Race is a social construct

[sqbr]

EDIT: this is a criticism of race as an "objective" biological categorisation. I do have arguments against (or at least about) race as a social phenomenon, but they are outside the scope of this "short" post. Sorry for being unclear!

A while ago there was a post on debunkingwhite challenging people to talk on their ljs about how race has no basis in biology. I added it to my "queue of topics to make thinky posts about" (I find it best to let things stew for a while there, and anyway was feeling sick and stupid ¹) and today got around to reading other people's responses.

Anyway, I reserve the right to make a long thinky post later, but this post and comment in particular really helped crystalise it for me personally:

So. Human beings are not genetically uniform. Different populations have observable genetic differences in their average makeup (ie the percentages present of various genes) and these result in observable differences (and presumably, also more subtle ones we haven't noticed) in things like skin colour, susceptibility to particular diseases etc.

There is also the historical/social concept of "race", which divides the world into fairly strict categories (asian, african etc) based on physical, geographical, and cultural markers, and which associates various traits (intelligence, criminality etc) to each race.

These two divisions, the genetic and the racial? Have pretty much no relationship to each other what-so-ever.

A fact which I have long thought that everyone who makes generalisations about "black people" needs to be hit over the head with is this: there is significantly more genetic variation between groups of black africans than there is within the entire rest of the world. If we were to divide the world into fairly broad genetic "races" in any objective way, we would have a hundred or whatever² african groups, and one "Other" group, which would cover asians, europeans, arabs, native americans etc as one big effectively homogeneous group.

Instead, "race" as it is constructed in practice is a historical artifact of colonisation and conquest and was created to separate the haves from the have-nots, like the class divisions in the feudal system. It has no basis in biology. Does this mean "race" doesn't exist? No, it exists as much as any other socially constructed category, like class, nationality or religion³, and like them it has major effects which can't be ignored. It just doesn't make any sense as a biological categorisation.

It's also worth noting that while average genetic differences do exist between certain ethnic groups, the spread of genetic diversity inside those populations is much larger than the differences between populations and so means diddly-squat at an individual level (and racism usually relies on making assumptions about individuals)

(1)Sidenote: it may be a coincidence, but I took sonnlich's advice to take zinc tablets and I feel SO much better.
(2)Number chosen at random since I can't be bothered looking it up. Most of the other posts went to effort of giving references, I say lazily :)
(3)I'm not talking about religious belief, I'm just saying there's no bioliogical difference between, say, catholics and protestants. Religious belief as a social construct is a very interesting topic but again, well beyond the scope of this post!

Comments

[nico-wolfwood.livejournal.com]

It just doesn't make any sense. I just wanted to say that I love that sentence.

On reading this I found I agreed with most of it but I kept thinking that just because something is a social/cultural construct and doesn't make scientific sense does not invalidate it as a concept nor does it mean that won't come to make social common sense over time.

People tend to try and make up 'reasons' to believe in things and often those 'reasons' become self-fulfilling prophecies. Sometimes these can be negative, but sometimes they can be positive. There was an anthropologist (E. E. Evans-Pritchard) who, when speaking about religion, 'argued that believers and non-believers approached the study of religion in vastly different ways, with non-believers being quicker to come up with biological, sociological, or psychological theories to explain religion as an illusion, and believers being more likely to come up with theories explaining religion as a method of conceptualizing and relating to reality.' (quoted from wiki, I love wiki)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that people who believe in a concept can make it true (in some sense) by creating, seemingly, self-fulfilling prophecies. Tell someone they have no chance of holding down a job and they may not try to obtain one. Or tell them they're highly intelligent and will only fail to get into Harvard if they deliberately fail their SATs. Tell enough of an ethnic group this sort of myth and it's possible statistics will come to reflect them over time.

Just because something doesn’t make scientific sense now doesn’t mean it won’t make apparent social sense later.

