Are black people and white people equal?

Ha-Ha! LOL!! He GOT you!!

I think he's going for 'reactions'. Either that, or his ignorance is truly at the level 'indicated'. (In which case, calls for a laugh nevertheless.)

 

Genetic to what race?

Don't play word games, it's goofy.

Genetics are in the blood.

See, this is what happens when people play with words and get hissy on metaphorical example.

Negro genetics. African genetics. Better? Suit your sensitive system?

If we are all equal, we would all be susceptible to the same diseases. We are not, and there is a line of demarkation based on race. Get it?

 

Wrong. I'm going for an honest discussion of actual differences in races not based on color.

Typical leftists simply refuse to have that discussion.

 

More common should be the correct phrasing.

 

There seemed to be a lot of confusion on that point lately, and confusion about where people stood. The question was coming up in other threads, but the words were so heavily minced that the question itself and the answers were becoming increasingly more political and less meaningful.

The results have turned out pretty much exactly how I expected. Slightly more "No!" answers, and slightly fewer non-voters than I was expecting.

Those are all excellent and more meaningful questions!

Honestly, I think we need more discussions on racism and fewer uses of the concept to attack each other. I'd like to believe that we're all just past racism. But we're not, not quite. As a society we've gotten to the point that we (mostly) agree that it's wrong and stupid, but we haven't gotten to where there's much consensus on how to deal with it or even exactly what it is.

And it's not just racism. There are all kinds of things in politics that seemed to be divided into the simplest terms possible, black and white, or white and black if you prefer. Liberal and conservative, right and left, rich and poor, religious and atheist, socialist and capitalist, good and evil, republican and democrat, us and them, etc. and etc. ...

Personally, I believe that we are all created in God's image, and that we are all equal in the eyes of God. And that's the only measurement that I think really matters.

But that doesn't just go for questions of ethnicity. It goes for all those other false divisions that we've trapped ourselves under, too.

I've been reading a lot lately about colonial history and it amazes me how Machiavellian the leadership has always been, dividing and conquering. A critical part of the American experiment that I think is in danger of being forgotten is the idea that in America, there is no true division between the people and their leadership.

It's supposed to be the United States of America, right? How does one create a voluntary (and thus, possibly, just) union? Not through homogeneity, not through ideological or national or ethnic purity, but by simply recognizing that the lines that were dividing us are imaginary and meaningless.

Having their keys turned!

 

Actually race is not completely irrelevant. There is no "black blood" but there are dominant traits that can easily be associated with certain races. For instance, allele (ABO) blood type patterns have some definition between racial groups. Many of which are not compatible for transfusions.

Sickle cell disease is an indicator of race as it is genetically inherited, but it's causation is a mutation from populations where malaria is more common:



If we all lived on islands and never mixed for millions of years, the genetic and physical differences would be very clear. But we don't and the human genetic structure is constantly evolving.

Are there differences between the races? Of course. We are not all the same genetically. But people automatically jump into superior vs. inferior which is impossible to measure due to the complexity of genetic variation and our rudimentary understanding of it.

So the only honest answer to the poll is "yes". But that does not mean superior or inferior. It simply means millions of years of human evolution have made us different.

 

You are correct, Tettsuo.

The crucial genetic make up of white people is identical to the crucial genetic makeup of black people. We are both members of the same animal species "homo sapiens”. The earliest "homo sapiens” evolved in Africia and later migrated to Europe about 50,000 to 70,000 years ago. After migrating to Europe the skin color of this new species of man changed from dark to light to accommodate the change in the sun's duration and intensity at these very different latitudes.

Black people have dark skin because their skin contains more “melanin” than does the skin of white people.

 

But sickle-cell anemia isn't always a disadvantage. It's prevalent in groups that have a higher resistance to malaria. Don't be too quick to judge anemics as inferior.

 

True we are all members of the same animal species, but genetic variations between races vary as high as 5% which constitute a subspecies. Furthermore phenotypic variation (such as skin melanin content) can be as high as 80%.

We are not a genetically homogenized species as we have been constantly evolving for millions of years and will continue to do so forever.

 

In what way? Legally, physically, mentally, socially, ???
People in general are all pretty f***ed up..whether they're black, white, brown, red, yellow or any combination of the afore mentioned. EQUALLY f***ed up.

 

So having an increased chance of having sickle-cell anemia is enough to make one not equal?
I suppose it once again depends on what we're comparing, but I think a higher percent chance of any one individual having a disease is a pretty weak line ot claim inequality and all that it amounts to.
And can we assume there are no other problems more prevalent in other races?

This does point out the problem with the word "equal."
Is it, as in numbers, hierarchical or merely measure of difference.

Which brings up another issue: is prevalence of a disease a greater difference than differences that exist within races?

But when it comes down to it, these are not the traits that define race in the sense we think about it.

