"Bill"  wrote in message
news:1176822193.005445.271140{at}d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 16, 8:51 pm, "Carl"  wrote:
> > After the whole Imus event I was listening to the radio and I heard
someone
> > say that we've never had a national dialogue on race in this country.
It's
> > a comment I've heard quite often, but for some reason today I started
> > wondering about it.
> >
> > Exactly what do the people that make that statement want?  It's not as
if
> > race isn't brought up... people are talking about it all the time.  I
can't
> > think of many topics in which race isn't brought up.
> >
> > I'm not saying that we shouldn't discuss race. I'm just asking what
context
> > the people that bring up a "national dialogue" are talking about.
>
> IMO "national dialogue" is one of those phrases that sound fantastic
> but are ultimately meaningless. It seems that the people who throw
> that phrase around are usually the ones purporting to be the next
> great civil rights leader. I think referring to black, white, Asian,
> etc as different races is a mistake. Scientists only have one
> designation for the human animal, Homo Sapien. There's no such thing
> as Homo Sapien Caucasian or Homo Sapien Negroid or Homo Sapien
> Mongoloid. And no one can claim rights to Homo Superior.
>
> There's a small but growing number of people who have finally begun to
> understand that skin color is an accident of birth no different than
> hair or eye color. Fortunately, many of those people are here.
> Unfortunately, the majority people will always find some damn fool
> excuse to pigeonhole and divide themselves rather than unite. I know
> thats a very Russian sentiment. No surprise, since some of my ancestry
> comes from Kiev.

Scientific American had a pretty cool article about the subect of skin color
some time back.
Essentially its a survival mechanism to allow humans to survive in hot,
well-lit environments.

And with regards to pigeonholing.....I once asked an Indian friend of mne f
there was any real distinguishing characteristics between the castes of
India.......he told me there weren't. I other words, a fairly homogeneous
group, but still divided into 4 groups, the privileged Brahmin to
Untouchable.

>
> Bill
>
>


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