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Talk:Race (human categorization)/Archive 4

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Dear SLR: Please do not archive the ONGOING discussions!
P0M: I concur with this request. I note that in the past you have requested that others behave in a civil manner, and I ask the same consideration be given by you to others.

Previous Version

On 24 November, certain changes were installed (and reverted on the same day). These changes addressed many of the issues that were subsequently raised, so I am reconstituting them for ease of reference.

PREAMBLE

The term race in the sense of a category or grouping is sometimes applied to the entire human population ("the human race"), but this article is primarily concerned with "race" as the term has been used to define two or more such subgroups. The concept of race in this sense has long been, and remains, controversial, but to make sense of ideas about racism, racial quotas, racial profiling, and so on, it is important to begin with some understanding of the term race itself.

Introduction

The concept of race has usually been based on one or more of the following criteria:¹

  1. skin color (see Example 1 below);
  2. ancestry or origins, and especially "origins in original peoples" (see Example 2 below);
  3. clustering of morphological characteristics;
  4. clustering of genetic characteristics;
  5. self-identification based on terms derived from the above considerations.

Of course not every objectively-defined cluster would be called a race. Most diseases, for example, can be defined using a clustering technique. The question of which set of characteristics should be included is one of many issues concerning the concept of race if it is conceived in terms of clustering. Some of the issues regarding attempts to define race in scientific terms are identified in the section on Taxonomy and Race below.

Views about the concept of race differ widely in other respects as well, notably with regard to these questions:

  • Are racial categories mutually exclusive?
  • Is race a social construct?
  • What are the ethical uses of the concept?

This article explores such questions from a variety of perspectives, drawing on several examples. In the following subsection, two examples from the U.S. experience are presented as they have already been referred to.

  • Example 1
    • Congress in 1790 restricted naturalization to "white persons". This prerequisite remained in force until 1952.
This example illustrates a definition of race that was intended to define mutually exclusive categories.
  • Example 2
    • In 1997, an arm of the U.S. government promulgated OMB Statistical Directive 15, "Standards for Maintaining, Collecting, and Presenting Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity," as follows:
This classification provides a minimum standard for maintaining, collecting, and presenting data on race and ethnicity for all Federal reporting purposes. The categories in this classification are social-political constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature.
The standards have five categories for data on race: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White.
The directive emphasizes that these are not intended to be mutually exclusive groups. This is consistent with the definitions of the different "categories", e.g. an American Indian or Alaska Native is:
A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.

Footnote

  1. Sometimes other criteria may be included as well; for example, OMB Statistical Directive 15 (Example 2 in this article) mentions "shared customs, history, and language". However, groups defined primarily in terms of cultural haracteristics are usually called by other names, such as ethnic group, nation, or family.

Preamble, first set of disappeared debates

The following paragraphs by JDG were amongst those archived prematurely:

Sorry, but by my lights you have fallen back into wanting the article to convey your ideas of race rather than historical ideas of race.
  • Language should come out of the first paragraph while behavior stays in. Only humans talk and write, but all organisms have behavior. The first sentence is dealing with "all living things". Language gets its due a few paras down.
  • The phrase that strikes you as tedious simply must be in the article. None of the other statements you list acts as a clear summation of the traditional notion of Race. You don't like that notion, but the article is "Race", not "Peak and Race".
  • I disagree with your thinking on the "mutually exclusive" issue. You said earlier that "it is better to make clear right up front that this article does not mean to imply mutual exclusion". But this article does not mean to imply anything, overall, about the vailidity of old or new formulations of Race. It means to, or should mean to, convey the definitions and uses of the term through time. For the great majority of that time, race was indeed used to imply mutual exclusion between groups-- in fact this exclusivity was fundamental to the meaning of the word. To stress a recent and still rare construction in the opening paragraph is misleading. JDG
Peak: The preamble is mainly in the present tense. The first two words are "Race is". Thus your opening remarks above are simply wrong, as well as being unnecessarily offensive. I don't particularly mind if the emphasis is changed in the preamble, but in the meantime, "is" is the present tense. Btw, the considerations you raise are what led me to propose a revision which included two examples - one from the present, and one from the past, so that the article could more easily deal with both without inviting confusion. Peak 00:33, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)
P0M: JDG, you said above, "It means to, or should mean to, convey the definitions and uses of the term [race] through time." Would it not follow that as well as talking about how "race" is used, the article ought to make clear how "race", and "X race" (Mongoloid or whatever) are defined by the several groups that use these terms in different ways?

Preamble, second set of disappeared debates

P0M:This is indeed a tedius process. Just when I thought I had found something that SLR had said (apart from his many earlier worthwhile contributions), they disappeared from view. I will not speculate on why he chose to disappear them.

I do not know what you mean by "he chose to disappear them." I didn't "disappear" anything, although I did archive previous discussion. this is not "disappearing" as anyone can go to the linked archive and read over it. It isn't gone, it is just in a linked article. As to why I did this, I am curious as to why you think this might be matter for speculation. Wikipedia automatically notifies contributors when pages are too long. Before I archived previous discussion, we were receiving this message: "This page is 90 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections." Obviously a page that is three times too long needs to be archived. By the way, if you did not receive this message while editing, I suggest you contact Jimbo as there must be some problem with your connection.
A technical interjection: if you are logged in, you can generally avoid this and other problems by simply NOT using "Edit page". Instead, use the per-section "Edit" hyperlinks that show up on the RHS of the window. (At least, that's where they show up using the standard set of options.)Peak 22:49, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)
In any event, I do not recall deleting anything I wrote. Of course, if I mistakenly deleted something or simply forgot, I apologize.

P0M:For the moment I would like to take another tack: I would like the members of the Triumvirate (who is the third member, by the way), whether they would agree with the following statement:

P0M:If one is going to have a system for dividing human beings into recognizable groups, then practicality demands that one provide those groups (AKA sets) with names. Otherwise, one would have to repeat the entire list of characteristics each time one wanted to discuss the group that is characterized by having those characteristics. If, for instance, there are objectively identifiable clusters of genetic traits that are significant in some way (e.g., for purposes of medical screening), then there is practical benefit to be gained by naming these clusters.

