Comments on: in the comments below aziz makes referen…

By: razib

razib — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:08:27 +0000

well, i have talked to people about the possibilities of cosmetic skin bleaching.

By: aziz

aziz — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:36:03 +0000

well, as you know genetics is not my field – i was just snarking in the thread (though i used google to make my snark more substantive).

however the idea appeals to me, not because I think it would reduce prejudice overall, but more because it would be a fun monkey wrench to throw into the works. What prejudices tere are would have to be channeled into other avenues, but the interesting thing about that is that very few other avenues are as static as race and skin color. religions, facial features, etc all are pretty fluid, and can even be changed by the individual if desired. but skin color is pretty much restricted to what you were born with plus or minus a few shades depending on your sun exposure.

it would be a fascinatingly different world in terms of how innate human conflict is distrbuted if skin color was less of a factor. i dont think the overall level fo rejudice would be reduced, but teh contribution from skin color probably would be.

By: razib

razib — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:54:45 +0000

btw, re: my last point. the original post had some commentary by me on intramuslim racism. so the reference to western racism wouldn’t address that even. there’s plenty of textual evidence on how arabs viewed blacks during the golden age of islam (e.g., see my earlier post in regards to a rebellion of white mamlukes after black military slaves were placed above them), or how the turkic, persian or pashtun muslims of south asia viewed the “black” indian converts during the mughal period (the colloquial skin color categories in north india seem to have emerged during this period, in part to distinguish white muslims from black ones).

By: razib

razib — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:43:09 +0000

Contemporary racism has very little to do with psychology and a great deal to do with history and power

racism is an instantiation of a general tendency. i’ve talked elsewhere of the peculiarities of modern western racism having to do with its specific history, but even this is not sui generis, so i won’t repeat myself. i find most “post-colonial discourse” on this topic rather overly simplistic honestly. everything is shoehorned into the theory, kind of “orthodox” marxists.

By: plimfix

plimfix — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:34:51 +0000

“on a more general note, it seems that “groupishness” is probably “baked into the cake” when it comes to our species etc”

Contemporary racism has very little to do with psychology and a great deal to do with history and power: Lentin, A. (2008) Racism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: One World) ; Fanon, F. (1952/1986) Black Skin, White Masks (London: Pluto Press); Kundnani, A. (2007) The End of Tolerance: Racism in 21st Century Britain (London: Pluto Press); McClintock, A. (1994) Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (London: Routledge); Sardar, Z., Nandy, A. & Davies, M. W. (1993) Barbaric Others: A manifesto on western racism (London: Pluto) etc etc