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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Rahkyt (here)
    Greetings, PA.

    I'm sharing this post because it is an historical and thoughtful exploration of what is currently going on in the USA right now, under the tenure of Jeff Sessions as the Attorney General of the United States. There are A LOT of links here. Many of them from historical and uploaded government documents as well as other articles detailing whatever aspect of the main article is being referenced by the hyperlink. I would appreciate cogent and detailed criticism of the article and its points leading to direct discussion of the points raised pertaining to any dissent.

    I recognize that many of the links are MSM. If there are challenges to the accuracy of those articles, I'm ready to entertain discussion about them. The purpose of this post is to clarify what one perspective of our current situation is in regards to Civil Rights and what exactly the general AltCom vision is to Civil Rights and what alternatives might be raised by those in this community who don't appreciate what has been going on historically in this area, but who are NOT racist or seeking to regress back to some point where black and brown people are enslaved by whites to service and inferior social and economic status.

    I think this is important, right now, in order to differentiate between what the MSM has called the Alt Right and what is a more accepting and less White Nationalist vision of the present and future. This conception, is the Alt Community that I belonged to for years and that I've been pining for now, for a couple of years. I don't think it has gone, it is still present, but it is being overridden in the public eye by a view of the Alternative that is being associated with racism and hate.

    That is NOT the folks I have known for years here in PA but, in order to move forward, it is important to differentiate HOW the view here is different. I proffer this article and its characterization of Jeff Sessions and his initiatives, for discussion.

    From my personal perspective, I see the creation of what I call "Fortress/Apartheid America", which is a state-by-state retrenchment and consolidation of economic and political power in preparation for the upcoming demographic shift, in which the white national majority will be equaled by a combined minority population. In my estimation, it is an effort doomed to failure by sheer dint of its overt, fear-based nature. The violence and repression that may accompany this period in our history will forever be imprinted upon our collective consciousness moving forward, IF it gets to that extreme. I believe it does not have to, yet. What do y'all think?



    The End of Civil Rights

    Across immigration, policing, criminal justice, and voting rights, the attorney general is pushing an agenda that could erase many of the legal gains of modern America's defining movement.

    The fires on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, had barely stopped burning when the Department of Justice released an extraordinary report on the city’s police department. In the findings of the 2015 investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division detailed how a municipality had built its social contract on a slow-rolling racist heist. Activists hoped that the Ferguson report—which was prompted by the 2014 police killing of an unarmed black teenager and found that police conduct had “severely damaged the relationship between African Americans and the Ferguson Police Department”—would not only change the city, but would signal that the United States was finally willing to confront the legacy of white supremacy. The Ferguson City Council reluctantly agreed to a consent decree with the DOJ that would overhaul city policing. Federal courts rejected voter-suppression schemes and reaffirmed affirmative action. Movements from Black Lives Matter to LGBTQ advocacy saw an opportunity to broaden the national civil-rights agenda.

    Then Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III took over.
    Well, Rahkyt, I started out reading the article you've posted, but soon realized that it was quite a lengthy piece. So, before going any further with the reading, I decided to go look at the journalist that wrote this piece. And, trust me, I did spend a bit of time skimming over some of his past articles that he'd written.

    Vann R. Newkirk II @fivefiths
    After doing that, I decided to look & see at whatever Twitter tweets would reveal about this man. As, what one tweets can go a bit more deeper and can often reveal more clearly of what this particular individual is about, rather than what can be revealed from an article provided by a 'supposed' upstanding publication - such as one of which The Atlantic would like to promote itself to be. This, of course, would demand a journalist to dot his i's & to cross one's t's - in other words, one would have to be on one's best behavior for an article to be accepted for publication.

    And unfortunately, from what I found, it seems to me that any notion to which The End of Civil Rights article would have its basis grounded on, it is obvious that this basis had already been predecided upon many years in advance of the date of publication of the above article provided by The Atlantic that you've posted.

    This, unfortunately, short-circuits any want or desire to continue reading this man's work, let alone seeing any benefit that would be derived from engaging in such an activity of talking about what he had written. The bias on which this article was written runs pretty deep with this particular so-called 'journalist'.

    Notice that the tweets are dated years before Trump announced his run for the presidency.

