I've actually done the latter a few times.. =)

There was the whole invasion thing too, where the men died and the women learned the new language:)

I also think it's 98% that we share with chimps and bonobos (who are equally close to us genetically, contrary to popular belief, and act far more like us than chimps).

The point you're missing is that there's a large amount of shared DNA between random people, but there's no greater genetic variability between two people of different races than there are of two people of the same race.

And nobody in their right mind would say that this was an expected outcome prior to the studies being done because ti completely flies in the face of logic. You wouldn't expect any two people to have roughly the same amount of genes in common as any other two people after you eliminate the genes that all humans have in common.

I do believe you're correct, I'm too lazy to look up the exact percentage, but I think it's about 98.6% IIRC.

No, I'm missing the relevance of such statements. Please tell me, in practical terms, what this actually means, or at least implies.

Maybe I'mm not in my right mind, being a programmer and all, but that wouldn't be an unexpected outcome of comparing vastly different, functionalty-wise, programs of a given minimum size. Information science is a huge field, and not all of it nearly as intuitive as you'd think.

When the swiss voted against the right to build mosquee, some people claimed that they were not specifically racist or islamophobes, but they just hated religions and voted out of principle against any right to build more religious buildings, whatever the religion.

The thing is, the vote wasn't about religions in general. It was about mosquees in particular. Exclusively.

I'm not sure how being against marriage would lead someone to wish to forbid it in society (it's more of a personal, individual, life stance) but whatever. The thing is, the question is not about marriage in general. It is about homosexuals. It is about a specific, homophobic, state policy.

You can make parallel with other themes. Imagine a (new) law about ruckus after 22h. You may want to forbid noise past that hour. If the law states "jews are forbidden to be noisy after 22h", voting for it would still be supporting an antisemitic law. If a semi-pedestrian zone is established with a rule such as "female drivers can't drive through here", it's an arbitrarily sexist law, and wishing to reduce car circulation there would not be a good excuse to support it. Likewise, a law forcing blond people only to wear caps in swimming pools. Youcan imagine a lot of laws that would be "progress", but that would be still discriminatory because imited to a given category of people. More than enforcing this progress, it enforces the bi-categorisation of citizens. Laws against sexual mariage are not laws against mariage, they are laws about the officialisation of the idea that homosexual love is not really love. The idea that homosexual feelings, homosexual couples, are different, and deserve a different legal treatment, from heterosexual love and relationships. Selective, arbitrary, laws are nocive whatever their global idea. You can reverse them, and see them as implcit laws about favourising another category, and allowing them specifically to do what you think should be globally forbidden. Category priviledge is the other side of the coin. You may want to forbid smoking in public places, making a law about forbidding black people to smoke in public places is making a law allowing white people to. And the subject is a detail compared to the distinction it enforces. It would be a racist, segregationnist law BEFORE being a public health law.

Now, labels are interesting, because of what I mentionned in the OP. The (small or big?) victories are in the fact that these labels tend to be derogatory. And as long as they stay so, we can push for progress. It's about pointing out that a law, or a statement, is racist/sexist/homophobic, and debating whether it is or not, with the background agreement that it would be a bad thing. Once the situation corners someone to cynically endorse racism/sexism/homophobia and re-reverse their values, making them something positive, then the argument is lost. A honest discussion should be around the concern of these qualifiers to apply.

I adore Hergé, the author of Tintin. That guy is very aware that he's quite the conservative catholic, because he was born and educated like that. His first Tintin albums are very naive, and quite colonialist, antisemitic, and racist. But he drew them during 50 years, he aged making them, and he had never ceased to become more clever, the evolution is very visible. And the concern of racism is present in his late interviews, when he's both critical of his past albums (although the have the excuse of the cultural context), and aware of thought reflexes that he still can't overcome. He has a very touching discussion with Numa Sadoul in which he admits that, deep down, he wouldn't like very much his daughter to marry a black person, and wonders if it is racism (to which Sadoul answers yes, much to his dismay). This struggle between old incorporated reflexes or values, and newly, progressively acquired values and concerns, is not easy to deal with. The thing is, trying to be aware of one's prejudices is a tough and noble work, and being attentive to them doesn't mean automatically managing to overcome them. In this case, Hergé is racist while endorsing anti-racist values. This is an ambiguity we can meet in many contexts (sexism, homophobia, culturalism, etc) depending on our background. Labels help us identify stances and statements that belong to a model of thought that we may wish to reject, while still recognising it within us. Ethnocentrism (to use more broader notions than racism) is "natural", that is, it's within us, part of our identity, since we were socialised as kids. Being wary of alterity (whatever defines or doesn't define alterity) is the corollary of being ourselves. Intellectually dealing with it, distancizing ourselves with this spontaneous tendency, is a perpetual activity. That is why identifying, and labelling, thought processes is important. None of us is above such reflexes or outlooks, but the don't necessarily define us. That's what I wanted to say about the distinction between "the statement is mortonic" and "you're a moron".

