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Is it Ok for Black Comedians to Bash Whites?

Is it OK for Blacks to Bash Whites for Comedy Purposes?

  • Yes

    Votes: 54 77.1%
  • No

    Votes: 16 22.9%

  • Total voters
    70
A computer program can sort people into racial groups by analyzing genetic material and these groups have near perfect overlap with the social meaning of race.


For each person in the study, the researchers examined 326 DNA regions that tend to vary between people. These regions are not necessarily within genes, but are simply genetic signposts on chromosomes that come in a variety of different forms at the same location.

Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group.

"This shows that people's self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background," Risch said.​

And what did the program say Obama was?

I am a programmer. Any program I write to sort things is going to sort them based on the definition of the categories I code. Of course, i would use the social meanings of the categories. That does not make the categories real in any way other than within the system that I had devised.
 
Evidence is not absolute proof. There is probable evidence for both sides of this question, as with most other scientific and philosophical questions.

According to one of my Mental Floss magazines, there was a man named James Watson, responsible for the discovery of DNA with a Nobel prize to boot. I know there's some controversy about him so whatever you dredge up about him to make him look bad won't surprise me. A man of science like him, who follows science, should not be punished if he speaks about whatever evidence science has provided.

To make it short, I don't refuse to consider scientific questions that may have scientific proof even if society will be incredibly offended by it. So what if blacks, as an overall average, has less intelligence? So what if the Chinese have slightly more average intellect? If science provides evidence, don't think I'll shut my mouth in hopes of not offending the ignorant.

I agree.

Where is the evidence? No one asked for absolute proof. You need compelling evidence and you have offered none.
 
And what did the program say Obama was?

His categorization is simply a function of how fuzzily your define the boundaries on black or on how many intermediate races you want to designate with respect to clines.

He'd be black. He's 50% East African, 50% white. If you want to place him finer, he's 50% Luo, 50% English. African Americans are, broadly speaking, about 80%-90% West African, 10%-20% white.

You haven't thought up some killer question here.

I am a programmer. Any program I write to sort things is going to sort them based on the definition of the categories I code. Of course, i would use the social meanings of the categories. That does not make the categories real in any way other than within the system that I had devised.

Sure it makes it real. If I put a socially defined black person into a racial category of "black" that person, if they have heart disease, has a far higher probability of having a more favorable response rate to BiDil than if I put a socially defined Cherokee into the "black" group and offer him BiDil to treat his heart disease or put a socially defined Swedish-American into the "black" group and offer him BiDil to treat his heart disease.

If race had no biologic meaning then the government would be wasting it's money reaching out to these imaginary racial groups with warnings about their biologically race-related predispositions to various diseases.

Black women have a far higher risk of developing ER- types of breast cancer compared to white women and Hispanic women and Asian women. Cancer, the last I heard, doesn't really pay attention to the social definition of race.
 
If race had no biologic meaning then the government would be wasting it's money reaching out to these imaginary racial groups with warnings about their biologically race-related predispositions to various diseases.

Black women have a far higher risk of developing ER- types of breast cancer compared to white women and Hispanic women and Asian women. Cancer, the last I heard, doesn't really pay attention to the social definition of race.
Hispanic isn't a race according to the government so if Hispanic women have a lower risk of developing certain types of diseases than black women it's not a "race-related predisposition".
 
Hispanic isn't a race according to the government so if Hispanic women have a lower risk of developing certain types of diseases than black women it's not a "race-related predisposition".

Good point. Spaniards are hispanic. Argentinians are hispanic. Why would they be racially considered the same as Mexicans, but not racially the same as Sicilians, for example.
 
tessaesque said:
That is not the same as "there is no biological difference that could be defined as "race"", which is essentially what you said. The passage I quoted clearly states that a specific portion of DNA shows a large enough commonality amongst those we socially classify as belonging to one race or another.

How many races are there? List them, please.
 
His categorization is simply a function of how fuzzily your define the boundaries on black or on how many intermediate races you want to designate with respect to clines.

He'd be black. He's 50% East African, 50% white. If you want to place him finer, he's 50% Luo, 50% English. African Americans are, broadly speaking, about 80%-90% West African, 10%-20% white.

You haven't thought up some killer question here.

Just a very illuminating question that shows how arbitrary the whole definition of "race" is.


Sure it makes it real. If I put a socially defined black person into a racial category of "black" that person, if they have heart disease, has a far higher probability of having a more favorable response rate to BiDil than if I put a socially defined Cherokee into the "black" group and offer him BiDil to treat his heart disease or put a socially defined Swedish-American into the "black" group and offer him BiDil to treat his heart disease.

If race had no biologic meaning then the government would be wasting it's money reaching out to these imaginary racial groups with warnings about their biologically race-related predispositions to various diseases.

