On the construction of race

[holzman_tweed]

stoneself posted a sort of challenge in debunkingwhite regarding how to explain one of the most insidious things about race: the fact that it has no basis in biology whatsoever. Part of the challenge is posting about it in one's own blog, which is simple enough, and here it is:

Race is not a biological category. Race is a legal category. You are the race you are because a legislative body, judicial body, or both -- backed up by a bunch of people with guns -- said that you are. Nothing more, nothing less.

To many who read this journal, this is nothing new. To some, it may be a shocking notion. Don't take my word for it, do the research. Start by reading White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race by Ian Haney Lopez. It lays out how the definition of race in the US developed, how people got categorized and recategorized by congress and the supreme court, how this happened as a result of politics and not science. You'll learn about who Syrians went from being non-white to being white, and right back to being non-white again all based on a series of supreme court rulings spread over 2 or 3 decades.

To some, it's tempting to conclude that race isn't real. That's an inaccurate conclusion. Race is law, and laws are very real. Just because something is bullshit, doesn't mean it isn't real.

Comments

[backdoor-uk.livejournal.com]

> the fact that it has no basis in biology whatsoever

I think that's over stating the case: Race has a very well established taxonomic meaning in biology that is applied uncontroversially to other species. The issue is that human’s perception of race is socially constructed (and in some cases legally as you say). But that doesn’t mean that race wouldn’t have some scientific meaning (all be it different) to an impartial third party observer of the human species who felt no need to avoid the concept for political reasons. Nor do I see why that is necessarily a bad thing.

As it is, when needed scientists use this taxonomic concept of race applied to humans but just tend to call it something else – but that’s only a change in nomenclature, not in the concept.

- Chris

[shadowfae.livejournal.com]

I have to agree.

I get the idea that "race", as it were, is a social construct. But honestly, this also has a tinge of the "colorblind" argument that grates on my nerves.

And it grates because it negates social ties to one's ethnic groups, customs, traditions, shared experiences, geography and, yes, physical characteristics one shares with their group, etc. Some of it folks are born with, some of it is arbitrary. But it also makes it real - and not just on a "legal" front.

It's legal in the fact that people have used appearance, customs, geography and such to descriminate against others, oppress others, and marginalize others.

But race and ethnicity are very, very real in other respects besides legal.

There is nothing wrong with stating human beings are one species and are a part of many different racial and ethnic groups.

What's wrong is descriminating against, oprressing and marginalizing people because of these differences.

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

just because something is socially constructed doesn't mean that it doesn't have very strong effects. it does mean there are two tasks at hand: 1) mitigate the negative effects of racism, and 2) dismantle the notion of race.

colorblindness tries to jump to 2 without dealing with 1.

the point here is that race doesn't have an objective existence, an existence external to social meaning and social use.

[aineotter.livejournal.com]

What we refer to as 'race' in humans is a biological cline. Dividing it into artificially distinct categories is the non-biological part, and also explains why people(s) who are morphologically near the boundary of the legal/social categories sometimes get re-classified.

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

race is not a well established taxonomic biological categorization. in fact efforts to pin it down scientifically like a genus or species have failed miserably.

race has no objective meaning. race has neither necessary nor sufficient qualities to determine race.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

1) You exclude self-definition. For this I will refer you to the "Is Obama 'black' enough" debate, which was not limited to the white community.

2) The issue is one discussed in FDA testing. There are, in fact, questions about the efficacy or side effects of medication or medical treatment in which the question is whether to selecting testing groups for diversity.

Is a drug tested only on white people adequately tested? If race is entirely artificial, the answer should be yes.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Yes, he misses the outside-of-official-legaldom race conceptualization done culturally. We/they difference mapping by physical marker has been done culturally about as long as we can tell.

That book title Dan references, by the way, is a hat tip to anthropologist Virginia Dominguez's book White by Definition, a study of the modern Louisiana race laws, which were designed to remedy (cough) past institutionalized racism. One person under study, "obviously black" by anyone of the time/place's street definition, is legally defined as "white" because of the legal categories in which her ancestors were put. Of course, hilarity ensues.