Now, for the fun of it :

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html

Basically there's no realistic difference between the "races". Dogs are actually a great example of a another species, that for different reasons, doesn't really have nearly as much genetic variability as folks may believe. Dogs have "slippery genes" (no I didn't make up that term), only one gene controls dog size, for example, and by gene, I mean a single, er... this is where I'm not a geneticist, marker? determines it. It's like that for most doggy traits. This is not enough to call them "different" in any genetic sense, even though a great dane differs greatly in appearance from a chihuahua.

Humans, again for different reasons, don't really have any genetic variability between what most folks would call colloquially "races". Literally there's no more difference between a black person and a white person than a blonde and a brunette.

Now, there are traits that become more "common" within the realm of another trait, for example, in the group of red heads some other trait becomes more common than in the general population OR the group that consists of non-red heads. This is actually complex enough to make someone even with a pretty decent education boggle with confusion, I'm not saying "leave it to the pros" just that it's a fucking pain in the ass to understand and you'll find a very deep rabbit hole should you essay to figure it all out.

But the upshot is: in the context that the average man understands genetics, there is no difference between the aforementioned colloquially and incorrectly termed "races".

While I appreciate the information, I'm not sure why it's a reply to my post? Let me re-state my question:

What is the relevance of a quantitative difference in gene materials? Why do people insist on bringing it up when it's just a number with no discernable impact on the qualitative difference (whatever that may actually be)?

I feel like I'm trying to discuss how goatmilk is flavoured (not in a good way, btw) by the presence of a male goat, and people keep insisting on telling me how many goats there are in Ireland compared to Arizona..

You asked what the relevance was of hedward's statement, that is the relevance, aka, what it means/why it matters.

I don't know what the original question was, I was simply elucidating his statement, due to your final query.

I can relate to claims of religion being an overall bad thing (not going into that here, though), but as far as I can tell, the only practical outcome of this vote being exclusivly about mosquees is that the same people weren't labeled antisemittic instead, as they would have been if it was exclusively about synagoges, by people refusing to to believe they were actually telling the truth and reducing it to a religiously discriminating view instead.

Do you see my point? It being exclusive to one group does not make anyone's vote a vote for or against that exclusive group. Or do you think anyone voting for the right to build mosquees did so to exclusively support muslims?

Please don't read too much into me saying I'm against gay marriage (as I'm against every other marriage) - it was expressed that way mainly to make a point. While it is true that I'm against marriage, I live in a country where gay marriage is allowed, and I wouldn't vote for making it illegal. Nor would I vote for making any other form of marriage illegal (with the possible exception of siblings getting married). I don't mind having the right to get married - as long as it's up to me whether or not I'll be exercising that right - and I certainly don't see a point in taking away that right from others. I'm fully capable of having one view, yet at the same time allowing others to do differently.

All those examples have two things in common - there is no connection between what the law is about and the group that's been singled out, and it's about restricting existing rights for a single group - basically a recipe for racism/sexism/whateverism. The vote about allowing mosquees to be built does not fit that pattern, nor can one draw the same conclusions about why people are voting for or against.

Actually, one of the arguments against gay marriage that makes sense (to me), is the reversal you're talking about: Married couples are expected to have children, sooner rather than later, and the government recognises the financial strain children are, and also that financial stability in a home is relatively important for a good childhood. A gay marriage won't produce offspring, though, and doesn't need the same financial aid in that respect. Children are introduced to married gays through either "single parenting" or adoption, both of which are already receiving similar financial aid (you get the most if you're a single parent - even if you live with someone as long as you're not married). Is there that much of a difference in what you're actually left with at the end of the day to spend time and resources to fit yet another type union into legislation and regulations?

