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The Racial Identity Thesis: Why Race is a Social Construct of a Biological Reality
2250 words
Introduction
“Race” is a heavy topic. It influences many aspects of our daily lives, and in some cases, it even influences people to carry out heinous acts on groups of people deemed “inferior.” Such thoughts of “inferiority” of groups deemed (racialized as) races comes from horribly interpreting scientific studies, and in some cases, it is outright stated by the authors themselves, albeit using flowery language (eg Rushton, 2000). People that believe in the reality of race are called “race realists”, whether or not they hold a biological or social view of race.
On the socialrace side, social groups are racialized as races. “Social identities are contextual to historical and cultural elements.” “Racialization” is “the process through which groups come to be understood as major biological entities and human lineages, formed due to reproductive isolation, in which membership is transmitted through biological descent” (Hochman, 2019). Thinking about the root words for “racialization”, the two words are “racial formation.” Thus, when a group becomes racialized, it becomes a race based on societal expectations and thought.
“Hispanics” are an easy example to illustrate this case. In daily American discourse, people speak of “Hispanics”, “Spanish” people, and “Latinos/Latin Americans.” There are 33 Latin American countries to which this designation can be assigned to. In any case, what I term the “HLS distinction” (Hispanic, Latin American, Spanish distinction) is clearly a social designation and not a biological one. The group is an amalgamation of different peoples with differing amount ancestry to different countries of the world. “Hispanics” in some studies (eg Risch et al, 2002) don’t cluster in their own cluster (which would be taken to be a race, given that one has an argument for the claim), since they are an amalgam of different racial groups, it makes sense that they “clustered variously with the other groups.” Thus, “HLSs” are a social, not biological, kind.
Race concepts
Since “HBDers” call themselves “race realists” too, there needs to be a distinction between those who believe what I term “psychological race realism”—the claim that the psychological differences between the races are genetically transmitted and reduced to physical things—and regular old race realism—the claim that race exists as a social construct of a biological reality. Kaplan and Winther (2014) distinguish between bio-genomic/cluster race realism (the claim that race is real on the basis of genomic clusters from studies using programs like STRUCTURE); biological race realism affirms a kind of one-to-one mapping between social groups and clusters in DNA studies (though this not need be the case); and social race realism which is the racialization of social groups. They are anti-realists about biological race, but conventionalists about bio-genomic/cluster race. I think this is a good avenue to take, since the main program that psychological hereditarians push cannot ever be logically viable due to the irreducibility of the mental. (The “HBD” (Human Biological Diversity type racial realism is what I term psychological racial realism, while the type of racial realism I push is bio-genomic/cluster realism.)
In 2017, philosopher of race Michael Hardimon published his Rethinking Race: The Case for Deflationary Realism. In the book, Hardimon distinguishes between four race concepts: racialist races, in which it’s proponents attempt to rank-order racialized groups in socially-valued traits. Racialist races are socially constructed groups which then purport to pick out biological kinds. However, the concept of racialist race does not refer to any group in the world, genetic variation in Homo sapiens is nonconcordant, human variation is clinal, that is human groups aren’t sharply distinguished between one another on the basis of genomic data. Socialraces are groups taken to be racialist races, the social position taken by a group said to be a socialrace, or the system of positions that are social races (Hardimon, 2017: 131). So these two concepts need to be grouped together since they are hierarchical, though they need not be correlated with each other that strongly—one can be an anti-realist about biological races but be a realist about social races. This is why there is no contradiction in saying that biological race isn’t real but socialraces are. Socialraces also have a biological correlate, and these are what Hardimon terms “minimalist races”, which I will describe below.
Hardimon (2017: 69) has what he calls “an argument from the minimalist biological phenomenon of race” (Hardimon, 2017: 70):
Step 1. Recognize that there are differences in patterns of visible physical features of human beings that correspond to their differences in geographic ancestry.
Step 2. Observe that these patterns are exhibited by groups (that is, real existing groups).
Step 3. Note that the groups that exhibit these patterns of visible physical features correspond to differences in geographical ancestry satisfy the conditions of the minimalist concept of race.
Step 4. Infer that minimalist race exists.
Basically, if minimalist races exist then races exist because minimalist races are races. Contrast this argument (and Spencer’s newest argument arguing for the existence of OMB races) with hereditarian reasoning on race—basically just assume it’s existence.
The minimalist race concept does not state which populations are races, it just states that race exists. Hardimon’s populationist race concept (PRC) does, though. Although we don’t need genes to delineate race, using new technologies can and does help us to elucidate the existence of races. However, if minimalist races are populationist races, then the kind minimalist race equals populationist race. So if minimalist races are real, then so are populationist races.
Since 2014 in his paper A Radical Solution to the Race Problem, philosopher of race and science Quayshawn Spencer has been tinkering with an argument he now calls “the identity argument” (which I will provide below). The Office of Management and Budget has guidelines for the classification of people on the US census, being White, Black, Native American, Pacific Islander and Asian. The OMB never calls race a kind or a category, but they do refer to races as a set of categories or a proper name for population groups (Spencer, 2014). Spencer (2019a: 113) makes and defends 3 claims in regard to his OMB race theory:
(3.7) The set of races in OMB race talk is one meaning of ‘race’ in US race talk.
(3.8) The set of races in OMB race talk is the set of human continental populations.
(3.9) The set of human continental populations is biologically real.
In Spencer’s (2022) chapter in Remapping Race in a Global Context, A metaphysical mapping problem for race theorists and human population geneticists, Spencer has—in my opinion—articulated the best version of his OMB race argument.
Spencer’s identity argument
Of course, in the discussion of STRUCTURE and how many clusters it is told to construct from genomic data, the program is merely doing whag the human tells it to do. However, the five populations that come out in K= 5 “are genetically structured … which is to say, meaningfully demarcated solely on the basis of genetic markers” (Hardimon, 2017: 88). Hardimon (2017: 85) calls these clusters” continental-level minimalist races” whereas Spencer (2022: 278) calls these “the human continental populations” or “Blumenbachian partitions” (Spencer, 2014: 1026).
K = 5 shows 5 human continental populations which are robust and have been replicated numerous times. The 5 human continental populations are Africans, Caucasians, East Asians, Native Americans, and Oceanians. K = 5 corresponds to the racial scheme used by the OMB, and by scientists and Americans in daily life. Human continental populations and OMB races correspond one-to-one in the following way: African, black; Caucasian, white; East Asian, Asian; Native American, American Indian; and Oceanian, Pacific Islander. So there is a metaphysical relation between the human continental populations in K = 5 and the OMB races. Spencer states that “identity” is what is exemplified between K = 5 and OMB races, and he then constructed this argument he calls “the identity thesis”:
(2.1) The identity thesis is true if, in OMB race talk, ‘American Indian,’ ‘Asian’, ‘Black’, ‘Pacific Islander,’ and ‘White’ are singular terms, and ‘American Indian’ means Native American, ‘Asian’ means East Asian, ‘Black’ means African, ‘Pacific Islander’ means Oceanian, and ‘White’ means Caucasian.
(2.2) In OMB race talk, the first conjunct in (2.1)’s antecedent is true.
(2.3) In OMB race talk, the second conjunct in (2.1)’s antecedent is true.
(2.4) So, the identity thesis is true.
(2.1) is true since the antecedent analytically entails the consequent; (2.2) is true based on the OMB’s intentions when they when coining the race terms, that is to provide a common language across US agencies; (2.3) is true since human continental populations are the best choices for the meanings of the OMB race terms—they posit referents which are part of the semantic content of the OMB race terms; it therefore follows that the conclusion (2.4) logically follows so the argument is deductively valid and I think it is sound.
Spencer (2019a) professes to be a radical pluralist about race—that is, there are many different race concepts for certain contexts based on American race talk. The referent “race” is merely a proper name for a set of human population groups. Race is therefore a social construct of a biological reality.
Conclusion
Race is meaningful in American social discourse—call it race talk. We should not be eliminativist about race, since there is medical relevance for certain groups deemed races. That is, we shouldn’t eliminate the concept RACE from our vocabulary, since it has a referent. RACE is a social construct of a biological reality. It must be said, though, that many people believe that since X is a social construct then X is therefore not real or doesn’t exist. But this line of thinking can be easily countered. Money is a social construct, so does that mean that money doesn’t exist so money isn’t real? No—the example perfectly shows the fallacious thinking of those who think that social constructivists are claiming that since X is socially constructed then X is not real. This couldn’t be further from the truth since social constructivists about race are realists about race. Pluralism about race is true—that is, there are many natures and realities for race based on the relevant context (Spencer, 2019: 27).
Lastly, these theories of race I have shown here do not license the claims that realists about racialist races or biological racial realists (as termed by Kaplan and Winther) have about these groups. While Hardimon distinguishes between the four concepts of race, Spencer’s concept and then argument tried to argue that race is a social construct of a biological reality.
Spencer even worries that those—like Charles Murray who don’t even have a coherent concept of race—may try to use his research for their own purposes:
Nevertheless, I do worry that politically right-winged people—for example, Charles Murray—might try to misuse my research for their own purposes. I’m also worried about the educational research that shows learning about human genetic differences in racial terms—for instance, lactase persistence alleles—increases racist attitudes among the learners.
Spencer took care of the first part as early as his 2014 paper and has reiterated it since—the DNA evidence that elucidates the reality of human races are on noncoding DNA, so Spencer (2014: 1036) states:
Nothing in Blumenbachian race theory entails that socially important differences exist among US races. This means that the theory does not entail that there are aesthetic, intellectual, or moral differences among US races. Nor does it entail that US races differ in drug metabolizing enzymes or genetic disorders. This is not political correctness either. Rather, the genetic evidence that supports the theory comes from noncoding DNA sequences. Thus, if individuals wish to make claims about one race being superior to another in some respect, they will have to look elsewhere for that evidence.
As for Spencer’s second worry, since racism is borne of ignorance, education can ameliorate racist attitudes (Hughes et al, 2007; Kuppens et al, 2014; Donovan, 2019, 2022).
Although I am a pluralist about race, the race concept I think best shows the reality of race is Spencer’s as he holds race to be a social construct of a biological reality in his OMB race theory. And we can easily see that RACE is a social construct of a biological reality with Spencer’s identity thesis by looking at the mapping between K = 5 and the OMB—the social part is the OMB designations of races, whereas the biological part are the clusters that appear in K = 5.
My thinking on race has changed a lot over the years. I used to be against the claim that race is a social construct. Though, if you know that being a social constructivist about race means that you don’t need to be an antirealist about the concept RACE as a whole, then you can state “Race is a social construct of a biological reality”, where “biological reality” means the concept RACE has some biological grounding, as seen in K = 5 STRUCTURE studies. RACE is an idea invented by people, which is the “social construct” claim. Thus, we impute racial categories onto people (the social construct part of the argument) and the racial categories we impute onto people have a biological grounding (as seen by K = 5).
P1: If RACE is a social construct of a biological reality, then RACE is not an inherent characteristic of the individual.
P2: If RACE is not an inherent characteristic of the individual, then one’s RACE is designated by the society they live in.
C: Thus, if RACE is a social construct of a biological reality, then one’s RACE is designated by the society they live in.
Should ‘Race’ Be a Factor in Dating? On Racial Preferences and Dating
2350 words
On Twitter, user @rasmansa wrote that “One of the places race is least important is in deciding who you should be in love with.” On this view, I strongly disagree, as romantic relationships that lead to love often begin with physical attraction between both parties.
When one thinks of sexual relationships, one thinks of physical attraction. Physical attraction is what, in the first place, draws two people together more often than not. It is then after the two get to know each other that the other’s personality then makes them more or less attractive. But they originally began talking due to the fact that they found each other physically attractive. So, “should” race not matter in decide who you should or should not fall in love with?
If most people talk to a new person of the opposite sex with the intent of becoming romantic partners on the basis of looks first and personality later, then race should matter to one’s dating prospects. Race would then matter in these prospects as certain racial groups (whether social or minimal) look differently from each other. When we think of racial groups, we think of outward appearance.
So take Joe. Joe is attracted to white skin, red hair, freckles etc. The woman that Joe is attracted to seems to be Irish, so Joe would then reject those women who do not meet his physical criteria. I am not saying that a woman can have the three aforementioned physical traits and not be Irish, since it is possible that a woman of a different ethnic group may have similar features, the Irish signifier, too, would be a factor in Joe’s choice of who he dates.
