Let's pretend that races could be precisely determined. Is membership of a race determinant of a behavioral characteristic? Criminal/oppressor/oppressed characteristics?
In the case of discrimination and persecution of blacks, the angst over which ripped the nation and world apart in 2020 with BLM 'mostly peaceful' riots. And with calls for black reparations. How would genetic testing for membership of a black race deal with the problem of Asante/Ashanti. What are those terms?
They were the slave-trading black tribes who captured and sold slaves to European and Arab slavers. A practice that still continues to this day. Blacks who believe they are better than other blacks, royals, rulers over other all others.
Remember the Kente Cloth's worn by all of the D's in the US Capitol during the Summer of Love Beatification of St George in 2020? They Kente signified much more than what most thought. Despite USA Today's best efforts to reshape/reframe the narrative that the Kente cloth has lost its original significance by quoting false narratives made by the race hustlers the truth still comes out about the Kente cloths and what they signify:
Fact check: Yes, Kente cloths were historically worn by empire involved in West African slave trade
Kente cloth comes from the Asante, or Ashanti, peoples of Ghana and Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo.
A popular legend claims creators of kente cloth presented the cloth to Asantehene Osei Tutu, the Asante kingdom's first leader. Tutu named the cloth “kente,” meaning basket, and adopted the fabric as a royal cloth for special occasions.
The Asante and slave trade
Tutu, who lived from 1660 to 1712 or 1717, unified several small Asante kingdoms to create the Asante empire. He is credited with expanding the Asante throughout most of Ghana and introducing his subjects to the gold and slave trades along the West African coast.
Cape Coast Castle is a fortress used to confine Africans in Ghana before they were shipped abroad in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Between 1513 and the end of the 19th century, when the slave trade ended, some 24 million Africans were shipped to the Americas by English, Portuguese, French and Dutch traders.
The Asante supplied British and Dutch traders with slaves in exchange for firearms, which they used to expand their empire. Slaves were often acquired as tributes from smaller states or captured during war. Some slaves were brought across the Atlantic whiles others stayed in Africa to work in gold fields.
According to the BBC, by the end of the 18th century, the region exported an estimated 6,000-7,000 slaves per year."
"Kente is an Akan royal and sacred cloth worn only in times of extreme importance and is the cloth of kings and nobility"
Note: Kamala Harris's black ancestors were Asante. (her Indian ancestors were similarly Brahmin nobility.) The Virgin Islands intemperate, churlish black Marxist racist congressional delegate, Stacey Plaskett comes from Asante lineage. As does Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.
Some of the loudest, nastiest race-baiting provocateurs in politics are Asante. Descendants of the black enslavers themselves. The ones who hunted down, captured and sold other blacks. And *they're* the ones demanding reparations based on membership of a race?! Without regard for the *actions* of their ancestors who are most responsible for the injury they are demanding reparations for.
No. The entire notion of race as a class that gives all members of it the same characteristics without regard to the individual actions of members exercising their own free will to do good or bad acts is a sham. We are to be judged by our works, not our membership of any tribe.
Dr. Jordan Peterson argued that endlessly subdividing groups by identity leads to an infinite regress, where distinctions become so fragmented that they lose practical meaning. Subdividing groups like black and white down to where there is no more room to keep going will lead to so large a set that no one short of an anthropologist, sociologists or historian will be willing to adhere to that.
You say "Using them [white and black] as a basis for identity or politics is as absurd as sorting books by their cover color". I say it's absurd to expect society to instead divide those down in the hundreds, possibly thousands, of individual groups that you seem to imply needs to be done to get %100 accuracy. It is also absurd to think people are going to stop using "white" and "black" as they have been so trying to argue they should will be as effective as arguing with a wall.
Most KNOW that the term BLACK and WHITE does not mean that all within each are identical clones of the same mindset. The statements made about these however are applicable to enough within each that it's an acceptable compromise.
There is radically more genetic diversity among Africans than the rest of humankind combined. But our perceptual discriminations are such that we lump anyone not looking a lot like us. “Black” as used by people refers to basically nothing genetic. No natural kind. (It does sometimes refer to a real cultural kind, of course.)
Let's pretend that races could be precisely determined. Is membership of a race determinant of a behavioral characteristic? Criminal/oppressor/oppressed characteristics?
