Sorry Fox, but I disagree. I have no problem identifying people based on the color of their skin, because I have no malice in my classification. For a lot of different situations, not identifying a person by their color would have adverse consequences. Say a man of medium build with dark hair and brown eyes dropped $100 bill from his pocket, and someone saw it happen but the room was crowded and couldn't get the man's attention. Good Samaritan takes it to security in an effort to track the man down. Saying the man was black, white, yellow or brown isn't derogatory it's just another identifying characteristic. Without it, the ability to narrow down the possibilities would be almost impossible.
Instead of trying to remove the labels that have been used for hate, why don't we as a world community start trying to be more accepting of all people? If there is no malice to saying that black man, or that asian lady, why would it be considered hateful?
Will You Keep Your Slave Name?
ServantOfAllah
2012/02/01 12:08:17
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In the story Roots, Kunta Kinte finds himself whipped be the master, told that his name is no longer Kunta, but Toby. When asked what his name is, Kunta bravely refuses to call himself Toby again and again replying, "Kunta. My name is Kunta Kinte." But in the end the beatings won out. Kunta finally relented and replied to the master, "Toby".
The story goes on but here is where I ask you to reach into your mind and understand that the character Kunta was a man. I do not recall the entirety of the film, but it's likely Kunta had only ever considered himself a man, perhaps of one family or tribe, but still a man, the supreme creation of nature on Earth. Now, having met these slavers, he is told that he is not a man. He is told that he is a negro, inferior, unintelligent, animalistic, marked by the characteristic dark skin tone and wide nostrils of a half human half ape, given to them by God to dominate at will. From then on the men with dark skin would be called many names, some by their own choice, having bought into the idea that they were indeed different from other Americans, they were Africanamericans, and not men but blackmen. And of course men with light skin still call themselves white men, as though everyone didn't notice their skin color already.
The vision of Kunta haunts me. He just wanted to be Kunta, but the institution made him say he was something else. They not only made him say he was Toby, they made him feel like a black man instead of a hu-man.
Will you call yourself a black/white/etc person, or will you throw away your racist "slave" name and just call yourself a person from now on?
Top Opinion
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Flowers 2012/02/01 15:04:05
We are humans. We categorize. If you look at a stand of trees you don't say "look, there's a willow, pine, elm, maple" most people would say "look at those trees"
We have differing levels of classification in order to be general or specific. We are humans, it's what we do, we categorize. EVERYTHING.
We don't even stick with race when dividing humans around us. We use age, weight, career. income, religion, sports fandom, etc etc etc. The choices are endless.
Here's the thing: As long as we treat everyone politely we're golden. Divisions of culture, language, comicon nerds or sports fans, scientists or artists... that keeps things INTERESTING.
I also think that people find pride and comfort in celebrating their cultural heritage. I think this can be a good thing - although it can turn into ugly racism if not dealt with in a healthy way.
If I had someone who was Amish as a patient, I would note that in their record, however, because it tells me information about that person that is relevant to me as their care provider.
For my purposes, it is reasonable to note a person's heritage when they have a different prevalence of medically relevant genetic traits. When that ceases to be true - which will not occur in my lifetime, as these things do not happen quickly - then it will become meaningless to distinguish them on the basis of their heritage. It is also likely that when they arrive at that point, they will also not be distinguishable based on appearance either.
There are formulas and such that geneticists use to follow traits in populations, and if populations are allowed to mix freely it is possible to predict how long it will take a particular trait to reach a new equilibrium. A trait can serve as a marker to some degree for general mixing. This works much better for say, cattle, than people since cattle are free of the prejudices and social issues that people bring to the table. So naturally this makes the behavior of human populations much harder to predict.
lol, that's right, you don't, because it hasn't been decided yet. and what i am jabbing at is that it is merely someone's, some group's, some society's opinion. Calling you something doesn't make it so. The Amish are not another race and they never will be unless someone wills it.
Ashkenazi jews aren't a race either, but they are way more likely to carry Tay-Sach's than anybody else, and that will be true until and unless they outcross enough that the frequency of Tay-Sach's in their population is the same as that in the general population. And that will take a very, very long time. And that isn't society's opinion.
So I'm not really talking about race here, but sometimes the traits I do talk about are linked to race - the classic being sickle cell trait and african heritage. Again - this is not a social distinction, it is a genetic one. And I'm strictly talking about the incidence of this one trait in this population, which again is a matter of science, not social opinion.