What Are The Odds

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
I have many bad things to say about Bush, but he don't seem to be racist. Why you think so?

[/ QUOTE ]I haven't seen anything to indicate that he's racist and I didn't say he was. What I question is his thirst for knowledge.

[cardcounter0]

He likes to kiss Arab Princes on the cheek, so I don't think he is racist in that regard.

But when did George have a chance to be racist? He grew up in gated communities surrounded with WASPs. Hung out at exclusive country clubs. Summered in Maine. Went to ivy league Yale where he belonged to an elite organization. Got ushered in to a special group of pilots in the reserves, and then skipped that to attend Harvard. When did he ever get the chance to rub shoulders with any one other than someone of his own "kind"?

It is easy to not be racist if you never associate with another race.

And save me the Mexican schtick - He was Gov. of Texas - He NEEDED those Mexican votes.

Likewise, Colin Powell and Condi Rice, people who have spent their entire careers and lifetimes trying to fit into the elite structure - still doesn't say anything about how he would feel about Leroy or Pedro or Chan or Vishnu pumping his gas into his car at the gas station (assuming he ever did that, and didn't have someone always ready to fill up the limo for him).

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
The odds that I know are 0. I failed anthropology. I barely know what you are talking about.

I guess this means there is no such thing as racism?

[/ QUOTE ]Absolutely not. Racism is an emotional phenomenon best explained in terms of collective psychology. "Race" does exist as a cultural concept. Racial conflicts result from social stereotypes and not known scientific facts. Racists of the past and present invoke the notion of biological difference to support unjust social practices.

The reason there's no such thing as race biologically speaking is because we as a species have been interbreeding for a very long time, and alleles (genetic codes) are inherited independently of each other. So having one trait like dark skin does not mean you're more likely to have another trait unless it is also adaptive to hot climates like dark skin is. Certainly intelligence, strength, behavior, and most other traits aren't more adaptive to one climate over another climate so you can't predict them based on a climate-specific trait. There are genetic differences between populations, but it's impossible to divide populations into "races" for many reasons. For example, if you go by skin color (a genotype inherited independently) then Africans and populations from Sweden are different races. However if you use other genotypes like that for sickle-cell red blood cells then people from Sweden are the same race as some populations of dark-skinned Africans, and other populations of dark-skinned africans are the same race as Italians and Greeks. The only reason skin color, hair type, etc. are used most commonly and traditionally is because they're easily noticed.

What scientists use since they can't use race is "clines" which is just gradual differences among populations based on a single (and only a single) trait. For example the closer to the equator populations were, the higher their surface to body mass ratio was to give off heat (i.e. they were taller and slimmer). Light skin developed among populations that moved North from Africa as a way to absorb more UV rays and produce more Vitamin D since there was less sunlight up north.

So assuming you're white, next time you see a black guy think of him as just a white guy with black skin who has always been treated differently than you.

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
But when did George have a chance to be racist?

[/ QUOTE ]Well he was raised by this monster of a human being: http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/barbara2.asp

[cardcounter0]

[ QUOTE ]
Well he was raised by this monster of a human being

[/ QUOTE ]

Was he? They didn't have a nanny?
[img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
Racists of the past and present invoke the notion of biological difference to support unjust social practices.

[/ QUOTE ]For example, some people from the conservative think tank The American Enterprise Institue not too long ago did a thoroughly flawed and debunked study which "proved" that African Americans had IQs around 15 points lower than whites, and Asians had IQs like 5 points above whites.

In reality if you control for other things like education, class, etc. we're all the same.

Yet still you see the AEI get covered by C-SPAN all the time. [censored] jackasses.

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Funny thing is I grew up believing these things too until around age 18.

[/ QUOTE ]Nothing funny about it

[/ QUOTE ]Sure there is. I was racist against Arabs, then found out I was part Arab. I guess the sequence makes it funnier. =]

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]
Went to ivy league Yale where he belonged to an elite organization. Got ushered in to a special group of pilots in the reserves, and then skipped that to attend Harvard.

[/ QUOTE ]

Certainly no racial diversity in universities... I'm not sure what years he was attending, but it had to be at least 1970, right?

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
I have many bad things to say about Bush, but he don't seem to be racist. Why you think so?

[/ QUOTE ]Actually I just remembered what was the original motivator for this thread: My son asked me why no one cared about the genocide going on in Sudan.

[ACPlayer]

Bush's lackof interest is unlikely to be a reflection on any racism he may have.

If asked, I suspect he would say that Darfur is a moon around Uranus.