In the case of discrimination and persecution of blacks, the angst over which ripped the nation and world apart in 2020 with BLM 'mostly peaceful' riots. And with calls for black reparations. How would genetic testing for membership of a black race deal with the problem of Asante/Ashanti. What are those terms?
They were the slave-trading black tribes who captured and sold slaves to European and Arab slavers. A practice that still continues to this day. Blacks who believe they are better than other blacks, royals, rulers over other all others.
Remember the Kente Cloth's worn by all of the D's in the US Capitol during the Summer of Love Beatification of St George in 2020? They Kente signified much more than what most thought. Despite USA Today's best efforts to reshape/reframe the narrative that the Kente cloth has lost its original significance by quoting false narratives made by the race hustlers the truth still comes out about the Kente cloths and what they signify:
Fact check: Yes, Kente cloths were historically worn by empire involved in West African slave trade
USA Today, June 16, 2020
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/16/fact-check-kente-cloths-have-ties-west-african-slave-trade/5345941002/
"The origin of kente cloth
Kente cloth comes from the Asante, or Ashanti, peoples of Ghana and Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo.
A popular legend claims creators of kente cloth presented the cloth to Asantehene Osei Tutu, the Asante kingdom's first leader. Tutu named the cloth “kente,” meaning basket, and adopted the fabric as a royal cloth for special occasions.
The Asante and slave trade
Tutu, who lived from 1660 to 1712 or 1717, unified several small Asante kingdoms to create the Asante empire. He is credited with expanding the Asante throughout most of Ghana and introducing his subjects to the gold and slave trades along the West African coast.
Cape Coast Castle is a fortress used to confine Africans in Ghana before they were shipped abroad in the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Between 1513 and the end of the 19th century, when the slave trade ended, some 24 million Africans were shipped to the Americas by English, Portuguese, French and Dutch traders.
The Asante supplied British and Dutch traders with slaves in exchange for firearms, which they used to expand their empire. Slaves were often acquired as tributes from smaller states or captured during war. Some slaves were brought across the Atlantic whiles others stayed in Africa to work in gold fields.
According to the BBC, by the end of the 18th century, the region exported an estimated 6,000-7,000 slaves per year."
More:
https://afrolegends.com/2013/08/15/kente-cloth-an-ashanti-tradition-dating-centuries-back/
"Kente is an Akan royal and sacred cloth worn only in times of extreme importance and is the cloth of kings and nobility"
Note: Kamala Harris's black ancestors were Asante. (her Indian ancestors were similarly Brahmin nobility.) The Virgin Islands intemperate, churlish black Marxist racist congressional delegate, Stacey Plaskett comes from Asante lineage. As does Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett.
Some of the loudest, nastiest race-baiting provocateurs in politics are Asante. Descendants of the black enslavers themselves. The ones who hunted down, captured and sold other blacks. And *they're* the ones demanding reparations based on membership of a race?! Without regard for the *actions* of their ancestors who are most responsible for the injury they are demanding reparations for.
No. The entire notion of race as a class that gives all members of it the same characteristics without regard to the individual actions of members exercising their own free will to do good or bad acts is a sham. We are to be judged by our works, not our membership of any tribe.
Dr. Jordan Peterson argued that endlessly subdividing groups by identity leads to an infinite regress, where distinctions become so fragmented that they lose practical meaning. Subdividing groups like black and white down to where there is no more room to keep going will lead to so large a set that no one short of an anthropologist, sociologists or historian will be willing to adhere to that.
You say "Using them [white and black] as a basis for identity or politics is as absurd as sorting books by their cover color". I say it's absurd to expect society to instead divide those down in the hundreds, possibly thousands, of individual groups that you seem to imply needs to be done to get %100 accuracy. It is also absurd to think people are going to stop using "white" and "black" as they have been so trying to argue they should will be as effective as arguing with a wall.
Most KNOW that the term BLACK and WHITE does not mean that all within each are identical clones of the same mindset. The statements made about these however are applicable to enough within each that it's an acceptable compromise.
There is radically more genetic diversity among Africans than the rest of humankind combined. But our perceptual discriminations are such that we lump anyone not looking a lot like us. “Black” as used by people refers to basically nothing genetic. No natural kind. (It does sometimes refer to a real cultural kind, of course.)
Great insight.