[alias_sqbr]

Absolutely, I was unclear: race makes no sense as a biological categorisation. As a social categorisation it makes a certain amount of sense, though it's very self contradictory and arbitrary, and obviously I disagree with the way people tend to view it (ie I acknowledge that aboriginal australians are more likely to be poor, but not that they're more likely to be lazy etc)

I agree that race (and gender etc) myths can become self fulfilling prophecies, though I don't think it's usually quite as straightforward as the examples you give. But that's a complex topic for another time :)

[nico-wolfwood.livejournal.com]

Oh, the examples were deliberately clear-cut, but I don't think the myths that people tell themselves and each other have to be complicated. Religious/spiritual versions can be as simple as "I put this blanket on my head = can't see monster in closet = monster in closet can't see me" (from when I was 6). It's the relationship between the initial idea and the later trend to believe in a God because he will smite nasty supernatural beasties sent to get you (me currently) that's complicated. Likewise, the link (if there is one) between Asian parents telling their kids they're too smart not to go to a top school and the, proportionally speaking, high admission rates of Asian Americans to top US universities is complicated and debatable.

[alias_sqbr]

Oops, the other thing I was going to clarify is that I wasn't saying religious belief is a social construction (that's hardly an "obvious" statement I can just chuck in as an example to support my argument!), just that there's no biological basis for the differences between, say, catholics and protestants.

I mean, as a materialist atheist I do believe religion is a social (and personal) construction, but I wouldn't compare it to race, it works in a very different way and is (on the whole) much more constructive and positive (and personal)

I may have more to say on this later but I need to get it straight in my head.

[nico-wolfwood.livejournal.com]

I don't think religion's necessarily relevant to this discussion except that it was central to the work of the anthropologist whose ideas I was attempting to apply.

Of course, if you want to discuss religion as a social construct, I'm up for that too. :)

[alias_sqbr]

Ah, right, you were using it as an example independently of me using at as an example. I think.

My brain is currently occupied trying to deal with an annoying commenter below :/

[melberon.livejournal.com]

Largely agree with this; but:

1. Whether race is a social or biological construct has absolutely no bearing on the ethics of racism. Dissecting components of race as being socially/biologicalically determined is a contingent claim about the real world. Claiming that racism is morally odious is an a priori proposition that shouldn't affected by any scientific evidence about race (whether Bell Curve stylez or the kind of argument that you're making above).

2. Claiming that race is completely socially constructed is kind of ridiculous when you can point to people on the street and say "that person has dark skin, a particular body shape, etc - is clearly an abo" [1] and "that person has pasty white skin, has never seen sunlight, blah - is clearly white". These are clear physical differences between people and are not completely uncorrelated with people's ancestry and genetic makeup.

3. More generally I get ranty when I hear people make reductionist statements like "foo is just a bar". But that's a story for another time, I think I've taken your lj off-track enough with this comment already :-)

- Cameron (the other one)

[1] Incidentally, one of the surprises I've had in the last six months is how much easier it is to find people matching that physical description in Perth than it is in Melbourne. Apparently Victorians managed to wipe out most of their Aboriginal population during the gold rush in the 1800s :-/

[alias_sqbr]

Whether race is a social or biological construct has absolutely no bearing on the ethics of racism

Not quite, though I agree the two aren't 100% correlated. Yes, racism would still be wrong even if race had an objective biological basis, the same way that sexism is wrong despite the fact that gender has an objective biological basis (albeit one which isn't as clear cut as people like to think) Also, most modern racist arguments don't rely on biological justifications, but on cultural/social ones, and so my post does nothing to disprove them.
But some racist arguments do rely on biological justifications, and when you take that justification away those arguments are exposed for the nasty nonsense they really are. Also I think a lot of people deep down have a subconscious belief in race-as-biological-destiny (myself included), and that's something which needs exposing and disproving.