Really all this means is that there is genetic diversity and people with some traits are more likely to have other traits due to the environment in which their ancestors evolved... Of course, these genes get mixed over time as people move, making the correlations less predictable over time.
And none of it really has to do with what people mean when they talk about equality.

 

Subspecies strikes me as an arbitrary classification. A species is at least defined by something tangible, like ability to reproduce.

Part of our evolution will come from mixing genes. But, yes, we will continue to evolve.
My guess is that we will become more similar due to globalization.
Partially because people will live in more heterogeneous societies and partially because living conditions will become more similar (when you have air conditioning, you don't need to evolve for the weather outside).

 

No, sickle cell anemia is a disadvantageous genetic defect and there is no "upside" to having it. Life expectancy is drastically shortened as the median age at death is 42 years for males and 48 years for females.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199406093302303

As for malaria, sickle cell anemia can increase resistance, but not immunity. With falling malaria rates around the world, the benefit is negligible.

 

I like to think that, except for few, we, as Americans, can look past race. What most people don't take kindly to is behavior, or lack of considerate behavior.
Of course that is overly simplified, but nonetheless holds true.
People who are respectful, will be treated respectfully in kind.
But then, suddenly, we had to show by vote that we aren't racists anymore, don't want to be seen as racists, and God forbid, if we criticize, we will be seen as racists.
SO that brings me to another point you are making..if I understand correctly..and that is the fact that we are being used as pawns in a political game. We are being used for the advantage of....(fill in the blank).
Sadly, too many fall for that trap, while others yet use it to further some perceived ideological cause.
Yes, you are correct, we are created in God's image, and looking at the person next to us is like looking in the face of God. Yet we are being told that we are racist when we disagree with a person's actions, words or thoughts, when its nothing but human interaction.
We must insist that we have more in common than what we are made to believe, that we can achieve more when working together than when arguing against each other, that we have the same goals, dreams, wants and needs, and that, if we define such, we can actually bring it to fruition...but again, only if we work together, instead of being used in some political powerplay.

Its the internet, and some of us didn't even vote, because lack of appr. options or need for clarification.

It would make for additional poll questions, perhaps in an additional/revised thread?

 

Human beings are neither equal nor unequal because no-one can tell us what they are for. Knives can be unequal or equal in sharpness, for instance, because they are used for cutting or stabbing. People have no such function - they just are, unless they choose to turn themselves into things.

 

You bring up an interesting point. Due to mass global transit (the end of physical barriers) and similarity of habitation, our genetic variation is going to decrease. This might actually be quite dangerous as it will make us less adaptable to changing conditions as we become entirely reliant on technology.

Our heterogeneous society will eventually lead to us being homogenous. For instance everyone will have exactly the same blood type, resistances, susceptibilities, and physical traits like muscular/skeletal form, skin and hair color, etc. One disease, microbe, or environmental change could wipe-out humankind in a blink.

 

I expect a cataclysm or the extinction of the species will come before it gets to that point (I suppose I'm an optimist ).

I don't think that there are strong enoug hadvantages, particularly ones that cause death or make people less likely to reproduce, in things like blood type. And resistances and such have no strengths except when a disease comes, so I'd expect that no one will have advantage over others until a nasty plague comes along.
To make us really homogeneous to that extent would probably require consumer genetic engineering on a massive scale rather than random reproduction. People will still have mutations and there are still tons of combinations available.

Plus we have to factor in how technological additions to human bodies will factor in and at what point we will no longer be human.

 

Using technology we can introduce any variability that we want. And the changes will be just as permanent as if natural evolution had produced them. Our technology makes us far more adaptable than any other animal on the planet.

It should also be noted that our gene pool is actually INCREASING, not decreasing. Our global population is dramatically larger than it has ever been before, and shows no signs of slowing. More people = more possibilities for mutation. In fact, the rate of mutation will probably be much greater in the modern world since our ozone is depleted (more ionizing radiation, which is how many mutations occur naturally) and our environment in general is more radioactive than it has been in the past for multiple reasons.

 

I think they are. But, the black community rests on victimization and mediocrity, its their comfort zone, and black leadership insures it stays that way, and the democratic party likes their black voting block on the plantation and under their thumb.

 

Excellent answer!

So what happened to Shamino and Dupre, anyway?

 

Equal in @#$%edupedness. Yes, I think I can agree with that.

 

Uhm, that was pretty much the original question again, your "Are white people and black people equal" to its "Are black people and white people equal?".

I don't know, you might have been sarcastic, the text doesn't really tell.

 

Excellent post.

This is, of course, assuming that we are talking about a certain kind of equality.

I can tell you what humanity is for. Zip. Nothing. I don't mean that as in humans are meaningless, I mean it as humans have to make their own purpose and for that meaning, everyone is "equal", of equal worth.

 

Theoretically.

 

They are as equal as the law can possibly make them. The rest is up to the individual people, themselves, to behave equally and hold each other to equal standards.