I'm done with race - listen to this

[QuentinSummers]

Brilliant radio programme about identity politics. It is one of the most powerful things i have ever listened to and really resonated with me as a white woman too.
They talk about who benefits by arbitrarily categorizing people based on a descriptor (whether that's skin colour, biological sex or anything else).
Would love to hear more from these guys but in the meantime I'm identifying as human every time I get asked what I identify with.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09sn7ym

Skin tone?
Hair texture?
Hair colour?
Eye shape?
There is no "physical difference" at all?

I should have said more may be.
There is more variation within "races" than there is across "races" so it's not possible to reliably categorise people into races based on those variations.
It's a bit like trying to categorise personality traits into male and female - there is so much overlap between the two sexes that it is pointless.
Doesn't stop humans from trying and applying stupid stereotypes though.

Do you think it would be as likely for a baby with two native Japanese parents to be born with black skin and afro hair?

No. That's not the point though. The point is that kinky curly hair is not only found in the African "race" for want of a better phrase. Therefore it's not a way to categorise humans reliably.

Riverside2
Francine, I asked if you'd prefer that information to "men" not "Asian men".

I would prefer more detailed information than less. The term Asian men is jot helpful at all because it impugns other minorities in those towns and gives prejudiced people the chance to say "They're all the same to me".

QuentinSummers
Therefore it's not a way to categorise humans reliably.

Please describe any person, living or dead, famous or not - without using any kind of category.

I'm obviously either not being clear or you have some kind of agenda I don't understand.

Of course you need descriptors for people. But those descriptors don't necessarily categorise people into a race.

So let me ask you - How would you describe the Pakistani "race" in such a way that it included all people of that race and excluded all other humans?

I don't think you can.

Scientists spent quite a lot of effort trying to categorise people in this way before realising it was not possible. That's What o was referring to earlier.

I'm not sure what's going on here but I'm not responding to you any more because it's derailing the thread.

Pakistani is not a race. It's a nationality (or in the case above, a national origin). The press however decided almost universally to use the term "Asian" to describe these men. As if their parents coming from a country which just happened to be one of 48+ countries that make up the largest continent on Earth had anything at all to do with what they had done. This gave ammunition to Racists who now use "Asian" as a catch-all / "code" to malign anyone with a brown skin. They know they can't use the even shorter word they would prefer to use. So the media have allowed them to say "See, it's these Asians that are the problem".

Ok. What is a race in your view francine?

Race is a concept used in the categorization of humans into groups, called races or racial groups, based on combinations of shared physical traits, ancestry, genetics, and social or cultural traits

Ok. And based on that, what are valid races in your view francine? And how would you categorise them?

Francine "Race is a concept used in the categorization of humans into groups, called races or racial groups, based on combinations of shared physical traits, ancestry, genetics, and social or cultural traits"

so a longer description of "pointless social construct" then?