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Sex is Etched in Our DNA, But Race Is All in Our Heads
Townhall.com ^ | March 21, 2016 | Jeff Jacoby

Posted on 03/21/2016 6:32:34 AM PDT by Kaslin

At Milton Academy, the tony Massachusetts prep school, the longstanding "one boy, one girl" rule requiring equal representation on the student council has been scrapped. The student government voted this month to move beyond what the council's cochairman refers to as the "archaic norms" of male and female, and instead "accept the world and the people within it the way they are now."

To which I say: Out of the mouth of babes.

To be sure, there is nothing archaic about the labeling of human beings as either male or female. The distinction between the sexes is objective and fixed, and written into the DNA of every individual. (In rare cases, congenital irregularities can cause an infant to be born with intersex ambiguity.) Nevertheless, Milton's well-intentioned student leaders want to be as accommodating as possible toward students who are transgender or "grappling with their identities." Hence the vote to repeal the student council's gender-based quota proviso.

In practical terms, nothing will change at Milton, where the student body is divided equally between boys and girls, and no one has much difficulty telling one from the other. But let's give the kids credit for a sound insight: As a matter of fundamental fairness, quotas should not be tied to rigid classifications that cannot be clearly defined.

Do gender quotas pose that problem? No. But racial quotas certainly do.

American society is awash with race-based quotas, check-offs, preferences, and diversity policies. In countless settings — from college admissions to workplace hiring, from government contracts to legislative redistricting — opportunities and benefits are tied to racial percentages. Twelve decades after Plessy v. Ferguson, the notorious Supreme Court decision in which eight justices upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation, Americans are labeled and sorted by race more obsessively than ever. It was in Plessy that Justice John Harlan delivered his ringing dissent: "Our Constitution is colorblind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. . . . The law regards man as man and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color."

Harlan's fierce insistence that Americans are not to be treated differently on the basis of race became the great objective of the Civil Rights movement in the 20th century. "Racial criteria are irrational, irrelevant, [and] odious to our way of life," argued Thurgood Marshall on behalf of the NAACP in 1950. "There is no understandable factual basis for classification by race."

Marshall's statement was even truer than he could have imagined. Today we know for a fact what scientists in the 1950s could only have surmised: Race is not biological. It is a social construct, not a genetic reality. The DNA of blacks cannot be distinguished from the DNA of Asians or the DNA of whites. Unlike our sex, which is stamped in our chromosomes, our racial and ethnic identities are purely subjective.

"I am an African American, but in parts of Africa, I am white," says Stanford professor Duana Fullwiley, an anthropologist of science and medicine. When research in West Africa requires her to fly from California to France to Senegal, she told Harvard Magazine in a 2008 interview, "My race changes as I cross the Atlantic." In the United States she is black; in France she is considered métisse, or mixed-race; in Senegal, everyone regards her as white.

Of course human beings vary widely in their appearance. Populations from different parts of the world differ notably in their skin color, facial features, and hair texture. But those distinctions are superficial, not racial. They have no immutable significance. They contribute no more to "diversity" than right- and left-handedness do. To rely on such criteria when hiring employees or drawing electoral maps or assessing a corporate board is about as sensible as consulting a Magic 8 Ball.

Racial definitions change constantly. The US Census Bureau has regularly revised the categories it uses to measure race. In 1890, census enumerators divided Americans into eight racial groups: "White," "Black," "Mulatto," "Quadroon," "Octoroon," "Chinese," "Japanese," and "Indian." The most recent census, in 2010, generated data for 63 racial categories — "six single-race categories and 57 different combinations of two or more races," as a government press release announced at the time. Orlando Patterson, the prominent sociologist, has observed that federal immigration authorities used to classify Irish, Italians, and Jews as separate races.

With millions of Americans marrying across the color lineand raising biracial or multiracial children, our ubiquitous affirmative-action check-offs and diversity quotas become more nonsensical — and unjust — by the day. The present fashion for treating "Hispanic" as a quasi-racial category exacerbates the problem. Hispanic identity is not a distinctive and heritable characteristic; it's an ancestral affiliation that fades over time. That is why immigrants from Latin America commonly describe their identity with reference to their Hispanic origin, while a majority of their grandchildren call themselves simply . . . American.

What is true of Hispanics is true of other racial/ethnic groups. A study published last month by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that when respondents are asked to specify their race, 96 percent immigrants from Asia self-identify as Asian. But that rate falls to 79 percent for their children, and only 58 percent for their grandchildren.