I personally do not agree with the above statement. It is an unattributed logical argument and as such I believe inappropriate for an encyclopedia article on race. It is an empirical fact that people use the word race and use different racial classifications. Thee is no need for a priori arguments for this, what is necessary are a posteiori explanations for how these usages developed and are used. I conceed that some people may have devised a priori arguments to justify race and racial nomenclatures, and if such is the case the encyclopedia ought to report it. Who (I assume a philosopher) has made this argument in relation to race? Perhaps we could have a section in the article on philosophical (presumably epistemological -- e.g. Witttgenstein -- or ontological -- e.g. Heidegger) arguments for race. My knowledge of Wittgenstein and Heidegge is quite limited and I know ofno such arguments made by them -- or by any othe philosopher. But if youa re refering to a partuclar philosopher, by all means add it to the article in the appropriate section (as I have states, I prefer placing things in their historical context; i.e., at what point did philosophers becomeinterested in developing such arguments -- why, and why were they later eclipsed)? Slrubenstein

P0M: I am attempting to establish groundwork, not, at this time, venturing to offer changes that woould be summarily reverted regardless of any communications on this talk page. I will delay further action until the other two "principal authors", JDG and whoever the third person is, comment.
Although JDG can speak for himself, I think the statement your provide above is one of the justifications biologists and medical doctors use for maintaining that race is a biologically valid category. I think even those who prefer "population" admit that in very circumscribed contexts, "race" may usefuly be used in this way. Nevertheless, many go on to argue, in too many other contexts it is not useful, plus it carries too much negative baggage. That is, if I (now) understand your statement above. If I do understand it correctly, I think the article already makes this clear. (If I am now misunderstanding your statement, and if my original interpretation was correct, then all I am asking for is an attribution) Slrubenstein
P0M: In the meantime, let me remind you of a teaching story. It takes the form of a joke, so I hope that you will forgive my presumption in presenting an offering that is not laden with solemnity.
God tells Adam to name the animals. Adam calls one of them an aardvark. Was it God, Eve, or perhaps Satan? I forget the details, but someone asks him why he called that one an aardvark. He replies: "Well, it looked more like an aardvark than anything else."
P0M: Perhaps some will regard this as a humorless joke and/or a pointless teaching story. I do not.

P0M: Above, I offered the statement: "If one is going to have a system for dividing human beings into recognizable groups, then practicality demands that one provide those groups (AKA sets) with names." SLR said: "I personally do not agree with the above statement." Rather than saying why he would not agree with the statement, he said, "It is an unattributed logical argument and as such I believe inappropriate for an encyclopedia article on race." Disagreeing with something and disliking something are different. In other words, disagreeing with the content of an assertion and not agreeing with the use of the statement in an article are different matters. The first is a question of truth or falsity, and the second is a matter of favor or disfavor. It is one thing to disagree with a statement such as, "Some very intelligent people have been successful criminals," and quite another thing to disapprove of inserting that statement into a civics book intended for fourth grade students.

P0M: I freely admit the limitations of my intelligence, but, offhand, I cannot think of a single recognizable group that humans think and talk about that has not been given a name. But SLRubenstein seemingly cannot avoid going off topic to defend something that is not under attack. He says that my sample proposition is an unattributed logical argument. The nice thing about logic, mathematics, and set theory is that none of them judge the validity of solutions to problems made under the terms of their principles on the authority or reputation of the person putting forth those answers. If Albert Einstein balanced his checkbook incorrectly and went in to argue with the head teller at the bank, the bank officials would look at the total coming up on their adding machine, not at Einstein's academic or other credentials. SLR says further that since it is an unattributed logical argument it is inappropriate for an encyclopedia article on race. There is no point in bombing an empty fort. I never suggested that the statement go into an encyclopedia article. I asked whether the Triumvirate would agree with the statement, not whether they would agree to use the statement.

P0M: Actually, there is one group I just thought of that the few lingering Bing Crosby fans may remember: Lafferty, Cafferty, Donelly, Connolly, Doolie, O'Hooley, Muldonney, Malone. Significantly I can remember the list, and how to sing it, but have no idea whatsoever why these names were grouped together.

I am sorry that the context is not adequate for POM to make sense of my remarks. Since he does not seem to understand them. I will try to explain. He seems to wonder why I wrote:
"I personally do not agree with the above statement."
The reason I wrote that is because I wanted to respond to POM's statement,
I would like the members of the Triumvirate (who is the third member, by the way), whether they would agree with the following statement
When POM invited agreement or disagreement I assumed -- perhaps, I now admit, hastily-- that his invitation was a shorthand way of asking whether people agreed or disagreed with including it in the article. My intention was to communicate that I did not agree with including it in the article. I do not mean to criticize POM personally, but he did not provide a lot of context for his statement or for his invitation, so I had to make some inferences which of course could be mistaken. Recognizing this, I thought more about the statement and decided that it could be read at least one of two ways (perhaps it could be read in other ways; I came up with two): as an account of a philosophical approach to the question of race, or as an explanation for the use of racial classifications. I thus qualified my initial response. If my first understanding is correct, I would agree to including it in the article but I would want attribution (which philosopher has made this argument and in what context? I am not an expert on philosophy, I am inferring that this is a philosopher of language applying philosophy of language to a specificic matter of language. Of course, not being a philosopher I can easily be wrong -- but this is precisely my point, it is why were I to agree to including it in the article it should be attributed and explained.). If my second understanding is correct, I continue to disagree that it should be included in the article only because I believe the article as it stands already makes this argument (in the overview, much of which I believe was written by JDG although I am not certain and invite JDG to comment).
I recognize that I may still be mistaken and that POM is not asking whether I agree or not as to whether this should be included in the article. Indeed, I appreciate POM for clarifying the matter and explaining that he was not proposing including this n the article. But in that case, what am I being asked to agree to? Am I being asked to agree that things should haved names? I am afraid this seems sophomoric. Of course things have names. The purpose of the talk page is to discuss improvements to the article. Why waste our time talking about horses' manes and Einstein's checkbooks when we should be discussing the article? Frankly I do not see how POM wants to improve the article (NOTE: I am not accusing POM of not wanting to improve the article, I just do not see the practicality or relevance of what he has written; I request that in the future he state what the problem with the article is, propose his improvement, and, if he feels it warrented, explain the virtues of his proposal). In the meantime, since what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, let me try to help. Let me try to pick up on POM's cleverly crafted argument that people name things -- but let me try to apply it to the article at hand. Sometimes people debate over what those names are, other times people debate over what those names mean. For example, people debate over whether the name for a group of people is the name of a race, an ethnic group, or a culture. People also debate over whether "race" names a cluster of genetic traits or a cluster of non-genetic traits, or both. People also debate over whether races (whatever they name) are mutually exclusive or overlapping. People also debate over whether races (whatever they name) are context-dependent or unvarying by context. I believe that the article on race should give an account of these debates. I believe that it does a pretty good job of giving an account of all of these debates. I do not think it is as well organized as it can be. Now I would like to reciprocate POM's efforts (for lack of a better word): I would like to know whether other contributors (especially -- but not of course exclusively -- JDG who has historically been most active) agrees or not with the above statement. I have had communication problems with JDG in the past so if he does disagree I would greatly appreciate it if he could specify if there is any grounds for agreement, and where, specifically, he disagrees. Then, I would like to know whether he would suggest a particular course of action. Slrubenstein

