Dnews Youtube channel had an episode, stating that "race" is not a scientific existing reality. (Though they murmurered softly that ethnicity is). Their take is that "race" is a social construct. They then compared the whole then to "breeds" of dogs. There is no such thing as a "purebred" dog. In the end they are all just dogs. Breeds are simply dogs that have been breed from other breeds such that you can maintain a set characteristics within some constraint of bloodlines.
For me in the end, I could see their point, but it was still insulting. Humans have "bred" into bloodlines that carry some set of traits. That does not mean that the tendency for social groups to label them is any less "real".
That groups then attach generalities to whole swaths of other humans based race, is, in my book wrong. The same could be said of gender. It is a scientific FACT that all humans have as mammalian trait the need to categorize.. just about everything we meet in our existence. It generally rather serves us well and is one of the traits that separates us from all other forms of life on the planet. That this trait would be used by small minded or narrow minded individuals to either exclude a competitor or lift their meager self esteem is a given.
it is up to each of us to decide to buy into it (racism), and or question how much we let such notions effect our relations with other humans. As to me personally, being old and a father, I do wonder if I allowed gender bias affect my relationships with my son (age 17) and my daughter (age 23), or even with my own wife. Although I am a white man in the deep south, I feel on the whole my relations with other "races/ethnicity) reflects well on my life. Do I still generalize every so often? sure, I find most often I do so when there is a distinct lack of information. And as information comes in (meaning I meet others of some otherwise new to me race), I am much better checking those gut feelings to generalize. I think you would be extremely hard pressed to find anyone that knows me to characterize me as racist. Though I have met people I did not know ( from California) that ASSUMED I must racist. (She, a black woman asked if it was ok for us to be seated at the same table at a conference while in Salt Lake City Utah). ( of course also wanted to know if we had indoor plumbing, I didn't much like her)
As to self-identifying... that seems to be all the rage for gender and seems to be back-filling into race/ethnicity. What-ever. I guess I really don't care to argue about how one "self identifies". Some one can "S I" as an "fluid elf" for all I care... But doing so I reserve the RIGHT to revert to not having enough information and therefore to categorize all those that use that label until I have experience to remove my generalizations.
IE ... anyone self- identifiing as elf = MORON until I information that proves my gut categorization invalid. And thats my right.
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