When we think of different races, we think of different clusters of traits that go with certain races, on average. So if we then imagine that Joe is not attracted to typically “black traits”—like tightly curled hair, big lips, and light brown to dark skin (as the phenotype ranges in skin color between almost-white looking but-not-quite to dark), then Joe would not want to date those with typically “black” features. This would then include Melanesians/Papuans/Australian Aborigines since they, too, have a similar phenotype (although they are not of the same race).
So take a white person that does not have typically “white” features and they trend to look more “black” as they have tightly curled hair, big lips, and darker skin (relative to how one perceives the average white), then they will not date them. This shows that ancestry is not (fully) in the conversation here, as even though the person in question may not be of race R, they have certain features that Rs have, and so Joe would not date them. But if one is of a certain (social)race then one is more likely to look a certain way, which means that if Joe likes a certain phenotype over another, then Joe would not be attracted to certain races and he would be attracted to others.
Now we can make the argument:
If one isn’t attracted to a particular phenotype, and R (a race) is more likely to have a particular phenotype compared to another R, then race is important who you fall in love with, as races have different phenotypes and phenotype dictates attraction first-and-foremost—before one has the chance to learn their personality and learn if they are compatible.
But what about mismatches? Take Britain and their classification of Pakistanis as ‘Asian.’ While technically true (they are on the Asian continent), they are not what one in America would think of when they hear the term ‘Asian.’ Now let’s say that Joe is American and when Joe hears “Asian” he does not think of brown-skinned Pakistanis he thinks of ‘East Asians.’ Let’s say that Joe is not attracted to Asians as he thinks of them (‘East Asians’) and then hears of the British ‘Asian’ category which features Pakistanis. Let’s say that Joe does not like Asians since, to him, they do not have brown skin and he finds brown skin attractive. When he learns of what the British term ‘Asian’ includes brown-skinned Pakistanis, he then learns that he is not attracted to the American usage of ‘Asian’ but is attracted to the British designation of ‘Asian’ since they have a phenotype that he finds attractive.
So the argument would be
If Joe isn’t attracted to what he thinks is ‘Asian’ and he then sees what Britain refers to as ‘Asian’ (brown-skinned Pakistanis), then Joe would be attracted to what are termed ‘Asians’ in one society and not in another.
Let’s now say that Joe likes short women, light. In America, Asian- and ‘Hispanic‘-American women are the same height (at 5 ft 1.5 in’) but he is attracted to light skin and not dark skin. Since they have the same hair color (dark brown/black) and the same height in America, the tie-breaker would be skin color. Since Joe in this instance likes short light women, he would then like the Asian women since they have light skin compared to the ‘Hispanic’ (in this case, Mexican with high indigenous ancestry).
Now, these considerations are in a way social, as if we did not live in multiracial societies then we would not have such notions different races. Yes there is variation within ethnic groups, and our friend Joe who likes certain phenotypes over others would trend toward one side over the other in the case of having no other races/ethnic groups in his area. So there is, of course, a social element at work here. Even then, one could have certain conceptions of how certain races/ethnic groups behave and they would then not want to date on that basis, leaving physical differences out of the picture. In this way, we can make a distinction between phenotypic and cultural differences when it comes to dating. And this is the case with many ethnic groups in America.
Some old-fashioned people in America may want their children to only date people of their own ethnic groups—say Italians would want their children to only date other Italians while blacks would want their children to only date other blacks. It is out of the question to allow their children to date outside of their ethnic group, for, in some cases, reasons due to culture and not physical differences (though in the case of old-school Italians it is probably both).
Now we have this argument:
If one is attracted to certain particular features that are more common in certain races over others, then race does matter in dating.
This would not mean that Joe would never date anyone of a different racial/ethnic group. Although cultural differences may sway Joe to not date someone of his same race, those same cultural differences may push Joe to dating someone of a different race, on the premise that he enjoys certain aspects of the culture.
Since we don’t need genes to delineate race and can delineate them on the basis of physical features, and if one is not attracted to certain features, then one will not be attracted to certain races on the basis of having those features. This could be construed as ‘racist’ if the individual in question has other thoughts about why they are not attracted to the phenotype in question (like if they think they are better than another group due to their skin color/ancestry). But some people—for non-nefarious reasons—are not attracted to certain phenotypes.
A black person may not be attracted to light skin, freckles, and red hair so would he be discriminating against the Irish girl if he does not want to date here? Is his idea of attractiveness culturally-instilled? Maybe, maybe not. The point is that different individuals have different preferences and these preferences may match onto racial/ethnic groups, thereby eliminating certain individuals from their dating pool. Whether or not that is a good idea, since, unbeknownst to Joe, the woman may be a perfect match personality-wise and not phenotypically, is up for debate. But Joe would not want to date the woman on the basis of her outward features, and so he may not ever be attracted to her, even if they do become friends and ‘click’, they may turn out to be best friends and never become romantic partners.
So these different clusters of traits may or may not be attractive to any one individual and then their preferences will dictate their racial/ethnic preferences—whether or not they date certain racial/ethnic groups rests on whether or not they are attracted to certain phenotypes.
It may be claimed that those who will not date certain individuals due to their race-based traits are racist even though they are not thinking of a hierarchy between groups of people. But their thoughts would be racist on the basis of prejudging a person on the basis of their looks even if the person in question may be a perfect match, other than the fact that their looks don’t match the individual’s ideal of what his partner should look like.
Race is instilled in American thought, so therefore race will be a factor in American social life—which includes dating preferences. Strully (2014) found that when blacks and whites had the same (social) chance for interracial dating, they were more likely to date their own race, and when ‘Hispanics’ had similar chances for interracial dating, they dated outside of ‘their race’ more often than blacks and whites. So ‘Hispanics’ are more likely to date outside their group compared to whites and blacks.
But to Luke and Oser (2015) it’s not so much phenotypic differences between races but social distance between races that matters for dating outcomes:
…the social distance (particularly between African Americans and whites) may be shrinking and it is possible that the male marriageable pools for African American women may be broadening to include men of other races/ethnicities. Additionally, the social distance maintained between racial groups, as indicated by rates of interracial relationships, appears to be primarily related to the preferences of men to not date African American women. While the interracial relationship intentions of African American women were relatively high, there may be a bias against economically disadvantaged African American women by white and Hispanic men in the dating pool.
Further, when it comes to Asian men—although not Filipino men—they were more likely to not be in a relationship compared to white men, even after controlling for an array of different variables (Balisteri, Joyner, and Kao, 2015). Asian men, it seems, are less desirable than other races of men. (Rushton thought that this was due to lower levels of testosterone which means they were more feminine so they skewed more K in his now-debunked r/K selection theory).
Of course, social—hierarchical—aspects play a large role here. Balisteri, Joyner, and Kao (2015) state that notions of (social)racial hierarchies may explain part of the reason why Asians are less likely to have a partner than whites. They write:
Critical race perspectives focus on how certain race and gender groups are favored or marginalized in the mate market. In other words, the ability of an individual to enter into a romantic relationship may be hampered by set of perceived or ascribed differences attributed to their racial or ethnic group (Burton et al. 2010). Studies have suggested that unflattering stereotypical media depictions of nonwhites have contributed to a racial hierarchy in many aspects of society, including mate preferences (Bonilla-Silva 2010; Larson 2006). For example, media studies continue to document the racialized portrayals of Asian men’s masculinity as desexualized or effeminate (Feng 2002; Eng 2001) and black women’s femininity as less than desirable (Larsen 2006; Collins 2004; Wallace 1990). Scholars suggest that a preference for white standards of beauty reduces black women’s opportunities to date or intermarry outside of their race (Collins 2004; Bany, Robnett and Feliciano 2014). Other research, however, highlights the preferences of black women, noting they hold the least favorable attitudes toward selecting a partner of a different race (Davis and Smith 1991; Todd, McKinney, Harris, Chadderton and Small 1992) and are the least likely to intermarry or date across race because of cultural influences and lack of trust toward non-Hispanic whites (Childs 2005).
Research on dating preferences provides additional evidence of this racial hierarchy. A recent study of internet daters finds that among those who expressed a racial preference, less than 10% of Asian men would not consider dating Asian women, yet approximately 40% of Asian women would rule out dating Asian men. It also reveals that more than 90% of women of all different racial groups who expressed a racial preference excluded Asian American men. In addition, men of all different racial groups are most likely to exclude black women than any other women (Feliciano, Robnett and Komaie 2009).
So, to answer the question “‘Should’ race be a factor in dating?“, being that ‘should’ statements are normative statements, and normative statements are about what is desirable/undesirable, and what the current discussion on desirability is about (race preferences in dating), then the answer clearly is ‘Yes‘, since people are attracted to different phenotypes and certain groups are more likely to have certain phenotypes over other groups. If phenotype is a factor in dating then it follows that race will be a factor in dating—whether it ‘should’ or not—since different races have different phenotypes. Differences in dating those of different races/ethnies may come down to not just phenotypic differences but also class/social differences/expectations, too. In this way, class and race combine to make a partner more or less desirable to an individual on the basis of his desires for a partner’s particular look and class position. It doesn’t matter if race ‘should’ be a factor in dating, as we live in a racialized world (whatever your view on the social or biological existence of race)—it then follows that race is an aspect of life we cannot escape and that it does influence dating life, whether it ‘should’ or not. A racial hierarchy in dating exists (at least in America), and this will then dictate how one views other races. In this way, the choice is both personal and cultural.
The Social Construction of the ‘Hispanic/Latino/Spanish’ Race
2600 words
In daily social discourse, you may have heard people referred to as ‘Hispanic/Latino/Spanish” (HLS) What does this mean? Are they referents of biological races or are they social only social terms? When we think of HLSs, we think of things that group HLSs together and most people, in the American context, think of HLSs as a race. In this article, I will discuss the social construction of the HLS race and what it means for race discourse in America.
Imagine you hear two people speaking Spanish. When you hear this and you are then asked a question about the two interlocutors, you may refer to them as “those Spanish people.” You are only referring to them as “Spanish people” since they are Speaking Spanish. Now, thinking of it in this way, the referent “Spanish”, like, say, “Italian” may refer to a particular ethnic group or it may not (depending on whether or not an individual has migrated to that country, had children and then raised them in the country they migrated to). However, when we—in our daily social discourse—refer to “Spanish people” are referring to many different countries and the people that inhabit them.
For example, we may refer to Dominicans as HLS, on the basis that they speak Spanish. Would they, then, be racially similar to Chileans or Argentinians despite the radically different histories of the countries in question? No. That they share a language does not indicate that the three countries in question are a part of this HLS—it does not mean that they are a biological race. However, these people from these countries that do speak Spanish—if they, say emigrate to America—may receive the same treatment as each other on the basis of the language they speak.
Take the identity group La Raza. La Raza means “the race” in English, and it refers to the countries that the Spanish invaded and then intermixed with the indigenous inhabitants of said country (and even African slaves they brought when the indigenous population began to dwindle). In this way, La Raza becomes a socially constructed race and what unites those people is the fact that they speak the same language and have similar cultural histories (having Spaniards invade their land and forcing their customs on them). They may say a phrase like “Viva La Raza” which translates to “Long live the race.”
If we are talking about “race” in the American sense, then we are talking about how the OMB uses the term “race” and what it means to Americans in American discourse. That we speak of certain social groups as “races” does not entail that we treat them as biological races. One may be of the same racial group and, a country or area where they are the minority they may then be treated differently on the basis of their customs/language.
Take Argentina. An Argentinean may have most of their ancestry derive from Southern Italy, since Argentina saw a large number of Southern Italian immigrants begin to emigrate in 1857, right as The Kingdom of Two Sicilies became Italy. In any case, if this Argentinian had all of their ancestry from Southern Italy, and, say, their parents emigrated from Argentina to America, then they would speak Spanish. On this basis alone, if this family were in, say, New York or New Jersey (two states with a high Italian population) and they spoke Spanish, the Italian population would discriminate against them on the basis of their language and culture and how it is not like their own. So even though they are of the same ethnic group, just the simple fact that their families emigrated to different countries before/after Italy’s ‘creation’ would mean that one group would discriminate against the other on the basis of cultural differences.