    Best regards...
    turiya









    Last edited by turiya; 23rd June 2018 at 21:49.

  2. Link to Post #182
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    Default Re: Racism

    Rahkyt;

    All legit questions as far as I can see here. But layers are many. This onion keeps getting thicker and thicker. Europe will never change but by force or war. Being a person of any color but white in Europe will not guarantee you a prosperous life. You may live nicely and thrive in certain big metro cities, but you will never be fully embraced as long as you have Asian or African or South American features. But interestingly enough in USA white Europeans are embracing others a bit more. But my point here is that white people in Europe are aware acutely of their heritage and language and culture and whoever is trying to change this, they resist, heck they even despise American culture deeming it peasant like and low class, I hear this often when few drinks were drunk, and people are looser.

    Europe will not accept Africa in the sense of mixing of the blood, but in all other ways, it is accepting. What I find interesting living in USA is that Blacks don't treat me like other white Americans. They treat me much better and with respect and we talk openly about all. But the minute there is white American in the mix, the energy shifts. I can only speculate why is that.

    But I always had this inner feeling that whenever I speak with a man of different color, I treat him like a man, so I guess they feel not stigmatized hence the relaxed attitude.
    I openly ask them: " Why do you call yourselves niggers? That is idiotic, first of all, but second - you don't allow anyone else but a black person to call you like that, why is that, double standards or what?"

    When I openly and without hesitation ask them in the presence of other whites and blacks, I see odd reactions. Namely white women pretend shocked and cover their open mouths in the faux shock, blacks are stopped in their tracks because nobody asked them this... so the quality conversation starts and I remember this black guy from Chicago felt relieved and said that finally, someone asks this because he hates how other blacks call him a nigga. That is rude and he doesn't want to be called like that by anyone.

    Then I got so many friends among blacks afterwards.

    I felt kinda strange because for me it is normal not to insult anyone and not to be hypocritical even within your own folks.


    So to finally cut to the chase, the point is racism comes from ignorance. You cannot hate if you are in the knowledge. Thus this reverse racism of blacks to whites is not going to help blacks in the long run just like whites who were racist to blacks were not going anywhere with this. The worst thing to do nowadays because of fear of backlash is to favor all of a sudden certain races just to keep things politically correct. Just look at the Asians, they never complain but they advance despite obstacles. Whites kinda of slowed down in progress but advanced in this guilt transfer, Blacks are stuck in their shouts for yesterday and today.

    Make your voice count by being a man, by being of virtue and class, by being good and wise and with heart and soul, then no one will care if you are white or black or yellow or brown or red, you will be looked upon as human.
    Last edited by Beren; 24th June 2018 at 01:40.
    Love, love - and see what happens

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  4. Link to Post #183
    United States Avalon Member Mark's Avatar
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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by DNA (here)
    Alex has also speculated that according to his sources Jeff Sessions has had some affiliation with the KKK in his younger days while growing up in the South and that this is the dirt the deep state is holding over his head. Alex has proven to me that he does in fact have some pretty legit sources with the intelligence and military community. Nothing concrete here but I just thought I would throw that out there.
    Thanks for sharing that, DNA. I don't listen to Alex often but he does just live right up the street from me in Austin and I do agree that he is indeed receiving information from sources familiar with the backstage maneuverings of political and military actors involved in the current shake-ups. Overt association that he can't deny would still be career-ending for Sessions, even in the current political milieu. The pressure for him to resign would be too great for him to resist or be protected from. Beyond political association, it seems that a goodly proportion of Americans want us to move forward into a more equitable society and to put the institutionalized aspect of the racial divide finally and fully behind us.

    I believe this is true of the world in general. Because of the nature of my understanding of reality and the times, it is incumbent upon us to work through this period of upheaval honoring all visions of a future potentiality, because it is only by being presented with ALL OF THE CHOICES that people can make informed decisions. With the "coming out of the closet" of the Alt Community - which I primarily credit Mr. Trump with having facilitated in this particular phase of our cultural and societal evolution - more people are being exposed to more information that allows them to make informed decisions and that can be nothing but "good". Simultaneous to the "good" is what some would consider the "bad", which would be the virulence of xenophobia, which never disappeared but only went underground in a sense, hidden by a flimsy veneer of language and enforced cultural preferences that protected the institutionalized benefits that have been built into the system since the 16th century and have been honed and perfected in the centuries since.

