do believe climate science. And I do think a nuclear world war would decimate humans. I do hold hope, and recognize very real potentialities.
You can see their gears turning, truly a new thought.
And right back to football, video games, occasionally maybe standing somewhere publicly with a clever sign.
LOL, I'm a child of the Cold War. You can't tell me about global thermonuclear war fears! :) Weirdly, us teens just accepted it was a thing that could happen any second. Whatever.
And don't be so cynical! Educating people like that, showing them how things have changed for the worse in their experience has impact. But you gotta follow through with solutions they can work with! "And that's why I don't use pesticides or herbicides. Notice the frogs are back on our block? Seen all the dragonflies? Check out my ponds. They double as mosquito control!"
I think we're missing the trees in this forest of doom. We're powerless to fight the megacorps, and bitching about them only makes people feel more powerless. But we can teach people to chip away, give them actionable goals. Put the idea in their heads that, "This isn't normal or right and you've experienced this!", without being preachy. It's hard.
I've seen massive social and environmental progress in my life. It all started with grass-roots talking points. Don't say "fag", don't toss your cigarette fag (heh), pick up trash that's not yours, and on and on.
Don't lecture or lay blame, no guilt trips, talk about the problem in a personally, emotionally understandable way they'll internalize, give them a solution they can act on right now, today.
Got me there! I was referring to the previous post saying we're so genetically tight as to be scientifically indistinguishable as "races". But yeah, a couple of base pairs coding for a misfolded protein is certainly a difference!
They'd still argue over religion. And what sports team they cheer for. And whatever else the billionaire owned media could decide to distract them with.
Absolutely. Religion, language, country of origin, gender, age, there’s no shortage of useless ways to divide people. Our differences aren’t the issue, the issue is the rich and powerful exploiting our differences to pit us against each other.
Indian hate goes up whenever india related policies go into effect, trump tarrifs india and no one gived a fk since all day see is normalized indian hate for months prior
I get it and agree mostly. I definitely think socioeconomic classes are more of a defining/dividing line than a heritage you happen to share with someone.
Only <1% of any humans DNA differs, but I think a better point is that everyone is atleast 50th cousins or something (Granted if you share a heritage its much closer)
But also if you told someone like my girlfriend that race isn't real she'd probably sock you. She's experienced it and its very real to her.
When we started dating I would actually try to talk about how I don't understand why she would side with someone solely because their skin was dark like hers and it would be a point of contention. She would literally associate with someone that objectively did something she thinks is reprehensible because of literally only that.
She grew up very wealthy and never hurt anyone, guy on the news was someone in and out of prison who literally fired first on the guy that revived him with narcan--but they happen to have the same color of skin.
As a boy other Latinos would literally antagonize me for "acting white" because I would rather read during recess than play football/soccer--because being educated is associated with being white; we were the children of poor families with gangbangers as role models so we must obviously be destined for different things /s
I feel like a lot of racial issues are cultural and self-perpetuating. But my girlfriend in particular was the only black woman in a white conservative town, people would open doors for her friends and close it when it came to her, If I visit her hometown she doesn't want to be out for long, etc. So I get why it is very important to her.
The thing that's not "real" is that this is solely about skin color.
In the USA race is defined quite closely along the lines of "continent of origin" (or of origin of the ancestors), because the USA Is a country with worldwide immigration. Thus the groups are larger.
Compare that to Europe, where world-wide immigration only started picking up in the last two decades. Here people can discriminate just as easily within what would be considered the same race in the USA. For example, many people in Austria really hate Serbians. Many Serbians really hate Croatians. Many Croatians really hate Albanians and so on.
This is also visible in the meaning of the words "race" and "racism". Before WW2 "race" was commonly used in Europe as in the "German race", the "English race" or the "French race". And while the term "race" fell out of use after WW2 and was subsequently re-imported from the USA with the USA-meaning, the original meaning lives on in the meaning of "racism".
For example, if a French man hates all the English, this wouldn't be racism in the USA (since both are from the same "race" by US-definition), it would totally be racism in most European languages.
The "social construct" part of the discrimination is along which lines discrimination happens. There's nothing "natural" about discriminating along the lines of US-race. Discrimination can happen just as viciously along any other line.
And that certainly doesn't mean people don't suffer from it. But it also means that making sure everyone is as equal as possible (e.g. by eliminating US-race) won't stop discrimination.
socially constructed things are very real. I don't know who the fuck let that fart out in our society, to make people think that when they hear "it's a social construct" they hear "it's not real!" pretty frustrating
what it means is that it's an arbitrary thing based on mostly nothing except history and all it would take to change it is for us to act differently towards it.
but the history behind it is very real, so we can't just eliminate race by pretending it isn't real. we have to acknowledge the impacts, respect the differences, and work towards making the idea of race obsolete. that'll probably take a few thousand years lol
Tell me you don't know what the nazies did in Eastern Europe without telling me you don't what the nazies did in Eastern Europe. Or how the Irish were considered in the USA, or the italians...
