*What IS Racism?

[Asclepias]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

That much, agreed.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

I don't believe race-as-difference (i.e. the concept of "racism") even existed before the slave trade made it necessary to rationalize human trafficking. Certainly cultural diversity did but the idea that one race would be inferior to another, I think that was contrived in the 15th century.

Cultural tensions and clashes have always existed and always will, as they are formats for how a people express themselves. Skin color however has nothing to do with expression. Racism was manufactured myth for the occasion.

There was no such word as "racism" until the early 20th century. I believe the word was coined by the murderous jew Lev Bronstein..(You probably know him as Leon Trotsky) and was used in a benign way to describe people's natural affinity for their own kind.

Unfortunately the word was co opted and weaponized by anti whites as a way to browbeat and neuter white people.

Thats just a technicality. The concept of racism started long ago. It specifically started when white Christians had to figure out a way to live with the dissonance caused by enslaving other humans. They had to think of Black people as subhuman to ease that dissonance. In doing so they brought forth a sickness on this country that has held it back and was handed down to their descendants.

 

[Rikurzhen]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

That much, agreed.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

I don't believe race-as-difference (i.e. the concept of "racism") even existed before the slave trade made it necessary to rationalize human trafficking. Certainly cultural diversity did but the idea that one race would be inferior to another, I think that was contrived in the 15th century.

Cultural tensions and clashes have always existed and always will, as they are formats for how a people express themselves. Skin color however has nothing to do with expression. Racism was manufactured myth for the occasion.

Do you see behavioral patterns in your own family tree?

"Behavioral patterns"??

What's my family got to do with the price of eggs in Istanbul?

Family has a genetic basis. Race has a genetic basis. We see the family issue play out when we look at siblings raised apart or adopted children reunited with their birth family. Personality, temperament, behaviors.

 

[Rikurzhen]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

That much, agreed.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

I don't believe race-as-difference (i.e. the concept of "racism") even existed before the slave trade made it necessary to rationalize human trafficking. Certainly cultural diversity did but the idea that one race would be inferior to another, I think that was contrived in the 15th century.

Cultural tensions and clashes have always existed and always will, as they are formats for how a people express themselves. Skin color however has nothing to do with expression. Racism was manufactured myth for the occasion.

Do you see behavioral patterns in your own family tree?

"Behavioral patterns"??

What he is alluding to is the norms and thought patterns your forebears handed down. However, he will now deny this as it forces him to admit the bad habits and thought patterns some present day descendants of slaves picked up.from those slaves.

We'll have a more fruitful conversation if we each do our own talking and explaining, don't you think?

 

[Asclepias]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

That much, agreed.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

I don't believe race-as-difference (i.e. the concept of "racism") even existed before the slave trade made it necessary to rationalize human trafficking. Certainly cultural diversity did but the idea that one race would be inferior to another, I think that was contrived in the 15th century.

Cultural tensions and clashes have always existed and always will, as they are formats for how a people express themselves. Skin color however has nothing to do with expression. Racism was manufactured myth for the occasion.

Do you see behavioral patterns in your own family tree?

"Behavioral patterns"??

What he is alluding to is the norms and thought patterns your forebears handed down. However, he will now deny this as it forces him to admit the bad habits and thought patterns some present day descendants of slaves picked up.from those slaves.

We'll have a more fruitful conversation if we each do our own talking and explaining, don't you think?

You couldnt have a fruitful conversation if you were in the middle of an orchard at harvest time. Your concepts are simply whack and lack any evidence of you being able to think logically.

 

[Pogo]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

That much, agreed.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

I don't believe race-as-difference (i.e. the concept of "racism") even existed before the slave trade made it necessary to rationalize human trafficking. Certainly cultural diversity did but the idea that one race would be inferior to another, I think that was contrived in the 15th century.

Cultural tensions and clashes have always existed and always will, as they are formats for how a people express themselves. Skin color however has nothing to do with expression. Racism was manufactured myth for the occasion.

Do you see behavioral patterns in your own family tree?

"Behavioral patterns"??

What's my family got to do with the price of eggs in Istanbul?

Family has a genetic basis. Race has a genetic basis. We see the family issue play out when we look at siblings raised apart or adopted children reunited with their birth family. Personality, temperament, behaviors.

Uh... riiiiight, go on..... (?)

 

[SmedlyButler]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

That tribal mentality you think is an unchangable part of human nature is exactly what fuels the barbaric passions of ISIS and other Islamic extremists. I think it will have to be defeated everywhere if the Human Race is to survive.