    This microcosmic example, of the USA, in its current throes of dysfunction, are actually representative of a functional process of actualizing a way of being that has not existed upon this planet in this Age. A way that is still theoretical, but that is coming closer and closer to reality with each day. A way that is fearsome and paradigm-ending for many, which is why "these things must be". And we are the ones to live this. What a blessing, eh? And curse, simultaneously.
    Last edited by Mark; 27th June 2018 at 18:03. Reason: grammar

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    Default Re: Racism

    One Common Ancestor Behind Blue Eyes

    January 31, 2008

    People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research.

    A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before then, there were no blue eyes.

    "Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.

    The mutation affected the so-called OCA2 gene, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to our hair, eyes and skin.

    "A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a 'switch,' which literally 'turned off' the ability to produce brown eyes," Eiberg said.

    The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue.

    If the OCA2 gene had been completely shut down, our hair, eyes and skin would be melanin-less, a condition known as albinism.

    "It's exactly what I sort of expected to see from what we know about selection around this area," said John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referring to the study results regarding the OCA2 gene. Hawks was not involved in the current study.

    Baby blues

    Eiberg and his team examined DNA from mitochondria, the cells' energy-making structures, of blue-eyed individuals in countries including Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. This genetic material comes from females, so it can trace maternal lineages.

    They specifically looked at sequences of DNA on the OCA2 gene and the genetic mutation associated with turning down melanin production.

    Over the course of several generations, segments of ancestral DNA get shuffled so that individuals have varying sequences. Some of these segments, however, that haven't been reshuffled are called haplotypes. If a group of individuals shares long haplotypes, that means the sequence arose relatively recently in our human ancestors. The DNA sequence didn't have enough time to get mixed up.

    "What they were able to show is that the people who have blue eyes in Denmark, as far as Jordan, these people all have this same haplotype, they all have exactly the same gene changes that are all linked to this one mutation that makes eyes blue," Hawks said in a telephone interview.

    Melanin switch

    The mutation is what regulates the OCA2 switch for melanin production. And depending on the amount of melanin in the iris, a person can end up with eye color ranging from brown to green. Brown-eyed individuals have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production. But they found that blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes.

    "Out of 800 persons we have only found one person which didn't fit — but his eye color was blue with a single brown spot," Eiberg told LiveScience, referring to the finding that blue-eyed individuals all had the same sequence of DNA linked with melanin production.

    "From this we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor," Eiberg said. "They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA." Eiberg and his colleagues detailed their study in the Jan. 3 online edition of the journal Human Genetics.

    That genetic switch somehow spread throughout Europe and now other parts of the world.

    "The question really is, 'Why did we go from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago to having 20 or 40 percent of Europeans having blue eyes now?" Hawks said. "This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids."

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by turiya (here)
    And unfortunately, from what I found, it seems to me that any notion to which The End of Civil Rights article would have its basis grounded on, it is obvious that this basis had already been predecided upon many years in advance of the date of publication of the above article provided by The Atlantic that you've posted.

    This, unfortunately, short-circuits any want or desire to continue reading this man's work, let alone seeing any benefit that would be derived from engaging in such an activity of talking about what he had written. The bias on which this article was written runs pretty deep with this particular so-called 'journalist'.
    Turiya, thanks for sharing those twitter quotes. It is amazing to me how many people use that particular venue to vent what are obviously in-the-moment, emotional flare-ups that would have been best left unsaid, or at least, stated in less inflammatory and civil language. I must admit I did not look up the author, nor his background but I am not surprised by his statements as, 1) from his appearance he is very obviously of the Hip Hop generations and that is just how they talk in general and, 2), he has an apparent distaste for the current POTUS, which many people do.