P0M: SLR said: "Am I being asked to agree that things should haved names? I am afraid this seems sophomoric. Of course things have names." I will willingly demote myself to elementary school. It is appropriate to do so since this is an elementary question.

P0M: Next question: Which comes first, the definition or empirically derived generality by which one segregates newly encountered individuals (This is an aardvark, but that is an armadillo.), or the segregation of individuals into groups? The joke retold above is funny for two reasons. The superficial reason is that "It looks more like an X than it looks like anything else," is one version of the kind of thing people say when they create a name for something such as "English house sparrow" -- it looks like a sparrow even though it is a kind of finch. The deeper reason is that Adam could only have known what a "real" aardvark looked like if he had earlier encountered one and somebody had taught him its name. One can name individuals on first encounter. One can name other individuals because of their similarity to the first one you saw. But that process may disclose a need for refinement if it turns out that, e.g., both Shan minority people and Sri Lankan native people have been getting put in the same category by reason of the similarity of their general description.

P0M: The short of it is that one cannot identify somebody as a member of a race unless one has first some concept of that race. It will be counterproductive if the impression is somehow created that, e.g., the XYZ race simply out there, pre-tagged as it were. Japanese scientists just identified a new kind of whale. To see those whales as a species required empirical observations and careful excogitation.

P0M: There is a second conceptual problem with the very first sentence in the article. I will wait to bring that problem up until reaction to the current point has been expressed and digested.

P0M 08:36, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC):Two days have gone by with no response from SLR and an even longer time has gone by since we have heard from JDG.

It is not my place to speak for JDG, but I suppose I ought to respond to thistwp days has passed..." Yes, two days has passed, but I had no idea anyone was waiting for my response to anything. What am Ito respond to? To POM'sa question, "Which comes first, the definition or empirically derived generality by which one segregates newly encountered individuals (This is an aardvark, but that is an armadillo.), or the segregation of individuals into groups?" I have no response. I contribute to these pages in the hopes of improving the article. Right now I rather like the first paragraph of the article and see no need for imporivement. Nor am I interested in engaging this question about aardvarks and armadillos, which I suppose belongs more properly on a page concerning aardvarks and armadillos. The question "which comes first" is an empirical question and I would have to do a study of naturalists or zoologists to see which question, in fact, they answered first (or if two groups of naturalists respondeddiffferently. But why should I care? This has nothing to do with race. I suppose one can try to apply this questoion to race, I suppose that the question wold be somethig like "which came fifrst, the defminition of a new race after someone encounters a new person for the same time, or the segregation of people into different races? This question seems hopelessly abtsract and muddled. Are you asking how racial classifications emerged in the 16th/17th centuries among Western writers? Are you proposing a social psychology experiment in which an individual is introduced to "newly encountered individuals?" Again, these are questions historians and psychologists can answer, why should i have an answe or care to respond to this? Or is POM asking me if I now think his joke is funny, given the detailed esplanation (sorry, as with most cases explanation doesn't help the joke). Or am I to respond to POMS contextless point that sometimes Shan and Sri Lankans are lunped togethe. Well, this case seems to mix up so many distinct issues (how a relativel sheltereed person might eaily misrecognize and mislabel some one they have just met, versus where did specifci identities (like Shan and Tamil) come from. versus how they have changed, how they function for politicians, etc. I have nothing to add to my earlier response: all interesting questions that should be addressed byt he article in their appropriarte context. In any evvent, I still do not see any reasoning to justify changing the first sentence. JDG, any thoughts? Slrubenstein

Having learned at least some degree of caution, I will restrain my inclination to examine the singular difficulty involved in the first sentence. I will not change it at this point only to have it reverted on grounds that I have not explained my change. On the other hand, if I change it in a day or two and somebody complains, implying that my reasoning (which I am in the process of working through step by step here) was not given or was incorrect, then how am I to interpret those belated recriminations? My key assertion lines up with the passage I asked for comment on a few days ago, the passage that shows that definition is necessary before meaningful predication can occur. "You should not vote for her. Why? She is an anteconnubialist." True? False? Who knows?!

Oh -- did you want us to "respond: to your "key assertion?" It seems to beg the question, what one means by "meaningful," but I rhink I can respond to this: I am not sure what you mean but I would say that the amjor point of the article is that there is no consensus as to the definition opf "race," and as a consequence there was been a lt f uncelar of contradictory "predication." The task of the article is not to "solve" some problem by providing an adequate dfinition of race; it purpose is to review some of the different definitions (and ensuing conflicts) and, when possible, provide some historicalk context for the changing meaings.