And as you know nothing that Ayn Rand ever said can be construed as advocating "marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality", quite the opposite really.

 

[Rikurzhen]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

That much, agreed.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

I don't believe race-as-difference (i.e. the concept of "racism") even existed before the slave trade made it necessary to rationalize human trafficking. Certainly cultural diversity did but the idea that one race would be inferior to another, I think that was contrived in the 15th century.

Cultural tensions and clashes have always existed and always will, as they are formats for how a people express themselves. Skin color however has nothing to do with expression. Racism was manufactured myth for the occasion.

Do you see behavioral patterns in your own family tree?

"Behavioral patterns"??

What's my family got to do with the price of eggs in Istanbul?

Family has a genetic basis. Race has a genetic basis. We see the family issue play out when we look at siblings raised apart or adopted children reunited with their birth family. Personality, temperament, behaviors.

Uh... riiiiight, go on..... (?)

Heritable traits get passed on to offspring. You look at the visible markers of race. Why do those exist? How did the develop? Race is not just skin deep. Race captures everything we are as humans. Look at how lactose tolerance developed. This started with behavior. Some people were shepherds and started drinking milk. The ones who had the mutation which didn't switch off the gene which produced the lactase protein were given a reproduction advantage and this attribute came to be distributed within their population at a different frequency than in other populations, or races. The same process works with behavior and personality traits. This also plays out at the family level. We see all sorts of traits pass down through the generations of families.

Children are not clones of their parents, race is not a template which fits over every member of a group. Not every person who is European is lactose tolerant. There is variation within a family, there is variation within a racial group.This is where Ayn Rand went wrong. She was speaking in absolutes - to be born as X one MUST have attributes A, B, C, D, E, and F. That's a cartoon version of race. That's like saying that children are clones of their parents.

So when you're trying to argue that only cultural differences existed and that humanity conjured up the notion of race then I don't see any coherent or defensible point in that argument.

 

[Rotagilla]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

That tribal mentality you think is an unchangable part of human nature is exactly what fuels the barbaric passions of ISIS and other Islamic extremists. I think it will have to be defeated everywhere if the Human Race is to survive.

And as you know nothing that Ayn Rand ever said can be construed as advocating "marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality", quite the opposite really.

tribal mentality or whatever you want to call it, that's how human beings operate...Always have and always will. It hasn't changed in the past 20,000 years and it won't change in the next 20,000.

Notice where I said "This is my take"?

That's just what it was.It has nothing to with rand.

 

[Pogo]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

That much, agreed.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

I don't believe race-as-difference (i.e. the concept of "racism") even existed before the slave trade made it necessary to rationalize human trafficking. Certainly cultural diversity did but the idea that one race would be inferior to another, I think that was contrived in the 15th century.

Cultural tensions and clashes have always existed and always will, as they are formats for how a people express themselves. Skin color however has nothing to do with expression. Racism was manufactured myth for the occasion.

Do you see behavioral patterns in your own family tree?

"Behavioral patterns"??

What's my family got to do with the price of eggs in Istanbul?

Family has a genetic basis. Race has a genetic basis. We see the family issue play out when we look at siblings raised apart or adopted children reunited with their birth family. Personality, temperament, behaviors.

Uh... riiiiight, go on..... (?)

Heritable traits get passed on to offspring. You look at the visible markers of race. Why do those exist? How did the develop? Race is not just skin deep. Race captures everything we are as humans. Look at how lactose tolerance developed. This started with behavior. Some people were shepherds and started drinking milk. The ones who had the mutation which didn't switch off the gene which produced the lactase protein were given a reproduction advantage and this attribute came to be distributed within their population at a different frequency than in other populations, or races. The same process works with behavior and personality traits. This also plays out at the family level. We see all sorts of traits pass down through the generations of families.

Children are not clones of their parents, race is not a template which fits over every member of a group. Not every person who is European is lactose tolerant. There is variation within a family, there is variation within a racial group.This is where Ayn Rand went wrong. She was speaking in absolutes - to be born as X one MUST have attributes A, B, C, D, E, and F. That's a cartoon version of race. That's like saying that children are clones of their parents.

So when you're trying to argue that only cultural differences existed and that humanity conjured up the notion of race then I don't see any coherent or defensible point in that argument.

This is a complete, 100% non sequitur. Your conclusion is wholly unrelated to your premise. Dots unconnected.

