Alternate human racial classifications?

WolfBear

Well-known member
Is there any realistic way that human racial classifications could have evolved differently throughout history? If so, how do we make this happen? For instance, I suspect that without Islam northern and southern Mediterranean peoples would be viewed as a single race, no? And without Christianity unifying most/all of Europe, would the concept of a white race have still developed?
 

Skallagrim

Well-known member
You can't really ignore that phenotypical differences that are caused by genotypical differencs (and are therefore consistently inherited, generation to generation) simply exist. Because of that fact, anyone who isn't literally fucking insane will immediately understand that racial groups exist. That they are not a matter of opinion or epistemological sophistry, but a product of ontological reality.

These groups are, however, "fuzzy at the edges". Humans travel and mix a lot, and have done so since long before civilisation was a factor.

There is only limited room for truly different classifications, without going way back and actually changing the admixture from an early point on. I think you can shift around how various sub-groups are classified, but nobody sane is going to look at a Frenchman, a Korean and a Zulu and think they're randomly interchangable.
 

Zyobot

Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
You can't really ignore that phenotypical differences that are caused by genotypical differencs (and are therefore consistently inherited, generation to generation) simply exist. Because of that fact, anyone who isn't literally fucking insane will immediately understand that racial groups exist. That they are not a matter of opinion or epistemological sophistry, but a product of ontological reality.

These groups are, however, "fuzzy at the edges". Humans travel and mix a lot, and have done so since long before civilisation was a factor.

There is only limited room for truly different classifications, without going way back and actually changing the admixture from an early point on. I think you can shift around how various sub-groups are classified, but nobody sane is going to look at a Frenchman, a Korean and a Zulu and think they're randomly interchangable.

As a person of color myself, it both amuses and grates me how the current crop of intellectuals blather that “Race is a social construct!” one moment, while at the same time, doctors and other medical outlets — though, perhaps, not realizing they’re doing it — tacitly acknowledge genetic differences between white and black peoples’ bone structure, susceptibility to certain diseases, and so on.

That, and even if they didn’t have a label for it and weren’t as fixated on it as Modern “scientific racists”, it goes without saying that the Ancients could easily see the same physical distinctions we do. Between Germans from the North, Canaanites from the East, and other peoples they’ve interacted with, it’s evident each of them had differing complexions, bodily proportions, and other physical traits that set them apart beyond just clothing or culture.

Biggest problem, I think, is that “certain people” take it to mean that discrimination or mistreatment based on race is therefore A-okay — as many bad actors across the centuries have a history of doing, time and time again. Hopefully, we’ll have some honest study of the issue after the woes of our age have passed, without bad actors to muck it up this time.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
As a person of color myself, it both amuses and grates me how the current crop of intellectuals blather that “Race is a social construct!” one moment, while at the same time, doctors and other medical outlets — though, perhaps, not realizing they’re doing it — tacitly acknowledge genetic differences between white and black peoples’ bone structure, susceptibility to certain diseases, and so on.

That, and even if they didn’t have a label for it and weren’t as fixated on it as Modern “scientific racists”, it goes without saying that the Ancients could easily see the same physical distinctions we do. Between Germans from the North, Canaanites from the East, and other peoples they’ve interacted with, it’s evident each of them had differing complexions, bodily proportions, and other physical traits that set them apart beyond just clothing or culture.

Biggest problem, I think, is that “certain people” take it to mean that discrimination or mistreatment based on race is therefore A-okay — as many bad actors across the centuries have a history of doing, time and time again. Hopefully, we’ll have some honest study of the issue after the woes of our age have passed, without bad actors to muck it up this time.

Apologies for asking, but what is your race?
 

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