    I'm disappointed that you did not see fit to actually read the article, as I took quite a long time to format it and accurately share the links, which, to me, are the heart and soul of the piece. The young man actually took some time to back up his statements with historical articles and documents that are beyond political affiliation and animus and he actually refrains from such lingo or statements in his write-up and shares the facts with a minimum of hyperbole. If you could take the time to read what was actually written, as it is a very serious topic on an issue of generational importance here in the USA, it would be greatly appreciated. I would like to engage with you on the merits of the history and our current trajectory, rather than this, what I would call, an aside to the deeper and more meaningful implications. Thanks in advance, if you choose to take up my challenge. If not, thanks for your comment and research!

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    Default Re: Racism

    Hello, Beren. So much you comment on, lol, I'm afraid I'm going to have to answer you in detail.

    Quote Posted by Beren (here)
    Europe will never change but by force or war. Being a person of any color but white in Europe will not guarantee you a prosperous life. You may live nicely and thrive in certain big metro cities, but you will never be fully embraced as long as you have Asian or African or South American features.
    Ok, this was the gist of my primary question regarding change, when and if. There have been very successful and metropolitan cultures on the Mediterranean, historically. We can look at ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia or even Greece for such examples, where the proximity to the world's crossroads allowed people to constantly interact with those who did not look or act like them. Some of these civilizations existed in such a state for many thousands of years. Why were they able to do it and modern Europe cannot?

    In other words, since you say that "Europe will never change but by force or war", why is that? Is it culture? Or something deeper?

    Quote Posted by Beren (here)
    But interestingly enough in USA white Europeans are embracing others a bit more.
    For this one, I'm going to share a quote by the black American comedian, Chris Rock in an article he wrote for VOX:

    Quote When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before…

    So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he's the first black person that is qualified to be president. That's not black progress. That's white progress. There's been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship's improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, "Oh, he stopped punching her in the face." It's not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner’s relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn't. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let's hope America keeps producing nicer white people.
    The quote is a bit dated - from 2016 - but I think the sentiment is one that echoes what you mention above when you state that "...USA white Europeans are embracing others a bit more." When the Founders of the United States wrote their Declaration of Independence and Constitution, despite the fact that a good number of them were slave-owning at the time, they understood that this nation was something new upon the face of the earth. At first, and until 1809 or thereabouts when it was made illegal to import enslaved Africans into the continental USA, the strictures of the racial hierarchy were fully understood to include European White Males only in the compact of universal brotherhood and belonging to this land and they deliberately called it the Great Experiment. It took from the late 1800s until the mid-1900s for white women and members of the Global Majority - and American minority - to gain access, at least nominally, to those same rights.

    I continuously return to this understanding because I believe that they fully knew the implications of their documents and what the future held for this nation, once, inevitably, the enslaved descendants of those Africans were freed and became part of the polity and cultural life of the nation. That it meant integration. That it meant miscegenation. That it meant that America would produce progressively "nicer white people" because they were no longer locked up in Europe by glaciers and distance, far away from the lands that brown and black people inhabited. Instead, for generations, the ruling class and some substantial number of nouveau riche bourgeois and working class whites had their children nursed by blacks and browns and reds and yellows, were exposed to them on a daily basis, ruled over them and lived with them, sometimes working alongside them, marrying them, having children with them, coming eventually and over a relatively short period of time to love them and know them.

    Love/Hate is a function of relative proximity and subjective interpretation of meaning and, as is colloquially understood, there is a thin line between them both. Hate is not the opposite of love, indifference is, according to someone famous. Hate is, instead, an expression of intensity of connection as the subject of that emotion is inordinately important to the one experiencing it, much as is someone they love.



    Quote Posted by Beren (here)
    But my point here is that white people in Europe are aware acutely of their heritage and language and culture and whoever is trying to change this, they resist, heck they even despise American culture deeming it peasant like and low class, I hear this often when few drinks were drunk, and people are looser.
    So European culture is superior, then, as a common understanding? Is this because it is unsullied by the cultures of those they deem lesser, like red, brown and black folk? More pure?