Brass Tacks (1)

P0M: I will make the matter as simple as I possibly can. Please tell me whether the following sentence is true or false: "One cannot determine that some person is a member of race X unless one first has a criterion for race X membership."
Yes, this is vey simple and I appreciate your effort. I apologize that I cannot answer as simply, but I do hope I will be clear (and if not, please accept in good faith that I have tried and feel free to ask a follow-up question). I will answer in some detail becase I feel obliged to answer you personally, but also because the purpose of thse talk pages is not to support personal debates but rather to help improve the page as a whole.
1 I consider this a meaningless question.
P0M Some sentences are true. Some sentences are false. And some sentences, as Richard Feynman was wont to say, "Are not even wrong." I think those three alternatives about do it. Please give me another example of a "meaningless question".
I consider this a meaningless question because

(1)I think that the assumption that people belong to races when there are clear (definable) criteria for membership is wrong, and (2)because I believe that the search for clear definable criteria is although important of very limited use and often distracts us from other, more important question about race.

P0M:Somebody decides "Moran is a member of the Foobarian race." When asked why, s/he says: "Moran has one blue eye and one green eye." When asked to explicate the reasoning behind this conclusion, s/he says: "My mama taught me this: 'If a person has one blue eye and one green eye, then that person is a Foobarian.' Moran has one blue eye and one green eye, therefore he is a Foobarian." There is nothing logically wrong with that argument. In fact, if the definitian of "Foobarian" is "has one blue and one green eye," then it is a trivial deduction. The problem comes when this idiot is going to shoot me because everybody knows that Foobarians are the spawn of the devil.
P0M: If people do not belong to races when there are clear (definable) criteria for membership and certain people fit those criteria, then under what circumstances do people belong to races? (Obviously, being careful thinkers we will deny that one can add characteristics that are confidently asserted but never tested.)
P0M: I think it is an undeniable fact that people do think they know a "Foobarian" (pick your favorite minority group -- and remember that there are no majority groups in the world) when they see one. But they don't come into the world with an appetite for Foobarians the way my horse came into the world with an appetite for grass. They have to learn, somehow.
2 for those people who believe that race has some ontological reality, or for one whos task it is to count members of different races, I recognize that the answer would be "true."
P0M: That is more of an answer that I can recall ever getting from you. Thank you. (And I am not being sarcastic.)
You are welcome (of course, it is neverthelss not my answer!)
3 However, I do not believe that race is ontologicaly real nor am I interested in counting people who belong to different races., I believe that race is socially constructed and how people understand the word "race," how they divide the world up into different races, and what are the principls of inclusion or exclusion into or from one race or another interest me.
P0M: That is what I think, too, so why are we fighting? "How they divide the world up into different races, and what are the principles of inclusion or exclusion into or from one race or another interest me" -- that is exactly what I have been saying needs to be there before somebody "identifies" a person "as a member of the hated foobareese" (to quote another contributor).
And I do not agree with you that people actually have clear definitions of what a partiocular race is before they identify someont as belonging to that race. They may, but I do not believe this is necessarily so.
P0M: Of course they do not have clear ideas, in the sense that they've explored their ideas well enough to know where the pitfalls are. But they do not, in general, act like the student in Japan did. I was totally blown away, at first, because to label me for no apparent reason seemed to be a manifestation of insanity, an irrational judgment based on no evidence whatsoever. How would you explain it if somebody came up and started spraying you with aerosol cooking oil and shouting, "Get it! Get it! It's a Martian."
So that is one fundamental disagreement between us. But I believe the more fundamental disagreement is, you somehow seem to think this issue is important for the first paragraph of the article; I do not believe it is necessary for the first paragraph of the article. I will go only so far as to say that people use "race" to identify people. I will make no claims as to what principles they use to identify specific races, nor what principles they use to identify race at all (because I do not believe there exists one set of uniform homogfeneous consistent principles).
P0M: I can't accept the statement that "people use 'race' to identify people" because you cannot use something that does not exist. In other words, because you can't identify someone (metaphorically, pop somebody into the Foobarian holding area in the zoo of all humanity) unless there is a race to identify them with (a real holding area in the zoo). And I don't want to assume the unreal. The reality is that probably every person who who categorizes somebody as a "Foobarian" has his/her own idiosyncratic "principles", and that is a major source of error in thinking and resultant human misery.
By speaking of "identifying" somebody as a "foobareese" (in the damnable first sentence) the impression is created that the foobareese exist as some discoverable and even self-declaring entity "out there."
I have never considered ourselves to be fighting.
3 (continued)I believe that people use race and racial classifications both strategically (in terms of some political calculation) or sentimentally (in order to express metaphorically, their understanding of history and their place in history); I therefor believe people use the word "race,' as well as the names of specific races and the criteria for inclusion/exclusion, in ways that are inconsistent yet still intelligible and perhaps predictable, and I am intersted in making sense of the changing strategic and sentimental ways people use these words, and the condutions under which they use them.
P0M: As I read those words I feel compelled to put scare quotes around every occurrence of the word "race" that occurs -- because your form of speech implicity grants them reality, even though that now seems not to be your intention.
Perhaps we differ as to what we mean by "real." If you use "scare quotes" to sugges that I do not intend to give them reality, then I object because I do very much intend to give them reality. I believe they are real in the same way that Captain Ahab and nuclear bombs are real -- social constructions that are products of the human imagination yet which have a profound impact on how we life.
P0M: The X race and Captain Ahab have the same ontological status, as far as I can tell, and the same goes for jackalopes (a chimerical creature said to resemble a jack rabbit with antelope horns). You could search the whole world for a jackalope and only find one in the shop of a defrocked taxidermist. Nuclear weapons, however, can be found all over the place (if you have the right passes, security clearance, keys, etc.). If somebody says that that I am a member of the detested Foobarian race, then s/he had better have a complete list of the characteristics of Foobarians and check me for them one by one.
4 The above is my own point of view, but I believe it reflects the point of view of most other scholars in the social, human, and natural sciences. I believe that the above point of view must be represented in the article.
P0M: I agree. So why frame the whole discussion in a way that mitigates against your getting your own point of view expressed clearly enough that the justice of your position speaks for itself?!?!
because of NPOV policy
P0M: You aren't making it a neutral article if you privilege the "reality" of race by a conceptually foggy argument that suggests that fictions are real.
5 It is my sense that JDG holds a very different point of view. I believe that JDG would answer your question "true," though I hesitate to speak for him.
P0M: I totally don't follow you. I mean that I can understand why JDG would likely accept it. But I can't see why you cannot accept the sentence as true. I'll tell you a story. I was residing in an international student dorm in Japan one summer. Another foreign student confronted me one day: "You're Jewish!" I said, "No, as far as I know, I'm not Jewish." "I know you are Jewish!", he said defiantly. I thought to myself, "Well, I am of the clan of Albert Einstein, then. So be it." But I was puzzled by his assured "identification" of me as Jewish -- until it occurred to me that I had been amusing myself playing my favorite tunes on the recorder (flute) in my room the previous day, and had played Hatikva and Shalom Shavarim. My point is that said student had a definition, a list of defining characteristics, in his mind, and when he discovered that I fit his definition he made his triumphant accusation. Absent the definition or the musical performance he would never have gone Hitler on me.
I understand that someone else had a definition according to which you are Jewish. I think a discussion of this definition as well as other definitions, and the historical context in which they devloped, is (as I am written numerous times!) the legitimate topic of an encyuclopedia article.
P0M: O.K., and the student's position is a prime example of what is bonkers with all of this. You can say that the student alleged that I was Jewish, you can say that he misidentified me as Jewish, but you can't say that he identified me as Jewish (unless you know much more about me and my family than I do). In Japan his mistake was a source of great amusement to me, and a lesson in human frailty. In Germany in 1943 his mistake would have had me deeply frightened. There isn't even any racial definition or principle or whatever you want to call it that I would fit. But people will pick on a few superficials that match what they want to find, and they will kill you for it.
5 (continued):In any event I believe that JDG speaks for a group of people, many of whom are biological scientists, who although in the minority are substantial, and that this article should represent their view as well.
P0M: That's fine with me. I think I know what you mean, and whether it applies to JDG or not, it would be correct to explain that some people understand things that way.
6 I believe that the first sentence of the article, indeed the first paragraph, must introduce the article in a way that privileges neither of these two views. Slrubenstein
P0M: I'm lost again. Are you saying that admiting that people have to have something in mind before they identify somebody as blasted foobarian thus privileges JDG's point of view? Your point of view?
Sorry, you have entirely lost me. I do not know what you mean by foobarian privileges. What does this have to do with an aticle on race? By the way, I believe that the current first paragrapph of the article introduces both JDG and my views equally well.
P0M: "Foobarians" are members of the dreaded and hated Foobarian race. Members of the Foobarian race are known by their possesion of the marker characteristics one blue eye, one green eye, and left-handedness.