Also, I wasn't really writing this to convince people/fight racism so much as share an epiphany :)

Claiming that race is completely socially constructed is kind of ridiculous

Ok, yes, it's not completely socially constructed. But it's biological underpinnings are very shaky, you might as well say nationality is biological. For every person whose "race" is obvious, there are twenty who get read as something they're not: I personally have been mistaken for latino, african(!), italian, and "muslim" (I've yet to have anyone "correctly" guess eastern european or jewish), and it took me two years to figure out that the little old catholic grandmother living next to me was Iraqi rather than italian. Context and culture have as much to do with it as appearance, see for example this post, and the maori who is constantly mistaken for an aboriginal woman.

More generally I get ranty when I hear people make reductionist statements like "foo is just a bar".

Yeah, sorry, my tendency to make huge unqualified generalisations made me a terrible mathematician :)

[mporter.livejournal.com]

Do you realize you deconstructed your own argument when you talked about the greater genetic diversity of Africans? :-) The post at Sanguinity to which you linked is actually talking about an objective quality which differs between the so-called socially constructed races, namely, genetic variance!

[sanguinity]

Ergh. I believe you're misreading the significance of that. (And you may know that -- I can't tell what that smiley means.)

If you begin by drawing circles around groups of people, putting them into categories of traditional socially-defined races, and then look at the genetics, you'll see differing amounts of diversity in the different groups.

You can't use those differences in within-group diversity, though, to go in the other direction. You can't look at the whole mess of diversity, and -- without pre-existing knowledge of what the traditional races are -- start assigning individuals to groups such that you end up with the traditional races.

The "objective quality" you mention -- genetic diversity -- only exists at the group level. It doesn't exist in individuals. However, the usual uses and inferences of race -- such as granting/denying privileges to individuals -- are all about expecting there to be objective genetic differences among groups which are expressed in the individual members of those groups. And within-group diversity simply cannot be expressed in an individual.

So, no, the argument isn't deconstructed: the traditional races -- a prediction/inference about the properties of the individuals belonging to those races -- isn't a valid biological concept.

[alias_sqbr]

I've just woken up but: very nice reply, but before you waste too much mental energy, you might like to know that mporter is a borderline troll (and not on my flist, just some random guy): http://alias-sqbr.livejournal.com/124773.html?thread=1229669#t1229669

It hadn't occurred to me that he might cause trouble for people who hadn't read the first conversation. Hmm. Sorry about that.

[sanguinity]

Sure. I didn't mind addressing it -- if only so that the group/individual distinction is clear for other passerby -- but I'll refrain from feeding that thread further. :-)

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, you're welcome to discuss it with him all you like, I just didn't want you getting frustrated by working from the assumption he was a friend of mine etc.

[mporter.livejournal.com]

See my reply (http://alias-sqbr.livejournal.com/128688.html?thread=1272240#t1272240) to our host. It should clarify a few things.

That smiley: I thought it was genuinely humorous that an antiracist argument should argue from a racial difference. Your counterargument is that the race categories in question are still not natural kinds. It still seems a bit dodgy. If Africa, genetically, is the Library of Congress, and everyone else is comparatively a minor literature - if that metaphor is truly proportionately appropriate - then that sounds like a difference that is objectively significant, and which should show up even in analysis which attached no a-priori significance to the usual markers of race. It makes it sound as if populations outside Africa are descended from highly specific African subpopulations and still carry distinctive traits indicative of those origins.

Basically, I am agnostic about the facts, but I am certainly prepared to discover that the views of antiracists on race are as full of nonsense as are the views of racists.

[alias_sqbr]

I have to say, you've pretty much reached the end of my patience.
I'm willing to have people post things here I disagree with, or even object to, as part of an open and sincere debate, I like having my assumptions questioned. But from this and our previous conversation I can see that you're not interested in a real discussion: instead of tackling my actual points you debunk straw versions (badly) and try to wiggle out of any points of yours I debunk by changing the subject and trying to distract me with random annoying tangents. I saw plenty of this sort of passive aggressive trolling when I was a forum moderator and I have very little patience for it here on my personal lj.

