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You can take medical images in various different modalities, you can even mask off either the high-frequency or low-frequency spatial data, and use a machine learning classifier to reliably determine self-described race. Race is real, and it is pervasive.
I said "first of all" but so far responses have been fixating on this point rather than the broader point that modern racism doesn't back-extrapolate to history very well at all. That's presentism. Modern racism has at best very imperfect analogies historically (at the very least, pre-industrial ones). I just want to register my annoyance that I'm being argued with on a point that's not germane to the topic I was trying to refute.
What you say is true! Any categorization algorithm, which usually involves some kind of "cutoff" that is chosen, is inherently subject to a confusion matrix with its accompanying tradeoffs. Right? You have false positives, true positives, false negatives, true negatives. To continue that analogy, in the modern world, the tradeoffs are actually kind of large. Total model "accuracy" hits unacceptably low numbers, in my opinion, because of how many blurred borderline cases there are, resulting in miscategorizations of various types. So I guess what I was trying to say is that people have currently 'latched on' to race because of its salience in the political conversation, but it's a poor tool for the job. So sure, race as a categorization algorithm "works" to some extent, and so in that sense it's "real", but we shouldn't be in the habit of substituting models of reality for actual reality. That's the sense by which I call it "not real" - it works (kinda sorta) but it isn't a true depiction of reality. A lot of people especially on this forum go around pretending that race is a Big Deal, and are the equivalent of the gender essentialists (which I actually kind of am) but for race (which I am definitely not). But gender is like, obviously and self-evidently a Big Deal, and race is... well, it just isn't. Not by itself!
This is why I always try and insist that we should have different conversations for issues of race (broad category that, critically intersects with a lot of more-potent things like culture, social status, economics, etc that we might as well discuss more directly!) than we do for issues of discrimination (where we debate and talk about ethics and how they intersect with practical reality and probability) because otherwise everyone always ends up at cross-purposes.
If your foundation is built on shifting sand, your point collapses; no need to deal specifically with the upper stories.
The rest of the reply is just blowing smoke. That race can be determined with high accuracy based on varied physical characteristics which don't measure the usual things we associate with race (skin color, facial features) demonstrates that race 'exists'. No, it does not matter that the technique is not perfect; that something cannot be measured perfectly does not mean it does not exist.
If race does not exist, it is clearly not a Big Deal (by any reasonable definition). If race does exist, it is not proven to be a Big Deal -- but the possibility still exists. You haven't shown it's not a Big Deal. You "insist" on making that assumption, but it is unsupported.
Oh please, why don't you try and apply some reading comprehension, eh?
The definition of race is relevant only because the original claim - "racism is the default state of humanity" invokes it indirectly (you can't have racism without race). The obvious implication is that by racism they meant our current definition, and as I demonstrated, the current definition doesn't apply to the past very well at all. Thus the claim is false.
If you want to be incredibly pedantic about race not existing, fine, let me rephrase: race is fundamentally incapable of being defined with any kind of real rigor. Happy?
We still have to recognize that (the modern idea of) race has more of the properties of a social construct than it does the properties of some innate, rigorous, underlying biological truth. Sure, fine, it exists on a continuum or something, but this is very much a "category made for man, not man for the categories" kind of situation. The fact most data collection about them is done via self-identification is more revealing that it would at first appear. The fact that even a single mixed-race child doesn't fit in either category is revealing. The fact that you somehow think that race can be determined with high accuracy based on physical features also belies how you've been psy-opped by modern society into putting great faith into something fundamentally illogical - it leads to the opinion that race is purely determined and exclusively defined in terms of how others see you. That's contradictory!
Babies at 2 years old, if exposed only to people of one race, will respond to people from another race differently.
They have their own category. Words like "mulatto", "quadroon", "octoroon" exist.
Perhaps to you. How would you define a quadroon? In Japan the term used is (quarter) クオーター which refers to a Japanese person who had one grandparent who is non-Japanese (in other words, if they had a non-Japanese parent they would be half (ハーフ) thus the non-Japanese grandparent splits it more finely.
I have always found this odd because, in the same way as the terms you list above--which I have only ever used in reference to black influence on whites--in Japan the terms are only used for white influence on Japanese. In other words when a child has a black (or otherwise non-white) grandparent or parent here they are typically not referred to as half / ハーフ. Or if they are, there is a specific mention of 黒人 (or black) or maybe Chinese or Korean or whatever (but these people are typically just referred to as Chinese or Korean, regardless of Japanese parentage.) In conversation if you were to hear someone say "She is haafu" you would assume that her mother or father is white. Not black, not Southeast Asian, Pakistani, or whatever.
I'm curious how you personally use the terms you list, if you do use them. I haven't heard the words (quadroon, etc.) uttered out loud unironically ever in my life, and I was born and raised in more or less rural Alabama, and both sets of grandparents regularly used the term "nigger" though notably (to me) neither of my parents ever said the word within my earshot and wouldn't allow it said in the house (by me or my brother.) Of course we couldn't swear, either, and get away with it.
I'm also interested in your claim about babies. Is that from a sociological study? If so, could you produce it? I have noticed many--not all of course, but many--on this site are quick to reject all sociology (or other soft science) as hookum, until of course a study pops up which reinforces an idea that is not a progressive talking point. The conclusion itself, in any case, would not be particularly surprising, and I'm not sure what it is you are suggesting that, if generally true, it indicates. After three years living in the Kalahari I remember looking at staff photos and having a mild jarring sensation when I saw how much my own white face stood out, how clearly different I was in appearance to my colleagues. I would imagine the starkness of difference would be relevant to the babies with whom this study was conducted. In other words, could you show a Japanese baby a Korean woman or, to get a bit further afield, a Nepalese woman, and have the baby "respond differently"? I assure you many Japanese would consider the Korean and Nepalese a different race entirely to Japanese. Though you are of course free to argue with them.
That is unnecessarily antagonstic.
It's completely normal for language to have words with same roots have different meanings. In Russian, babushka means grandmother, and in Japanese it means headscarf. So does it means that these concepts are totally fake? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend
If a society has a lot of people having some specific mix of ancestries, people will invent word of them. Why would you expect every society to have word for any mix?
So far ruling elites succeeded in purging these words but not eliminating achievement gap. I could ask you also how often your parents used "social construct" for anything.
Why? I would argue with your framing. It's wrong framing.
No it's not.
It is, and then he violated "Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said." and changes from "I'm curious how you personally use the terms you list, if you do use them. " to "I don't care if you use the terms you've suggested"
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