Or the Irish in the Uk, or whoever in whichever country. For me, my family (wife and kids) come first, then my neighbourhood, my village, my minucipality, my country and so on. It's the same for everyone, which is fine as long as you acknowledge it and act accordingly.
Even identical conjoined twins with one body and two heads who share every experience, have different perspectives. One sees slightly more to the left, the other more to the right.
No we'd come up with something else. We need to gene edit everyone to edit out the tribalism gene and replace it with a "we're all in this together" gene.
i read a story when i was a kid ... it went something like this
we all draw a circle around ourselves and the people we want to care about. that is our group. different people draw different circles, some draw it very small and only care about themselves, others care for their family, and other draw an even bigger circle
what i'm wondering is why people draw circles of a specific size. i.e. what causes it that people care about the 300 people in their environment, but not about the other 10 billion people on earth?
Nah. I've read online Europeans bashing every other sort of European, and they're mostly white. Often in jest, often in "Fuck the Gypsies!" Or the Greeks, or the Muslims, or what have you.
The US is quickly closing on on 50% white, 50% everyone else. Meanwhile, in Europe. So yeah, maybe we talk race too much, or use it as a shorthand too casually, but that doesn't automatically mean hate or exclusion. We just have big groups of races, ethnicities, whatever.
Not going to hear about America's racism when Europe is solid white. In other words, why would they complain about black people, or any other major ethnicity, when they don't have any?
As to other countries, I gather Japan is as racist as human culture gets. Australians are racist with the aborigines. Africans are racist against other African tribal groups. China is destroying the Uyghurs. I know jack about South America, but I got most of the rest of us in there! Not parroting the meme, but Canadians seem pretty nice. Oh, we go insane on each other in Antarctica. :)
Damn. Forgot India. Caste system, all I need to say. Not so sure about Pakistan, Afghanistan, that whole area. South East Asia? No clue, but they seem pretty homogeneous in the smaller nation states, though I gather they're none of them fans of the Japanese. And I'm sure that sentiment is reciprocated. :)
That's the point for you everything is race, we hate our neighbours thirty kilometers away not because they are white or black, but becuase they are savage and barely even count as humans. 🙃
Greeks and turks aren't different race (or different anything, really), they are historical enemies and subscribe ro different religions.
Point is, nobody but americans (as far as random conversations on the internet go) think in races or whatever, people don't hate gypsies because they look like gypsies, but because who they are and what they represent for people that hate them.
Even your statistics is always points out which race does whatever and low-key always imply that latino (whatever the term means) isn't really white.
We do have a weird thing with Latinos, legally and socially. I've met many, many people who I had no idea claimed "Latino" until they told me.
As to the law, every job application asks if you're "white but not Hispanic". That's an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) regulation. Also, that's why we keep those stats. You can opt not to answer.
We've had to craft boatloads of laws to ensure that we're treating each other fairly. But again, that stems from earlier racism and current diversity.
I get your drift, but it would be weird for Europeans to speak of "race" when everyone pretty much looks the same. LOL, I'm well aware that Italians don't look like Scandinavians, but I gather it wouldn't be noticeable if one were in the other country?
Kind of depends on how you define "race" (it's pretty much scientifically meaningless, so define it however the hell you like)
But we have several currently ongoing attempts at genocide happening around the world, that to me tells me that a hell of a lot of people out there care a whole lot about race.
American racism is particularly odd to me due to how broadly we categorize race, trying to lump people into a black/white/Hispanic/Asian/etc. category based on not much more than skin color. And we're also unusuallly open about the fact that racism is a thing here. A lot of the world kind of keeps it more on the down-low.
But if you go with narrower definitions of race, you'll see the same kind of things happening around the world as in America. I've seen people from the UK talk about Polish immigrants in much the same way people here talk about Mexicans, and that's not even going into the cluster fuck of how much of Europe treats Romani people. A whole lot of people in Asian countries have issues with other people from other Asian countries, or even different ethnic groups within their own countries (like Uyghurs in china.) Parts of Africa are patchworks of different ethnic groups that are often at each other's throats, and of course South Africa is still a long way from having its shit fully sorted out. A lot of white Australians have pretty significant biases against Aboriginal people.
In my understanding term race always comes to phenotype. In my opinion difference in ethnicity is considerably less important then nationality in other parts of the world. There is casual racism of course, but people judge you mostly not because you look like southern european, but because you are greek for example.
Barring that, they would find any other differences among us to blame.
Barring that, rich people will use their power and influence to make sure we find some way to blame each other instead of them.