Is the argument above homophobic, e.g. irrational, or rational? I'd say the latter (although I think there are more factors that need to be taken into account).

I didn't really understand any of that, but it sounds like you're saying it's a victory that we now can suppress those we don't like/agree with, by putting derogatory labels those who use derogatory labels on others to suppress them. If that's your definition of victory, I'm rooting for a major defeat..

I find it interesting, but not that surprising, that Sadoul tells him (Hergé) that he's a racist, without even asking him why he wouldn't like it. While it's not much of a leap to assume it's because he value black people lower than (presumably) white people, given his background/upbringing etc, it's certainly not the only explanation:

Everyone observing a given group being treated worse than other groups would most likely also - consciously or not - assume that a person of a different, better treated group who closely associated him-/herself with an individual from the first group, would experience more problems - on average - than if he/she associated him-/herself with a member of a better treated group.

Making this observation does not mean you condone said group being treated worse, yet that's what a lot of people seem to think if you take the observation into account and show a preference for this being avoided. Being a father myself, wanting nothing but the very best for my daughter, I know I would express my doubts in similar circumstances - as I would if she wanted to marry royalty (and I'm pretty much a royalist) as I wouldn't want her exposed to constant surveilance by the media etc. I'd never forbid her to marry anyone, though.

I've only tried one this far: The one about countries (USA vs Norway) - and who'd guessed I'd be moderately in favour of Norway (sarcasm =P). Perhaps I should take one on skincolour or sexual preference too, but I didn't realy agree with their way of testing. That is, it's a sound idea I think, but the pressing keys on the keyboard part "pollutes" the input as my mind start analysing the left/right patterns (should be randomised I presume) etc. Still, probably the best alternative when doing this online, though.

It wouldn't be to support exclusively muslims as it was about muslims and christians having the same rights, being equals in front of the law. Whatever the original motive of voting against it, voting against it is voting for segregation, for deciding that christians and muslims are officially not equals in front of the law. That is a discriminatory law.

So, as you make a distinction between "being a moron" and "emitting a moronic statement", you could make one between "being islamophobe" and "supporting an islamophobic law". But once it's being pointed out, it is moronic to support it with an "i am not racist but" introduction. The law is. It exists thanks to you. So there.

Discriminatory laws are generally based on a connection, and that's where the (racist or culturalist) prejudices play. For instance, the law against mosquees is based on the idea that islam=islamism, and that allowing islam the same freedom as christianity would have a different effect : would benefit fundamentalism and turn the country into a theocracy. There's also the argument that christian churches are traditionnal, are our "identity", and mosquees are alien, and would -horror- change our visual environment. These arguments (the ones the signe out mosquees) are xenophobic. And they are indirectly supported (as the law that implements them, in practice, and validates them, in practice, is supported) by those who vote "just because it's a religion in general".

Likewise, forbidding homosexual marriage specifically is based on the idea that homosexuals are "different", "wrong", "anti-natural", etc. If one votes against homosexual marriage because of that, he supports a law that officialises this difference. Laws, and the state, play a huge role in the public perception of normality. Law makes things things. Being white or black is a "thing", if the law takes it in account for various rights. When law will start to restrict the access to responsability jobs to blond women (because blondes are dumb lol), it will ratify the idea that blondes are a separate category. And for a reason serious enough, real enough, relevant enough, to make specific laws for their category.

So, the rhetorical connection doesn't play a role. The laws of Nüremberg were rationalised by connections yet were pretty random, so were those of the apartheid. Whether black people should not gather together because they are more threatening when they do than white people, or if they should not gather together because lol that will annoy them won't it, it's the same thing. If you make a law against monopoly, but limitate them to jews, it is an antisemitic law, whether you consider that monopolies are bad in general or not, AND whether you consider that there is a connection (jews are known to be greedy and to try to take over the world) or not.


This argument is irrationnal, because it's based on the principple that the function of heterosexual groups is to procreate, and this is not true. This is just a social prescription. In reality, many heterosexual don't have, can't have or don't wish to have, children. By this logic, they should not be allowed to marry if one of them is sterile or express the will to not make kids. This prescriptive line of reasonning is similar to mysoginist views that define women through their reproductive potential, and make it a holy function, an expectation, that laws and financial supports are -negatively- based upon, when it comes to work careers or any trajectory that isn't centered upon reproduction (and that, aswell, define womanhood while forgetting about women who can't or don't want to have kids).

