quote:Olmos announced exclusively to the comedy show that three weeks ago the UN changed their charter to ensure that they will never use the word ‘race’ to identify a specific culture. The word ‘race’ will now only be used in context of one race – the Human Race.
The actual videos of the UN Panel are visible HERE.
The UN Charter isn't changed overnight, and there hasn't been "official" confirmation on this, but it would be a hell of an accomplishment.
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posted
It sounds a bit hard to amend the charter though, unless he's referring to something more unofficial
The amendment procedure seems to be here
quote:CHAPTER XVIII: AMENDMENTS Article 108
Amendments to the present Charter shall come into force for all Members of the United Nations when they have been adopted by a vote of two thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United Nations, including all the permanent members of the Security Council. Article 109
1. A General Conference of the Members of the United Nations for the purpose of reviewing the present Charter may be held at a date and place to be fixed by a two-thirds vote of the members of the General Assembly and by a vote of any nine members of the Security Council. Each Member of the United Nations shall have one vote in the conference. 2. Any alteration of the present Charter recommended by a two-thirds vote of the conference shall take effect when ratified in accordance with their respective constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United Nations including all the permanent members of the Security Council. 3. If such a conference has not been held before the tenth annual session of the General Assembly following the coming into force of the present Charter, the proposal to call such a conference shall be placed on the agenda of that session of the General Assembly, and the conference shall be held if so decided by a majority vote of the members of the General Assembly and by a vote of any seven members of the Security Council.
Plus according to Google, the word race appears three times but only in the context of anti-discrimination clauses like (for example):
quote:The General Assembly shall initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of: ... b. promoting international co-operation in the economic, social, cultural, educational, and health fields, and assisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
quote:promoting international co-operation in the economic, social, cultural, educational, and health fields, and assisting in the realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.
posted
So... what if you have two peoples with basically the same culture but different races and one is oppressing the other? How does the UN deal with that now?
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posted
I think the idea is that people can't be of different races... as there's only the one. Though that strikes me more as a species than a race.
Are they going to add in "without distinction as to skin color" or "without distinction as to physical appearance" to account for the removal of race?
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: I think the idea is that people can't be of different races... as there's only the one. Though that strikes me more as a species than a race.
Are they going to add in "without distinction as to skin color" or "without distinction as to physical appearance" to account for the removal of race?
Ethnicity. Historically, it's not the same thing as race, even though we tend to use the two words interchangeably. The first accounts for culture, while the second implies a biological difference which doesn't exist.
posted
I'm curious about people from the same culture who are of different skin tones. For instance, lighter-skinned black vs. darker-skinned black? Or blonde-haired-blue-eyed white vs. dark-hair-brown-eyed white?
Also, how long does one need to be assimilated into a group to become part of their culture? Can they ever become part of their ethnicity?
What if an asian child is adopted as a baby to an hispanic family? Their culture would be hispanic, while they would certainly be "different" enough to be discriminated against.
While race is an imperfect fit for a word, I'd think we'd need something that is larger than ethnicity/culture.
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posted
Also, biological differences do exist on an aesthetic level. I'm sure there are a few genetic markers that determine the physical differences between Shaquille O'Neal and Carrot Top (i.e. skin and hair color).
Those differences aren't tied to culture/ethnicity, but instead are tied to genes passed down from their biological parents.
I don't think race is a good word to describe this, especially when taking into account those who are born of parents of different backgrounds. But I don't think ethnicity does it, either.
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quote:Originally posted by FlyingCow: I'm curious about people from the same culture who are of different skin tones. For instance, lighter-skinned black vs. darker-skinned black? Or blonde-haired-blue-eyed white vs. dark-hair-brown-eyed white?
Also, how long does one need to be assimilated into a group to become part of their culture? Can they ever become part of their ethnicity?
What if an asian child is adopted as a baby to an hispanic family? Their culture would be hispanic, while they would certainly be "different" enough to be discriminated against.
While race is an imperfect fit for a word, I'd think we'd need something that is larger than ethnicity/culture.
Race as we think of it today is a relatively modern invention. We did just fine without it for a long time. I don't see why we couldn't do just as well without it today.
However, I have to wonder how much changing the theoretical definition of race will really impact world society at large.
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posted
Race is by no means a modern invention. The word may be, but the self v. other dichotomy among groups has existed for a very long time.
Groups have been enslaved, slaughtered, persecuted, etc, because of their group-specific differences. We've been calling those group-specific differences "races" for a while now, but it's a very faulty term.
While it was surely possible at one point that nearly everyone neatly fell into a distinct racial group that shared certain physical characteristics, the boundaries of those arbitrary racial groups have grown very fuzzy... and the distinctions among the subgroups within those arbitrary boundaries has moved more to the fore.
