A qucik question aobut racism.

[belfpala]

I think a lot of the conversation here is misguided, ignoring some realities.

The concept of "race" was around long before modern genetics and biology. When we speak of "race" we mean phenotype, not genotype (edit: I don't know the word for "race" in any other language... it might have different meanings depending what language you speak). We use the word "breed" for domesticated animals. We now understand that the genetic differences are completely insignificant, but if you can project a bit, you might also understand how people 50, 100, 300 years ago wouldn't think the same way.

You also have the (unfortunate?) fact that, for various reasons, Europeans entered their golden age at just same time that global trade and colonization became possible. When they encountered people of different phenotypes who were also technologically inferior and culturally different, all of those concepts became intertwined. You can't really take that out of the equation.

Anyway, to me, a better definition of racism is something like: noticing phenotype differences in another person and treating that person differently from how you would treat a person who looked more like yourself.

[Deleted]

First and foremost there is only one race, that being the human race.. Now there are a lot of ethenic groups/ethnies/ethnic categories, which are to describe both physical appearance and group ideals. Categorization of humans into whites, blacks , asians, mexicans, native americans....is meaningless when we are genetically the same. Now I do agree that in order to organize ourselves we need to "tag" different communities and habits under different labels. Some people would agree it is wrong to label someone. But stereotypes are more than common and and are until certain point a help to us, even that sometimes they are misleading... - "blondes are dumb" - nowdays people don't treat it like that but darker hair colors tend to have more zinc and copper, white hair is low on copper, "ginger people" for instance have high levels of zinc. That's part of what we are and that has nothing to do with the so called "racism". In order to explain this term I would have to tell you about human history since day 1, our ancestors, which happen to be the same. Makes a lot more sense to talk about discrimination.

Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership - or perceived membership - in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. It involves excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to other groups.

DISCRIMINATION
Your religion, race, height, nationality, and even your gender are factors that most people make quick judgments about. Unfortunately, many of these judgments are based on biases and assumptions.

Discrimination by Type

Age
Disability
Equal Pay/Compensation
Genetic Information
National Origin
Pregnancy
Race/Color
Religion
Retaliation
Sex
Sexual Harassment