    Quote Posted by Beren (here)
    What I find interesting living in USA is that Blacks don't treat me like other white Americans. They treat me much better and with respect and we talk openly about all. But the minute there is white American in the mix, the energy shifts. I can only speculate why is that.
    Black Americans find Europeans to be more direct and less filled with the kinds of ingrained beliefs in superiority than white Americans. Since I lived in Europe for almost 5 years, I know this is not true. The difference really is that American racism's "flavor" is more intimate than is European racism to black Americans. It is comprised of hundreds of years of knowledge and interaction at the most intimate of levels and speaks directly to an epigenetic understanding shared by both black and white Americans that is literally "in the genes" at this point. The genetic mutation is shared on both sides, but still oppositional, the trauma of the oppressed and the oppressor, encoded in interactions in a way that is not so for recent European immigrants to the USA or European nationals. Of course, choice and free will reigns, so the biological imprisonment of genetic imperatives rules only those who have not chosen or sought freedom, but that is so many people, still, that the problems and differences seem almost intractable when they are not and the opposite is actually true.

    White Europeans are just as racist as some white Americans, it is just less obvious to black Americans who have never been overseas. I remember a German girlfriend I had back in the late 1980s whose grandfather was a Nazi. When she took me home with her to meet her father, the grandfather's pictures were proudly on display. I had no problem with that, it was her family, fine. I loved her and her father was nice enough to me. We went to a store and I saw a candy called Negerkusses, with a caricature of blackface children, called "pickaninnys" here in the USA. I looked at them amazed and then at her and she was like, "What's wrong? They're just candies."

    I had no idea where to even start. Such a candy would have been removed from American stores probably in the 50s or 60s.


    Quote Posted by Beren (here)
    I openly ask them: " Why do you call yourselves niggers? That is idiotic, first of all, but second - you don't allow anyone else but a black person to call you like that, why is that, double standards or what?"

    When I openly and without hesitation ask them in the presence of other whites and blacks, I see odd reactions. Namely white women pretend shocked and cover their open mouths in the faux shock, blacks are stopped in their tracks because nobody asked them this... so the quality conversation starts and I remember this black guy from Chicago felt relieved and said that finally, someone asks this because he hates how other blacks call him a nigga. That is rude and he doesn't want to be called like that by anyone.

    Then I got so many friends among blacks afterwards.
    You have to understand the possible etymology of the word.

    "****** or nigga" is the european/american adaptation of the Spanish "negro", meaning black, root of which is the Latin, "nigrum", also meaning black. Some etymologists say that it derives from the proto-indo-european nókʷts, which could mean naked or night, while others state that the Latin word's root is in the Greek "necro", meaning death. The roots of the Greek are unknown, although there are many correlates across europe where words of a similar sound have a similar meaning. But right across the Mediterranean, there were a people closely associated with death and the worship thereof that the Greeks were intimately familiar with. A black people, whose word for the gods/goddesses was "netjer/neter", which sounds a lot closer to neger/niger/negro/******/nigga than almost all of the potential European candidates for its origin.

    Whatever the case may be, the word is very powerful. And its reconsitution and usage by black Americans and others now is a form of revolutionary ownership and repurposing that is quite controversial, as you have experienced, even among blacks. Now, things have gotten even more convoluted and complicated. I work in an American High School and ALL the kids use it, white, brown, yellow and black, because they ALL listen to and know Hip Hop and it is the world's undisputed youth culture. I hear the word 20-50 times a day in the classrooms, the hallways, wherever. The word no longer has the power it once had as a curse, instead, it has been turned into a benediction, a blessing of friendship and love and understanding and companionship. It is used among compatriots, brothers and sisters, in deed and word if not blood. Which, if the Egyptian option is true, is closer to its original meaning anyway.


    Quote Posted by Beren (here)
    So to finally cut to the chase, the point is racism comes from ignorance.
    I'm not sure if your statements support this conclusion. Is it "just" ignorance? Or is it more? Does the racial science of the Nazis and others speak of something inherent in the European mentality that craves distinction and separation from the rest of humanity and the natural world itself? Is there a basis in culture for the rejection of others' cultures or is this something imminently human? To be separate, to uphold all forms of separation from those unlike us in order to preserve something nebulous and unreal in the first place, which is the conception of race rather than ethnicity?

    And for us, here in the AltCom, what does it say about us who speak of starseeds and alien races genetically integrating with human hominid forms to create new types of beings, to attempt to continue to maintain some form of separation when our genesis is in mutation and mixing bloodlines? If the "ignorance" of ethnic hatred is environmentally chosen for, epigenetically, and personal choice is the way beyond the limitations of biological programming, what is the purpose of the energies attempting to keep us separate as opposed to those energies that seek to bring us together?