If it was just me I wouldn't mind so much, but I don't like seeing innocent commenters being drawn into frustrating "debates". So: stop it. Either engage in the discussion on this lj in a positive and sincere fashion (and it would take some pretty unambiguous signs of good faith on your part before I took you seriously in this respect), or stop commenting.

[mporter.livejournal.com]

Well, it's funny, from my perspective, with that latest comment I was doing the ethical bare minimum of suggesting, ever so gently, that maybe what you're saying is more ideological than factual. But I see why such a glancing engagement may look like trolling. I am reluctant to get into a protracted, detailed debate because there really are more important things to do, and besides, it's not as if I'm here to promote a specific racial typology in opposition to pure social constructionism. It is a long way from noticing that a lot of marathons are won by East Africans and a lot of Nobel Prizes are won by Jews to having correct and evidence-based opinions about the overall contours of human biodiversity. Folk theories of racial difference can be thoroughly wrong, and scientific ones too; prevailing cultural associations are hugely influential and can act as self-fulfilling prophecies; visible differences can constitute a target for irrationally displaced hostilities, so one can see why people would want to cultivate a culture of race-blindness; the most significant intrinsic differences between human subpopulations may not even have been identified yet, and may have no correlation with any of the commonly recognized differences.

But you certainly seem to work from the assumption that whatever group-based genetic differences do exist, they aren't too relevant to anything that matters. I say this given your comment about Catholics and Protestants. Do you actually have any basis for your opinion there, or are you just presuming? Catholicism and Protestantism are quite different as sensibilities; sensibility can be linked to character, character to genetics, genetics to population. I find it quite plausible that in Europe at least, where the difference was born, there is a systematic and causally relevant genetic difference between the members of the two sects! Though I certainly wouldn't just assert that it is so.

The previous time I was here, if I left a few responses hanging, it was because I had nothing to add. I wasn't going to argue against potty parity, for example! Or against the existence of prejudice. I stated my points, you stated your points. I felt a bit artless not aiming to produce some consensually recognized closure to the discussion, but there were three subthreads by then. It was simplest just to fade out. I'll probably do so again at some point, though I do at least want to ask sanguinity about their assertion that if you started without traditional racial divisions, and then examined genetic diversity, you wouldn't reinvent them. Is that just another presumption?

If you still think I argued on bad faith last time, and want to point out examples, please go ahead. I don't take offense at having been called a troll, by the way (though I don't aim to be one), given that overall you're clearly giving me a chance to state my views.

Why I don't like the way you argue

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm. I've been putting this off for a few days as I try to make myself completely clear, but that seems to be an unattainable goal, so this is the best I can do.

I am sorry if I've unfairly accused you of being a troll, I know what that's like.

That said, while I do have a problem with your opinions (which I will get to in a separate comment) my main issue is the way you argue, not what you're saying.

A general issue is that you seem less interested in having a discussion, where we find what we do and don't disagree on and work from there, and more interested in pushing your particular opinions, even when they're not really relevant.

Specifically, I asked (more or less) if you agreed with my first point, that sexism/racism cause significant cognitive bias.

You responded to a different part of my post, kind of.

I asked again.

You quibbled by asking "which interferes more with your ability to perceive reality, the assumption of equality or the assumption of inequality?"

I asked again.

You didn't reply.

As far as I can tell your answer is the same as mine: Yes, sexism/racism do cause significant cognitive bias.You just don't count them as being as big an issue as I do, and have a major problem with the measures usually suggested to counteract them. Which is fine.

But why not just say that? Avoiding the actual question and not admitting that you agree with the one small part of my post I specifically asked about is really frustrating, and so far from the standards of reasonable discourse that I decided you had to be a troll, and thus not worth the bother of discussing things with.

