I'm in my mid twenties and white as driven snow and even I know who Kunta Kinte is.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
White Cop Who Finds He Has African Ancestry Sues City, Chief Over Racism
- Thread starter NandoGip
- Start date
I'm in my mid twenties and white as driven snow and even I know who Kunta Kinte is.
Dude owned up to his mistake in the best possible way. I love that he's still getting shit for it since most wouldn't scroll to the bottom of page 1
Thelonelykoopa
Member
You are severely overthinking man. His white identity isn't completely erased he still passes as fully white from the one picture we seen of him. What he does have is a better perspective on racism found within his police force and community. One should hope he will use this experiance after this event passes to support the black community in his area and stand up to racism. Also as repeated before Blackface is never OK.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Not really race in itself is a social construct what these services look for is genes (Being very generic as im not biologists) that are found in communities around the globe and it will tell you broadly where your ancestors came from by which genes you share with speicific population groups. Some of these services are also I believe tied to family databases and can't find close relatives of yours but Im not quite sure how that aspect works.
2Smashed4U
Banned
Yeah I've done an ancestry.com one before I think it went by my family IIRC
also - what does "race is a social construct" actually mean? If it's not something in your genetics, what is it?
Race is 100% made up. Just this past month there was a story of biological twins who had different phenotype expressions. One is white looking and the other mixed. How are they different races?
2Smashed4U
Banned
So it's like how Italian people and Irish people didn't used to be considered white, and then at some point white people decided they could be white because reasons?
Pantaghana
Member
It means that it's a load of arbitrary crap that doesn't really exist.
OG Shaka Zulu
Member
Race is a diet caste system.
Indrid Cold1
Member
Oh, yeah, this thread. Maybe I'll check back in to see what people are saying about the sto-
Reading through the replies, I was halfway tempted to try and play off my original post as a joke as some people assumed, but I'll try and do the honourable thing and accept the pummelling for my apparent benightedness.
Up until I checked out this story, I have to confess that I had honestly never heard of Roots, nor about its subsequent adaptations! For what it's worth, I'm in my twenties and live in England and was never exposed to neither the book nor the 1970's mini-series, not even as a literature student, but clearly, that's not much of an excuse given its apparent cultural impact around the world. I simply assumed the officer in question was making some kind of strangely obscure literary reference in reference to some random novel I'd never heard about. I'm especially ashamed given that I'm now reading up on it and that it's apparently one of the most seminal literary works in US history. Please forgive me!
Does the 1970s series still hold up? I might check it out if I can find it somewhere.
This was very classy, especially as you could have lied and pretended it was all an elaborate gag post like the "I'm an expert on Japanese culture" guy did.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Ill give you a basic gist before elizabethian england it was assumed africans were black because of the sun in africa but after some came to england and other placeses in europe and their children where still dark skinned it was quite a shock to the people. It was than assumed that they were cursed somehow. Eventually that train of thought lead to certain groups of human being considered less human than others. Since they were subhumans they could now be used as slaves in the newly discovered americas as a willing workforce is hard to come by. The rest you probably know.
2Smashed4U
Banned
Hmm, but that's a thing *based on* race isn't it? Maybe I don't know what race actually means. Are race and ethnicity the same thing...?
The Artisan
Member
ugh, if they are misleading products I won't want to waste my time and money on them. what is the best alternative?
so they're essentially the same and alternative products, just different companies?
you say this like hes been overly oppressive to black people until recently
Gordon Shumway
Banned
You good, homie..figured you weren't from here and that's how you somehow missed it, miniseries, Chappelle show, and recent miniseries. Heard that Kunta shit growing up plenty.
Appreciate the honesty tho. Don't think anyone was mad at you or anything..just surprised.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Race was a way to categorize people by broad visually differences that came about because of stuff I mentioned above.Ethnicity isnt race it's a whole bunch of stuff from nation of origin, language , traditions and etc. Its what seperates a englishman from a frenchman and so on.
Depends.
Are they generally liked?
depends on which country you are from. Ethnicity is mostly synonymous with race here in the UK.
The reason was that the English were afraid there was going to be an uprising. The Irish and Italians were given land, money, and status to stay calm. They worked the fields with Africans up until then.
2Smashed4U
Banned
Oh shit okay I think I get it then, race is more like physical appearance and then ethnicity is cultural?
For example, why say like an African person and a Dominican person are both considered black even though they're completely different people?
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Yeah in Europe Ethnicity and Race gets very mix so You will have for example a person who is Dutch complain about racism from a British man because of prejudice reasulting from country of origin.
You're on the right track, but we are all completely different people :3
and to go further, you can be so mixed, society doesn't have a category for you yet. I guess for some, "mixed" is a category but it not like a Venn diagram. As far as others are concerned, they care about what you look like for guessing your "race", whereas on the personal level you can identify with whatever you like.
Though mixed people are more likely to be aware that race really doesn't mean shit.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Yep, But also remember ethnicity isnt tied to race so A person who is Asian could also consider themselves British. But beware of the situation I mentioned above when dealing with Europe example.
Yes, it's rediculous. Fist thing I thought of as well.
Race is smething that is *literally* skin deep. If the last few millimeters of your body has a darker pigmentation, you're black. If not you're white or mixed race. That's literally as far as it goes.