So take a La Raza proponent. On the basis of the phrase “Viva La Raza“, since “La Raza” refers to countries with historically Spaniard influence, they would then be referring to those countries that Spain had invaded in the 1500s. So, a Mexican La Raza proponent may be referring to, and even attempt to give special privilieges to, an Argentnian even if they are not of the same (biological) race. The Mexican La Raza proponent may, for example, owe most of his ancestry to the Aztecs while the Argentinean may of most of his ancestry to South Italians. Although they are of different racial groups, the Mexcian La Raza proponent may see the Argentinian as part of their race, and therefore would treat them differently than a Southern Italian-descended person who spoke English/Italian—meaning that even though the phenotype would (theoretically) be the same, on the basis of culture (i.e., language), the Mexican La Raza proponent would treat the Argentenian different from the American differently, even though they trace their ancestry back to the same place. So what matters for the La Raza proponent is shared language and certain shared aspects of what we term “Hispanic culture.”
In any case, the term “Spanish” refers to Spaniards—people from Spain. “Latino” refers to Latin America. “Hispanic” refers to people who speak Spanish. In this way, we see how all three terms coalesce into a socially constructed race. We can see this with the way certain HLS groups treat each other even though they are not the same race.
In the book White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism, edited by Rothenberg (2008), Foley (2008) argues in his article Becoming Hispanic: Mexican Americans and Whiteness that Mexican Americans fought for the ‘Hispanic’ term, and so, wanted it to be an ethnic and not racial term. Mexican Americans wanted to be seen as ‘white’ in order to get over de jure segregation and so, from the 30s-50s, Mexicans argued that they were “white” and even supported the segregation of blacks and whites, on the basis of the claim that they too were white and would not have to be treated like blacks. Foley (2008: 56) cites some concerns of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and what they thought their race should be in America:
In a 1932 article in the LULAC news titled “Are Texas-Mexicans ‘Americans’?” the author asserted that Mexican Americans were “the first white race to inhabit this vast empire of ours. Another member of LULAC boasted that Mexican Americans were “not only a part and parcel but as well as the sum of substance of the white race.” As self-constituted Whites, LULAC members considered it “an insult” to be associated with Blacks and other “colored” races. In 1936 a LULAC official deplored the practice of hiring “Negro musicians” to play at Mexican bailes (dances) because it led to “illicit relations” between Black men and “ill-informed Mexican girls.” He urged fellow LULAC members to “tell these Negroes that we are not going to permit our manhood and womanhood to mingle with them on an equal social basis.”
It was then in the 60s, however, when Mexican Americans began referring to themselves as ‘Chiacanos/Chicanas” and speaking of their skin color (brown), not trying to integrate into ‘whites.’ So, argues Foley (2008), Mexican Americans wanted “Hispanic” to be an ethnic and not racial category as they wanted to “keep their whiteness” but still be classified on the basis of language, too. It wasn’t until the 1960s that Mexican Americans began referring to “Aztlan” and “La Raza” and started referring to their browness while not trying to integrate with whites. So although Mexican Americans were de facto ‘white’ in America leading up to the Civil Rights Act (CRA) and were seen as ‘white’ in court cases/the census, they were rarely treated like ‘whites’ (Martinez, 1997; Foley, 2008; Ortiz and Telles, 2013).
Spencer (2019: 241) says “…the OMB is very clear … Hispanics are not a race.” Spencer (2019: 241) continues:
So, even if there are contexts in current American life where … Hispanics are treated as races by ordinary people, there are also contexts in current American life where … Hispanics are not treated as races by ordinary people, namely, when ordinary people use OMB race talk.
In agreeing with whites in the years leading up to the Civil Rights Act—that whites and blacks should be segregated—they wanted to then be seen as ‘white’ and so argued that the term ‘Hispanic’ should be an ethnic and not racial category. Funny how today, Mexican Americans are seen as the social term “people of color” (PoC) and are grouped in with black Americans.
But if we really think about what the HLS distinction really means, it refers to a sociolinguistic group. In this way, certain aspects of Central and South American culture may mirror what may be referred to as the ‘mother culture’ in Spain, as those country’s histories are strongly influenced by the Spaniard invasion post-1519. Though, the term ‘Hispanic’ arose in the 20th century as an ethnonym (a term given to an ethnic group), the terms ‘Hispanic’ and ‘Latino’ and even ‘Spanish’—in ordinary American race talk—refer to the same things. They are used as synonyms. Although the self-described ‘Hispanic’ may be a mixture of, say, three races, they attempt to not classify themselves with any of those races and racially mixed groups even though they themselves may be racially mixed.
This is put well by Quiros (2009: 14) who writes:
…women from Puerto Rican and Dominican ancestry with racially mixed backgrounds are often ascribed a single identity of Hispanic, Latina or even “Spanish,” thereby reducing them to a single ethnic category and silencing their complexities. Yet heterogeneity is also found within the Latino culture. Although Latinos may share some cultural similarities, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, and Cubans, for example, have unique characteristics and histories that set them apart from one another.
These “unique characteristics” come from the ethnic groups the Spaniards brought to the countries in question, along with the types of customs and cultures that came to dominate in those countries. One may even say that the way a Latin American country ‘looks’ is a direct result of how long the Spaniards were there and what peoples (cultural groups) they brought to replace the dwindling indigenous peoples.
For instance, some Puerto Ricans and even Dominicans may speak of “Taino” heritage even though they may have little to no actual Taino heritage. The Taino are an indigenous people to the Carribean. They are what an American may term a ‘Native American’. Now, no matter how the Puerto Rican or Dominican looks, (say the Puerto Rican looks white and the Dominican looks black) they both may talk about this Taino heritage. For the Carribean Latin countries, this amount of ancestry may seem to bring them together and, along with speaking the same language they may believe that they are the same “people.” But, even though PR and DR are close together, they have radically different histories and phenotypes.
Wikipedia, for example, states this about Dominicans:
According to a 2015 genealogical DNA study of 27 Dominican individuals, their genetic makeup was estimated to be 52.15% European, 39.57% Sub-Saharan African, and 8.28% Native American and East Asian overall.[17]
In a 2014 population survey, 70.4% self-identified as mixed (mestizo/indio[a] 58%, mulatto 12.4%), 15.8% as black, 13.5% as white, and 0.3% as “other”.[18][19] A different survey in 2006 reported 67.6% mulatto and indio, 18.3% black, and 13.6% white.[20] However, according to the electoral roll completed in 1996, 82.5% of the adult population were indio, 7.55% white, 4.13% black, and 2.3% mulatto.[21] Historically there has been a reluctance to expressly identify African ancestry, with most identifying or being identified as mestizo or indio rather than mulatto or black.[21][22]
Regarding Puerto Rico, Wikipedia says:
One genetic study on the racial makeup of Puerto Ricans (including all races) found them to be roughly around 61% West Eurasian/North African (overwhelmingly of Spanish provenance), 27% Sub-Saharan African and 11% Native American.[211] Another genetic study from 2007, claimed that “the average genomewide individual (ie. Puerto Rican) ancestry proportions have been estimated as 66%, 18%, and 16%, for European, West African, and Native American, respectively.”[212] Another study estimates 63.7% European, 21.2% (Sub-Saharan) African, and 15.2% Native American; European ancestry is more prevalent in the West and in Central Puerto Rico, African in Eastern Puerto Rico, and Native American in Northern Puerto Rico.[213]
Although in the 2010 census about 61.4 percent of Puerto Ricans reported they were ‘white’. Meanwhile, only 13.5 percent of Dominicans reported they were ‘white’ while 70.4 percent claimed to be racially mixed (58 percent mestizo/indian and 12.4 percent mullato—which is mixed white and black; per Wikipedia).
So what the examples of Mexican Americans and whites and Puerto Ricans and Dominicans show is that although certain aspects of culture may be shared, the demographics of the countries in question are radically different—even the regions of the countries in question have radically different admixtures based on the history they have with Spain and even recent migrations into that area.
Conclusion
I have shown how HLS terms refer to social distinctions and not biological ones. The examples given with Mexican Americans and white Americans and Puerto Ricans and Dominicans show that, although these groups are held to be the same race, important distinctions exist between the two groups. So great, in both cases, that they cannot be the same “race” logically speaking, but they are the same socialrace. Using Hardimon’s socialrace terminology, HLSs are a socialrace and not a biological one. Although socialraces do have mirrored biological races, in this case, HLSs do not have one, as they are racially/ethnically distinct (as argued above). Hardimon (2017: 39) writes:
To deny that Latinos constitute a race is not to deny that individual Latinos or Latinos as a group can be the targets of racism (for example, owing to skin color). Nor is it to deny that Latinos are often regarded as “racially other” (as differing in some essential humanly important way corresponding to skin color) by members of other racialized groups (for example, Anglos). … Nor is it to deny that they constitute a socialrace in my sense of the term. Still less does it imply that Latinos ought not to aspire to a degree of solidarity connoted by the Spanish word raza.
Although in some studies “Hispanics” do cluster together (depending on where the dataset comes from), this does not mean that these clusters are races (a line of thought that Charles Murray would be married to on the basis of his assumption that clusters = races) (eg Tang et al, 2005). Though Risch et al (2002) write that “Hispanics, who represent a recently admixed group between Native American, Caucasian and African, did not form a distinct subgroup, but clustered variously with the other groups.”
The social construction of racial groups is a pretty complicated topic, and you will get different answers depending on who you are having the discussion with. So the answer to the question “Are HLSs a racial or ethnic group?” is “It depends.” If one is operating on the socialrace definition, then they are a racial group. If they are operating on a biological definition, then they are not a racial group, as they would cluster differently based on the majority admixture of that country (which has to do with the Spanish relationship with that country post-1519).
These groups are a good look into how we socially construct certain racial categories. What you see them as depends on what your previous leanings are. There is of course a social element to this, and this social element dictates what race a certain ethny/nationality would call themselves. Although people who speak the same language are socially the same ‘race’ since in American causal conversation they are referred to as one of the three synonyms (HLS), that does not mean that they are the same race, as evidenced with my Puerto Rican and Dominican examples. Thus, the “HLS” race is a social, not biological, construct as it refers to social, not biological, kinds.
Blumenbachian Partitions and Mimimalist Races
2100 words
Race in the US is tricky. On one hand, we socially construct races. On the other, these socially constructed races have biological underpinnings. Racial constructivists, though, argue that even though biological races are false, races have come into existence—and continue to exist—due to human culture and human decisions (see the SEP). Sound arguments exist for the existence of biological races. Biological races exist, and they are real. One extremely strong view is from philosopher of science Quayshawn Spencer. In his paper A Radical Solution to the Race Problem, Spencer (2014) argues that biological races are real; that the term “race” directly refers; that race denotes proper names, not kinds; and these sets of human populations denoted by Americans can be denoted as a partition of human populations which Spencer (2014) calls “the Blumenbach partition”.
To begin, Spencer (2014) defines “referent”: “If, by using appropriate evidential methods (e.g., controlled experiments), one finds that a term t has a logically inconsistent set of identifying conditions but a robust extension, then it is appropriate to identify the meaning
of t as just its referent.” What he means is that the word “race” is just a referent, which means that the term “race” lies in what points out in the world. So, what “race” points out in the world becomes clear if we look at how Americans define “race”.
Spencer (2014) assumes that “race” in America is the “national meaning” of race. That is, the US meaning of race is just the referent to the Census definitions of race, since race-talk in America is tied to the US Census. But the US Census Bureau defers to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Therefore, since the US Census Bureau defers to the OMB on matters of race, and since Americans defer to the US Census Bureau, then Americans use the OMB definitions of race.
The OMB describes a “comprehensive set” of categories (according to the OMB) which lead Spencer (2014) to believe that the OMB statements on race are pinpointing Caucasians, Africans, Pacific Islanders, East Asians, and Amerindians. Spencer (2014: 1028-29) thusly claims that race in America “is a term that rigidly designates a particular set of “population groups.” Now, of course, the question is this: are these population groups socially constructed? Do they really exist? Are the populations identified arbitrary? Of course, the answer is that they identify a biologically real set of population groups.