Black women have a far higher risk of developing ER- types of breast cancer compared to white women and Hispanic women and Asian women. Cancer, the last I heard, doesn't really pay attention to the social definition of race.


Cancer doesn't pay attention to social definition of race, but researchers of cancer do. RStringfield brought up a great point that the model results reflect the input by the modellers. The researcher input the social construct "race" into the model, and out come the correlation. A correct understand of the result is not that black women are more likely to get that type of cancer, but that a woman with a certain genetic mutation is more likely to get that type of cancer, and that what we describe as Black women are more likely to have that genetic mutation. Being White, or Hispanics or Asian, does not make a woman who has this genetic mutation less likely to get the cancer than a Black woman.
 
Just a very illuminating question that shows how arbitrary the whole definition of "race" is.

Apparently it is a scientific rule that if you're 50% black and 50% white, you're automatically black. I'd love to see the science behind that law...
 
Apparently it is a scientific rule that if you're 50% black and 50% white, you're automatically black. I'd love to see the science behind that law...

worse than that, in many places you were "legally" black if you were 1/8th black
 
What world do you guys live in that "white = 0" or "whiteness is negatively defined"? Are you guys kidding me? Thousands of years of history is laughing at these three comments in a row. I do not think they make a violin small enough for this party.
 
What world do you guys live in that "white = 0" or "whiteness is negatively defined"? Are you guys kidding me? Thousands of years of history is laughing at these three comments in a row. I do not think they make a violin small enough for this party.

They were jokes. Why so serious? :2razz:
 
What world do you guys live in that "white = 0" or "whiteness is negatively defined"? Are you guys kidding me? Thousands of years of history is laughing at these three comments in a row. I do not think they make a violin small enough for this party.

Should we interpret the claim that Obama is black genetically like this: "Whites do not pass on their genetic material to their half-race children (unless they look white enough to be White)"?
 
Oh come now. It was a pity party for being white. I prefer self-deprecating jokes over "omg my life sucks" jokes.

:rofl Look at the people who made those jokes and what they've been arguing in this thread and then reassess your analysis accordingly.

Hell, I'm of the Louis CK school of thought, when it comes to being white.
 
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Hell, I'm of the Louis CK school of thought, when it comes to being white.

all you darkies can keep your affirmative action, minority scholarships, govt cheese, etc. I'm riding out this white thing, see how far it takes me.
 
Hispanic isn't a race according to the government so if Hispanic women have a lower risk of developing certain types of diseases than black women it's not a "race-related predisposition".

You're funny. You're also a great scientist - you've discovered the first group of people who exist apart from race. You should publish this finding. For some reason the government doesn't want to categorize Hispanics as Mestizos and Mulattos.
 
Just a very illuminating question that shows how arbitrary the whole definition of "race" is.

The boundaries between colors are also arbitrarily defined. Does that mean that the color yellow doesn't convey information when referenced?

The researcher input the social construct "race" into the model, and out come the correlation. A correct understand of the result is not that black women are more likely to get that type of cancer, but that a woman with a certain genetic mutation is more likely to get that type of cancer, and that what we describe as Black women are more likely to have that genetic mutation. Being White, or Hispanics or Asian, does not make a woman who has this genetic mutation less likely to get the cancer than a Black woman.

Your argument borders on tautology. You refer to race a s social construct and then detail a situation where the researchers inputs this piece of socially constructed knowledge into a model and out comes the correlation. The whole notion of social construction is that it is divorced from any physical reality. If tomorrow we decided that every liberal would hence forth be socially classified as black and every conservatives would henceforth be socially classified as white, then the breast cancer model would lose all predictive value because when the researcher input "black" as the race of the woman who was being tested the model wouldn't be referencing any real genetic basis.

So clearly, when researchers are inputting a socially derived classification of black into the diagnostic model that socially derived racially classification is a.) outputting useful data from the model, and b.) the social classification is capturing the real genetic basis of race.
 
You're funny. You're also a great scientist - you've discovered the first group of people who exist apart from race. You should publish this finding. For some reason the government doesn't want to categorize Hispanics as Mestizos and Mulattos.
Did you notice that in my response to you, I critiqued your argument and your argument only. The only thing you could manage to do was personally attack me through sarcasm. It's never a good sign when the only response you have to another person's point is a personal attack.

I'll say it again: Hispanic isn't a race according to the government. Therefore, your example about "race-related" diseases is flawed because you used a group of people that is NOT considered a race by the very organization you claim is "reaching out to racial groups". This has two implications: First, race is not as clear cut as you try to make it seem as evidenced by the fact you consider Hispanic a race and the government doesn't. Second, the differences in susceptibility to diseases that you listed with black vs. Hispanic women are NOT race-related differences.
 
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