posted
But as the article states, they are discriminated against and live in segregation. What is truly shocking is they are the same race. In a way this is how I view all people. I believe there really is only one race. The noise I thought, was due to demographic differences and as you said, "scapegoats"
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posted
This is a terrible thing but since albinism isn't a race, I'm not sure how this relates to racism in any way. The people who are killing albinos for their body parts don't go after blond fair skinned people who aren't albinos.
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posted
Some are killed for parts but all are discriminated against for being light skinned. I would guess, a blond fair skinned person wouldn't fair to well living there either. I agree it isn't about race, especially since I consider the concept of race to be a social construct.
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posted
I don't see why you start your reply with "but". A group that's been used as in numerous villages as spiritual scapegoats for maladies and other mishaps could easily become the subject of general discrimination.
Also, racism isn't something that aligns on some scientifically-based racial lines. Those lines don't exist in genetic terms, even arguably, along the divisions argued by racists. Instead, the divisions used by racists are manufactured to satisfy discriminatory positions.
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posted
I agree completely that genetically there is no race. Even members of a given race have completely different views dependent upon their country of origin. In America within the African American community there is tension between light skinned and dark skinned blacks. I've heard comments like, "he thinks he's better because he's light skinned", etc. To be honest, I had an epiphany that I find truly saddening. For some it does boil down to the shade of one's skin color.
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quote:Some are killed for parts but all are discriminated against for being light skin.
No they aren't. That is a case of simplifying things to the point of absurdity. Even in these parts of Africa, blond haired, blue eyed fair skinned people of northern European ancestry are far more common that albinos and they aren't targeted for their white body parts.
They are discriminated against for having a birth defect. It's discrimination for sure but calling it racism is just ludicrous.
[ November 30, 2009, 08:58 AM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: I don't see why you start your reply with "but". A group that's been used as in numerous villages as spiritual scapegoats for maladies and other mishaps could easily become the subject of general discrimination.
Fugu, Did you read the article? There is nothing in it to suggest these people are being blamed for anything. They are being hunted for their body parts which are believed to have mystical powers. I'm not sure why you think "scapegoat" is an appropriate explanation.
People with birth defects of all sorts are discriminated against in almost every part of the world and its rarely because they are blamed for other maladies in society.
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posted
I agree with Rabbit, this is not racism it is simple human nature. An albino is an abnormality, differant and therefore unlike the others, one of the most obvious laws of history is that the minority suffers the will of the majority. And the greater the distance between the two the more vicious and inhumane the treatment.
That said, these people have lived in fear thier entire lives and hopefully the international eye can allieviate thier danger. But this is not a unique thing for we humans, its not even surprising to hear about in this day and age. I dont consider this much worse than pregnancies being aborted due to simple physical deformities, its one thing to a unique person but an entirely differant thing to be born wrong.
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posted
It isn't just that they are different. Albinism is a birth defect and a serious disability in any culture. Most albinos are legally blind, a point this article never mentions. The article mentions skin cancer but doesn't even broach the more serious immediate problems of sunburn.
If you are simply a fair skinned person like I am, you know that sunburn can be more than a minor irritation, it can be a debilitating injury. For an albino living in rural tropical Africa, sunburn would be a serious life limiting problem.
It isn't accurate to talk about these people as a race or even a minority group. They aren't a group in any normal sense of the word. The are people born with a serious disability. It is really tragic that their lives are being made even more difficult because of an evil superstition that is motivating people to hunt them. No question about that whatsoever.
But equating this with racism or xenophobia in general is just in accurate.
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Some are killed for parts but all are discriminated against for being light skinned. I would guess, a blond fair skinned person wouldn't fair to well living there either. I agree it isn't about race, especially since I consider the concept of race to be a social construct.
:sigh: You are so goddamn boring.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: I don't see why you start your reply with "but". A group that's been used as in numerous villages as spiritual scapegoats for maladies and other mishaps could easily become the subject of general discrimination.
Also, racism isn't something that aligns on some scientifically-based racial lines. Those lines don't exist in genetic terms, even arguably, along the divisions argued by racists. Instead, the divisions used by racists are manufactured to satisfy discriminatory positions.
AS a matter of fact, there is such deviations from the norm within each race that there hasn't been a scientific definition or true distinguishing characteristics that has been validated.
We are so much more alike than different that making scientific categories has been pretty much impossible so far.
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posted
I think it was an introductory anthropology class where I happened to read that visible difference between different ethnicities are so superficial that they actually begin to converge within one generation if two populations cohabit the same environment, even when they don't intermarry. For instance, studies show that East Asian descended peoples in California become less distinctly recognizable, so that a 2nd or 3rd generation Korean American and a 2nd or 3rd generation Chinese or Japanese American would be far less different than two people who grew up in those countries. I saw the same phenomenon first hand living in a majority Asian community- telling which Asian country people were descended from was much easier if they were actually foreign born- and for many reasons in addition to facial features and body shape.
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posted
my friend Bud is an albino. He's 18 and runs track with me and is pretty much normal except he rarely wears shortsleeves. His parents are black. We hang out a lot.
Damn I didn't know that albinoism was so common that there could be a problem like this in Africa.
posted
my friend Bud is an albino. He's 18 and runs track with me and is pretty much normal except he rarely wears shortsleeves. His parents are black. We hang out a lot.