Labels are words, used to point out at the implications of some statements, and raising awareness about it, whether it's about their consequences (supporting a segregationnist society) or their hidden premises (implicit culturalist/racist mental association between one group and a given behaviour). These statements are things that non-racist people can still express and support, without being aware of their racist implications. When being made aware of these. then the conflict between an endorsed general antiracist value and an endorsed crypto-racist statement (once confirmed) can have for outcome : "oh yes, my bad, I didn't realise it was a bit racist, I'll reconsider this stance" or "oh yes, so it is racist, well, I am racist, fuck you". The first outcome is a process, a thought and a stance refined, through negociation and risen awareness of the hidden indirect stakes and components of the statements. The second outcome is a failure, as, instead of adaptating his stance to his core antiracist value, the person choose to discard the antiracist value and embrace the implicit racism of his statement.

What I stressed in the OP is that, nowadays, most people have these core antiracist values (even if they also have contradictory sets of values), so you can have this discussion, about negociating the meaning of a statement, deconstructing it, revealing and contextualising its components, causes, effects, etc. Of course, this negociation itself can also lead to other outcomes than strict confirmation (can lead to "ah, okay, wasn't xenophobic after all", or to "yes, it is, but I can't help it, it's too firmly embedded in me by now", which is basically Hergé's stance.



What makes you assume that ? After pages of discussions on his own evolution and how he outgrew most racist prejudices of his conservative pre-ww2 youth, Hergé assumes that his -hypothetical- daughter would be unhappy with a foreigner (I re-checked), because they would be too different. He gives an exemple of a successful belgian-japanese couple, stating that they've required a lot of "intelligence, courage and clear-headedness" to achieve this. Sadoul points out that if everybody was so reluctant to accept bi-national marriages, then precisely nothing will ever progress (Hergé then switches the conversation with humour, saying that he doesn't have a daughter anyway). Actually, one difficulty of marriages with foreigners is peer pressure, especially from those who, "not being racist", and "for the good of the fiance", stress differences and oppositions, read them as tremendous "told you so" obstacles, interpret everything in terms of cultural clash (and "expectable", of course). This just reinforces barriers and reproduces the oppositions that the lovers obliterate.

I've known people who, while being "not homophobes at all", would "refuse" their kids to be homosexuals because "society doesn't accept it". Which is similar to Starmaker's exemple of companies not hiring black people because "the customers" are racists. It's a circular logic, that make people become part of the problem by reinforcing the very norm that they claim to make society unfair. And they indirectly participate in making minorities suffer.

I think these tests -those I've toyed with- do precisely alternate the left and the right keys. At least the one on white/black skinned people does.

I'm sorry you wasted so much time writing that. What I got out of it was:

1. There's an echo in here - your post is just a rephrasing of your previous post, not ignoring my points per se, but a lot of work has been put into trying to paint over any points I've tried to make on the world not being black or white but that there sometimes are other reasons to act in the same way an actual racist/homophobe/whatever would act.

2. You have a zero-tolerance policy against anything that looks like racism etc. That's your call, but it's a very bad one in my opinion. That kind of attitude is one of the things that makes it so hard to get rid of racism etc in the first place - you're just making it easier for them to justify their behaviour; after all they know you are wrong about some things, which means you're probably wrong about everything (not rational but that's what you get nine out of ten times).

3. I get the distinct feeling you've already labeled me as a racist, homophobe, islamophobe, antisemite etc. possibly because I'm not taking part in your witch hunt and/or agreeing in labeling others as easily as you do or for the same reasons. Well, I - you guessed it - couldn't care less. I do what I think is right, and I don't need your approval. I do feel a bit sorry for you, though.

4. I also get the feeling that you take some sort of pride in calling out "racists", "homophobes" etc (I really need to figure out what it's called when you discriminate against religions). Perhaps that's why you refuse to give anyone the benefit of doubt.

At first I was interested in discussing these -isms with you as you clearly have thought a lot about them, but it makes no sense to continue this if I'm unable to widen your horizon at all (not trying to be arrogant here, but so far there isn't really anything I haven't heard before - on these particular subjects - in your posts). You clearly don't share my opinion of these matters being a little more complex than "hurting a minority, with or whitout intent? bad!", so I'll leave you to it.