 

[SmedlyButler]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

That tribal mentality you think is an unchangable part of human nature is exactly what fuels the barbaric passions of ISIS and other Islamic extremists. I think it will have to be defeated everywhere if the Human Race is to survive.

And as you know nothing that Ayn Rand ever said can be construed as advocating "marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality", quite the opposite really.

tribal mentality or whatever you want to call it, that's how human beings operate...Always have and always will. It hasn't changed in the past 20,000 years and it won't change in the next 20,000.

Notice where I said "This is my take"?

That's just what it was.It has nothing to with rand.

Yes I understand it was your take on the subject but our jumping off point was Rand so when you said;

"That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction."

She was the natural choice as an example when I wanted to point out that a person doesn't have to be living in a lefty dreamworld to think Racism has a big negative and limiting affect on society and therefore we should work at eliminating it no matter how long it takes. (I might have put those last words in Ayn's mouth, I have to go back and re-read her piece to reply to another poster but I don't think there's any dissonance between my thoughts and hers on that).

And if I get a chance to reply in full to that other post I'll be explaining why I think you're wrong when you say that's the way it's always been and always will be. For now I'll just say that nothing is hard-coded in the human genome, every physical, cognitive, cultural trait is malleable. I'm a big sci-fi fan, I was watching a discussion last night on the science of "Star Trek" where someone repeated that old saw "Everything that's imaginable is realizable". I don't think the concept is that absolute but I don't think it's that far off either. Birds of a feather may flock together but I don't think the robin hates the sparrow and a black man and a white man are a lot closer genetically than those two species.

 

[Rotagilla]

I don't come across any of Ayn's writings very often that I agree with but she nails that topic pretty well. I think her Jewishness was probably a factor and gave her intimate experience with racism that informed her take on the subject.

I find it verbose and pompous.

Here's my take;

This condition you call "racism" has always existed and it always will.

Here's how the real world works; Humans are tribal and ethnocentric creatures (and given the freedom to do so without government interference) will always self segregate into groups according to race.
People like to be around other people who share their culture, history and beliefs

That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction.

That tribal mentality you think is an unchangable part of human nature is exactly what fuels the barbaric passions of ISIS and other Islamic extremists. I think it will have to be defeated everywhere if the Human Race is to survive.

And as you know nothing that Ayn Rand ever said can be construed as advocating "marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality", quite the opposite really.

tribal mentality or whatever you want to call it, that's how human beings operate...Always have and always will. It hasn't changed in the past 20,000 years and it won't change in the next 20,000.

Notice where I said "This is my take"?

That's just what it was.It has nothing to with rand.

Yes I understand it was your take on the subject but our jumping off point was Rand so when you said;

"That's just the way it is and all attempts at marxist social engineering to create artificial "equality"...or lowering standards in order to ensure "equality" do nothing to improve society and, in fact, lead to further racial friction."

She was the natural choice as an example when I wanted to point out that a person doesn't have to be living in a lefty dreamworld to think Racism has a big negative and limiting affect on society and therefore we should work at eliminating it no matter how long it takes. (I might have put those last words in Ayn's mouth, I have to go back and re-read her piece to reply to another poster but I don't think there's any dissonance between my thoughts and hers on that).

And if I get a chance to reply in full to that other post I'll be explaining why I think you're wrong when you say that's the way it's always been and always will be. For now I'll just say that nothing is hard-coded in the human genome, every physical, cognitive, cultural trait is malleable. I'm a big sci-fi fan, I was watching a discussion last night on the science of "Star Trek" where someone repeated that old saw "Everything that's imaginable is realizable". I don't think the concept is that absolute but I don't think it's that far off either. Birds of a feather may flock together but I don't think the robin hates the sparrow and a black man and a white man are a lot closer genetically than those two species.

Thanks for the reply. Look, I really couldn't care less about rand, ok?
I wasn't comparing or even considering her in my post...let's just put that aside and take what I said at face value without all the peripheral, superfluous distractions.
I don't care about star trek or any other tv shows...lets put all that foolishness aside, too.
Let's stop mixing metaphors about birds of a feather and sparrows and robins hating black people or whatever that gibberish was.

Humans are flawed creatures and there will never be any kumbaya moment when all of humanity mixes and mingles and everyone is happy together. That's just naive and unrealistic..It sounds like some of that science fiction you said you enjoy...It aint gonna happen.
There will always be crime, insanity, hatred, war, murder, deception, lies...etc...etc...
Humans are flawed creatures and neither you nor anyone else can "fix" or "correct" this condition.
It might be fun to imagine and fantasize but it's not realistic.