Racism...Forever?

My wife and I (non-bikers both) were in Sturgis for the 50th rally. We were coming back from a summer in Yellowstone and got a hotel room in some random badlands village because a family found out that their were a bunch of bikers in the hotel and they cancelled on the spot. We got their room by being their at the right time, otherwise we probably would've had to drive to Mitchel, home of the Corn Palace.

Visiting Wall Drug is one thing. Visiting Wall Drug when it's full of Biker's that's a trip.

Oh, and the bikers in the hotel were much better behaved than the college students we'd been lodging with for the previous two months.

oh, wait: I actually came here to post this book review from Salon that argues that genetics undermines "scientific racism" of the sort that Charles Murray occasionally indulges in...

https://www.salon.com/2017/10/18/how-genetics-undermines-scientific-arguments-for-racism/

Only a handful of genes out of 20,000 influence all the skin tones available to human beings. The most comprehensive study of the genes involved in pigmentation was published last week, led by Sarah Tishkoff from the University of Pennsylvania. Modern techniques in genomics have made it easier and easier to sample huge proportions of our genetic code in thousands of people. Tishkoff and her team did exactly that on the hunt for genes that influence skin pigmentation. They looked at the DNA of more than 1500 living people from 10 different ethnic groups in Botswana, Tanzania and Ethiopia. They found eight genes that account for 29 percent of the variation they observed in skin tones (if that doesn’t seem like much, in these sorts of studies, 29 percent is in fact huge; much of the rest of the variation will be accounted for in many far less common — and therefore more difficult to detect — genes).

The genes themselves are mostly unsurprising. We’ve known about those elements of DNA involved in skin color for a few years now, but primarily in relation to lighter skin and Europeans. The variation in the African samples is definitely surprising. Studies from only a couple of years ago showed that hunter gatherer populations in Europe had dark skin 8000 years ago, but that light skinned (and blue-eyed) variants of several genes were found in the remains of 7700 year-old bodies found in Sweden. Pale skin is associated with living in cooler, less sunny climates, where the body’s efficiency in producing vitamin D is impeded – the closer your evolution occurred to the equator, the more likely you are to have darker skin. Tishkoff’s survey of African genomes revealed a much more complex story. They saw genetic variants for lighter colored skin in both Europeans and in the San hunter-gatherers in Botswana. The origin of that DNA appears to be a very ancient 900,000 years ago, meaning that it predates even the oldest inception of Homo sapiens – us – by more than half a million years. They saw versions of both in the Neanderthals, from whom we split some 600,000 years ago (but rekindled our sexual relationships in Europe around 40,000 years ago). They suggest that Neanderthals probably also had a mix of different skin color genes and that some were dark skinned and some were pale.

The new paper also suggests that some genetic variants in South Asia may have been inherited from African people, and similarly, some pale skinned genes also may well have originated in Africa.​

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That would give up the game, wouldn't it?

But no. I have protested enough this year. I'm going to the beach this weekend.

 

And now back to your regularly scheduled racism:

https://www.facebook.com/WrightStateDemocrats/posts/1725056014233903

 

3,000 people in Evanston tonight for a Ta-Nehisi Coates talk, the venue seated 2,000. The left is just itching for the next election.

Nobody could listen to Coates and dispute that the major part of Trump's appeal was white supremacism. Of course, the GOP doesn't want to hear that sort of thing, so they don't engage him.

HIs strongest point of the night was in pointing that every week (if not day) Donald Trump does things that would have disqualified Barack Obama, and to a large extent also Hillary Clinton, for the Presidency. Advocate violence. Get caught out in a lie. Insult and belittle. As he says, being a rich white male is sufficient -- nothing more is asked of that person to prove himself. For those who not all of those three things, on the other hand, the challenges are constant. They are scrutinized and tested in a fashion that Donald Trump never has been, and never will be.

 

That's not very insightful. We've been noting that since long before the election. Maybe he lurks on this forum?

 

In Jackson Mississippi, a school named after Jefferson Davis is being renamed.

The new honoree?

This guy:

 

Strongest in the sense of most rhetorically effective and convincing. He delivered the point very well. There was nothing in his content that hasn't been discussed on this board, nor could there be. He was communicating with a broad audience, not a handful of bs nerds.

 

Know what will inevitably follow? Sharia Law!

 

Did he mention how the crack epidemic was handled (harshly, criminally) vs. the opioid epidemic now (compassionately, millions for treatment)?

Chris Christie has now hung his hat at the end of his failure as a governor on opioid recovery. He wanted to basically rob Horizon BlueCross/BlueShields reserves to pay for it. That didn't fly. But he's on TV & radio 24/7 touting recovery centers. So he found the money somewhere.

 

Yes, he did.

That was part of an argument that I don't think we've talked about much here, which is thatin treating white and black populations differently, government institutions (federal, state, local) have systematically "plundered" citizens of color. They pay taxes according to the same code as do other citizens, but the proceeds of those taxes are directed away from them, and are disproportionately allocated toward the white majority.

Thus, it would be fair and reasonable for those government institutions to pay reparations, to compensate people of color for that which the institutions took away from them.

 

That's the nickname of the sports team. Well, technically, it's the Obama Sharia Lawyers

Oh, and they're replacing football and baseball with soccer and cricket.

 

OK, you might be too young to remember, but black congressmen were all for that.

If you want to argue that not amending the policy later was racist, make that argument. But trying to argue the initial policy was racist is a fool's errand.

 

I think @soccernutter has brought it up.

 

Crack (city) vs powder (sons/daughters of congressmen & other rich people) sentencing was unequal too. Not sure black congressmen supported that.

 

Well, they did.

 

Putting aside the question of whether what you're saying about the small number of black people in Congress at the time is true . . .so what? How would their support for a discriminatory policy make it not racist?

 

In the what the fvck were you thinking dude file.

And well this always sets people off.

So he is not going to be charged with a hate crime?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...n-michigan-university/?utm_term=.1e5a416f9642