I'll admit that your first comment to this post wasn't actually that offensive in and of itself. But in the context of our previous conversation it was a sign you were likely to pop up on random posts I make in the future, thus drawing in innocent commenters who wouldn't be aware of your frustrating way of arguing.

Also, while not that bad it still felt like you yet again pushing your own agenda without really responding to the point of my post.

My problems with your actual opinions

[alias_sqbr]

Ok, as to your opinions:

I find it hard to believe that anyone can sincerely ask "which interferes more with your ability to perceive reality, the assumption of equality or the assumption of inequality?" Throughout history, sexism/racism etc have caused genocide and oppression etc on a massive scale. Even now, in "enlightened" societies like America and Australia, they still cause major observable negative effects, as in the articles I linked to.

I have yet to see the assumption of equality between genders/races etc cause genocide. I have yet to see published, peer reviewed research from an independent body proving that it causes major observable negative effects. At best there is evidence that it's not 100% correct, but none that it's actively harmful. (Being incorrect is bad, of course, but not on the same level)

When the only people you can cite who agree with you are white supremicists, you are not doing your argument any favours. Your "agnosticism about the facts", to me, is equivalent to people who place a hundred years of independent biological research in favour of evolution on the same footing as a few amateur non-biologists in favour of intelligent design.

I find it quite plausible that in Europe at least, where the difference was born, there is a systematic and causally relevant genetic difference between the members of the two sects

Well I don't (though I'll admit it's not impossible), but I think we can both agree that
(a) The variation between catholics, say, (whose membership includes people of every ethnic background) is almost certainly MUCH larger than the difference between your average catholic and your average protestant
(b) If religion has any genetic component it's not a very prescriptive or straightforward one, given the significant minority of people who are a different religion to their parents, and the fact that I've never heard of adopted children "miraculously" choosing the religion of their biological parents on any widespread basis.

So in that sense it's just like race: yes, there is quite probably a difference between the average genetic makeup of each group, but it's not large enough to be significant compared to the in-group variation, and it's certainly no justification for making biological assumptions about people based on their membership in a given group.

Also, I should add that I have had other antiracists get annoyed at me for not dismissing the idea of there being genetic differences between "races" out of hand. We're not a homogeneous group.

Re: My problems with your actual opinions

[mporter.livejournal.com]

Aggregated reply to both your comments:

I frankly wasn't sure about your first point. I felt like there were implicit premises that I'd have to unearth and then examine before I could even respond, and just didn't want to do that. However, I've now made a little progress in that regard. You said (paraphrase): people think group prejudice ("sexism/racism etc") is just a social justice issue, but actually it's a cognitive dysfunction as well.

Those -ism words combine two meanings: belief in a group difference, and prejudice against members of a group. If one could be sure that only the second meaning were intended, and that we were merely being called upon to oppose misogyny and race hatred, it would be a lot easier to support such a statement. This is a chronic semantic problem; how often do people say "I'm not racist/sexist but..."? In the end you stipulated that you mean unjustified prejudice, but prior to that it did look as if you were saying: belief in group differences = cognitive dysfunction.

Regarding whether presumption of equality or presumption of inequality is the bigger cause of cognitive bias: that may depend on time and place. One supposes that historically the latter has been far more common, but modern society, at least legally and intellectually, believes group differences are not innate, and were produced by cultural and historical processes that need to be undone. I have come across the suggestion (http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2008/06/ol9-how-to-uninstall-cathedral.html) (see the reference to "Inner Light") that the modern presumption of equality is just a form of Christianity: "all humans must be neurologically uniform because we all have the same little piece of God inside us". It offers an interesting perspective: that all the democracy, socialism, anti-discrimination of the last few centuries had its origins in a religious doctrine of radical spiritual equality, now secularized and ubiquitous. In that environment, incorrect presumption of equality may be the bigger risk intellectually, because it's the default assumption.