In the ways that matter most — how they label themselves, whom they marry — tens of millions of Americans have no use for racial pigeonholes. To turn those pigeonholes into litmus tests for employment or voting rights or college admissions is, as Thurgood Marshall said of Jim Crow, "irrational, irrelevant, [and] odious to our way of life."

In a nation that aspires to meritocracy, quotas of any kind are an embarrassment. Racial quotas should be unthinkable. Our DNA has always known that race is only a delusion. When will our law and public policy catch up


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble
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To: pburgh01
Don’t be obtuse. do you really think a person with more melanin in their skin is genetically different on a fundamental level, like there are subspecies of people? Charles Murray’s book is the most misquoted and misinterpreted.

Is a person with more melanin in his skin is genetically different on a fundamental level from me? No.

Are there characteristics which have statistically different levels depending on genetic lineage? Yes, and there's plenty of research and stats to back that up.

Are there white people who run faster than the average black person? Sure. But notice who the first place marathon winners are. Notice the average melanin level of winners of Olympic running events.

There are genetic differences between people of European lineage, east Asian lineage, and sub-Saharan African lineage, that are not limited to just color.

There are documented differences in average testosterone levels, bone density, and other factors,

41 posted on 03/21/2016 8:03:06 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Big government is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: PghBaldy

Of course it’s not true.

Take the human intellect out of the question. In the dog world, for example, are Labradors indistinguishable from Finnish Spitz? They don’t look, act, or even sound alike, and those characteristics have nothing to do with their environment. No one would argue that the two aren’t equally dogs, and no one would claim one wouldn’t have an advantage in a certain situation.


42 posted on 03/21/2016 8:09:36 AM PDT by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; decimon; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; ...

43 posted on 03/21/2016 8:10:21 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Here's to the day the forensics people scrape what's left of Putin off the ceiling of his limo.)
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To: armydawg505
Right, there are no differences in the races, we all act, sound and live alike.........

Some of the races have had some intense indoctrination "training" for the past 65 years - yet a decent number of them act just as white as those who have been demonized by the indoctrination team.

44 posted on 03/21/2016 8:16:28 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: Kaslin

"The usual wager?"

45 posted on 03/21/2016 8:18:56 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Ultima

Because of their behavior.

Nice try though, using God’s word to justify condemning God’s children.


46 posted on 03/21/2016 8:23:17 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: Kaslin
Race is not biological. It is a social construct, not a genetic reality. The DNA of blacks cannot be distinguished from the DNA of Asians or the DNA of whites.

all non-Africans today have Neanderthal gene fragments in their genetic codes.

47 posted on 03/21/2016 8:27:50 AM PDT by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
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To: mjp

Especially liberals ;)


48 posted on 03/21/2016 8:37:25 AM PDT by Kaslin (He needed theThe l ignorant to reelect him. He got them and now we have to pay the consequences)
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To: Kaslin

The really insidious “race” classification is the Hispanic-Latino-Chicano canard that is nothing more than a mish-mash of race, nationality, and language. Everyone from the Indians of Guatemala to the pasty-white Argentinians of German ancestry or newly arrived Spaniards descended from European royalty, can lay claim to being Hispanic-Latino-Chicano and all the government set asides and special privileges that go with it.


49 posted on 03/21/2016 8:38:57 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan (My tagline is in the shop.)
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To: bert

What’s happening in America’s cities is not Africanization or tribalization. Africa is a continent of diverse cultures and none of them are straight outta Compton. Tribes are productive, based on highly conservative networks of customary obligations, and functional.

What’s happening in American cities is whole populations being reduced to a degrading state of dependency, relentlessly incentivized to live as parasites or predators.

No tribe set up in such a way could survive.

This is end-stage socialism.


50 posted on 03/21/2016 8:52:09 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o (Cordially.)
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To: Ultima

Jesus chose to reveal his identity as the Messiah to that Canaanite “dog” before anyone else, and the Pharisees were the same race that He was. Hyperbole was then, as it is now, a common tool Jews used to express a point and Jesus used it to great effect.

He looks only at the heart. We are the ones who can’t get past the skin.


51 posted on 03/21/2016 8:54:03 AM PDT by To Hell With Poverty (Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. ~ JFK ~)
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To: To Hell With Poverty

This is why I usually avoid religious discussions. People will read the exact same thing and come to different conclusions.


52 posted on 03/21/2016 9:04:59 AM PDT by Ultima
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To: Kaslin; armydawg505; PghBaldy; T-Bone Texan; cincinnati65; Lx; Ultima; bert; Altura Ct.; ...
armydawg505: Right, there are no differences in the races, we all act, sound and live alike.........