The main reason why we refuse to blame rich people for our problems is because most of us want to be the rich people causing the problems. Until we can get that idea out of most of our heads, we shouldn't expect these problems to be solved.
A see a few people here saying “they” when we should be using “we.” Just by using “they” you’re exhibiting the mindset of “they, not me” and “us vs them.” Racism is just one facet of it.
No, you don't need genetic differences for racism.
In fact, in most European languages the words "race" and "racism" are talking more about nationalities than about genetically different population groups.
For example, if you read German articles from the 1920s, they often talk about the "German race", the "French race" or the "English race". In most European languages the word "race" fell out of use after WW2 and the American meaning of the word "race" was re-imported later on. But the meaning lives on in the meaning of "racism".
For example, in German a white person from Germany who hates everyone from France irrespective of their skin color is still a racist, while in the USA that wouldn't qualify as racism.
That's because neither the word "race" nor "racism" have a clear definition. "Race" is used entirely to discriminate "them" vs "us". So "race" determines whatever group people in a country want to discriminate against.
In the USA this was clearly a "we, the while ex-european people" vs "them, the black former slaves" and "them, the asians" and "them, the south americans".
So what would happen if suddenly everyone had the same skin color? People would just shift to the next best thing to discriminate.
Instead of discriminating against black people, just do what has been done in Europe for millennia: Discriminate against slavic people. (The term "slave" comes from "slavic", because it was so common to keep slavic people as slaves.)
And if nations, religions, languages and regions of origin would also disappear as things to discriminate against, then it would shift to the next thing: people who went to a different school, have a different education or best of all: other types of poor people.
The issue is that humans are heuristics-based beings. Prejudices the result of learning. I've had 5 crappy HP printers, so I conclude all HP printers suck. Some friends have had terrible experiences with Fiat cars, so I avoid Fiat cars. I read in the newspaper that Nestle is destroying the planet, so I eat something else.
The problem is that if this is applied to humans, they get unfairly judged for things that are often completely out of their control. The core mechanism that we humans function on happens to be severely destructive in this context. But that's also why it's hard to impossible to get rid of racism and similar forms of discrimination because they are so centrally embedded in how we humans function.
Nah they would just invent new races. What's the point of race? What does it mean exactly? Notice that the races in the US at least roughly align with economic classes.
That's not an accident. Obviously without the concept of races, people would still have different skin color and hair, but the implications would be entirely different. Culture, neighborhoods, etc. wouldn't be separated. And most importantly, it would be ever so slightly harder for rich people to make the majority feel like they're in the same group as them as opposed to some "other".
So if there was only one race, the rich would need to invent new ones.
Damned good question! Without a visible "other" to point at we'd at least be a long step closer to seeing the real enemy.
To everyone speculating that we'd find other ways to break into tribes, how does it look in racially/ethnically homogeneous countries? I'm American so I only know what I read online.
Second, outside of certain countries overly obsessed with skin colour, we in the rest of the world have other ways of hating each other: cultural background, religion, economical status, education.
123 Comments
irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 153 pts · 1y
No, we'd simply find some other difference to get divided on.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 55 pts · 1y
It'd be regions/land-based, probably. "Southern pride," etc...just without the racism. Fuck those star-bellied sneeches across the river.
MuskyMelon@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y
Glad that you brought up the Sneeches!
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
And I hear those damn Zooks eat their bread with the buttered side down.
ceenote@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 1y
I vote we use wealth.
irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 20 pts · 1y
Unfortunately it's the wealthy people who decide.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1y
It'll ultimately just lead to even more discrimination against the poor
psoul@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
It’s intersectional: the wealthy early birds. They would make the decision while us night owls sleep
4grams@awful.systems · 24 pts · 1y
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1y
Having lived in a majority white city where they divided themselves between countries of origin, this would happen.
Until a large Hispanic influx northeast PA had Italian sections, Irish sections, Lithuanian sections, Polish sections, etc. When my ex’s grandmother met me she asked me “what are you?” despite us both being white.
plyth@feddit.org · 4 pts · 1y
She was old enough to remember that none of those origins was considered white.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1y
In the show All In The Family, Archie isn't just bigoted against non-caucasians; he's bigoted against the polish, Irish, Italians, etc... He's less bigoted against those groups than he is against non-whites, but still bigoted. He's also bigoted against catholics
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social · 7 pts · 1y
Or people would simply be divided over what race they used to be.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1y
After a few generations, they'd start to forget
PartyAt15thAndSummit@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 1y
Look up Cagots, then.
Phen@lemmy.eco.br · 3 pts · 1y
And people would also track down and document what race people used to be before the change happened so that they could keep on hating too.
psoul@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Exactly. This is why people say race is a construct.