    Quote Posted by Beren (here)
    Just look at the Asians, they never complain but they advance despite obstacles. Whites kinda of slowed down in progress but advanced in this guilt transfer, Blacks are stuck in their shouts for yesterday and today.

    Make your voice count by being a man, by being of virtue and class, by being good and wise and with heart and soul, then no one will care if you are white or black or yellow or brown or red, you will be looked upon as human.
    The ethnicities/races of the people you're calling Asian have their own color codes, with those from the North like the Han, the Japanese and Koreans (perhaps Tibetans as well, considering the current Dali Lama's youthful affiliation with a Nazi) being as prejudiced against the darker Southeast Asian folks of the South just like Europeans and, potentially, the rest of the world's families. That Asian folks have less of an issue than other, darker people in European cultures and lands, has more to do with the strength of their kinship networks and continuing connection with the lands they originated in than it does with their ethnicity. The same is true of Hindus of th Brahmin variety, who proudly claim original Aryan descent, still, even as their skin colors approach mine or are even darker in shade. Despite prejudice against these folks, brown and yellow, they continue to succeed because they have access to their histories, their bloodlines and the wealth built up intergenerationally. They have had the traditional respect of European cultures for the age of their cultures and the traditions and religions associated with them, which African cultures have not. All of that was taken from black Americans and Africans in the triangular trade, so it is not a fair or accurate comparison in any way.

    All that "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" conversation should be held between those who have boots in the first place. It is like comparing apples and oranges, the descendants of enslaved Africans had their boots taken away systematically, their descendants - until very, very recently - not allowed to purchase or wear boots or even think aloud and talk about touching them. We've come a LONG way in a very short time and that progress will not stop.

    Peace and blessings, Beren, and THANK YOU for stepping up to the conversation. Big ups.
    Last edited by Mark; 27th June 2018 at 21:15. Reason: grammar & additional content

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    Default Re: Racism





    Most of us think of Europe as the ancestral home of white people. But a new study shows that pale skin, as well as other traits such as tallness and the ability to digest milk as adults, arrived in most of the continent relatively recently. The work, presented here last week at the 84th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, offers dramatic evidence of recent evolution in Europe and shows that most modern Europeans don’t look much like those of 8000 years ago.

    The origins of Europeans have come into sharp focus in the past year as researchers have sequenced the genomes of ancient populations, rather than only a few individuals. By comparing key parts of the DNA across the genomes of 83 ancient individuals from archaeological sites throughout Europe, the international team of researchers reported earlier this year that Europeans today are a mix of the blending of at least three ancient populations of hunter-gatherers and farmers who moved into Europe in separate migrations over the past 8000 years. The study revealed that a massive migration of Yamnaya herders from the steppes north of the Black Sea may have brought Indo-European languages to Europe about 4500 years ago.

    Now, a new study from the same team drills down further into that remarkable data to search for genes that were under strong natural selection—including traits so favorable that they spread rapidly throughout Europe in the past 8000 years. By comparing the ancient European genomes with those of recent ones from the 1000 Genomes Project, population geneticist Iain Mathieson, a postdoc in the Harvard University lab of population geneticist David Reich, found five genes associated with changes in diet and skin pigmentation that underwent strong natural selection.

    First, the scientists confirmed an earlier report that the hunter-gatherers in Europe could not digest the sugars in milk 8000 years ago, according to a poster. They also noted an interesting twist: The first farmers also couldn’t digest milk. The farmers who came from the Near East about 7800 years ago and the Yamnaya pastoralists who came from the steppes 4800 years ago lacked the version of the LCT gene that allows adults to digest sugars in milk. It wasn’t until about 4300 years ago that lactose tolerance swept through Europe.

    When it comes to skin color, the team found a patchwork of evolution in different places, and three separate genes that produce light skin, telling a complex story for how European’s skin evolved to be much lighter during the past 8000 years. The modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2—that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in Europeans today.