[User:Patrick0Moran|P0M]]: Mentioning JDG reminded me that I had asked him:

Not talking directly about the editing of the article, but just to clarify in my own mind what you just said, JDG, let me see whether I've got [your position] straight. There have been several ways, over the course of history, that race has been used to speak of the group differences perceived or believed to exist among individual members of a given genus and species. For instance, in the case of human beings, some people might be deemed members of a race on the grounds of skin color, some people might be deemed members of a race on the grounds of religious affiliation, some people might be deemed members of a race on the grounds of country or region of origin, some people might be deemed members of a race on the grounds of tribal affiliation, some people might be deemed members of a race on the grounds of sentiment toward some group or ideal, etc., etc. And eventually we get down to relatively recent events and find that some people might be deemed members of a race on the grounds of their genetic inheritance. I'll leave it at that for the nonce.P0M
Is there a question somewhee in here? Slrubenstein
P0M 22:10, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC): Yes. "Did I get your (JDG's) statement correct? (The position to which I refer was presented in materials that are in the second archive. Perhaps I should have copied them onto this page too.)
Ah, yes, a clear question -- of xourse like you I await JDG's answer.

P0M: I think we have not heard from JDG since I asked him those questions, so there are two items up for his comment now.

P0M 01:57, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC): I went looking everywhere for a description of, or an example of, an epistemological account according to which a sane person looks at an individual (human or otherwise) and in a way not mediated by prior learning identifies that individual as the member of some [race], or other category. If SLR or JDG have knowledge of individuals are capable of these acts of immediate identification, they should make them known to the world. They could identify new species of whales, new genera of carnivores, terrorists in airports...

P0M: The nearest thing I can think of is Nelson Goodman's theory according to which goodness is an objective component of good things. He held that things are not just good in the sense that, e.g., that jack knife is good for opening tin cans, but good in the sense that uranium is dense.

P0M: I have heard that children have no racial prejudices. It is claimed that children have to learn that "people of [race] X are such and so, better watch out." In particular, they have to learn to discriminate [race] X people from [race] y people. I believe, on the basis of family oral history, that it must be true that little children do not identify other people by race. When I was four years old my parents took me from a 99.74% white town of 7000 population to the Washington Zoo. (It is not true that they schemed to leave me there.) The story I heard later on was that when I got into the lion house I complained rather vociferously about the smell. I then got into a conversation with an Afro-American lady who told me she felt the same way about it. There was never any comment in the story about how I reacted to the difference in [race] between the lady and me. If anything, my Roosevelt democrat father seemed to be pleased that I had experienced a friendly interaction with a different-looking, different-talking human.

"This article should not exist"

This article should not exist. Race should be a redirect to racing, which is a universal and important human thing to do, which we celebrate, bet on, and all that.

Racism should contain all discussion of "race as an objective construct."