Race was a system created during Victorian times when our knowledge of genetics and genealogy was nonexistant. It existed to separate people into groups and had no scien tipi fix reasoning for doing so.
If we were to divide the world into races on a gemological or genetic basis, there would either be several hundred races, around 80% of which live in Africa, or there would only be one race. There are no other divisions that make sense.
I can link you some good articles and videos if you would like.
Not really. There are many other phenotypes besides appearance such as smells, susceptibility to medication etc. that has evolved alongside different skin colours. Nothing important, but race isn't just skin deep.
Dry Earwax is an example most Western East Asian people may notice they have that's different.
Zoe
Member
I don't know about now, but 23andme's main focus used to be about health-testing until the FDA came down on them.
You don't even need to use different ethnicities.
According to the socially constructed ideas of race, these two biological twins are according to some people, different races.
The whole god damn thing is stupid beyond belief, and it really boggles the mind how in 2017 something so unscientific can still hold so much sway with certain people.
Lovely Salsa
Banned
We already addressed why you're confused
haha, it has different meanings across the pond
No, none of those denote race, because mone of them are tied genetically to a person's skin color. If you're black and have sickle cell anemia, for instance, it's not because you're black, but because your parents had the suceptibility of sickle cell deseise, and also happened to be black. There is no genetic tie between being black and having sickle cell deseise, or having curly hair, or large noses. Nor is there a connection between earwax type and being asian.
Any connections we draw end up being purely conincedental. At best, race is a very, very crude way of determining what traits a person may have. It is an outdated concept and has no basis in modern science.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Yeah In my example(Im trying to not confuse the fellow who asking questions) I'm giving a North American esp USA definition in which.
Race: White, Black Asian(Yep that one is also a continent).
Ethnicity: Hispanic, French, English, Russian
Nationality: Spanish, French, English, American
The last two gets confusing but think of it this way Americas is continents of immigrants so the Ethnicity is the cultural stuff you bring to the place you immigrate from.
Nationality where you are currently a citizen of So you can be Black,French,and American.
2Smashed4U
Banned
Ahhh okay I gotcha. Yeah I'll do some reading and stuff if you've got it.
I see what you mean.You don't even need to use different ethnicities.
According to the socially constructed ideas of race, these two biological twins are according to some people, different races.
The whole god damn thing is stupid beyond belief, and it really boggles the mind how in 2017 something so unscientific can still hold so much sway with certain people.
So, would some people consider her black if they knew her family/parents were black? Relating back to the thing that happened in the OP?
Well then, we're disagreeing on the semantics of race. From what I understand, people tie race to stereotypical appearances. If not, then I don't think race is a thing to categorise at all.
But you're wrong if you don't think there is a connection with dry earwax and being Asian (along with sweat smelling less pungent). It has big cultural consequences too, such as the Japanese ear wax cleaning or the fact that culturally they're not used to the idea of deodorant.
It is important to note that we only have these terms to group different people up because it matters for oppressors. That's where the term "social construct" with regard to race comes in.
Thelonelykoopa
Member
Yep, or more speicifically coming from my history of race. It just so happens humans like to fuck other humans so What happens when you have for example a White Slaver owner gets one of his Black slaves pregnant. That where the one drop theory comes in. Which states if you have a small bit of black in you from for example being a result of a White slave owner raping a slave or having an ancestors in which that happens you are considered black and will be made a slave. Now this is incredibly racist theory but their many who still follows it as this article shows.
She's black, her sister is white, but they're twins.
There's not much else to be drawn from it.
The white girl, even if someone saw her with black parents, would still be considered white (I think).
As for what happened in the OP, they're all just racist/find racial jokes funny and use the knowledge as a way to pick on their colleague. There's no logic to it.
Lovely Salsa
Banned
No one considers miller wentworth black
1 drop rule only works if its obvious that a person is mixed. Which in most cases, it is
1 drop rule only works if its obvious that a person is mixed. Which in most cases, it is
2Smashed4U
Banned
Okay yeah I think I definitely get it now. Admittedly my first reaction was also "oh she's black too" because I think I grew up around a lot of people who bought into the one drop theory. Although I wasn't aware when I was young that it would've been for prejudicial reasons, and I've never really thought about it since.
ClayKavalier
Banned
Not really, especially after the Chapelle skit. And especially if you're fond of cracking racist jokes.
Lovely Salsa
Banned
Purely personal opinion, but if Miller Wentworth fucked up I'd guess more people would be aware.
ancestry was useless for me as a 2nd generation Englishman for this very reason
Everyone should get an ancestry genetics test so the world can realise that the idea of 'racial' purity is complete bullshit and a significant amount of people would discover that they had roots from places they couldn't even contemplate. There are significant amounts of 'white' Americans who would have African-American genes somewhere down the line whom are unaware of it existing.
People couldn't tell this was sarcasm? Fucking lol
yeah once it got back across the pond the trail ran pretty dry. i got an email recently for some promotion they were running to get access to more euro stuff they'd added but i haven't checked it out.
i found it very useful, tho. combined with the DNA thing, it led to a family secret being revealed to me.
D
Deleted member 1159
Unconfirmed Member
This made me legit lol at work