PghBaldy: "The DNA of blacks cannot be distinguished from the DNA of Asians or the DNA of whites" -— That is not true.

T-Bone Texan: Oh brother, here comes the lame "race is merely a construct" people.

cincinnati65: Agreed. Sickle Cell comes to mind right off the bat.

Lx: Right...

T-Bone Texan: Folks with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry get a disease called Tay-Sachs at a far higher rate than non-Ashkenazi ancestry folks. I guess that’s all just a construct, and people who point that out, like doctors and scientists, are rayciss.

Ultima: This is nonsense. Scientists can tell the race of a person just from a sample of blood. Furthermore, their are race specific medicines designed for different races of people.

bert: Race is infact not a mental construct but the very basic genetic differentation among humans. To say otherwise is just ignorance

Altura Ct.: Really? So skin color, facial features, diseases, ethnic culture etc are all just a figment? One of the biggest lies of our time.

I want the USA back: There are distinct differences beteween the races that doctors need to take into account when treating patients.

PapaBear3625: There are documented differences in average testosterone levels, bone density, and other factors

mjp: all non-Africans today have Neanderthal gene fragments in their genetic codes.

TO EVERYONE:

The gist of this article is that the criteria popularly employed to distinguish "race" or to categorize people according to "race" are as arbitrary and unscientific as categorizing people according to right-handedness, blood type, or their preferences in pizza toppings.

Sure there are very broad commonalities (pigmentation, epicanthal fold, etc.) that overlap to a large extent with the conventional concept of "race." But, by and large, 90% of what we perceive as "race" is learned.

How else to explain that the average American will classify a member of the San people (of the Kalahari desert) as "Black" or "Negro" although they should actually be categorized as a distinct race (when considering DNA)?

By the same token, a southern plantation owner and slave-owner of the antebellum America would probably have seen no difference between an Australian Aborigine and a typical plantation slave.

The numerous examples presented in the article further bolster this position. There is also the reverse case of citizens of certain countries being intensely aware of ethnic differences which would be invisible to you or me.

If you want to take something like Sickle Cell Anemia or Thalassemia other genetic disorders - yes, they are found predominantly among certain sub-populations. But is one Jew who is a carrier of Tay-Sachs a member of a different race than another Jew who is completely free of the predisposition? Is a Gentile (say, a Cajun from Louisiana) who has the disease somehow partly Jewish - or at least racially affiliated?

In these respects, the concept of "race" is a construct.

Regards,

53 posted on 03/21/2016 9:06:26 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: To Hell With Poverty

Anyway, if there was no such thing as race, and race is just skin color, this wouldn’t exist...

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8336206/ns/health-heart_health/t/fda-approves-first-race-specific-medication/#.VvAdFzHw-sg


54 posted on 03/21/2016 9:08:15 AM PDT by Ultima
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To: PghBaldy

The author has never heard of The Bell Curve (1994).


55 posted on 03/21/2016 9:13:06 AM PDT by CodeToad (Islam should be banned and treated as a criminal enterprise!)
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To: Lx

Excellent book. Dispels many myths of intelligence, education, and success.


56 posted on 03/21/2016 9:13:41 AM PDT by CodeToad (Islam should be banned and treated as a criminal enterprise!)
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To: Mrs. Don-o

” Tribes are productive, based on highly conservative networks of customary obligations, and functional.”

Marginally effective. Never saw a tribe create new technology. Seem them wage war over and over again, but not build a society.


57 posted on 03/21/2016 9:14:54 AM PDT by CodeToad (Islam should be banned and treated as a criminal enterprise!)
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To: Kaslin

NeoCon blather


58 posted on 03/21/2016 9:14:57 AM PDT by wardaddy (Cruz path to nomination is a box canyon)
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To: alexander_busek

“The gist of this article is that the criteria popularly employed to distinguish “race” or to categorize people according to “race” are as arbitrary and unscientific as categorizing people according to right-handedness, blood type, or their preferences in pizza toppings.”

Read The Bell Curve. It scientifically concludes otherwise.


59 posted on 03/21/2016 9:15:56 AM PDT by CodeToad (Islam should be banned and treated as a criminal enterprise!)
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To: Vigilanteman

I don’t believe much in the concept of ‘race’. I think a lot of what people attribute to race is the result of culture, which is much more powerful than ‘race’ could ever be.

-JT


60 posted on 03/21/2016 9:16:33 AM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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