Darkwing Duck
Well-Known Member
Ok, sounds good. When someone tells me they are black or asian or otherwise different than I am, I will go ahead and tell them they are not, and that they are exactly the same as me, because Darkwing Duck told me that is the case. Apparently you know enough about every single human on earth to tell me that there are no heritable traits that make anyone else distinct from any other person.
I thought you didn't want black as a race to be part of the conversation? Was I wrong there? Is it back in?
In any case, if that individual has training or schooling in human biology, and has knowledge of this thread, that person will ask you why you're erecting a straw man.
I implore you to define a specific race with the definition you supplied. Make up a race if you want to. I think I have an idea what you mean when you use population. What you'll find is when you use specific traits together, there will be other individuals outside that population that have those traits, and if you go general, there will be no reasonable determining line separating those of that race and those not of that race.
Back to that hypothetical individual, when that person tells you he/she is black, ask them how they define being black. Will he/she use biologically terminology to differentiate the most obvious trait (since a color is used as the name of the race), like I have 87% melanin content or comparative measures, like "my skin is darker than others." In the U.S., many will attribute "being black," to adhering to cultural expectancies. Thus, they're using race culturally, so, not unsurprisingly as it's been used already by people who seem to understand and have studied biology in some way, shape or form, as a social construct.
But please, again, try to do so biologically. Define a race. When you look at the entire genotype instead of just the phenotype, you'll likely find more diversity outside of the phenotype than within it. And if you're determined to ONLY use the phenotype to define a race, then what purpose would it show? For instance, if you identify with "white," there are other "white" people you can and cannot receive blood from, and that percentage isn't going to change when you look at those identifying with "black" on whether you, the white person, can receive blood from. So defining race using only the phenotype has no impact on biology whatsoever, leaving race defined by phenotype useful only in the cultural setting, making it, yet again, a characteristic of a social construct.