If we all became the same race then some self labeled ingroup would construct (i.e. create) new criteria to label others as an outgroup eventually creating new races.
z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 1y
Exactly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIcsk2ZoaTY&t=17
abekonge@lemmy.ml · 74 pts · 1y
Uh we are the same race. There do not exist multiple human races in any biological sense. So what would happen is what is happening now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization)?wprov=sfti1
ToastedRavioli@midwest.social · 23 pts · 1y
Virtually all racism boils down to colorism
sulgoth@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 1y
Don't forget that people hated the Irish too. Color ain't the only reason.
lonefighter@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 1y
I remember a little while ago when it was in the news for a very short time that they found several mass graves in PA of Irish who were brought over to be indentured servants. I don't remember if they had determined what the cause of death was, whether it was illness or murder, but it stopped being news pretty quickly because no one really cared.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 1y
Cholera, mostly, but also violence. It says they were turned away from getting help because the locals feared contagion, so perhaps that's some of the violence. They also made practically no money but had a generous whiskey allotment, which would likely contribute to violence. They were working on Duffy's Cut for some time, and the mass grave has been described as a garbage dump for bodies, not like they were lined up and shot or something, not that it makes it any better. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/irelands-forgotten-sons-recovered-two-centuries-later-9194680/
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1y
Where people draw racial lines is arbitrary. I guess it is largely defined by skin colour and culture
MrEff@lemmy.world · 58 pts · 1y
TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1y
lol right. I wonder what race OP imagines
HikingVet@lemmy.ca · 43 pts · 1y
There is only the human race. Any differences in appearance is less that a % of genetic difference.
Peasley@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 1y
The modern concept of race was invented in 1684 by this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Bernier?wprov=sfla1
It's been utter bullshit from the start
thoon@feddit.nl · 16 pts · 1y
Of course he was fr*nch
arcterus@piefed.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 1y
I'm ngl he looks exactly like what I expected.
Sergio@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 1y
omg he's even got a fedora... gotta be a hoax...
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · -6 pts · 1y
"Our"
I've ever only seen Americans and random racists use the term that way. Most of us agree that we're one race.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 12 pts · 1y
Are you kidding? I've heard Scots and English vilely denegrate Welsh, Germans denegrate Saxons, English denigrate black people...on and on and on.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1y
Black people denigrating blacker people, Indians denigrating darker Indians, and so on. Yeah, we're tribal, evolved that way.
These people all bent over the word "race". Meh. Give it a rest. The word used to be in common parlance, now I never here it IRL, despite being told us Southerners are the most racist people on Earth.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 1y
I'm in the deep south and I hear it a lot, from every race.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
People use the word "race" in conversation? Hard to get my head around! Not doubting you, but we don't talk like that. OTOH, we're seriously race (heh) mixed in NW Florida. My block is a nearly perfect cross-section of black, white, Asian demographics for the area. LOL, my wife being the 1% Asian rep. :)
No Hispanic folk, but they were really rare before 2004. No joke, there were hardly any Mexican restaurants before they flooded in to save us from the destruction.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 3 pts · 1y
Maybe you're so used to it, you don't notice. Or maybe it's said in other ways, eg, "Certain races do this thing or think that way." Or maybe it's more subtle, "That's just their culture." "That's just how their people are."
It's also maddening when discussing medical issues. "Why does my race have to be brought into it?” "Because certain ethnicities have problems with this particular medical condition moreso than others." "Because I'm more susceptible to x and I can't do y with you."
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1y
south of what?
Maeve@kbin.earth · 3 pts · 1y
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South
SeductiveTortoise@piefed.social · 1 pts · 1y
Might be a German thing, but race and racist don't have the same base for nothing. You don't talk like that here and I've only heard it in the us. Maybe Scots bite their tongue taking to a German about those things.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 1y
Plural of anecdote... Yes I know, forgive me for not documenting all the times I've heard it. Maybe people posture, depending on the surrounding people. Maybe they feel more free to be more honest as tourists. Perhaps both.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 2 pts · 1y
Hahahahahaha, that's some funny shit right there.
cattywampas@midwest.social · 11 pts · 1y
Fun fact, there is more genetic variation within Africa than there is in the rest of the world combined. This is because only a small lineage of humans ended up migrating out of Africa.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
There's no logical difference, but there's all the emotional difference in the world. We evolved to be suspicious of that tribe over on the other mountain. And well we should have been! They might just come over and slaughter us for our women and land.
Besides, we didn't evolve to operate in groups larger than about 150. Past that, other people become objects in our minds. We can't be truly close to more than that many people. What is the Monkeysphere? ( <- solid article on all this)
It's why I understand the immigrant hate. Earth's population has more than doubled in my lifetime. "Who ARE all these people and why are they from another tribe?! It was already crowded!"