I will implement this decision in one week if there is no substantive objection. Ann Kyslowski 00:23, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I misunderstand your proposal or I object to it. By "racing" you mean things like the Indy 500 and formula one?
object to deleting an article specifically on race. Race is an object of much scientific debate, literary activity, an politics. The activities take up a good abount of time, they have hurt people (slavery, genocide against the Indians, and the Holocaust) and they have celebrated human life (novels by Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Sherman Alexie, Toni Morrison, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes). People should learn about them. An encyclopdia article is a vehicle for educating people. Slrubenstein
Wikipedia has an article on many subjects (e.g. Santa Claus and Aether) that arguably "don't exist" (see also existence). Race is a concept with an important history. Also, to ban "discrimination on the grounds of race" is to imply that the word has some meaning. It is appropriate for Wikipedia to have an article on "Race" if it can provide some guidance to the various definitions and meanings that have been proposed. If it turns out that Wikipedia policies are inconsistent with this goal, then maybe Wikipedia policies should be changed.Peak 01:09, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)
P0M: I would like to know, just out of my perverse curiosity, what the Wikiplanation of the "flat earth theory" says, and also what the "terracentric" cosmology article looks like. No, I've got to quit for a while. My fundamental Irish nature is peeking through all the non-Irish genetic heritage items that have been holding it down. Argggggh.
Peak: OK, I bit. The article on "Flat earth" starts off blandly enough ("The flat Earth theory is the idea that Earth is flat"), but then, lo and behold, "modern science" is reduced to just another POV.
P0M: Returning to sanity for a minute (fed the Irish guy a Mickey), I've already said on the Racism:talk page that it is better to shine a light on a vampire than to bury it.
Peak: And after that you bury it? :-)
P0M: No, we treat them the same way we treat 20 lb. northern pikes. We staak them. ;-)

Self-identification

I deleted "Self identification" from the first graph for three reasons: first, it begs the question (by what criteria do people self-identify);

Peak: It need not beg the question. If I ask you "What is your race?" you may or may not choose to ask me, "What do you mean?"; I still may respond "Please answer the question according to your own definition." The U.S. census is based on self-identification, so I think you're simply missing the point.


...in fact I think the opening provides a good idea of the criteria (I will add social status, or income and education, though), and this is something that can be explored in detail later on. Second, by putting in "self-identified" we imply that the other criteria are more objective,

Peak You seem to assume that "self-identification" is subjective, but "subjective" normally means or implies variation from subject to subject; such variance, by definition, is irrelevant in self-identification.

... when they are not; in many cases racial identification is, or is the product of, a more complex negotiation between different parties. Finally, the opening graph makes it clear that this is not necessarily objective, so the "self identifying" thing seems at best redundant. Slrubenstein

Peak:Of course, you are entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't give you the right to delete other people's considered phrases.Peak 20:57, 21 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What is the first paragraph about? I thought it was "race" as a way of identifying groups of people. I understand your point that when filling out a census form one must self-identify -- but this is true for all surveus of that sourt, you are making an observation about the survey, not about the notion of race being employed.

Peak No, I am making an observation about the notion of race being employed. The point is that most people have a concept of self, which nowadays typically includes a concept of one's own race or races. You are asking "Where does that self-concept come from?" That's a good question, but it's beside the point here. One can just as well ask "where do people get the idea that race has something to do with X?", where X is any of the other "elements" that have been listed.

Given that a survey lists a number of possible races, where do these "races" come from?

Peak A survey may or may not provide a list; if it does, maybe the list comes from typical responses. But once again, you are being sidetracked by irrelevancies.

How do people choose which ones to answer? The phrase "self-identification" in the first paragraph simply muddles things.

Peak Try to see it as meaningful, maybe even thought-provoking or insightful.

Please do not take my changes so personally. All of us want to improve the article. Surely you are aware that there are some people who hold races to be objective and biological in origin, others who hold them to be objective social constructions, and others who seea more complex process of identification including self-identification. I delete your phrase because however well-considered it was iI do not believe it makes sense in that context. I do, however, encourage you to sort out what exactly you mean (are you talking about how government officials solicit racial identification; how people express their racial identity, or where races a ssystems come from, historically and culturally) and them spell outthe points that are important to youin the body of the article. No doubt, the question of whether one can self-identify race, and what it means to do that (and whether people always did that and whether it means the same thing, whether it is self- or other-identified) are very important questions. Ihope you will explore them in a context whee your meaning will be clearer. Slrubenstein

Peak I added self-identification, and that is precisely what belongs in the list of elements. You can ask the same kind of questions about all the other elements, and you are right - the body of the article is the right place to explore them. But the list of elements should be reasonably representative of the types of elements that are important.Peak 22:32, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I think I was unclear. My problem is that I still think we are talking about two different things. One is, how does one know what race "x" belongs to? It could be a set of objective factors, or it could be self-identification (X is what x says s/he is). I agree. But the other thing is, what are the different races (to which any given individual may belong?).

Peak I'll answer this question in a moment, but the question, and its answer, have little bearing on what belongs in the preamble.
Peak You ask, in reference to self-identification, "What are the different races to which any given individual may belong?" Working within the context of strictly self-identification, there is a clear answer: the set of all responses. Of course a similar question ("What races(s) exist?") might lead to a different set. (I suspect that if the set of respondents is sufficiently large, the differences would probably be rather minor, but that's just my guess.)

When you say "self-identification" do you mean that every individual identifies their own set of races (by which they identify others)?