The issue with even ATTEMPTING to use the term "race" in any discussion - even of the social mapping of visible physical traits into groups - is that one winds up in short order doing nothing but arguing definitions. Which is a very good way to tell that, outside of social construction, there is no "there" there.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

Is a drug tested only on white people adequately tested? If race is entirely artificial, the answer should be yes.

And, my point above said, this comment of yours deserves a special look.

As I said, using the term "race" makes for instantly-vague discussion. Here, you use it to mean "statistical clusters of genetics" which is an attempt to salvage some biological link to the term.

Why not just say, "if a drug is only tested on a subset of clusters of genetic diversity, is it adequately tested?" and thereby be precise, rather than raising the question of whether "white people" means white by legal, social, Bob's, Harry's, some warped uber group's pseudo-biological, or any other definition?

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Why not just say, "if a drug is only tested on a subset of clusters of genetic diversity, is it adequately tested?"

Because that language does not translate into either FDA guidelines or legal rules for drug approval. And no one outside of your narrow list of conversants would have a clue what you are talking about.

There is a serious discussion in the medical community about drug testing and racial, ethnic and gender diversity. Traditionally, studies have been blind as to race and ethnicity on the theory that there was no significant biological difference and avoided testing on women of childbearing years as a means of limiting certain risks/liability. Then it turned out that side effects did emerge in some drugs that had a definite gender bias or that clustered around certain clearly identifiable racial and ethnic categories as those terms are commonly understood.

People engaged in such a debate consider your efforts to be those of intellectual whankers with nothing better to do with their time. Worse, you take what should be an interesting debate on substance and turn it into a fight about definitions. This reconfirms for people not inherently interested in this debate that it is the realm of exquisites with delicate sensibilities and little interest in accomplishing real world change. Whether this charge is actually correct, self-marginalization is best avoided -- in my humble experience based on 9 years of social advocacy.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

You make my case for me.

Because that language does not translate into either FDA guidelines or legal rules for drug approval

I never said different groups don't have - and use - different definitions. I never said some definitions can't be useful. I did talk about one use of the term in one context, and you flamed-on over it. You make my point for me. That is the whole point about the term being a poor one to use outside of closed little circles with their own internal jargon. Everyone has a different understanding of the word, some "biological" (and vague), some sociological (and vague), some genetic (and more precise but less useful outside of the context), and some legal (and useful, but only in the context for which it is defined).

So what do the "people engaged in such a debate" mean? Can you define "race" in less than 6 pages of mealy-mouthed "whanking" definition?

And what the heck do you mean my "efforts," you whanker, you?

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

Is a drug tested only on white people adequately tested? If race is entirely artificial, the answer should be yes.

If race is entirely artificial, then the question makes no sense (what are these "white people" you are talking about?)

[stoneself.livejournal.com]

fda testing is about genetic characteristic not race. that certain genes tend to have higher frequency in certain populations is not a justification for the categorizations of race.

that is to say it's one thing to say a population in a 100 mile radius of a given latitude and longitude are likely to share a large number of genes. it's another thing to say an entire population of a continent is what constitutes a race.

[docstrange.livejournal.com]

...and Dan, the most insidious thing about "race" isn't that it's non-biological. It's that it is a social construct that must be discussed using social constructs.

Few discussions devolve faster than a discussion of the social construction of a social construct that depends on complex flows of historical, local, and global social construction processes, especially when that discussion is going to be using complex, socially-constructed terms of argument.

Turtles all the way down.

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

To some, it's tempting to conclude that race isn't real. That's an inaccurate conclusion. Race is law, and laws are very real. Just because something is bullshit, doesn't mean it isn't real.

I don't think that just because something has no biological basis it is bullshit, though. I see what you are trying to say, and my anthro profs agreed that 'race' is a construct and is not a scientifically relevant category, but your use of 'bullshit' introduces some element of moral judgement and unspoken assumptions (about the value of objective science vs. subjective experience) to this discussion -- you won't get a positive response if you tell people who do feel they are a certain race that their self-definition is bullshit. :)