Only way we get over the hate ironically consists of two seemingly opposed plans:
We'll get there. There have been massive strides in my lifetime alone.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 4 pts · 1y
If we don't extinct ourselves and a bunch of other species, first. Maybe. The current race toward devolution gives me pause to doubt, however.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
We're not going extinct. Humans are the toughest beasts on the planet, the AR-15 of animals. Not the best at anything, not by a long shot, but we're perfect multi-purpose lifeforms. Hell, we survive in every ecosystem on Earth. Insects can't even claim that!
But yeah, I've commented enough in the past on what we're taking out with us. Lived through seeing 73% of animals go POOF! since 1970, seen my local ecosphere crashing out over the last 5. I want to cry and scream! And no one is aware. When I talk about it IRL, people are captivated, "You're right. Hadn't noticed that. Wow." You can see their gears turning, truly a new thought.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 3 pts · 1y
I do believe climate science. And I do think a nuclear world war would decimate humans. I do hold hope, and recognize very real potentialities.
And right back to football, video games, occasionally maybe standing somewhere publicly with a clever sign.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
LOL, I'm a child of the Cold War. You can't tell me about global thermonuclear war fears! :) Weirdly, us teens just accepted it was a thing that could happen any second. Whatever.
And don't be so cynical! Educating people like that, showing them how things have changed for the worse in their experience has impact. But you gotta follow through with solutions they can work with! "And that's why I don't use pesticides or herbicides. Notice the frogs are back on our block? Seen all the dragonflies? Check out my ponds. They double as mosquito control!"
I think we're missing the trees in this forest of doom. We're powerless to fight the megacorps, and bitching about them only makes people feel more powerless. But we can teach people to chip away, give them actionable goals. Put the idea in their heads that, "This isn't normal or right and you've experienced this!", without being preachy. It's hard.
I've seen massive social and environmental progress in my life. It all started with grass-roots talking points. Don't say "fag", don't toss your cigarette fag (heh), pick up trash that's not yours, and on and on.
Don't lecture or lay blame, no guilt trips, talk about the problem in a personally, emotionally understandable way they'll internalize, give them a solution they can act on right now, today.
Maybe I'm still an idealist. So it goes.
Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 1 pts · 1y
There's no logical difference?
My particular health risks would beg to differ.
There's differences, but basing your opionion of someone on their race (bigotry and racism) is "philistine, backward thinking".
shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Got me there! I was referring to the previous post saying we're so genetically tight as to be scientifically indistinguishable as "races". But yeah, a couple of base pairs coding for a misfolded protein is certainly a difference!
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 42 pts · 1y
They'd still argue over religion. And what sports team they cheer for. And whatever else the billionaire owned media could decide to distract them with.
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 1y
If I really wanted an excuse to hate people, I'd hate people who make dumb complaints about movies
thermal_shock@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
People who won't use their blinkers
People with no regard to those around them
People who litter or don't clean up after their dog
The list goes on.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1y
But To be fair, why was Gandalf the White just waiting around in the forest for Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas to stumble upon him?
untorquer@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
Bro thought he was dead and in the wizard afterlife.
Turns out he was already there. There is no escape frome middle earth for a wizard.
roofuskit@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 1y
Race was invented by them to divide us. They'll just invent something else.
breecher@sh.itjust.works · 21 pts · 1y
They already use gender, sexuality, nationality, anything really. Race is just one of many strings on the harp of bigotry.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1y
Absolutely. Religion, language, country of origin, gender, age, there’s no shortage of useless ways to divide people. Our differences aren’t the issue, the issue is the rich and powerful exploiting our differences to pit us against each other.
dil@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 1y
Indian hate goes up whenever india related policies go into effect, trump tarrifs india and no one gived a fk since all day see is normalized indian hate for months prior
Jhex@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 1y
nah... equally looking people, indistinguishble from each other, have managed levels of hate high enough to attemp genocide
lazylion_ca@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 1y
Right. Like, can you imagine what society would be like if we let bald people vote? /s
monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1y
That demon is left handed!!!
Jhex@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
that animal has a unibrow!!!! to the pitchforks
Auli@lemmy.ca · 20 pts · 1y
We are all the same race we are just different colours. Can you imagine any other animals fighting over their looks.
tisktisk@piefed.social · 20 pts · 1y
You... You really think we wouldn't find some other trivial differences to get overly tribal over?
Maeve@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 1y
Yes, I remember this conversation with a parent when I was in my 20s. They reminded me of clan and tribal wars.
TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 1y
.... that is not how race works.
we already ARE the same race. we constructed differences to divide us, elevate ourselves and put down outsiders without having to accomplish anything.
Imagine a world where everyone taller than 6 feet is considered a different social class. that's race.
DeadMartyr@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 1y
I get it and agree mostly. I definitely think socioeconomic classes are more of a defining/dividing line than a heritage you happen to share with someone.