To prove the existence of his Blumenbachian populations, Spencer (2014) invokes populational genetic analyses. Population geneticists first must make the assumption at how many local populations exist in the target species. According to Spencer, “The current estimate for humans is 7,105 ethnic groups, half of which are in Africa and New Guinea.” After the assumptions are made, the next step is to sample the species’ estimated local populations. Then they must test noncoding DNA sequences. Finally, they must attempt to partition the sample so that each partition at each level is unique which then minimizes genetic differences in parts and maximizes genetic differences among parts. There are two ways of doing this: using structure and PCA. For the purposes of this argument, Spencer (2014) chooses structure, invoking a 5-population racial model, (see e.g., Rosenberg et al, 2002).
K = 5 corresponds to 5 populational clusters which denote Africans, Oceanians, East Asians, Amerindians, and Caucasians (Spencer, 2014; Hardimon, 2017b). K = 5 shows that the populations in question are genetically structured—that is, meaningfully demarcated on the basis of genetic markers and only genetic markers. Thus, that the populations in question are meaningfully demarcated on the basis of genetic markers, this is evidence that Hardimon’s (2017b) minimalist races are a biological reality. Furthermore, since Rosenberg et al (2002) used microsatellite markers in their analysis, this is a nonarbitrary way of constructing genetic clusters which then demarcate the continental-level minimalist races (Hardimon, 2017b: 90).
Thus, Spencer (2014) argues to call the partition identified in K = 5 “the Blumenbachian partition” in honor of Johann Blumenbach, anthropologist, physician, physiologist, and naturalist. (Though it should be noted that one of his races “Malays” was not a race, but Oceaninans are, so he “roughly discovered” the population partition.) So we can say that “the Blumenbach partition” is just the US meaning of “race”, the partitions identified by K = 5 (Rosenberg et al, 2002).
Furthermore, like Lewontin (1972), Rosenberg et al (2002) found that a majority of human genetic variation is between individuals, not races. That is, Rosenberg et al (2002) found that only 4.3 percent of human genetic variation was found to lie between the continental-level minimalist races. Thus, minimalist races are a biological kind, “if only a modest one” (Hardimon, 2017b: 91). Thus, Rosenberg et al (2002) support the contention that minimalist races exist and are a biological reality since a fraction of human population variation is due to differences among continental-level minimalist races (Africans, Caucasians, East Asians, Oceanians, and Amerindians). The old canard is true, there really is more genetic variation within races than between them, but, as can be seen, that does not rail against the reality of race, since that small amount of genetic variation shows that humanity is meaningfully clustered in a genetic sense.
Spencer (2014: 1032) then argues why Blumenbachian populations are “race” in the American sense:
It is not hard to generate accessible possible worlds that support the claim that US race terms are just aliases for Blumenbachian populations. For example, imagine a possible world τ where human history unfolded exactly how it did in our world except that every Caucasian in τ was killed by an infectious disease in the year 2013. Presumably, we have access to τ, since it violates no logical, metaphysical, or scientific principles. Then, given that we use ‘white’ in its national American meaning in our world, and given that we use ‘Caucasian’ in its Blumenbachian meaning in our world, it is fair to say that both ‘Caucasian’ and ‘white’ are empty terms in τ in 2014—which makes perfect sense if ‘white’ is just an alias for Caucasians. It is counterfactual evidence like this that strongly suggests that the US meaning of ‘race’ is just the Blumenbach partition.
Contrary to critics, this partition is biologically real and demarcates the five genetically structured populations of the human race. Rosenberg et al (2005) found that if sufficient data are used, “the geographic distribution of the sampled individuals has little effect on the analysis“, while their results verify that genetic clusters “arise from genuine features of the underlying pattern of human genetic variation, rather than as artifacts of uneven sampling along continuous gradients of allele frequencies.”
Some may claim that K = 5 is “arbitrary”, however, constructing genetic clusters using microsatellites is nonarbitrary (Hardimon, 2017b: 90):
Constructing genetic clusters using microsatellites constitutes a nonarbitrary way of demarcating the boundaries of continental-level minimalist races. And the fact that it is possible to construct genetic clusters corresponding to continental-level minimalist races in a nonarbitrary way is itself a reason for thinking that minimalist race is biologically real 62.
It should also be noted that Hardimon writes in note 62 (2017b: 197):
Just to be perfectly clear, I don’t think that the results of the 2002 Rosenberg article bear on the question: Do minimalist races exist? That’s a question that has to be answered separately. In my view, the fundamental question in the philosophy of race on which the results of this study bear is whether minimalist race is biologically real. My contention is that they indicate that minimalist race (or more precisely, continental-level minimalist race) is biologically real if sub-Saharan Africans, Caucasians, East Asians, Amerindians, and Oceanians constitute minimalist races.
Sub-Saharan Africans, Caucasians, East Asians, Amerindians, and Oceanians constitute minimalist races, therefore race is a biological reality. We can pinpoint them on the basis of patterns of visible physical features; these visible physical features correspond to geographic ancestry; this satisfies the criteria for minimalist races; therefore race exists. Race exists as a biological kind.
Furthermore, if these five populations that Rosenberg et al (2002) identified (the Blumenbachian populations) are minimalist races, then minimalist race is “a minor principle of human genetic structure” (Hardimon, 2017b: 92). Since minimalist races constitute a dimension within the small amount of human genetic variation that is captured between the continental-level minimalist races (4.3 percent), then it is completely possible to talk meaningfully about the racial structure of human genetic variation which consists of the human genetic variation which corresponds to continental-level minimalist races.
Thus, the US meaning of race is just a referent; the US meaning of race refers to a particular set of human populations; races in the US are classically-defined races (Amerindian, Caucasian, African, East Asian, and Oceanians; the Blumenbach partition); and race is both a biological reality as well as socially constructed. These populations are biologically real; if these populations are biologically real, then it stands to reason that biological racial realism is true (Hardimon, 2012 2013, 2017a; 2017b; Spencer, 2014, 2015).
Human races exist, in a minimalist biological sense, and there are 5 human races. Defenders of Rushton’s work—who believed there are only 3 primary races: Caucasoids, Mongoloids, and Negroids (while Amerindians and others were thrown into the “Mongoloid race” and Pacific Islanders being grouped with the “Negroid race” (Rushton, 1988, 1997; see also Liberman, 2001 for a critique of Rushton’s tri-racial views)—are forced into a tri-racial theory, since he used this tri-racial theory as the basis for his, now defunct, r/K selection theory. The tri-racial theory, that there are three primary races of man—Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid—has fallen out of favor with anthropologists for decades. But what we can see from new findings in population genetics since the sequencing of the human genome, however, is that human populations cluster into five populations and these five populations are races, therefore biological racial realism is true.
Biological racial realism (the fact that race exists as a biological reality) is true, however, just like with Hardimon’s minimalist races, they do not denote “superiority”, “inferiority” for one race over another. Most importantly, Blumenbachian populations do not denote those terms because the genetic evidence that is used to support the Blumenbachian partition use noncoding DNA. (It should also be noted that the terms “superior” and “inferior” are nonsensical, when used outside of their anatomic contexts. The head is the most superior part of the human body, the feet are the most inferior part of the human body. This is the only time these terms make sense, thus, using the terms outside of this context makes no sense.)
It is worth noting that, while Hardimon’s and Spencer’s views on race are similar, there are some differences between their views. Spencer sees “race” as a referent, while Hardimon argues that race has a set descriptive meaning on the basis of C (1)-(3); (C1) that, as a group, is distinguished from other groups of human beings by patterns of visible physical features, (C2) whose members are linked be a common ancestry peculiar to members of that group, and (C3) that originates from a distinctive geographic location” (Hardimon, 2017b: 31). Whether or not one prefers Blumenbachian partitions or minimalist races depends on whether or not one prefers race in a descriptive sense (i.e., Hardimon’s minimalist races) or if the term race in America is a referent to the US Census discourse, which means that “race” refers to the OMB definitions which then denote Blumenbachian partitions.
Hardimon also takes minimalist races to be a biological kind, while Spencer takes them to be a proper name for a set of population groups. Both of these differing viewpoints regarding race, while similar, are different in that one is describing a kind, while the other describes a proper name for a population group; these two views regarding population genetics from these two philosophers are similar, they are talking about the same things and hold the same deflationary views regarding race. They are talking about how race is seen in everyday life and where people get their definitions of “race” from and how they then integrate it into their everyday lives.
“Race” in America is a proper name for a set of human population groups, the five population groups identified by K = 5. Americans defer to the US Census Bureau on race, who defers to the Office of Management and Budget to define race. They hold that races are a “set”, and these “sets” are Oceanians, Caucasians, East Asians, Amerindians, and Africans. Race, thusly, refers to a set of population groups; “race” is not a “kind”, but a proper name for known populational groups. K = 5 then shows us that the demarcated clusters correspond to continental-level minimalist races, what is termed “the Blumenbach partition.” This partition is “race” in the US sense of the term, and it is a biological reality, therefore, like Hardimon’s minimalist races, the Blumenbach partition identifies what we in America know to be race. (It’s worth noting that, obviously, the Blumenbach partition/minimalist races are one in the same, Spencer is a deflationary realist regarding race, just like Hardimon.)
“Latinos”, Brazilians, Mixed-Race Individuals and Race Concepts
2050 words
How do “Latinos”, Brazilians, and mixed-race individuals fit into Hardimon’s (2017) differing race concepts (racialist, minimalist, populationist, and socialrace)? It’s easier explaining how “Latinos” fit into this, but mixed-race individuals are a bit trickier (for instance, the minimalist concept of race does not say anything about it and is therefore vague in that respect). This article will discuss these two populations and see where they fit into these categories.
Mixed-race individuals
Mixed-race individuals are tricky to place in these conceptions of race that Hardimon (2017) lays out and defends. For example, minimalist race itself is vague; it does not say which populations/individuals with populational characteristics would be placed, the argument just establishes the biological reality and significance of race. The concept of the “one drop rule” (was a legal) is a social standard in that anyone with “one drop” of “black blood” was deemed black (which, it seems, did well for so-called conceptions of “racial purity” since most white Americans have low amounts of black ancestry; Bryc et al, 2015).
The one drop rule was an attempt to limit racial miscegenation (racial mixing), and it seems to have, for the most part, worked since many white Americans have low to no African ancestry (since 95 percent of white Americans have no African ancestry; Bryc et al, 2015).
Though, as Hardimon (2017: 49) writes, the fact that individuals must have a race is a holdover from the racialist concept; minimalist race, as I’ve covered, is not defined by the features of an individual but is defined by the features of the group said individual belongs to. It is defined in terms of group—not individual—characteristics. So just because individual I doesn’t look like their R but instead looks like an R2, for example, doesn’t make individual I an R2; individual I is still an R even though they look like an R2 since the concept is based on shared group characteristics.
Hardimon doesn’t really discuss mixed-race individuals in his book; there’s only really one note on the subject (and it’s about social race, pg. 209, note 54):
People who are members of more than one socialrace in a socialrace regime that does not recognize mixed race as a racial position will be in the anomalous situation of not having an established socialrace position in society. Having such a position is one way of being a “normal” member of society organized around the institution of socialrace. Not to have such a position is to have no place in the social world along the dimension of socialrace. Hence, perhaps, the pathos of mixed-race individuals seeking social recognition for their distinctive mixed race identity.
Though, in certain (racialist/socialrace) societies, a mixed-race individual would become what the “lower” race is in that society. For instance, if an individual were half white and half black—like the former President of the United States Barack Obama—he would be designated as “black”, as we all know (since he’s the first black President of the United States). This is known as the concept of “hypodescent” and has its basis in Hardimon’s socialrace concept since racial status of the offspring is designated to the parent who has lower “standing” than the majority in said country. So, therefore, the concept of hypodescent is the concept of socialrace in action.
Mixed-race individuals are seen as members of their “lower-status parent group“, which shows how racial constructivism is alive today. One is designated the lower-status of their parent in a hierarchical manner—one way in which the socialrace concept borrows from the racialist race concept in that it is hierarchical.
The researchers found, for example, that one-quarter-Asian individuals are consistently considered more white than one-quarter-black individuals, despite the fact that African Americans and European Americans share a substantial degree of genetic heritage. One Drop Rule Persists—Harvard
Brazil
How does this work in Brazil? Surely this makes problems for racial concepts, right?