Damn I didn't know that albinoism was so common that there could be a problem like this in Africa.
Yeah, that article doesn't seem to explain that- it actually seems to suggest that you might be wrong. Granted, it makes this suggestion based on a lack of information, and is a criticism of another work, not actual research. I also think it's rather shoddily thought out.
Here is thrusts into a rather odd bit of territory:
quote: The irony of it all is that the pet evolutionary theory of leftist and a believer in the genetic equality of all mankind, Stephen Jay Gould, may very well explain the evolution of significant genetic differences between the races in a relatively short amount of evolutionary time. His theory, "Punctuated Equilibria," postulates that a species changes rapidly as it comes into existence (i.e., diverges from the parent species), but quite slowly thereafter. 10 Why then couldn't human races have changed very quickly and very significantly in a short amount of evolutionary time as they came into existence? If, in one hundred generations, races of house sparrows evolved which have substantial genetic differences between them, then isn't it also possible that in hundreds of thousands or only tens of thousands of years races of humans could evolve with substantial genetic differences between them?
First of all, why the political commentary? He's discussing Gould's theory on the basis that it is valid or substantial, so why undermine Gould's motivations while doing so? Weird.
Then he misapplies the postulate, putting racial groups in place of species as they diverge from parent species. But in this paper he has admitted that human beings are one species, with as much or more genetic variation within races as between races. The reason, to answer his question, why human races could not have diverged as quickly from each other as humans did from other hominids is because humans are a species, within a relatively stable environment. The selection pressure he's talking about produces obvious visible differences, but there is not enough selection pressure to change very much else, other than single genes (he points out sickle-cell anemia). The time that saw us diverging from the other hominid species was a time in which we were discovering things that all human races know and can do- mastering fire, making music, developing language, adopting a more upright posture, being born earlier and earlier, and caring for more and more defenseless young, eating and cooking meat, and preparing other foods beyond the reach of other species. Those things made us change quickly, because they created enormous selection pressures within the population. Following those changes, things happened more slowly.
He seems to be dismissing the idea that the most visible differences, outward appearances, are the most fluid human characteristics, and can change very quickly while other features remain the same.
quote:Originally posted by LargeTuna: Damn I didn't know that albinoism was so common that there could be a problem like this in Africa.
I was going to say the same thing. The article states, "As many as 10,000 albinos are in hiding in east Africa." I had no idea there were that many albinos in the world.
posted
So if I'm white, and I marry a black person, but she's an albino, is that not interracial marriage anymore because it makes you white? Or is albino a new race entirely? I just want to get all this albino-racism stuff worked out.
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posted
Well, probably the kid would be half black, which would be... surprising if you thought the mom was white.
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quote:Originally posted by AchillesHeel: And the greater the distance between the two the more vicious and inhumane the treatment.
I think the CLOSER the distance between the two, the more vicious and inhumane the treatment. As is the case with these albinos. The only thing worse than being a minority is being a minority within a minority. Intolerance is most severe within the groups. Within groups, the stereotypes are self imposed and rigidly expected. IE Sarah Palin, a conservative African American or a white boy who sags his drawers and speaks ebonic. Just as I've heard blacks ridicule their own for speaking white, I am irritated by white boys speaking ebonic. Sarah Palin should be a role model of modern feminism alongside Hillary Clinton. You're not a traitor to your race if you vote for a member of another race (or for a party that 95% of your people oppose).
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quote:Originally posted by LargeTuna: Damn I didn't know that albinoism was so common that there could be a problem like this in Africa.
I was going to say the same thing. The article states, "As many as 10,000 albinos are in hiding in east Africa." I had no idea there were that many albinos in the world.
I looked it up, at there are estimated to be 200,000 albinos in the US or about 1/1500. So 10,000 in east Africa seems kind of low.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: ... For instance, studies show that East Asian descended peoples in California become less distinctly recognizable, so that a 2nd or 3rd generation Korean American and a 2nd or 3rd generation Chinese or Japanese American would be far less different than two people who grew up in those countries.
I'd be interested in those studies.
I've never really mixed up across country barriers, although inter-provincial guesses are still pretty tough for me.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Well, probably the kid would be half black, which would be... surprising if you thought the mom was white.
That wouldn't be likely. Albino African Americans do not look like caucasians.
That statement is too general to be accurate. Most African Americans have some European ancestry (most commonly filthy slave owner/rapist swine european ancestry but european none the less). As a result, many African Americans have quite European features. Consider for example Halle Berry. If she had the pale skin, blue eyes and blond hair of an albino, would you suspect she had African ancestry?
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posted
You are right. That is too general. I added a "necessarily" to my post above. I wanted to make clear, though, that it is not just a case of a change in pigment.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: The Rabbit: Yes. It is almost guaranteed
Bah!! Would you be willing to put money on it?
I wonder if we could get Tom to photoshop a bunch of pictures and see which ones "racial" identity you could pick out with their skin, hair and eye color changed.
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posted
No, I mean I suspect almost everyone of having African ancestry
(A thought occurs, if you're responding to a combination of my reply to you and my reply to Orincoro, you could play around with this)
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