Only <1% of any humans DNA differs, but I think a better point is that everyone is atleast 50th cousins or something (Granted if you share a heritage its much closer)
But also if you told someone like my girlfriend that race isn't real she'd probably sock you. She's experienced it and its very real to her.
When we started dating I would actually try to talk about how I don't understand why she would side with someone solely because their skin was dark like hers and it would be a point of contention. She would literally associate with someone that objectively did something she thinks is reprehensible because of literally only that. She grew up very wealthy and never hurt anyone, guy on the news was someone in and out of prison who literally fired first on the guy that revived him with narcan--but they happen to have the same color of skin.
As a boy other Latinos would literally antagonize me for "acting white" because I would rather read during recess than play football/soccer--because being educated is associated with being white; we were the children of poor families with gangbangers as role models so we must obviously be destined for different things /s
I feel like a lot of racial issues are cultural and self-perpetuating. But my girlfriend in particular was the only black woman in a white conservative town, people would open doors for her friends and close it when it came to her, If I visit her hometown she doesn't want to be out for long, etc. So I get why it is very important to her.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
The discrimination is real, no question about it.
The thing that's not "real" is that this is solely about skin color.
In the USA race is defined quite closely along the lines of "continent of origin" (or of origin of the ancestors), because the USA Is a country with worldwide immigration. Thus the groups are larger.
Compare that to Europe, where world-wide immigration only started picking up in the last two decades. Here people can discriminate just as easily within what would be considered the same race in the USA. For example, many people in Austria really hate Serbians. Many Serbians really hate Croatians. Many Croatians really hate Albanians and so on.
This is also visible in the meaning of the words "race" and "racism". Before WW2 "race" was commonly used in Europe as in the "German race", the "English race" or the "French race". And while the term "race" fell out of use after WW2 and was subsequently re-imported from the USA with the USA-meaning, the original meaning lives on in the meaning of "racism".
For example, if a French man hates all the English, this wouldn't be racism in the USA (since both are from the same "race" by US-definition), it would totally be racism in most European languages.
The "social construct" part of the discrimination is along which lines discrimination happens. There's nothing "natural" about discriminating along the lines of US-race. Discrimination can happen just as viciously along any other line.
And that certainly doesn't mean people don't suffer from it. But it also means that making sure everyone is as equal as possible (e.g. by eliminating US-race) won't stop discrimination.
TimewornTraveler@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1y
socially constructed things are very real. I don't know who the fuck let that fart out in our society, to make people think that when they hear "it's a social construct" they hear "it's not real!" pretty frustrating
what it means is that it's an arbitrary thing based on mostly nothing except history and all it would take to change it is for us to act differently towards it.
but the history behind it is very real, so we can't just eliminate race by pretending it isn't real. we have to acknowledge the impacts, respect the differences, and work towards making the idea of race obsolete. that'll probably take a few thousand years lol
Melusine@tarte.nuage-libre.fr · 15 pts · 1y
Tell me you don't know what the nazies did in Eastern Europe without telling me you don't what the nazies did in Eastern Europe. Or how the Irish were considered in the USA, or the italians...
zout@fedia.io · 2 pts · 1y
Or the Irish in the Uk, or whoever in whichever country. For me, my family (wife and kids) come first, then my neighbourhood, my village, my minucipality, my country and so on. It's the same for everyone, which is fine as long as you acknowledge it and act accordingly.
kibiz0r@midwest.social · 13 pts · 1y
Idk man. The Sneetches “got really quite wise on that day”, but they still never guillotined Sylvester McMonkey McBean.
if_only@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 1y
It seems the sneetches wisdom knows very specifically defined bounds
01189998819991197253@infosec.pub · 2 pts · 1y
That, mate, is the best comparison.
UncleGrandPa@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y
There's still Religious bigotry... That's worked as an alternative for eons
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 10 pts · 1y
We'd still find ways to focus on what makes us different and fight about it.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 1y
"unique selling point" or sth
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 2 pts · 1y
Even identical conjoined twins with one body and two heads who share every experience, have different perspectives. One sees slightly more to the left, the other more to the right.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 1y
Let me tell you a bit bout a guy that I've seen.
A man known as Sylvester McMonkey McBean.
Every now and again he'd head towards the beaches
Carting along his machine, for the sneeches.
When did Dr. Seuss get so woke...
realitista@lemmus.org · 9 pts · 1y
No we'd come up with something else. We need to gene edit everyone to edit out the tribalism gene and replace it with a "we're all in this together" gene.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 1y
i read a story when i was a kid ... it went something like this
we all draw a circle around ourselves and the people we want to care about. that is our group. different people draw different circles, some draw it very small and only care about themselves, others care for their family, and other draw an even bigger circle
what i'm wondering is why people draw circles of a specific size. i.e. what causes it that people care about the 300 people in their environment, but not about the other 10 billion people on earth?