    But in the far north—where low light levels would favor pale skin—the team found a different picture in hunter-gatherers: Seven people from the 7700-year-old Motala archaeological site in southern Sweden had both light skin gene variants, SLC24A5 and SLC45A2. They also had a third gene, HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes and may also contribute to light skin and blond hair. Thus ancient hunter-gatherers of the far north were already pale and blue-eyed, but those of central and southern Europe had darker skin.

    Then, the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe; they carried both genes for light skin. As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light-skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin. The other gene variant, SLC45A2, was at low levels until about 5800 years ago when it swept up to high frequency.

    The team also tracked complex traits, such as height, which are the result of the interaction of many genes. They found that selection strongly favored several gene variants for tallness in northern and central Europeans, starting 8000 years ago, with a boost coming from the Yamnaya migration, starting 4800 years ago. The Yamnaya have the greatest genetic potential for being tall of any of the populations, which is consistent with measurements of their ancient skeletons. In contrast, selection favored shorter people in Italy and Spain starting 8000 years ago, according to the paper now posted on the bioRxiv preprint server. Spaniards, in particular, shrank in stature 6000 years ago, perhaps as a result of adapting to colder temperatures and a poor diet.

    Surprisingly, the team found no immune genes under intense selection, which is counter to hypotheses that diseases would have increased after the development of agriculture.

    The paper doesn’t specify why these genes might have been under such strong selection. But the likely explanation for the pigmentation genes is to maximize vitamin D synthesis, said paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), University Park, as she looked at the poster’s results at the meeting. People living in northern latitudes often don’t get enough UV to synthesize vitamin D in their skin so natural selection has favored two genetic solutions to that problem—evolving pale skin that absorbs UV more efficiently or favoring lactose tolerance to be able to digest the sugars and vitamin D naturally found in milk. “What we thought was a fairly simple picture of the emergence of depigmented skin in Europe is an exciting patchwork of selection as populations disperse into northern latitudes,” Jablonski says. “This data is fun because it shows how much recent evolution has taken place.”

    Anthropological geneticist George Perry, also of Penn State, notes that the work reveals how an individual’s genetic potential is shaped by their diet and adaptation to their habitat. “We’re getting a much more detailed picture now of how selection works.”

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    Default Re: Racism

    Thanks to technological advances, scientists can see ancient DNA in new detail.

    By Sarah Gibbens
    PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 7, 2018

    A recent facial reconstruction of a 10,000-year-old skeleton called the "Cheddar Man" has revealed a man with bright blue eyes, slightly curly hair, and dark skin.

    "It might surprise the public, but not ancient DNA geneticists," says Mark Thomas, a scientist at the University College London.

    That's because a new analysis of the ancient man's DNA proves he's genetically similar to other dark-skinned individuals from the Mesolithic era found in Spain, Hungary, and Luxemborg whose DNA has already been sequenced. The new revelation places the Cheddar Man among a group of hunter-gatherers that are thought to have migrated to Europe at the end of the last Ice Age some 11,000 years ago.

    The Cheddar Man earned his name, not because of his fondness for cheese, which likely wasn't cultivated until around 3,000 years later, but because he was found in Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England (which is, incidentally, where cheddar cheese originates).

    Thomas is part of a large team that worked with London's Natural History Museum to reconstruct the Cheddar Man's face.

    They started the reconstruction by taking measurements of the skull.

    "He had a thick, heavy cranium and a relatively light jaw," says Thomas.

    Researchers then sequenced the Cheddar Man's entire genome. He's the oldest British individual whose genes scientists have mapped. From the sequence, they learned skin color, eye color, and hair type.

    Finally, to bring the Cheddar Man to life, experienced Dutch model makers Adrie and Alfons Kennis used 3D scans and printing to add the "flesh" to his reconstructed bones.

    CREATING COLOR FROM ANCIENT GENES
    It's thanks to new sequencing technology that researchers can sift through vast quantities of data, says Thomas. This allowed the team to get a clear idea of what the Cheddar Man looked like.

    The genes that determine skin color are mapped across various chromosomes, says Miguel Vilar, the science manager for National Geographic's genome project. Vilar was not involved in the reconstruction but says scientists would have had to look at billions of data points, something we have previously been unable to do with ancient DNA.

    New DNA sequencing techniques make those scattered chromosomes easier to read, he says.