Brazilians don’t use the term “race” (raca), but the term “color” (cor). “The reason the word Color (capitalized to call attention to this particular meaning) is preferred to race in Brazil is probably because it captures the continuous aspects of phenotypes” (Parra et al, 2003). Clearly, the conception of “race” (raca) in Brazil comes down to what “color” (cor) one is; and so we should state that Brazilian society is stratified into “colors” and not true “races”. The 1872 Brazilian census created four “color” groups “white, caboclo, black and brown (branco, caboclo (mixed indigenous-European), negro and pardo). These groups were always defined by the same formula: Colour group = members of a pure race + phenotypes of this race in the process of reversion (Guimaraes 1999)” (Guimaraes, 2012: 1157).
Though, distinct from Hardimon (2017), Guimaraes (2012: 1160) argues that the Brazilian color system is, in fact, a racial system:
What makes colour in Brazil a racial term is precisely the fact that the physiognomic traits used by racialists to distinguish different human races became convoluted with the original European system of classification based on shades of skin colour.
Hardimon (2017: 49) writes:
On the other hand, it is not clear that the Brazilian concept of COR is altogether independent of the phenomenon we Americans designate using ‘race.’ The color that ‘COR’ picks out is racial skin color. The well-known, widespread preference for lighter (whiter) skin in Brazil is at least arguably a racial preference. It seems likely that white skin color is preferred because of its association with the white race. This provides a reason for thinking that the minimalist concept of race may be lurking in the background of Brazilian thinking about race.
Someone who is “white” (identifies as white) in Brazil will (most likely) not be white in America; this is due to their differing classification system based on color, which is loosely tied with the minimalist concept, but is distinct from it in that it’s just based largely on the color of one’s skin (one of many requisites for minimalist racehood).
The role of race and color in regard to Brazilian society is complex, biologically, sociologically, and psychologically; but it’s clear that some concept of what we could call a “classical” race concept—however crude—could be said to be in use in Brazil today.
Latinos/Hispanics
The US Census Bureau states that “People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race.” This is true; just because one derives from a Latin American country does not mean that they are some kind of “Latino” or “Hispanic” race.
Take, as an example, the case of Alberto Fujimori. Alberto Fujimori is the son of Japanese immigrants to Peru, and he eventually ended up becoming the President of Peru. His parents emigrated to Peru and he was born in Lima. Now here’s where things get tricky: is he all of a sudden some new type of “race” called “Hispanic” or “Latino”, all because he was born across the ocean? Is Pope Francis all of a sudden not Italian by ancestry since he was born in Argentina? Are people who are born in Argentina, Chile, and Paraguay with direct ancestry to Germany and Italy all of a sudden no longer German or Italian but some new “Hispanic” or “Latino” race? No! Just because you’re born not in your ancestral home does not mean you “become” whatever society designates that part of the world (in this case “Latin America”). Their race does not change on the basis of where they are born; their individual ancestries can still be traced back to their countries of origin, therefore attempting to “racialize” the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” do not make any sense.
“Hispanics” do not—and cannot—count as a minimalist race on the basis of one condition: they do not share a single pattern of visible physical features. No one pattern of hair, skin color, lip shape, eye shape etc. They do not share a single geographic origin; they have a mixture of Ancestry from Africa, Europe, and Asia. “Hispanics” can be seen, obviously, as a mixture of minimalist races. “Hispanics” are denied minimalist racehood since they do not exhibit characteristics of minimalist races, which is even echoed, as shown above, by the US Census Bureau.
Hardimon (2017: 39) writes:
To deny that Latinos constitute a race is not to deny that individual Latinos or Latinos as a group can be the targets of racism (for example, owing to skin color). Nor is it to deny that Latinos are often regarded as “racially other” (as differing in some essential humanly important way corresponding to skin color) by members of other racialized groups (for example, Anglos). … Nor is it to deny that they constitute a socialrace in my sense of the term. Still less does it imply that Latinos ought not to aspire to a degree of solidarity connoted by the Spanish word raza.
So “Latinos” can be designated as a socialrace (though socialraces do not always have a mirrored minimalist race), but not as a minimalist race since they do not fit the criteria for minimalist racehood. Many “Latinos” can be said to be mestizos, which are half European (normally of Spanish descent) and half Indian. Still, further, they can be castizos, about three-quarters European and one-quarter Indian. Then you have the “Latino” Carribean countries (Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico) with differing amounts of admixture from all over, from different minimalist races. Though, in America, most Dominicans would be counted as “black” under the concept of “hypodescent”—the one drop rule. Many Cubans can be seen to have majority Spanish ancestry, and its the same for Puerto Ricans.
“Latinos/Hispanics” do not constitute a major race (in the minimalist and populationist sense) because they are a mixture of different minimalist races. This does not mean, however, that one designated as “Latino” in America does not have full ancestry to a European country; this is how the concept of “Latino” in America uses the concept of socialrace—it’s only based on the perceived race of the individual (that they derive from a “Latino” country) and that therefore makes them “Latino”, all the while ignoring their actual racial ancestry.
There is even a phrase in Latin America “Mejorar la raza” or “improve the race” by having children with lighter-skinned people since light skin is seen as beautiful in Latin America. They want to better “their race” (even though they—as “Latinos”—don’t have a race), and so they will attempt to have children with lighter and lighter people (i.e., people who have more and more European ancestry) to “improve their race” (i.e., their socialrace) since European features are seen as more beautiful in Latin America.
Most of the ruling class in Latin America is of European descent, while the lower classes are of admixed/unadmixed Indians (coming from differing tribes). This, one can say, is one way that socialrace is used in Latin America.
Conclusion
Brazilians and “Latinos/Hispanics” clearly could have been grouped in the mixed-race category, but each of these subjects has distinct concepts it needed to discuss. The Brazilian concept of “cor” and “raca” are loosely intertwined; they can be said to use aspects of mimimalist races. On the other hand, “Latinos/Hispanics” are not designated minimalist racehood on the basis that they do not share a single pattern of physical features, nor do they share a geographic origin, since the groups that make up “Latinos” (which are minimalist races) are the geographic locations in question. “Latinos/Hispanics” are not minimalist races because they do not exhibit the features of minimalist races.
Mixed-race individuals, regarding the socialrace concept, can be seen to be the “lower” of the races they are admixed with on the social ladder—which is how it is in America (the concept of hypodescent). The existence of mixed-race individuals does not invalidate the concept of race; minimalist racehood is not defined on the basis of individual characters, but on the basis of the characters of the group. Therefore this does not go against the concept of minimalist race.
The concepts of race can definitely survive these anomalies when describing the biological realities of race; some of them can be said to be socialraces for one respect, whereas in reality, they are mixtures of minimalist races. Races exist and the existence of Brazilians (even with their own categorization of races/colors) and “Latinos/Hispanics” and other mixed-race groups/individuals do not rail against any concepts that purport to argue for the existence and biological reality of race.
Through Race Realist’s Lens: Comparing and Contrasting Race Realists to Leftists
1000 words
What are the differences in the world views of us race realists compared to leftists? They are numerous, I will only touch on a few today. Denial of crime statistics, denial of basic biology and finally denial of evolution when it doesn’t fit their agenda.
First off, leftists claim to be so “into science”, yet when you bring up the biological reality of race, they shout you down and say that “it’s a social construct”. They say that identifying race differences will allow those ‘evil Nazis’ to come back into the fold by utilizing eugenics to create “the perfect human”.
The thing is, yes it is a social construct, everything is. It’s just how we describe things that we physically see. The Universe is a social construct. We describe it as we see it. We define it as a word. Therefore, it is a social construct. Does that mean the Universe doesn’t exist? Since everything is socially constructed, then with their logic, nothing exists because it all is socially constructed.
I do get what they say when they say that “race is a social construct”. But, the thing is, we can call all of the races/ethnicities different things than we do now. That STILL won’t change the biological reality of race and ethnicity because no matter if we change what we call these population clusters which cluster differently on the PCA graph, the biological reality is still there. If we change the term “European” to the term “hub li mix”, yes the social construction is changed, but the underlying biology stays the same. Just because we change the name of what we call something doesn’t change the underlying nature of the biological reality of race. Just because we call it something different doesn’t mean that those clusters on the PCA graph will all of a sudden disappear.
Yes, the word “race” was recently invented. Therefore, people say that it’s a useless construct. But, with the advent of the HGP, we see that even though we’re 99.9 percent the same (12 percent of DNA varies amongst race and populations, which came out after comparing copy number variations (CNVs) across those from different racial populations), we see that even though what we call a “social construct” has all of this biological data to back it up, people still deny it.
We race realists see any and all genetic variation and we draw the correct, logical and intelligent conclusions from them, we don’t attempt to silence any of our detractors like they do us, because we have the truth on our side. Those with the truth on their sides don’t need to censor contrary opinions because the truth always wins out in the end.
Another one of my favorites is the denial of crime statistics. With FBI Table 43, people say that there is a bias against blacks and other minorities that make the so-called racist police arrest them because they’re racially biased. They aren’t. With the NCVS (National Crime and Victimization Survey), we can see that those who were interviewed about their attacks lined up with a number of arrests that the police did. There is NO racial bias in police arrests.
On that same note, they may say that the judges and courts are biased against them as well. That once they see a black man in the courtroom, the always throw the book at him. Well, there is no evidence of discrimination in criminal justice processing. The racial disparity was completely accounted for by including covariates for self-reported lifetime violence and IQ. Meaning, those with lower IQs are more likely to be criminals, which I have touched on here.
Finally, the Left claims to be all in to science, yet when it’s shown that race is a biological reality, they don’t like it, call it racist and then show a study with many wrong things, including methodologies and other factors.
The thing is, if evolution didn’t cause the diversity we see in humanity, what did? What other force could be so powerful to select for these huge differences that are based on the environment that population evolved in, if not for evolution/natural selection? I’ve yet to hear of a good response to this, most likely because they don’t have one. They may use a creationist argument, but those are easily disproven.
It boggles my mind how those who are supposedly so pro-science will deny evolution as being the cause for the differing races, what else could make those changes? No other theory that has been postulated has made more sense than Darwin’s (1859) theory of evolution.
The difference between us race realists and leftists is that when we see things that we don’t like, yet are backed by solid science, we don’t disregard the data or try to explain it away. We accept it and move on. Though, those on the left don’t accept it and attempt to use mental gymnastics in order to not accept the reality that they just saw. That’s a great example, in and of itself, that shows that they only like science when it agrees with their worldview.
The same left that attempted to drive James Watson out of science, which proves that they only like and speak about science when it says things that agree with their world views. That is solid science. Yes, 64 percent of psychology studies cannot be replicated, that holds true for all studies in psychology, except for IQ.
So, the left who denies all of our facts and data do so because they cannot accept the reality that their worldview is wrong. I used to be that way. Then I read many studies and read differing views on the matter before drawing my own conclusions, which should be obvious to you by now.
They claim to love science and studies, yet disregard when it shows that race is real; there is no racial bias in sentencing by judges; that all psychology studies cannot be replicated, save for IQ; and they claim that FBI Table 43 is skewed and racist despite the fact that victim surveys line up with police arrests.
The left says we don’t live in the real world, it’s them who do not live in the real world. With how much they love to deny reality, that point should be very clear.
Science Magazine: “Taking race out of human genetics”
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I always love these. Refuting race-denialists has become sort of a past time for me. It’s interesting to see either the same things all the time (more likely), or something new, but still bullshit (Chanda Chisala’s attempt to put the cause for low IQ and intellectual achievement for blacks to redneck whites). But most of what is said by race-denialists and the egalitarian Left are easily refutable.
Taking race out of human genetics
In the wake of the sequencing of the human genome in the early 2000s, genome pioneers and social scientists alike called for an end to the use of race as a variable in genetic research. Unfortunately, by some measures, the use of race as a biological category has increased in the postgenomic age. Although inconsistent definition and use has been a chief problem with the race concept, it has historically been used as a taxonomic categorization based on common hereditary traits (such as skin color) to elucidate the relationship between our ancestry and our genes. We believe the use of biological concepts of race in human genetic research—so disputed and so mired in confusion—is problematic at best and harmful at worst. It is time for biologists to find a better way.