MTK@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1y
Twist, it is a completely novel race, no one looks normal anymore
FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 1y
I'd like for everyone to have green skin and antennae
MTK@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
I was thinking less alien, more realistic.
Maybe everyone is now a vaguely human looking Dusky Leaf Monkey.
Imagine the skin color patterns, being extra hairy, and looking somewhere between cute and uncanny valley.
vane@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1y
People will argue about something else. You can change the parameters of the simulation but you can't change the outcome.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de · 7 pts · 1y
all people have like 99.9% of their DNA in common, that hasn't stopped them from waging wars in the past.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 1y
Hahahahahaha no, look at India.
plyth@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1y
At least top and bottom are about race.
HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1y
What is race though, the Irish and Italians weren't white till what the 50s?
mavu@discuss.tchncs.de · 6 pts · 1y
Look. I live in a small town. The people one town over are dumb as fuck and ugly inbreeds.
They say the same about us.
See the problem? What we need is for the fucking psychologists to step up their game and develop bulletproof tests for sociopaths.
Keep them out of positions of any power and we're well on our way for a golden age of humanity.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org · 6 pts · 1y
nesc@lemmy.cafe · 5 pts · 1y
Race isn't really important to anyone but americans? There is racism everywhere, obviously, but race itself isn't important.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Nah. I've read online Europeans bashing every other sort of European, and they're mostly white. Often in jest, often in "Fuck the Gypsies!" Or the Greeks, or the Muslims, or what have you.
The US is quickly closing on on 50% white, 50% everyone else. Meanwhile, in Europe. So yeah, maybe we talk race too much, or use it as a shorthand too casually, but that doesn't automatically mean hate or exclusion. We just have big groups of races, ethnicities, whatever.
Not going to hear about America's racism when Europe is solid white. In other words, why would they complain about black people, or any other major ethnicity, when they don't have any?
As to other countries, I gather Japan is as racist as human culture gets. Australians are racist with the aborigines. Africans are racist against other African tribal groups. China is destroying the Uyghurs. I know jack about South America, but I got most of the rest of us in there! Not parroting the meme, but Canadians seem pretty nice. Oh, we go insane on each other in Antarctica. :)
Any of that make sense? Feels a bit rambly.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
(can't edit my posts)
Damn. Forgot India. Caste system, all I need to say. Not so sure about Pakistan, Afghanistan, that whole area. South East Asia? No clue, but they seem pretty homogeneous in the smaller nation states, though I gather they're none of them fans of the Japanese. And I'm sure that sentiment is reciprocated. :)
Jarix@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
Canada isn't any better than many colonial nations in regards to native populations.
Look up Canada residential schools if you want to know more about how badly Canada treated people in recent history
nesc@lemmy.cafe · 0 pts · 1y
That's the point for you everything is race, we hate our neighbours thirty kilometers away not because they are white or black, but becuase they are savage and barely even count as humans. 🙃
Greeks and turks aren't different race (or different anything, really), they are historical enemies and subscribe ro different religions.
Point is, nobody but americans (as far as random conversations on the internet go) think in races or whatever, people don't hate gypsies because they look like gypsies, but because who they are and what they represent for people that hate them.
Even your statistics is always points out which race does whatever and low-key always imply that latino (whatever the term means) isn't really white.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
We do have a weird thing with Latinos, legally and socially. I've met many, many people who I had no idea claimed "Latino" until they told me.
As to the law, every job application asks if you're "white but not Hispanic". That's an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) regulation. Also, that's why we keep those stats. You can opt not to answer.
We've had to craft boatloads of laws to ensure that we're treating each other fairly. But again, that stems from earlier racism and current diversity.
I get your drift, but it would be weird for Europeans to speak of "race" when everyone pretty much looks the same. LOL, I'm well aware that Italians don't look like Scandinavians, but I gather it wouldn't be noticeable if one were in the other country?
Fondots@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
Kind of depends on how you define "race" (it's pretty much scientifically meaningless, so define it however the hell you like)
But we have several currently ongoing attempts at genocide happening around the world, that to me tells me that a hell of a lot of people out there care a whole lot about race.
American racism is particularly odd to me due to how broadly we categorize race, trying to lump people into a black/white/Hispanic/Asian/etc. category based on not much more than skin color. And we're also unusuallly open about the fact that racism is a thing here. A lot of the world kind of keeps it more on the down-low.
But if you go with narrower definitions of race, you'll see the same kind of things happening around the world as in America. I've seen people from the UK talk about Polish immigrants in much the same way people here talk about Mexicans, and that's not even going into the cluster fuck of how much of Europe treats Romani people. A whole lot of people in Asian countries have issues with other people from other Asian countries, or even different ethnic groups within their own countries (like Uyghurs in china.) Parts of Africa are patchworks of different ethnic groups that are often at each other's throats, and of course South Africa is still a long way from having its shit fully sorted out. A lot of white Australians have pretty significant biases against Aboriginal people.
