"Dan Holzman" <holzman at panix.com> wrote in message
news:anj32h$p8g$1 at panix1.panix.com...
> In article <8r7n9.14860$Kg4.1403015 at news20.bellglobal.com>,
> Parse Tree <parsetree at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> The biological basis for different skin colour is the amount of
> >> melanin in one's skin cells. There is no melanin content, however,
> >> above which one is "Black" and below which one is "White." There are
> >> "Black" people with lighter skin than mine. There are "Black" people
> >> with blonde hair and blue eyes.
> >
> >I have never met any, or heard about this. Is this like the Chinese
girls
> >with green eyes in Big Trouble in Little China? You do know they were
> >wearing coloured contacts, right?
>> Nothing like Chinese girls with green eyes.
>> The definition of "Black" is "anyone with a Black ancestor." Someone
> with seven German great grandparents and one African great grandparent
> is most likely going to be of the phenotype I described above, but
> their passport until very recently would have read "Black" and their
> birth certificate would have said "Octaroon." Alternately, someone
> with two Black parents, each of whom have White ancestors, has a
> non-zero chance of manifesting this phenotype.
I'm pretty sure Canadian passports don't list race in that respect. They
certainly don't have a question about it on the census. It's just
ethnicity.
> Along similar lines, there is a maximum number of generations back one
> can trace an American Indian ancestor to be considered one by the
> government. I think it's one's great grandparent, but I'm uncertain.
> That means that the child of an American Indian would be classified as
> not an American Indian by the BIA.
>> Around the turn of the century, Syrians were of the "Arabic" race, and
> therefore not permitted to immigrate to the US. Some Syrians
> challenged this in court and over the course of several years, Syrians
> went back and forth between being "White" and "Arabic."
>> In each case, what race one is a member of is defined by legislation
> or court ruling. There's no actual science behind any of this.
Except they have no power to do this. They have no ability to define what a
race is any more than they have to define an operating system.
> >> Similarly, there is no metric for facial structure (or any other
> >> biological feature) that can be used to accurately categorize people
> >> into "races."
> >
> >These are visual cues. There is no reason that things could not be
properly
> >categorized. The problem is simply that it has no importance, and that
it
> >is not PC.
>> These things are categorized all the time. There's simply no
> scientific basis for the categories. Scientists tried for years to
> categorize these things. Everything they've thought of to use to
> categorize these things has turned out not to work.
They should try harder. The fact that they haven't in no way indicates that
it is not possible. Our sense indicate that people are physically
different, in fact.