PeakOf course not. The word "self-identification" appears in several online dictionaries:
AHD: Identification of oneself ...
Infoplease: identification of oneself ...
Dictionary.com: Identification of oneself ....
These look pretty consistent to me :-)

I don't think so -- but if this is what you really mean please correct me! However, if I am right and you mean the first and not the second thing, I think you are raising an issue that is not germaine to the first paragraph. Perhaps the solution is two paragraphs: one on what are "races" (what criteria are used to identify them) and a second on how and by whom are specific individuals identified as belonging to specific races. These are clearly related issues, but still distinct I think. Slrubenstein

Peak I agree with your remarks elsewhere - the reader would be better served by a preamble that lists the primary definitions, or at least covers the spectrum.Peak 23:52, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)


P0M 07:44, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC): Perhaps I am being obtuse, but often I have been surprised to learn the [race] of a person by listening to his/her own account. In one case I would have correctly guess "African" for the father, and I would have guessed "Chinese" for the mother, and I would have been correct both times according to what I have been told. But just looking at their son I would have said "Afro-American." His was of Kenyan citizenship, and his [race] was... Well, you figure it out. Unless you are a member of a very intrusive intelligence agency or have access to private information in some other way, you would have to get the information from the person in question.
P0M 15:33, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC): Second thoughts: Perhaps I see what Slrubenstein is trying to get at. It is one thing to look at the elements according to which people are grouped into [races]. It is another thing to look at who is applying the rules that associate characteristics (i.e., elements) with the various [races]. In the case of self-identification, the person who says, "I am a Fubarian" may be presumed to be looking at the elements according to which people are grouped with the other Fubarians. So when the census taker uses the statement of Ms. E to group her [racially] as a Fubarian, s/he is applying a rule for classifying people as Fubarians (or any other [race]) that is operating on the self-identification of an individual who may be presumed to be looking at another set of rules to make that self- identification. To put all of that in less abstract terms, Ms. E learns at home as a child that she and the members of her family are Fubarian. Presumably there is some reason that they all regard themselves as Fubarian. In other words, they have characterized themselves on the basis of some kind of rule-like system. Then the census taker asks Ms. E what her [race] is. She says, "Fubarian", and the census taker categorizes her as a Fubarian based on that (derivitive) basis.
P0M: I suppose that it is possible that one might regard oneself as "stardust" without being able to state any rule or reason for that self-identification. Then the census-taker would enter "Stardust" for that person's race, and the categorization would not depend on another level of identification by the application of some rule.
P0M: It would seem to me that in many cases a census-taker would not be able to diffentiate people on the basis of [race] without the self-identifications provided by citizens.
I think -- and I don't think this is purely out of self-interest -- that I agree with (that is, yes, this is what I am trying to say) POM when he writes, "Second thoughts: Perhaps I see what Slrubenstein is trying to get at." I would only qualify that it is not only a matter of "who" but of "how." I am also referring to what I see as two analytical levels. Before trying to explain what I mean another way, to be clear, I disagreee when Peak writes, " "What are the different races to which any given individual may belong?" Working within the context of strictly self-identification, there is a clear answer: the set of all responses." I disagree with this for two reasons. The first reason is perhaps pragmatic. When I ask the question, "What are the different races to which any given individual may belong?" my purpose is not merely to elicit a set of races (were this the case, Peak's response would be entirely adequate). My purpose is to prepare for a second question, which is "why are these the races available (or, how did it come to be, that these are the available races?" In other words, I am asking the question from a sociolinguistic stance. There are a variety of ways to answer my question, and Peak's response implies that the answer is individualistic and in some way arbitrary (not in the sense that an individual has no reason for self-identifying this way, but in the sense that the individual may have no reason for self-identifying this way that is shared with any other individual); I on the other hand see "the set of races" in a given place and at a given time as, well, given. For this reason I cannot agree when Peak writes, "the set of all responses." Perhaps I would be clearer if I rephrased the question as "What are the different races to which any given individual may meaningfully belong?" I see this question as similar to the question, "what is a meaningful sentence?" Perhaps, following Peak's logic or method, were I to ask "what can a sentence be?" the answer would be "the set of all responses." Methodologically, this is a fine starting point; a linguistic asking the question would start out by recording utterances, whatever they may be. But the linguist would not stop there -- this answer 9the set of all responses) is only the first step in an analysis. The second step is to infer from the responses patterns or rules. Thus linguists still use, when appropriate, de Saussure's distinction between langue and parole; parole refers to all the things people actually say, but de Saussure argued that this always represents only a portion of all the things that could be said, the langue which is never empirically available in its entirety. But it is not just that parole -- the set of actual responses -- is only a sample of what people could possible respond; there are rules governing (and limiting) these responses. Thus, in English, "tree" is a "real" word; in French it is not; conversely, in French "arbre" is a real word, but it is not a real word in English. This is where the word "meaningful" is important; de Saussure assumes (as I think all linguists do) that language is shared, not personal. Different languages not only have different rules for words, they have different rules for sentences. If you were to ask me to produce a sentence, I could say "sprock green goes is" and you could record that as among your set of all responses, but it is not a meaningful sentence in English. In short, I view "race" the same way. I believe you can start with Peak's answer (the set of all responses) as a starting point to elicit a list of "races" in a given place and at a given time. But I assume that in different places and at different times this list will be different. Moreover, I assume that at any given time, in any given place, there is a pattern, or their are rules, as to what constitutes an acceptable (meaningful) response. The next analytically necesary task is to ask what these rules or patterns may be, and here I think Peak's answer is not adequate, and -- and this is what motivates my verbose response -- if one stops with Peak's answer, I believe one will never understand race; a meaningful or useful understanding of race requires going behond this answer. I prefer not to use these words, because they raise philosophical issues I am not certain about, but I think one might say that I take race to me objective and Peak takes it to be subjective. To whatever extent this may be true, let me be clear that by "objective" I include both biological-reductionist accounts (e.g. "caucasian" is an individual with a certain set of genes; or "caucasians" are a group of people with certain allele frequencies) AND social-constructionist accounts (e.g. "caucasian" is the descendant of those people who conquered or colonized non-European territories in the 16th-19th centuries, or the descendant of a slave-owner; or "caucasians" are members of the local or national political and economic elite -- I am not saying these are correct explanations of "caucasian," only examples, right or wrong, of what I take to be "social-constructionist"). Again, in an attempt to make clear why I think this is worth talking about, let me go to a concrete (if hypothetical) example: I am not sure whether POM is correct that a census-taker would record "Stardust" as a race if that were the response given. But let's assume he is right. Even if he is right today I am certain that this was not the case one hundred years ago. My point: the rules concerning "race" (how people talk about race, how people think about race, how people perceive and recognize race) have changed. A hundred years from now the rules may change again. And if you go to Brazil, the rules may be different. I believe that the introduction to an article on "race" must be written in a way that recognizes this, and that prepares the reader for an account of different rules that have governed how people have responded to "what is that person's race?" or "what isyour race?" This is why I objected to "self-identification" in the first paragraph -- it is a way of eliciting a race, but it does not tell us if (as in the Stardust case) anyone else would recognize that as a race, nor whether it is likely that someone -- anyone -- might reply this way, nor what the "rules" or criteria are that govern how one may self-identify. The other criteria in the opening paragraph (common descent, physical attributes, behavior), on the other hand, are criteria or rules that people have used to decide what different races are, or how one should identify one's self. It may be an incomplete list, or an arbitrary list, but it is at least a list of criteria that people have used to explain what the different races are (at any given time, in any given place). "Self-identification" is not, it is a behavior that is governed by such rules, and it is a way of eliciting raw data from which such rules may be infered, but it is not analytically on the same level as the other criteria. Slrubenstein


