The concept of race has its roots in Christian Nationalist views of "inferior" people
The concept of race has its roots in Christian Nationalist views of "inferior" people
Race has been a slippery and misused concept throughout history. Here's a look at its origin and its "scientific" justifications for discrimination.
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Article titles like these always feel like a bit of a stretch. I would think the concept of race would extend as far back as homo sapiens vs neanderthals.
Obviously race is also a part of Christianity, but if I remember correctly the most relevant thing Jesus said about race is that salvation wasn't just for the Jews and that God's love extended to everyone. Weird how far off track Christianity can get when used as a populist tool for oppression.
I mean… not really. Neanderthals were a distinct species and were far more genetically distinct than any modern human populations are from each other. There isn’t any scientifically valid definition of race that remotely resembles its use in common parlance. Certainly different cultures exist. But we don’t define race by culture exactly. Different physical traits exist as well, but they often overlap between different races, so they don’t completely define race either.
Race is an artificial amalgam of different concepts used to rank people hierarchically. It isn’t real in any physical sense, but only exists as an idea to justify stratifications on society.
The comment I'm replying to is not merely opinion, by the way; it's the widely shared consensus in modern biology and anthropology.
Neanderthals weren't a distinct species otherwise we couldn't have interbred with them.
Nah, species do interbreed. That they can't is a myth
Whether some populations breed true "in the wild" defines species. In the real world this is seriously muddy, but that's beside the point.
Some people have argued they were a subspecies instead for this reason. But I didn’t want to get into that because it doesn’t change the overall picture. Whatever you want to call them, they’re far more distinct than human races today. Races aren’t distinct enough to be labeled at any taxonomic level that’s used to describe distinct taxonomic groups within non-human species. This didn’t stop early racist thinkers from trying, but the picture has become clear after more than a century of scientific research on the topic
But yeah the difference between species and subspecies can be a bit fuzzy as well. We used to define species such that they couldn’t interbreed, but then we learned that lots of clearly distinct species can interbreed too.
In some cases, species can be maintained by natural selection rather than reproductive barriers. A classic example is oak trees. Many oak species can easily cross with their close relatives and do so very frequently. However, since each species is adapted to a different ecological niche, the hybrids end up in ecological no-mans land, doing worse than either pure parent in their respective habitats. Because of this, they rarely reach maturity or contribute much to the gene pool, and the species remain distinct.
However, in some very specific environments they can, and this has been very important for oak evolution since it allows entire clusters of species to occasionally share genes, aiding in their evolution. This is thought to be one reason why oaks have adapted to almost every temperate treed environment in North America.
Christianity doesn't follow Jesus; it follows Paul. The "Christ" part is marketing.
Too true! If you actually pay attention the later fan fiction (letters to the churches) doesn’t match up with what Jesus was recorded saying by Matt, Mark, Luke and John but especially John. But of course the people who claim to follow the Bible seem to rarely read and contemplate it.
It just struck me -
Ironically enough, in a way, these stories are essentially a retelling of Adam's fall from grace, just with some of the details changed.
The basic gist of the story is identical - humans were living in a state of grace right up until the moment that the evil [serpent/christian nationalists/etc.] corrupted them with [knowledge/racism/etc.].
Though I don't feel it myself, there must be some common gut level appeal to that whole idea.
(edited for clarity)
My own take is that the story of Adam is simply intended to teach us that self awareness means you are capable of acting against your own self interest; the greater your "knowledge", the greater your capacity for "sin". Whether as an individual or a community. But some sexist bigots managed to somehow make it a story about the evil nature of women instead, which is total bull.
So yeah, that's gonna be a very universal idea.
Yep! I always understood the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil to be the Christian mythology's explaination for the birth of consciousness. Once you're conscious of the concepts of right and wrong you'll be capable of feeling shame for your mistakes.
Throwing Eve under the bus is a real beta move.
Yeah, that's a cool observation and it makes sense. There's an idea that there's really only one "story", which is the hero's journey. I think it might be a fundamental way of how people frame their experiences and observations.
Probably back to at least the cambrian explosion (which was caused by predators finally showing up.)
Even before predators, with everything being relatively peaceful, tribalism would still give evolutionary advantage; by ensuring your team got resources.
The concept of race definitely came from the concept of “other”, with our understanding of “other” expanding as we became increasingly social.
But it’s still there, under the surface. Which is why it’s so damn hard to stamp out…. And why the repukes are trying so damn hard to otherwise LGBTQ- it triggers tribalism and fear of the other and they don’t have anything else.
Why start so late? Matter and antimatter.