Routing The Race Deniers (Not That They’ll Notice)

"In response to PBS's claim that, "Race is a modern idea. Ancient societies did not divide people according to physical differences…," Miele writes a definitive chapter showing,

"The art of the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, and China, and the Islamic civilization from AD 700 to 1400 shows that these societies classified the various peoples they encountered into broad racial groups. They sorted them based upon the same set of characteristics—skin color, hair form, and head shape—allegedly constructed by Europeans when they invented 'race' to justify colonialism and white supremacy."

... Rejecting the straw man argument that the existence of race would require a race for everyone and everyone in his race, Sarich and Miele call races "fuzzy sets." They write,

"Human races are not, and never were, distinct, mutually exclusive, Platonic entities into which every living person, unearthed skull, or set of bones could be pigeonholed."" [Ed: Emphases original]

Unfortunately, the rest of the site does not seem as lucid.


I find the fact that some people deny the existence of race amazing. Many trumpet the fact that genes vary more within races than between them.

Using this same logic, species don't exist either since genetic distances within species can overlap with those between species.

Fearing the implications and corollaries of facts does not mean you have to deny them and commit intellectual suicide.

[Addendum: Race may not be a clear cut thing, but it definitely exists, even if it's more a gradient than a collection of neat categories.

People of different races have different susceptibility to different illnesses, for example. And often, it is a convenient proxy for bureaucratic expediency, though all too often in the interests of expediency exceptions are forgotten.

Even if race is used to justify domination and discrimination, that does not mean that we should deny its existence. It's like saying that since Social Darwinism led to eugenics and the Holocaust, we should pretend that Evolution is bogus. Or that since nuclear research may be used for making weapons of mass destruction, we should then stop using nuclear. Even if the concept of race was totally useless, does that mean that we should tell a lie in order to prevent racial discrimination? Surely what we should do would be to educate people and show them why racial discrimination is wrong. And how many convenient lies could or should we then tell? And who would decide when lying was acceptable?]

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"[W]ith a bit of nerve, time and ingenuity, many rules can be dodged. A firm must by law have a physical (not electronic) file on every worker. Another Cracow technology company tracks its employees' activity using modern software, but keeps a paper-based system recording an entirely bogus reality where everyone arrives at 0800 and leaves at 1600.

The real routine—enthusiastically accepted by the well-paid staff—breaks both daily and weekly statutory limits on hours worked. But that's not the point. The harried manager explains, “When respectable executives in respectable companies are forced by lunatic legislation to break the law because it is impossible to run the company legally, they have to focus on issues that have nothing do to with competitiveness or adding value. It is extremely demotivating. Plus respect for politicians and administration crumbles and ‘thin end of the wedge' issues arise—if we are breaking some laws, where do we stop?”"

--- The Economist on Poland

This sounds like the SAF. Or indeed, any company or organisation which is ISO-certified.

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Vegetarian Shoes

"I had started to teach myself to make shoes four years earlier after leaving Art College. I was inspired to hear that in parts of Africa, car tyres were recycled into soles. This got me thinking and soon I was making shoes out of anything I could lay my hands on, but being veggie I didn't want to use leather.

Then I made an exciting discovery, -a synthetic Microfibre material used for yachting upholstery. It looked and felt like supple leather, but was 'breathable', unlike other plastics. After some experimenting, I realised that this was what I had been looking for, and Vegetarian Shoes was born."