I could go on.
nesc@lemmy.cafe · 1 pts · 1y
In my understanding term race always comes to phenotype. In my opinion difference in ethnicity is considerably less important then nationality in other parts of the world. There is casual racism of course, but people judge you mostly not because you look like southern european, but because you are greek for example.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 1y
The British have never needed race to start fights with the French.
roscoe@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1y
Fucking Gauls.
RBWells@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
Bosnia would like to have a word.
haloduder@thelemmy.club · 4 pts · 1y
I wish, but no.
For one, they would blame religion.
Barring that, they would find any other differences among us to blame.
Barring that, rich people will use their power and influence to make sure we find some way to blame each other instead of them.
The main reason why we refuse to blame rich people for our problems is because most of us want to be the rich people causing the problems. Until we can get that idea out of most of our heads, we shouldn't expect these problems to be solved.
I don't have much hope, personally.
jaemo@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 1y
Lol wot. You think we wouldn't get all caste system in this piece son?
zeca@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 1y
Any small difference in personality is gonna be used to justify what is wrong with the world.
Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 1y
See also: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin.
leftthegroup@lemmings.world · 3 pts · 1y
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
A see a few people here saying “they” when we should be using “we.” Just by using “they” you’re exhibiting the mindset of “they, not me” and “us vs them.” Racism is just one facet of it.
SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 1y
But what race?
Apocalypteroid@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1y
400m
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
No, you don't need genetic differences for racism.
In fact, in most European languages the words "race" and "racism" are talking more about nationalities than about genetically different population groups.
For example, if you read German articles from the 1920s, they often talk about the "German race", the "French race" or the "English race". In most European languages the word "race" fell out of use after WW2 and the American meaning of the word "race" was re-imported later on. But the meaning lives on in the meaning of "racism".
For example, in German a white person from Germany who hates everyone from France irrespective of their skin color is still a racist, while in the USA that wouldn't qualify as racism.
That's because neither the word "race" nor "racism" have a clear definition. "Race" is used entirely to discriminate "them" vs "us". So "race" determines whatever group people in a country want to discriminate against.
In the USA this was clearly a "we, the while ex-european people" vs "them, the black former slaves" and "them, the asians" and "them, the south americans".
So what would happen if suddenly everyone had the same skin color? People would just shift to the next best thing to discriminate.
Instead of discriminating against black people, just do what has been done in Europe for millennia: Discriminate against slavic people. (The term "slave" comes from "slavic", because it was so common to keep slavic people as slaves.)
And if nations, religions, languages and regions of origin would also disappear as things to discriminate against, then it would shift to the next thing: people who went to a different school, have a different education or best of all: other types of poor people.
The issue is that humans are heuristics-based beings. Prejudices the result of learning. I've had 5 crappy HP printers, so I conclude all HP printers suck. Some friends have had terrible experiences with Fiat cars, so I avoid Fiat cars. I read in the newspaper that Nestle is destroying the planet, so I eat something else.
The problem is that if this is applied to humans, they get unfairly judged for things that are often completely out of their control. The core mechanism that we humans function on happens to be severely destructive in this context. But that's also why it's hard to impossible to get rid of racism and similar forms of discrimination because they are so centrally embedded in how we humans function.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1y
The rich are the ones that made race into a problem. Racism isn't organic, it was constructed by colonialism.
rational_lib@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
Nah they would just invent new races. What's the point of race? What does it mean exactly? Notice that the races in the US at least roughly align with economic classes.
That's not an accident. Obviously without the concept of races, people would still have different skin color and hair, but the implications would be entirely different. Culture, neighborhoods, etc. wouldn't be separated. And most importantly, it would be ever so slightly harder for rich people to make the majority feel like they're in the same group as them as opposed to some "other".
So if there was only one race, the rich would need to invent new ones.
Crampi@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1y
This would happen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIcsk2ZoaTY&t=15
the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
We would have war between gen z and millennials within a week.
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Stupid.
grandel@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
We are all the human race
collapse_already@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 333d
My favorite part of this idea is the thought of white supremacists waking up and finding themselves to be black.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
Humans never evolved past tribes.
shalafi@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1y
Damned good question! Without a visible "other" to point at we'd at least be a long step closer to seeing the real enemy.
To everyone speculating that we'd find other ways to break into tribes, how does it look in racially/ethnically homogeneous countries? I'm American so I only know what I read online.
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 1y
Greed everywhere is the real problem. The rich are just successful in their greed.
Siegfried@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1y
First, we are only one race
Second, outside of certain countries overly obsessed with skin colour, we in the rest of the world have other ways of hating each other: cultural background, religion, economical status, education.