You missed one step. Conveniently so, though. Because refusing to question your stances, by just playing the old "you say that my statement is racist, YOU CALL ME A RACIST, THAT IS WHAT I AM NOW, HUH ? HUH ? HUH ?" card is an extremely easy line of defense. But bring it all down to that, if it suits you.

That's exactly why there's no point in us discussing this matter. It's never been about my stances (who'd be interested in that anyway?), it's been about how we go about reducing racism etc. Or maybe it hasn't been - I've tried to make it about that, but I'm clearly not getting through.

But, very well, here's my stance on racism:
In order to reduce racism, attacking racists (or belived to be racists) is futile. Attacks leads to defence, or even counter-attacks - almost never to understanding. In order to reduce racism, we should instead spread facts. Not propaganda that "sounds nice" but is so simplified - or plain wrong - that anyone with half a brain looks right through it, unless they're already part of the choir. There is no rational reason to discriminate against others purely based on skin colour, so why leave rationality and logic behind when fighting it?

The problem (and also a good thing, if you take the optimist perspective of my OP) is that nowadays there is a general agreement about racism, sexism (soon, or already a bit, homophobia), and even indifference to environmental issues, being bad. Reducing racism isn't much about criticizing racism at its explicit levels.

However, these discriminations are still present at implicit levels, in many discourses, stances, and policies. And they still have the same effects on minorities : closing doors, determining hurtful attitudes, splitting human populations, shaping interpretative grids, misleading expectations, self-fulfilling prophecies, etc. As they happen at an implicit level when the explicit level denies them, they become more difficult to reveal, but a bit easier to correct when they are revealed. Still, they are existing, they are present, behind plausible deniability and ordinarily weak self-awarenesses, and this is the current battleground of antiracism, feminism, etc.

So no, you can't stop at explicit discourses such as "i am not racist but" and "i hate to do this but it's the laaawww of the west". The general ecceptation of antiracist values at explicit levels has the nasty side effect of making everybody think that they are above it ("i am good, racism is bad, therefore nothing coming out of me can be racist"), and it's the first thing to un-learn, because, as I said, ethnocentrism is deeply rooted in every one of us, and merely identifying its mechanism is hard work. Replacing these questionnings by outraged "WHAT ? ME ? A RACIST STATEMENT ? ARE YOU CRAZY ?" is just preventing any progress on that more unconscious level. It's a pride, self-identity, reflex that now shields people from any sort of deeper investigation, at the levels where the remaining forms of discriminations manifest themselves most nowadays.

So, it's not even a matter of "attacking racism" anymore. It's a matter of recognising it as a structuring thought process within our own reasonings (and within our own selective indifferences). And behind rationalisations. And behind policies that one could support for short-sighted reasons : yes, harming minorities is wrong, and supporting a law that selectively arbitrarily harms minorities is wrong. It's not a matter of "with or without intend", it's a matter of "with or without awareness" (of what a law actually does to society). Once this awareness is made unavoidable, then it becomes a matter of intents.

It's a matter of identifying latent functions beyond explicit functions. Some hypocrisies are blatant and deliberate, like laws against the islamic veil, that are seeking unrelated grounds to just hinder an exotic practice that most people interpret as strictly religious (or even fundamentalist). Showing that the rationale behind them are only referred to in this specific "christian vs muslim" context show what is the implicit target beyond explicit legal phrasing. Showing what are the (extremely diverse) real life motivations of girls who decide to cover their hair shows that the cultural hostility that constitutes the actual untold motive of these laws is ill-founded (based on a generalised interpretation). This is a rational, scientific work, in both cases. The "irrationality" (if it can even be called like this) is in the discrepancy between official discourses and actual drives, and in the ethnological ignorance they're based on.

And some hypocrisies are much more subtle, beneath the threshold of self-awareness. And requiring inquiry, in order to be even questionned. But this demands the specific midset of self-distrust, which can be hurtful when one considers himself as perfectly above such prejudices. And the -legitimate- moral stigma on racism encourages us to consider ourselves as "obviously" above it. If you're not ready to accept that we are all dependant on buried ethnocentric reflexes, and that overcoming them will always be a tedious incomplete quest, then you'll always have the "WHAT ? ME ? ABSURD !" knee-jerk reflex, that keeps you out of the realm where scrutiny is most important nowadays.