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Forum nameOkay Activist Archives
Topic subjectRE: biological race is not real
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=22&topic_id=3668&mesg_id=3681
3681, RE: biological race is not real
Posted by insanejake, Mon Oct-20-03 02:54 AM

In what way are traditions largely invented? How is culture invented like race was invented? Aren't all concepts invented, but they all reflect/describe the reality in some way. Some better than others.

I would agree that apart from empirical concepts such as pain, hunger and thirst, most concepts are invented.

So how shall one view the diversity of humanity?
What i like about using ethnicity as a guidance to viewing the world's diversity is because then I am norwegian rather than White, and my friend is a somali rather than Black.

This is exactly my point. Blackness as a tool is not very useful for understanding Black cultures where there are no White people. See my above post.

Instead it encourages the understanding of someone's identity ("he is somali") to a greater extent than what's the case with more generalized groups ("he is black").

Sure, but there arent many Africans in the US (this is where I get shot down I think) most people are descendants from slaves, bought over by white people. Here Black assumes a different significance, as it has a whole set of economic, historical cultural and political meanings that it would lack in a country full of black people (eg Somalia). Even in those countries I would still say black was a valid term when discussing relations between white Africans and Black Africans, for similar reasons as it is valid to discuss Black Americans.

Perhaps it wont transcend so easily, what i am saying and the way i see it, since norwegian culture doesn't have the use of black/white as you do in usa. (because of your history)

I suspect that Norway has its fair share of racists (correct me if I am wrong). Anyway, any Black people in Norway have only arrived there relatively recently (again, correct me if I am not right), meaning that the effects of the battles of blacks to fight for recognition in other countries had already spread to the socially accepting climate of Norway (see the last two brackets).