Race is a great variable in genetic research. Just because the HGP says human races differ by .1 percent of the genome doesn’t mean anything. The genetic distance between species isn’t what matters, what matters is how those genes that differ are EXPRESSED, and not how much genetic distance is between them. The use of race as a biological category has increased because it is a useful indicator of certain diseases and other things. Inconsistent definitions don’t mean anything as self-identified ancestry was correct 99.86 percent of the time in this study by Risch et al. Self-identified ancestry is good enough to show that what “has an inconsistent definition” has a basis in reality. Skin color is a good proxy for race, but not the only factor. What other better way is there?
Racial research has a long and controversial history. At the turn of the 20th century, sociologist and civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois was the first to synthesize natural and social scientific research to conclude that the concept of race was not a scientific category. Contrary to the then-dominant view, Du Bois maintained that health disparities between blacks and whites stemmed from social, not biological, inequality. Evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, whose work helped reimagine the race concept in the 1930s at the outset of the evolutionary synthesis, wrestled with many of the same problems modern biologists face when studying human populations—for example, how to define and sample populations and genes (5). For much of his career, Dobzhansky brushed aside criticism of the race concept, arguing that the problem with race was not its scientific use, but its nonscientific misuse. Over time, he grew disillusioned, concerned that scientific study of human diversity had “floundered in confusion and misunderstanding”. His transformation from defender to detractor of the race concept in biology still resonates.
And these all don’t matter at all. Race does clearly exist in the biological sense.
Today, scientists continue to draw wildly different conclusions on the utility of the race concept in biological research. Some have argued that relevant genetic information can be seen at the racial level and that race is the best proxy we have for examining human genetic diversity.
Correct.
Others have concluded that race is neither a relevant nor accurate way to understand or map human genetic diversity
Incorrect. What is not relevant or accurate about seeing the genetic distances between populations that evolved separately for tens of thousands of years?
Several meetings and journal articles have called attention to a host of issues, which include (i) a proposed shift to “focus on racism (i.e., social relations) rather than race (i.e., supposed innate biologic predisposition) in the interpretation of racial/ethnic ‘effects’”; (ii) a failure of scientists to distinguish between self-identified racial categories and assigned or assumed racial categories ; and (iii) concern over “the haphazard use and reporting of racial/ethnic variables in genetic research” and a need to justify use of racial categories relative to the research questions asked and methods used. Several academic journals have taken up this last concern and, with mixed success, have issued guidelines for use of race in research they publish . Despite these concerns, there have been no systematic attempts to address these issues and the situation has worsened with the rise of large-scale genetic surveys that use race as a tool to stratify these data .
To see if there is a prevalence of certain disease in certain races/ethnicities seems pretty important to me. If it will better diagnose people and give faster care, that seems like a good thing to me.
It is important to distinguish ancestry from a taxonomic notion such as race. Ancestry is a process-based concept, a statement about an individual’s relationship to other individuals in their genealogical history; thus, it is a very personal understanding of one’s genomic heritage. Race, on the other hand, is a pattern-based concept that has led scientists and laypersons alike to draw conclusions about hierarchical organization of humans, which connect an individual to a larger preconceived geographically circumscribed or socially constructed group.
Seems to be the implication that there are no taxonomic differences between races. That’s funny. Hierarchal organizations of humans only exist really when you focus on certain traits, as all humans have strengths and weaknesses depending on the environment they evolved in.
Unlike earlier disagreements concerning race and biology, today’s discussions generally lack clear ideological and political antipodes of “racist” and “nonracist.” Most contemporary discussions about race among scientists concern examination of population-level differences between groups, with the goal of understanding human evolutionary history, characterizing the frequency of traits within and between populations, and using an individual’s self-identified ancestry to identify genetic risk factors of disease and to help determine the best course of medical treatments.
Population-level differences, race differences, whatever you want to call them, the effect is the same. Understanding human evolutionary history is understanding how and why races and ethnicities are so distinct from one another. As shown above in the Risch cite, self-identified ancestry is a good proxy to identify genetic risk factors to determine best medical treatments.
As a result, racial assumptions are not the biological guide-posts some believe them to be, as commonly defined racial groups are genetically heterogeneous and lack clear-cut genetic boundaries
They aren’t too heterogeneous. Ethnicities/races are homogenous enough to have enough as we evolved a level of genetic similarity to have us favor those more genetically similar to ourselves. Ah, the old ‘continuum fallacy’. Disregarded.
For example, hemoglobinopathies can be misdiagnosed because of the identification of sickle-cell as a “Black” disease and thalassemia as a “Mediterranean” disease
This is true. SCA isn’t just specifically an African disease. I covered SCA a bit on my disease, nutrition and parasitic load post. SCA comes up in populations in wet and warm climates. It’s from mosquitoes mostly. So those that live in those areas, for instance, Southern Italy, will be more susceptible to the disease. Though, these diseases are a pretty good proxy for racial identification.
Popular misinterpretations of the use of race in genetics also continue to fuel racist beliefs, so much so that, in 2014, a group of leading human population geneticists publicly refuted claims about the genetic basis of social differences between races.
A Troublesome Inheritance is a fine book.
Scientific journals and professional societies should encourage use of terms like “ancestry” or “population” to describe human groupings in genetic studies and should require authors to clearly define how they are using such variables. It is preferable to refer to geographic ancestry, culture, socioeconomic status, and language, among other variables, depending on the questions being addressed, to untangle the complicated relationship between humans, their evolutionary history, and their health. Some have shown that substituting such terms for race changes nothing if the underlying racial thinking stays the same.
The last sentence is right. you can call races ANYTHING you want. That doesn’t change the underlying reality of what is being spoken about. Call them red, blue and green. Call them any kind of weird name you can come up with, the underlying biological components do not change. This is what they don’t get. We can give you your definitions to certain words, but that doesn’t change the physiological/biological nature of HBD.
Having journals rationalize the use of classificatory terminology in studying human genetic diversity would force scientists to clarify their use and would allow researchers to understand and interpret data across studies. It would help avoid confusing, inconsistent, and contradictory usage of such terms.
Seeing as we have researchers like Risch et al doing the above, it’s clear that, no matter what you would like to call these clusters after DNA is sampled, that genetic variation among humans is 1) great and 2) extremely significant.
Phasing out racial terminology in biological sciences would send an important message to scientists and the public alike: Historical racial categories that are treated as natural and infused with notions of superiority and inferiority have no place in biology. We acknowledge that using race as a political or social category to study racism and its biological effects, although fraught with challenges, remains necessary. Such research is important to understand how structural inequities and discrimination produce health disparities in socioculturally defined groups.
It doesn’t matter!! Change the ‘historical racial categories’ if it will save your feelings, the fact that human biodiversity is still great among humans says otherwise. If you don’t want to group humanity into one of the things that make the most sense, it is you who’s being dishonest.
Biological effects between races are real and significant. I have covered them on this blog. How could ‘structural inequalities’ and ‘discrimination’ lead to health disparities?
The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine should convene a panel of experts from biological sciences, social sciences, and humanities to recommend ways for research into human biological diversity to move past the use of race as a tool for classification in both laboratory and clinical research. Such an effort would bring stakeholders together for a simple goal: to improve the scientific study of human difference and commonality. The committee would be charged with examining current and historical usage of the race concept and ways current and future technology may improve the study of human genetic diversity; thus, they could take up Dobzhansky’s challenge that “the problem that now faces the science of man [sic] is how to devise better methods for further observations that will give more meaningful results”. Regardless of where one stands on this issue, this is an opportunity to strengthen research by thinking more carefully about human genetic diversity.
The past and current identification of humans is clearly good enough for what we are discussing. Calling them anything else doesn’t matter and still doesn’t change anything in terms of this debate, whether it’s a Blank Slate argument, or anything like that, the repercussions of what is being discussed is still the same. The results we currently get are meaningful enough. Race clearly correlates with certain diseases and other mental and physical characteristics well enough to denote distinct racial categories.
Need I show what Sewall Wright, creator of the Fst (fixation index) has to say?
From my Race Is A Social Construct article:
Regardless of the method used in the analyses, all researchers reached estimated very close to that obtained by Lewontin: The differences observed by the subdivisions (populations, groups of populations, races) represented 10 to 15 percent of the total genetic variation found within the human species. Formally, these findings demonstrate, first, that the species is indeed subdivided into genetically definable groups of individuals and, second, that atleast some of these groups correspond to those defined by anthropologists as races on the basis of physical characters. They do not however, settle the arguments regarding the methods of racial classification. Unfortunately, Lewontin did not specify before initiating his analysis how large the difference has to be in order to call the groups “races”.
Consequently, the results of the studies have led population geneticists to two diametrically opposite conclusions. Lewontin called the observed differences trivial, and proclaimed that “racial classification is now seen to be of no genetic or taxonomic significance” so that “no justification can be offered for its continuance.” This view is echoed by authors of similar studies, who seem to be surprised that genetic variation within populations is greater than that between them. By contrast, Sewell Wright who can hardly be taken for a dilettante in questions of population genetics, has stated emphatically that if differences of this magnitude were observed in any other species, the groups they distinguish would be called subspecies.
One can extend Wright’s argument even further. The more than 200 species of haplochromine fishes in Lake Victoria differ from each other much less than the human races in their neural genes, although they are presumably distinguished by genes that control differences in their external appearances. The same can be said about atleast some of the currently recognized species of Darwin’s finches and other examples of recent adaptive radiations. In all these cases, reproductively isolated groups are impossible to tell apart by the methods used to measure differences in human races. Obviously, human races are not reproductively isolated (interracial marriages are common and the progenies of such marriages are fully fertile) but the external differences between them are comparable to cichlid fishes and Darwin’s finches. Under these circumstances, to claim that the genetic differences between the human races are trivial is a more political statement than a scientific argument. Trivial by what criterion? How much difference would Lewontin and those who side with him consider non-trivial?
By mixing science with politics, geneticists and anthropologists are committing the same infraction of which they are accusing other scientists, who they themselves label as racist. Even worse, by labelling the genetic differences as insignificant, they play into the hand of genuine racists who can demolish this claim and so further their own agenda. It is intellectually more honest to acknowledge and then point out that by no means imply supremacy of one race over others. This can be done by demonstrating that the differences are in genes that cannot be linked to any features that would be required for the preeminence of a particular race.
It’s clear that racial classification does exist. The creator of Fst, Sewall Wright, says that a Fst distance of .15 is more than enough for speciation (differing racial classifications). It directly refutes Lewontin, who put his political ideology of Marxism over science. Those cichlids in Lake Victoria are a perfect example though the definition of ‘species’ does change depending on which researcher you speak to, it doesn’t discount that there are real and physical genetic differences between races and ethnicities.
You can call race anything you’d like, the fact of the matter does not change that HBD is a real thing.
Refuting Agabond on Scientific Racism
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To set myself apart from other HBD bloggers, I decided to start a few series, one on Afrocentrism, HBD and Sports and refutations on how race isn’t a social construct. Agabond has a lot of untrue things to say, and I am here to refute them. Agabond, you can expect a lot of pingbacks from me on a lot of your posts, so get used to this.
Agabond wrote an article on the cons of Scientific Racism. The whole article is wrong.
According to race realism and the field of human biodiversity (HBD), the scientific racism of our day, the following are true:
- Race is genetic.
- Race affects intelligence.
- The races in order of intelligence are: Asians, Whites, Hispanics/Mixed, Blacks.
All of these are true.
Why this is wrong:
- Race is a social construct, created by the rules of society not by genetics.
My favorite saying from race-denialists. Yes, everything is a social construct. The Universe is a social construct, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t actually physically exist. We have social constructions for EVERYTHING, does that mean that NOTHING exists because they are social constructs?
The above picture is a PCA graph showing how the different races cluster on the graph. This is actually scientific evidence that what we call ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ has an actual biological basis. You say that “it’s created by the rules of society not genetics”, but you can clearly see here that GENETICS shows that humanity CLUSTERS into distinct groups.
2. The differences between people from different parts of the world are too new and too slight to account for differences in IQ.
Not true at all. They are not “too new”, Agabond. Due to genetic isolation between populations for thousands of years, i.e., no population migrations between people with different genomes, this caused evolution to happen faster.