But people are discriminated against due to superficial indicators that are used to prejudge them based on stereotypes of others with similar superficial indicators.
When talking about the nature of such discrimination, it is important to have verbiage. "Race" is insufficient. "Ethnicity" is culturally based, not appearance-based. I don't have a good alternative, either.
Though I do agree that changing the theoretical definition of race will likely have very minimal impact on society at large.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: So... what if you have two peoples with basically the same culture but different races and one is oppressing the other? How does the UN deal with that now?
quote:So... what if you have two peoples with basically the same culture but different races and one is oppressing the other? How does the UN deal with that now?
What do you mean by race?
What characteristics or values go into defining those people of different races that don't have ethnic, religious, or nationalistic roots? All you have left is appearance, and that is not important.
While yes, there are people who are blue eyed and brown eyed people in the same state. Yet the color of their eyes has practically no impact on their lives.
While some people will "look" more oriental, African, or -- yes even "Jewish" those looks don't define them culturally, religiously, or nationally.
Where this can be important is in stomping out Racism, but stomping out the idea of race. I like that idea. Every racist has begun their propaganda against the "other" with the idea that the "other" is trying to destroy the good guys.
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Mauve: There will always be an other. When you eliminate THEM, you start to find the THEM in the US. It is a *very* unfortunate aspect to human nature. Religion, gender, ethnicity, sexuality... We're always sorting ourselves.
(I am a THEM, to most people.)
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quote:From FlyingCow: Race is by no means a modern invention. The word may be, but the self v. other dichotomy among groups has existed for a very long time.
I never said race was a modern invention.
I said race as we think of it today. You might still disagree with that, but it's a different issue. Race and nationality, or race and regionality used to be far more intertwined than they are today, where race and physical description are far more intertwined than other explanatory evidence used for grouping.
Yeah, that's different around the world, as American ideas on race are different from African ideas on race, etc. But much of what we think of as race today is, relatively, modern. Racial grouping hasn't been static throughout history in its structure and application.
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quote:Race and nationality, or race and regionality used to be far more intertwined than they are today, where race and physical description are far more intertwined than other explanatory evidence used for grouping.
True. I understand better what you meant, now.
I still feel that those distinctions are becoming less useful, though. I've taught lots of kids whose parents were of different backgrounds, e.g. black/white, white/asian, latino/indian, etc. And when those kids marry and have kids of their own, there are even more blurry racial lines, e.g. when a child of asian/white parents marries a child of black/latino parents.
I think that goes beyond culture/ethnicity. It goes beyond current definitions of race, too.
Yet, discrimination exists - not necessarily because a person is of race "x" but because they look different. If we pull the word "race" out of the language against discrimination, what replaces it to account for those who simply "look different"?
Race is a very imprecise term.
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I think most people who are on the outside at least have a group of other people on the outside who they are like. That is, they might be a "THEM" to others, but have a small but significant group of "US" to which they belong...
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posted
The concept of race - a brightline, biologically-determined distinct set of physical features that groups humans into a handful of distinct racial types - is certainly a modern invention: see for example the SEP article on race or the Social Science Research Council's website on race. I recommend the second very highly if you want multiple perspectives on the biological underpinnings (or lack thereof) of race.
It's kinda amusing that this topic came up on hatrack, since I just published a blog post on the topic. I write about race (and the tendency to categorize and generalize) a fair amount, since it comes up a lot on my blog's niche.
I suspect that race as basic categorization in individual interaction is going to be superseded within the next 50 years by the chosen markers such as clothing that display ethnicity and subcultures one affiliates with. One reason for that is the increased number of biracial or multiracial adults - racial distinctions become less useful when you can't determine what group to stick a large number of people in. The other reason is that I think overarching culture - around the world & in the US - is becoming more homogenized, but subcultures are becoming more prominent. A hipster can be any color, basically. A really cool article on this topic is Tyler Cowen's Creative Destruction (opens a word doc).
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Pixie, I don't doubt that there will always be "Us versus The Other". What I am suggesting is that "race" be dropped as one way to define "the Other" as it becomes more useless.
Then of course we still have Straight vs Gay, Christian vs Atheist, Jewish vs Islamic, Catholic vs Lutheran, East vs West, Republican vs Democrat, Rich vs Poor, Educated vs Uneducated (street smart) and about 10,000,000 more ways of dividing all the dreaded "Them" from the ever virtuous "Us."
All this Us vs Them makes me want to write up my personal philosophy--The Tao of the 3rd Path. It states, "When asked to choose between A or B always choose 4" and "All dichotomies are false dichotomies."
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posted
What about Clan or Tribe? Those terms seem more useful if you really feel the need to seperate people out by their ancestry.
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