Re:Charlie Hebdo: first cover since terror attack depicts pr...
by dragonwriter on Tuesday January 13, 2015 @07:07PM
(#8883442)
> If identity was a sufficient condition, then identifying myself as an RTS Gamer would make those who play RTS games a "race".
Race describes one of two things:
1. Self-identification in a class socially constructed to be a "race", and
2. Externally perceived membership in a class socially constructed as a "race".
Ethnicity is identical, but with "race" replaced with "ethnicity". The distinction between "race" and "ethnicity" being quite arbitrary.
> Race is a dubious concept to begin with, but if we hope to salvage any useful semantics the only sane way forward would be to define race as those things about you that don't change when Jor-El puts you on a spaceship and ships you off to Earth to be raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent.
I'm not interesting in redefining race to make it a category that you find useful, I'm talking about what it actually means as it is used -- which does not refer to an immutable trait. (Though it does refer to a trait that is not easy to change, and which -- especially in the external form -- is very hard for the subject to change, absent moving to a different society with different conceptualization of race.)
Race describes one of two things:
1. Self-identification in a class socially constructed to be a "race", and 2. Externally perceived membership in a class socially constructed as a "race".
Ethnicity is identical, but with "race" replaced with "ethnicity". The distinction between "race" and "ethnicity" being quite arbitrary.
> Race is a dubious concept to begin with, but if we hope to salvage any useful semantics the only sane way forward would be to define race as those things about you that don't change when Jor-El puts you on a spaceship and ships you off to Earth to be raised by Jonathan and Martha Kent.
I'm not interesting in redefining race to make it a category that you find useful, I'm talking about what it actually means as it is used -- which does not refer to an immutable trait. (Though it does refer to a trait that is not easy to change, and which -- especially in the external form -- is very hard for the subject to change, absent moving to a different society with different conceptualization of race.)