Faster evolution means more ethnic differences. This is due to, as I alluded to before, no migration of others with differing genes. Due to us moving genetically AWAY from each other and not genetically CLOSER from each other, shows that evolution is speeding up in the OPPOSITE WAY.
How are they too new and too slight to account for differences in IQ? Selection pressures varied depending on where those populations evolved. The more cognitively demanding Northern part of Europe, as well as the cognitively demanding parts of Asia that East Asians evolved in led to cooperation, which in turn led to evolutionary selection pressures, ala altruism. They also had to be smart with their food in regards to rationing. Along with more variables, over tens of thousands of years of genetic isolation, populations evolved to have distinct physical, as well as biological differences due to those certain selection pressures in those environments.
The less cognitively demanding parts of the world, along the equator, doesn’t foster high intellectual capabilities due to the lifestyle of the peoples there. They lived a mostly hunter-gatherer lifestyle (which was extremely difficult in Eurasia during the Ice Age). Evolution dictated the traits that it would enhance with Africans, e.g., longer limbs for better throwing and to cover more ground while running to get food, darker skin due to the climate, as well as their hair.
There are evolutionary reasons for everything. You should have done a bit more research here before writing this.
Your intelligence is determined not by your race but by where you were born, when you were born, a bit from your parents’s genes and the rest from what you make of it.
Yes, it is determined by your race, but I’ll get back to that later. Depending on where you’re born? Sure. If you’re born in a place with high rates of disease, parasitic load and bad nutrition, this will retard IQ. But for those born in first world countries, their IQ is at their genetic limit due to better nutrition. You said “where you were born”, do you even realize that “where you were born” means that you’re giving credence to the hereditarian hypothesis?
When you were born? Is this an epigenetic argument?
A bit from your parents genes, well more than a bit. Funny you say that. We know that the mother’s IQ is the best predictor of the child’s IQ. That being said, in studies of racially mixed black and white children, those with white mothers have higher IQs than those with black mothers. So yes, it is your parents genes. I assume you were going for the “individual variation in IQ is greater than between the races” is what you were going for. Not going to work.
The rest is what you make of it. I agree here. Even those with high IQs won’t be automatically successful, personality variables have a lot to do with it, which I will cover in a future post.
1. Correlation does not equal causation
Just because blacks in America have a higher crime rate or a lower average IQ does not necessarily mean the cause is mainly genetic. To come to such a conclusion you would have to assume that racism is pretty much dead, that American society is just so gosh-darn fair to everyone that genetics is pretty much all that remains to account for the differences.
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard this since I jumped into the black-white IQ debate. Yes, we know that correlation does not equal causation, but with retesting what you tested before with the same variables and lab conditions, if you come to the same conclusions, it is not a correlation does not equal causation argument.
Higher crime rates and lower average IQs are inversely related. There is a negative correlation there. We can see here that the low IQ being correlated with crime argument holds up in studies.
Deborah Denno analyzed data from 987 African American school children in Philadelphia. Her data contained multiple measures of intelligence collected at ages four, seven, and thirteen as well as officially recorded criminal offenses. Chronic, violent offenders consistently had low IQ scores. For example, female chronic offenders were almost four times less likely to be in the top third of verbal-IQ test scores than female nonoffenders. Similarly, male violent offenders scored 10 to 17 percentile points lower on measures of vocabulary, reading, and language than nonoffenders.
In addition to finding a robust IQ-crime correlation, studies have turned up two other empirical regularities worth noting. The first regards two different types of IQ measures: performance IQ (PIQ) versus verbal IQ (VIQ). Performance IQ is measured with nonverbal tests of attention to detail, manual design construction, and visual puzzle solving. Verbal IQ is measured with tests of general factual knowledge, abstract reasoning, mental arithmetic, and vocabulary. Studies have consistently found that criminals have PIQ scores close to the general population but VIQ scores substantially lower. This PIQ > VIQ finding holds even when controlling for race, class, and reading ability (Moffitt), suggesting that verbal intelligence is a more important correlate of criminal behavior than other types of intelligence.
I also touched on black crime and correlates for crime here. No matter what you can say about this, low IQ is correlated with crime. There are countless studies on this. Juvenile criminals average 92, whereas adult offenders are at IQ 85, right at the black average in America.
Genetics does account for the difference though you seem dishonest enough to believe any other reasons for it.
2. Confirmation bias
Scientific racists notice the cases that prove their ideas while overlooking those that disprove them. But in science it is the exceptions that disprove the rule. That is why the law of gravity is still a part of science: no known exceptions!
Care to tell me what they overlooked that disproved them? Why did you not use any examples?
3. Lack of expertise
Look at the race realists and HBDers you hear about most:
- Steve Sailer, journalist/computer salesman.
His occupation says something about his knowledge on these subjects?
- J. Philippe Rushton, psychologist.
OK? What about him? He’s a Ph.D. in psychology. He cites what he says, obviously. Rushton is one of the most important psychologists of this generation. Have you ever read any of his books, or have you only read attack articles on him? He first began researching the study of altruism. This gives him credibility, in your eyes, to talk about racial differences, as well as HBD. Hell, altruism is how our complex societies formed. That is a part of HBD as well, but you seem to talk about things you don’t know.
- Francis Fukuyama, political economist.
First I’ve heard of him. Seems to get heat for his book arguing that we have almost reached the end of history. He says people have misunderstood his thesis, that “the French and American revolutions, and their underlying principles of liberty and equality, were the final resting point for human ideological evolution. So we need to consider whether Hegel, when he declared the end of history in 1806, was not right. My argument is concerned less with the world of real events and more with the world of ideas. Essentially the question I was trying to pose is whether there are any systematical ideological competitors left to modern liberalism.”
- Steve Hsu, astrophysicist.
I love Steve Hsu. It seems that, according to Agabond, you can’t have other interests outside of your field, and if you do have interests outside of your field and speak on them, that no one should listen to you. Things don’t work like that. Steve Hsu is actively looking for intelligence genes. He also shows the reality of human genetic variation.
Just because someone is interested in things outside of their field, does that mean they can’t become an authority on it?
- Richard Herrnstein, psychologist.
Same with Rushton. Are you telling me that psychologists can’t study IQ differences and behavioral differences between races? Hernnstein knows damn well what he’s talking about in terms of IQ. Are you trying to use Hernnstein and Murray as examples of people who talk about actual human genetics? Well, they don’t. They talk about IQ, and yea they talk about genetic causes for it, but they’re mostly concerned with the policy of the country that we are no noticing because we are ‘IQ blind’ so to speak.
- Charles Murray, political scientist.
Same as above. Murray has defended himself multiple times with attacks him and Hernnstein got on The Bell Curve. 22 years later, and the book is still not refuted.
- Arthur Jensen, psychology professor.
My personal favorite. He is THE AUTHORITY ON IQ as well as RACE DIFFERENCES IN IQ. Sure Rushton and Jensen bring up genetics sometimes, but they always cite where they got their information from.
Really bad arguments here.
You notice anything strange? No biologists or anthropologists, much less geneticists.
>some of the biggest names in HBD aren’t biologists, anthropologists (LOL), and geneticists
>means there are no HBD biologists, anthropologists (LOL) and geneticists
Nice fallacy.
Why in the world should we trust these people over biologists and anthropologists, the very people who study these things for a living? To leave no stone unturned, some biologists and anthropologists have even written books about race for the general public:
This is going to be good. Let’s see what “has been written for the general public by biologists and anthropologists”.
- “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, Jared Diamond, biologist
!!!! People still cite this?!?!??!?!?
I’ll say something on G,G&S then let Rushton take over:
So different levels of civilizations can be traced to environmental differences and not innate differences in races? Because physical environment can explain civilization differences does that mean all human brains are the same on average? Horrible strawman. No one says environment doesn’t matter.
We can look at 2 countries within Sub-Saharan Africa. Look at South Africa. Still one of the wealthiest countries in Africa. Economic freedom isn’t the only source of wealth, human capital and natural resources are important. The lack of proper resources for civilizations in the past isn’t why Africa is poor today since we can see actual African countries that are better of by simply having more economic freedom.
The poverty today in Congo isn’t dated back to the dawn of time. Diamond says New Guineans are probably smarter than white Europeans. So does he accept that all races are the same in the brain except New Guineans? So does he then accept that human brains can differ in environments? Jared Diamond’s work is irrelevant and does nothing to explain why the various races perform differently in Europe. You can say racism or lingering effects of oppression, but the reasons for Africa’s poverty is not relevant to the racial gaps in Europe and America.
If you think it’s caused by environmental poverty in the past, you still have to argue the facts on racial differences today, the evidence still exists.
Jared Diamond is a man who spent a lot of time in Papua New Guinea. I guess he grew to like the natives there and befriended some of them so he makes ridiculous leaps in logic to actually say they may be more intelligent than Europeans. Hilarious. Any intelligent person can see the ridiculousness of what he claims. I can’t even begin to think how, when faced with all of this evidence of differences, that you can possibly believe in some warped view of equality or egalitarianism.
Here is Rushton’s dismantling of G,G&S.
- “The Mismeasure of Man”, Stephen Jay Gould, biologist
Arthur Jensen refutation here.
- “Genes, Peoples, and Languages”, Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, geneticist
What about it?
- “Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Human Race”, Ashley Montagu, anthropologist
Never heard of this book but from the Amazon review:
It presented a revolutionary theory for its time; breaking the link between genetics and culture, it argued that race is largely a social construction and not constitutive of significant biological differences between people.
Discarded.
These books are good to help you overcome the racist brainwashing of American society.
Let’s see. G,G,&S is trash. It has some cool tidbits of information, but it’s largely not true and is an egalitarians way of attempting to say that Europeans “got lucky” in regards to geography.
Mismeasure of Man is full of sidestepping and not addressing points, as well as wishful thinking mixed with lying about the truth and not telling his audience certain things. Sure, if anything, this book will make you MORE BRAINWASHED.
No idea why you cited Cavalli-Sforza.
A book that says race doesn’t exist. Wow, that’s a new one.
4. Conspiracy theories
The reason scientific racists give for trusting, say, Steve Sailer, a computer salesman, over Cavalli-Sforza, a professor of human genetics who has, like, studied race, is, wait for it, that people like Cavalli-Sforza secretly agree with them but are too afraid to say so in public! Have they gone mad?
What are you talking about? Are you talking about how Cvalli-Sforza uses terms like “population clusters”? That doesn’t matter. You can call the things what you’d like, but that doesn’t change the underlying biological reality of genetics, race and ethnicity.
If you’d have understood Cvalli-Sforza, you’d get that.
I know you got this pingback, Agabond. I’d love a response from you though I doubt it.
“Race is a Social Construct”: Part 1
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“Race is a social construct”. You may hear that a lot from uneducated people. They may say that since the definition of race is ‘ever-changing’, that race doesn’t exist and that it only exists in our minds. They obviously have no understanding of genetics and how we came to be today. If you want to get technical, everything is a social construct. The Universe is a social construct. We’re only giving definitions to what we perceive something to be, so with the logic of ‘race being a social construct’, then everything is a social construct. With that logic, the Universe doesn’t exist because it’s a social construct.
I will look at 3 articles in the first of many articles on this subject. One from Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Bill Nye and Ta-Nehisi Coates. All 3 have extremely wrong views on the biological reality of race, and I will prove that here. I will quote from each article and show how they are wrong with scientific studies as well as point out their bad logic.
I will begin with Angela Onwuachi-Willig. In her article for The New York Times, ‘Race and Racial Identities Are Social Constructs‘, she says that because of the ever-changing definition of the term race, that it is a social construct and not a biological one.
Race is not biological. It is a social construct. There is no gene or cluster of genes common to all blacks or all whites. Were race “real” in the genetic sense, racial classifications for individuals would remain constant across boundaries. Yet, a person who could be categorized as black in the United States might be considered white in Brazil or colored in South Africa.
Race is not biological, it is a construct. There are no clusters of genes or one gene that is common in blacks or whites. That is correct, but her statement about race being social and not a biological construct is clearly ignorant as I will show below.