Peak Dear Slr: In the long paragraph above, you wrote about many things, ranging from what your purpose would be in asking about race, to what you think is "analytically necessary". You also write about what seems to be your desire to have some deep understanding of "race". I'm afraid that most of these considerations are simply irrelevant to the wording of the preamble.

I do agree that there is an important distinction to be made between:

  • the set of criteria for defining categories;
  • the set of criteria for categorizing individuals
This is my main point and I think it is relevant for the preamble -- and organization -- of the article. Slrubenstein

I would also agree that a useful distinction can be drawn between two types of "self-identification" surveys:

  1. some authority determines what racial categories exist and then requests individuals to categorize themselves accordingly;
  2. the survey is primarily intended to record each individual's response to a question about race, whatever that response may be.

But, again, I don't see that these distinctions have any particular relevance to the wording of the preamble.

I too agree that this is an important distinction, and one that ought to be adressed somewhere in the article. And I agree that it is not a distinction relevant to the preamble -- but that was not my claim; this is not the distinction I am referring to. I am making a distinction between both 1 and 2, which are two ways of eliciting racial categories (observe the people who make up census forms, or observe the people who respond to open-ended questions) on the one hand, and the rules or criteria that generate the racial categories -- regardless whether they come from method 1 or method 2. My point is that "self-identification" is a way of eliciting data from which one can infer criteria or patterns or rules, but "self-identification" is not itself a criteria or rule, at least not in the same sense as "common descent" or "skin color" or "language" or any number of other criteria -- and it is those criteria which I think ought to be listed in the preamble (unless we go with your alternative -- which is fine by me -- of listing different ways people have dtudies race, ratehr than different criteris people have used for defining different races). Slrubenstein

By the way, please note the inconsistency in your final remarks. You conclude by saying that self-identification is a behavior, and so is not "analytically on the same level as the other criteria". But one of those other criteria is in fact "behavior".

By the way, whether something as all-encompassing as "behavior" should be regarded as an "element" is a worthwhile question. Maybe a word such as "considerations" would be better.

I agree that "behavior" is rather broad but in the opening paragraph I think broader is better than narrower -- unless you can identify a few specific types of behavior that have often been used to identify race. Still, I would not include "self-dentification" among those behaviors. Slrubenstein

Peak 22:48, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC) Following material moved from Wikipedia:Peer review by Wapcaplet 22:54, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Two authors of this article have used the hammer of reversion to thwart efforts by various people to eliminate the single-POV bias of several parts of the article. This is documented fairly well in the Talk pages (plural because part of the discussion has been archived). Being something of a newcomer, I'm not sure what can be done, especially as I do not wish to start a "reversion war." I have never reverted anyone's work, and in fact I adhered to Wiki protocol by offering additions and the smallest modifications possible. Newcomers are asked to be optimists, so any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

To save you wading through the edit history and the Talk page, here is a summary of one of the POV issues -- the single-POV taken in the first sentence of the article (as of 02:33, 1 Dec 2003, which is a reversion by the person who will not allow a more neutral POV version to be used). This first sentence reads as follows:

Race is a taxonomic principle used to group living things based on common heredity, physical attributes and behavior, where all members belong to the same species yet appear to warrant further classification.

As explained in the Talk page, there are several problems with this sentence. Here, let's just consider the first five words.

1) There are multiple points of view about what "race" is. Any dictionary will tell you there is more than one meaning related to human classification. To say it is a 'taxonomic principle' is just one POV. Other points of view include: 

  a) "Race is a folk taxonomic concept..." (this was the phrasing used
      in the revision of 15:19, 8 Jan 2002)
  b) "Race is a social construct."
  c) "Race has several meanings related to classification. These meanings
      vary depending on whether the classification is based on scientific
      criteria, self-identification, interviewer opinion, or some other
      critera; on whether the categories are created so as to be
      mutually exclusive or not; and on whether the criteria used in
      defining the categories are based on ancestry, genetics, physical
      characteristics, behavioral criteria, or some combination of these."
  d) Scientists have attempted to apply taxonomic principles to identify
      different "races".
  e) "Race does not exist."

Consider, for example, OMB Statistical Directive 15, October 30, 1997. It states:

"The categories in this classification [i.e. race and ethnicity] are social-political constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature. ... Respondents shall be offered the option of selecting one or more racial designations. Recommended forms for the instruction accompanying the multiple response question are "Mark one or more" and "Select one or more." (See e.g. http://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/race06.htm)

Needless to say, this POV should not simply be ignored or denied in the Wiki article on race.

2) Does starting an article with the words 'Race is a taxonomic principle' help clarify things or merely muddy the waters? As documented in the Talk page, there are several POVs about what the word 'taxonomic' might signify here, as well as what the word 'principle' might signify here.

By the way, the original characterization of race in this Wikipedia article was much better (from a POV perspective) than the current formula, as were several subsequent revisions. Here is the original version:

(2001): "Race is a concept used to divide people into groups ..."

Peak 05:32, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Please insert the links to Race and Talk:Race into the beginning of your description. I am under the impression that race as a taxonomic concept is somewhat distinct from race as an ethnic concept. The article does not address this, but that may just be because I'm wrong. -Smack 06:04, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

End of moved material

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