That is not to say that it's more likely to produce bad effects. To me, a society based on a mild presumption of equality certainly feels more civilized than, say, a caste-based one. I would think that societies built on hierarchy are inherently prone to all the miseries of regular revolt, and not just in modern times, even if the upper classes genuinely have some of the superiorities ideologically ascribed to them. After all, to grab a bigger piece of the pie, you don't need to be capable of making it, just capable of appreciating that you would be better off if you had more. And also, some fraction of people who are told they are superior are liable to abuse the position; and history also doesn't suggest that humanity at large is especially good at getting its stereotypes right... But I haven't finished thinking this through.

Re: My problems with your actual opinions

[alias_sqbr]

I frankly wasn't sure about your first point. I felt like there were implicit premises that I'd have to unearth and then examine before I could even respond, and just didn't want to do that. However, I've now made a little progress in that regard. You said (paraphrase): people think group prejudice ("sexism/racism etc") is just a social justice issue, but actually it's a cognitive dysfunction as well.

Well, that's fair enough, but you should have said so, then I wouldn't have interpreted your reply as a response to point one rather than a "Um, I don't know about that, but as to your second point..".

I still don't think you get what I was saying, but I'll admit that "racism" and "sexism" are such broad and inconsistently used terms I should have been more clear. In this context, I was talking about subconsious bias, as in the examples I gave here. Namely, when something like race or class affects a persons judgement about other unrelated aspects of another and they're not aware of it. This is quite different from a rational decision based on evidence.

I agree that aspects of left-liberal thought are strongly influenced by their protestant roots, but since I think all philosophies are influenced by their roots (and think christianity has a lot of good points in with the bad) don't see this as a big deal, any more than the protestant roots of capitalism and the rights of the individual.

It's entirely possible (albeit, in my opinion, implausible) that there is social pressure in our society to see people as more equal than they really are(*). And yes, being incorrect is "harmful". But since the tendency to see people as overly unequal has caused MUCH more actual physical and psychological harm, and also (as far as the evidence I'm aware of) causes significant cognitive bias when the assumption of equality causes none...I'd say it still wins overall by a giant margin in the "causing harm" stakes.

(*)I mean, I think that pressure does exist in small pockets here and there, but not on anywhere as a large a scale as it's inverse

Re: My problems with your actual opinions

[mporter.livejournal.com]

Well, you can certainly find people willing to attribute vast quantities of historically recent nastiness to "equality bias": mass murder in socialist states, postcolonial political violence, criminal violence in mixed-race societies. The idea seems to be, not just that the Inferior People (I speak ironically for the moment) can't govern themselves, as individuals or as a society, but that the ideology of equality actually encourages their rampages, because it says that their relative lack of success must be due to something other than their own qualities.

Like you, I'm Australian and this is all very far from my experience. But when I read about the criminal inferno in South Africa, or the ethnic gangs of the United States, or the various atrocities committed in the name of socialism, it certainly gives me pause. It is at least logically possible for a doctrine of equality to have the described effects. The question is whether that possibility is just science fiction, or whether it does have something to do with the real world we are presently inhabiting. This conversation has got me to the point of explicitly formulating the question, but I'm still working on the answer.

Re: My problems with your actual opinions

[alias_sqbr]

Well, you can certainly find people willing to attribute vast quantities of historically recent nastiness to "equality bias

*blinks*

You know that never occurred to me *looks at the world from a very skewed perspective for a moment*

[hungrybecky.livejournal.com]

"Does this mean "race" doesn't exist? No, it exists as much as any other socially constructed category, like class, nationality or religion"

aha! i've been reading a lot of the entries spawned by the post in debunkingwhite, and this sentence gave me an aha moment where i finally understood. that was the perfect way to explain it to me, thank you!!!

[alias_sqbr]

Happy to oblige! It's funny how these things work isn't it, the right re-expression of the same basic concept you've read a bunch of times and suddenly: enlightenment!