You can see in the picture above that races clearly do cluster in different clusters from other races. She is right about the changing definitions, especially Brazil, but Brazil is a special case. So much mixing has gone on in Brazil that there is evidence of skin color becoming independent of ancestry. One outlier example doesn’t make race a ‘social construct’. South Africa is also another one. They classify race in South Africa with four categories: black, colored, Indian/Asian or white. Obama would have been called ‘colored’ in South Africa today. But, again, just because there are changing definitions of race throughout the globe, doesn’t mean that race doesn’t exist.
Like race, racial identity can be fluid. How one perceives her racial identity can shift with experience and time, and not simply for those who are multiracial. These shifts in racial identity can end in categories that our society, which insists on the rigidity of race, has not even yet defined.
Is she making an argument for being ‘trans-racial’? I bet Rachel Dolezal would be happy.
In a society where being white (regardless of one’s socioeconomic class background or other disadvantages) means living a life with white skin privileges — such as being presumed safe, competent and noncriminal — whites who begin to experience discrimination because of their intimate connection with someone of another race, or who regularly see their loved ones fall prey to racial discrimination, may begin to no longer feel white. After all, their lived reality does not align with the social meaning of their whiteness.
I always hear about ‘white privilege’ but never get an actual definition of what it means. People complain about ‘white privilege’ because they, of course, don’t understand the biological reality of race. Anything that may prove innate differences between individuals or races they just can’t imagine exists because of what they’ve been taught their whole lives. She is talking about those whites who are in the BLM movement. The false ideals of egalitarianism are the cause of this.
More than 50 years ago, Congress enacted the most comprehensive antidiscrimination legislation in history, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Half a century later in 2015, the same gaps in racial inequality remain or have grown deeper. Today, the unemployment rate for African-Americans remains more than double that for whites, public schools are more segregated now than they were in the 1950s and young black males are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than their white male peers. Even a white fourth-grade teacher in Texas, Karen Fitzgibbons, openly advocated for the racial segregation of the 1950s and 1960s on her Facebook page.
Right. IQ is the cause of the unemployment rate of African Americans. Not any imaginary forces such as ‘white privilege’. Public schools are more segregated today due to people wanting to be with others genetically similar to themselves. Blacks cause themselves to get shot and killed by police due to their actions during altercations with police officers. Oh no, someone has not politically correct opinions!! She should lose her job and never work a good job again!
That’s what the Left does. They attempt to shout you down with buzzwords so you can’t calmly and intellectually prove your case.
She is clearly wrong. Good thing this is called an ‘opinion piece’, there were few actual facts in it.
Now to touch on Bill Nye’s views on race. It’s funny. I loved his show when I was a kid. Now, knowing the truth about racial differences, hearing him say that made me lose all respect for him. He’s a mechanical engineer with a Bs from Cornell University. People only take what he says because he is ‘The Science Guy’ when he has no training in what he is talking about.
“We obsess about whether our dog is a pug-Jack Russell terrier mix with corgi overtones and an oaky finish. ‘An approachable little dog,’ whatever. They’re all dogs, okay? And so the idea of a purebred is just a human construct. There’s no such thing – in a sense there’s no such thing as a purebred dog.”
That right there is a fallacy. As with the woman’s article above, they both use the ‘continuum fallacy‘. The continuum fallacy is when someone rejects a vague claim because it’s not as precise as they want it to be. ‘There are no pure races’ or ‘there are no pure breeds of dog’, that doesn’t mean that genes don’t cluster differently, showing genetic differentiation.
“If a Papua New Guinean hooks up with a Swedish person all you get is a human. There’s no new thing you’re going to get. You just get a human. Japanese woman jumping the African guy, all you get is a human. They’re all humans. So this is a lesson to be learned. There really is, for humankind there’s really no such thing as race. There’s different tribes but not different races. We’re all one species.”
Right. That doesn’t mean there is no such thing as race. Grizzly bears and polar bears can mate to create a prizzly bear. Does that mean species doesn’t exist? (I will touch on speciation at the end of this article.) Once again, that statement doesn’t deny the biological reality of race, as you can see from the picture above.
Researchers have proven, scientifically, that humans are all one people. The color of our ancestors’ skin is a consequence of ultra-violet light, of latitude and climate.
We all belong to the same genus, Homo, but again, that doesn’t disprove race. He’s correct in saying that our ancestors’ skin is a consequence of UV light of latitude and climate, and right there he proves us correct in stating that sunlight differences depending on where your ancestors evolved in the world are the cause of racial differences.
Despite our recent sad conflicts here in the U.S., there really is no such thing, scientifically, as race. We are all one species. Each one of us more alike than different.
In this statement, he is saying the first sentence because of recent racial relations in the U.S. A clear politically-motivated statement.
“Each one of us more alike than different.’ That is correct, but, yet again, doesn’t disprove the reality of race. Geneticists estimate that humans will differ, on average, at 3 million base pairs in their DNA. That’s more than enough for distinct racial classification, as well as enough to differentiate us.
Is that supposed to mean anything? Cats have 90 percent homologous genes with humans, 82% with dogs, 80% with cows, 79% with chimpanzees, 69% with rats and 67% with mice.
90% of the mouse genome could be lined up with a region on the human genome.
99% of mouse genes turn out to have analogues in humans.
As you can see from the links above, we are all extremely genetically related to animals that are clearly extremely physically different from us humans. This shows, that the differences in humans are down to not how genetically distant we are from other animals in the animal kingdom, but how the differing genes we have are expressed.
We all came from Africa. We’re all made from the same star dust. We’re all going to live and die on the same planet – a pale blue dot in the vastness of space. We have to work together!
And finally, you can see his way of saying that racial differences mean nothing because ‘we all come from Africa’ and ‘ we’re all made from star dust’. That may be true, but that doesn’t do anything to acknowledge, or even show that racial differences are meaningless.
Bill Nye has absolutely no authority to speak on this matter. Liberals then eat this up and cite Bill Nye as proof that race doesn’t exist, which is clearly untrue as I have shown.
Finally, I will get to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ ‘The Social Construction of Race‘. He cites my favorite blogger/geneticist Razib Khan, so this should be good.
Ancestry — where my great-great-great-great grandparents are from — is a fact. What you call people with that particular ancestry is not. It changes depending on where you are in the world, when you are there, and who has power.
Right with the first sentence, and with the second. It seems he’s attempting to use what the first article I cited says: that due to ever-changing racial definitions that race doesn’t exist as we believe it to be. He says that ancestry is a fact, well wouldn’t that same ancestry be your racial classification? I am not following his logic. Just because there are differing views on the definition of race throughout the globe, doesn’t mean that there is no biological reality of race.
He cites someone else who states:
“Race” as a term is very nebulous. But human subgroups with similar ancestries can have group differences in DNA — and intelligence is highly unlikely to have no genetic basis at all (although most now believe its impact is greatly qualified by cultural and developmental differences).
Cultural and developmental differences. The cultural differences are thrown out. According to the editorial ‘Mainstream Science on Intelligence’, which came out shortly after The Bell Curve was published, one of their points is that IQ tests are not culturally biased if the individual speaks English. If they are not English speakers, they will either get a test in their native language or get Raven’s Progressive Matrices, which is a ‘culture free’ IQ test as it’s based on pattern recognition and has no writing involved. Developmental differences, yes. White mothers have a better prenatal environment then do black mothers, which is biological. Developmental differences are innate within the two populations.
I do not know. Andrew is more inclined to believe that there is some group-wide genetic explanation for the IQ difference. I am more inclined to believe that the difference lies in how those groups have been treated. One thing that I am not convinced by is controlling for income and education.
Oh, the old ‘Stereotype Threat‘ canard. The paper, which was cited more than 5000 times, states that African-Americans do worse on tests in which they are told that they are being judged on their race. Well, a meta-analysis of 55 published and unpublished studies came out and what was found that the it shows clear publication bias. Either due to people not knowing how to read scientific papers or more insidious tactics. The effect varies across studies and is small. Though elite university undergrads may underperform on tests of cognitive tests due to Stereotype Threat, this effect doesn’t generalize to non-adapted standardized tests, high-stakes settings and less academically gifted test takers. Stereotype Threat cannot explain the difference in mean cognitive test performance between African Americans and European Americans. (pg 68)
In the mid-20th century, as we have been documenting, it was the policy of this country to deny African-Americans access to the same methods of wealth-building, that it was making available to whites.
This is not merely a problem for your local diversity and sensitivity workshop. It is a problem of wealth and power. When you create a situation in which a community has a disproportionate number of poor people, and then you hyper-segregate that community, you multiply the problems of poverty for the entire community–poor or not. That is to say that black individuals are not simply poorer and less wealthier than white individuals. Because of segregation, black individuals and white individuals of the same income and same wealth, do not live in communities of equal wealth.
What bearing does segregation have on IQ differential? I don’t know. My skepticism of genetics is rooted in the fact that arguments for genetic inferiority among people of African ancestry are old, and generally have not fared well. My skepticism is also rooted in the belief that power generally seeks to justify itself. The prospect of actual equality among the races is frightening. If black and white people truly are equal on a bone-deep level, then the game might really be rigged, and we might actually have to do something about it. I think there’s much more evidence of that rigging, then there is evidence of cognitive deficiency .
I must add that I can not pretend to be a dispassionate, nor impartial observer. I come from a particular place. I’ve now been out in the world, and seen how other people in other places live. They don’t strike me as more intelligent. They strike me as better armed. There’s nothing scientific about that. But I think we all have core faiths. These are mine. You’ve been warned.
Regardless of the method used in the analyses, all researchers reached estimated very close to that obtained by Lewontin: The differences observed by the subdivisions (populations, groups of populations, races) represented 10 to 15 percent of the total genetic variation found within the human species. Formally, these findings demonstrate, first, that the species is indeed subdivided into genetically definable groups of individuals and, second, that atleast some of these groups correspond to those defined by anthropologists as races on the basis of physical characters. They do not however, settle the arguments regarding the methods of racial classification. Unfortunately, Lewontin did not specify before initiating his analysis how large the difference has to be in order to call the groups “races”.
Consequently, the results of the studies have led population geneticists to two diametrically opposite conclusions. Lewontin called the observed differences trivial, and proclaimed that “racial classification is now seen to be of no genetic or taxonomic significance” so that “no justification can be offered for its continuance.” This view is echoed by authors of similar studies, who seem to be surprised that genetic variation within populations is greater than that between them. By contrast, Sewell Wright who can hardly be taken for a dilettante in questions of population genetics, has stated emphatically that if differences of this magnitude were observed in any other species, the groups they distinguish would be called subspecies.
One can extend Wright’s argument even further. The more than 200 species of haplochromine fishes in Lake Victoria differ from each other much less than the human races in their neural genes, although they are presumably distinguished by genes that control differences in their external appearances. The same can be said about atleast some of the currently recognized species of Darwin’s finches and other examples of recent adaptive radiations. In all these cases, reproductively isolated groups are impossible to tell apart by the methods used to measure differences in human races. Obviously, human races are not reproductively isolated (interracial marriages are common and the progenies of such marriages are fully fertile) but the external differences between them are comparable to cichlid fishes and Darwin’s finches. Under these circumstances, to claim that the genetic differences between the human races are trivial is a more political statement than a scientific argument. Trivial by what criterion? How much difference would Lewontin and those who side with him consider non-trivial?
By mixing science with politics, geneticists and anthropologists are committing the same infraction of which they are accusing other scientists, who they themselves label as racist. Even worse, by labelling the genetic differences as insignificant, they play into the hand of genuine racists who can demolish this claim and so further their own agenda. It is intellectually more honest to acknowledge and then point out that by no means imply supremacy of one race over others. This can be done by demonstrating that the differences are in genes that cannot be linked to any features that would be required for the preeminence of a particular race.
It’s clear that racial classification does exist. The creator of Fst, Sewall Wright, says that a Fst distance of .15 is more than enough for speciation (differing racial classifications). It directly refutes Lewontin, who put his political ideology of Marxism over science. Those cichlids in Lake Victoria are a perfect example that though the definition of ‘species’ does change depending on which researcher you speak to, it doesn’t discount that there are real and physical genetic differences between races and ethnicities.
In conclusion, the term “race is a social construct” is a deliberately intellectually dishonest statement, or a statement used to hide the truth for more insidious things to happen due to the non-acknowledgement of race.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 