    "It's like taking an ancient book and looking at a whole chapter, versus looking at single word. Now we can read full paragraphs."

    "Eye pigmentation is determined by a specific gene and a particular variant in the gene," says Thomas. "For skin there are a number of variants."

    How and when Britons developed lighter skin over time is unclear.

    "We think it's because light skin allows for more UV radiation, which helps break down vitamin D," says Vilar. In more temperate regions, where ancient humans were less exposed to sunlight, they would have needed to absorb more radiation to break down the essential vitamin needed for healthy bones.

    "In my view, that's the most robust theory for skin pigmentation," says Thomas. "But it doesn't explain eye pigmentation. There are other processes that go on. It could be sexual selection. It could even be something else we don't yet understand."

    Another theory put forth in a 2014 study suggested that as humans began cultivating farms, their diets became less diverse and thus they would have needed to absorb more vitamin D from the sun.

    Today, he adds, modern diets help people consume vitamin D without sunlight exposure.

    Determining skin color is only a minor part of the project, says Thomas. Researchers are looking more broadly at how dietary changes and exposure to pathogens influenced populations over the last ten thousand years.

    Their research will the subject of a documentary on the UK's Channel4 network airing later this month.

    "If you can measure changes in genetic variances over time," he adds, "You can catch evolution as it happens."

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    Default Re: Racism

    Rahkyt,

    First of all, thank you for the detailed reply because it shows me your way of rationalization and thinking which is admirable.

    I will say one thing and that is the whole west and its countries are basically stumbling in the dark for one simple reason, the west isn`t concerned with anything that has not either English or other conquering nations spice in this. I as Serbian am far more aware of the true history of planet and races than a modern western man of any color because you guys do not speak Serbian and Russian. If you knew those two languages deeply you would know the true histories which were openly stolen by England, Vatican, Spain and France and the latest of them all Germany. Because west is refusing to even acknowledge our historians and books and works of such precious things that your mind would spin for days.

    You would know the true history of Europe and the world with real evidence and locations and such.

    Do you know that everything we think it is history was invented about 200 years ago?

    No, you don't. Not because you won't, but because the west is systematically refusing to translate the books and works from those two languages. It pretends that they do not exist at all. There you would find to the minute precision of what happened to this planet to the very day today.

    This science pieces you showed here are, to say the least laughable, because they explain things like the first grader would explain how supersonic flight works. Because they are straightforward lies. Why? Because west needs to perpetuate this lie by erasing the history and making up as they go their own version.

    What if I tell you that for example, Serbia has the calendar that is measuring the year 7527 now?
    Were you aware of this? I don't think so. What if I tell you that before English, there were other quasi-white parasitic entities in the form of various countries who waged the genocidal war for thousands of years against my kin which Russians are as well? Africans were last in line to be enslaved by them.

    It is the admirable effort today that people of another color than white are trying to get back to their senses. But they should know that Serbian and Russian whites were first to die and be exterminated by those entity states.

    You will find no word about this in western sources. In order to do this, you would need to learn Russian and Serbian fluently and then you will start to discover the wealth of information, it spans to the 600000 years back of uninterrupted tradition of space age on Earth to the last recording of space contact and trade up to about 400 years ago.

    You will find root causes of all this that we face now on the planet and here on Avalon we only brushed the surface in all these years. Ten for me at least.
    Tip of the tip of the iceberg.

    This may seem like the atypical reply but you inspired me because I like the way your mind works.

    The only ones that preserved a trace of this memory in oral form outside of Serbian and Russian documents and tradition and memory are Dogon people in Africa.
    Their story is written in our history and is closely related to how they were brought by my ancestors to where they are now.

    For all this, you are free to not believe me a single word but I deem the truth shall find the way to the ones that seek for it.
    Love, love - and see what happens

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote For all this, you are free to not believe me a single word but I deem the truth shall find the way to the ones that seek for it.
    Hi, Beren. Thank you for sharing your perspective. As i have no access point to the information you speak of I take you at your word. Your participation is appreciated.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Last week I looked at my life and asked myself, "How many humans have I met in my life that I actually truly liked and not just endured because I felt It was the right thing to do?" On my fingers, I had six left over. I am a gentle and compliant person who looks into the souls of others to find the common ground with my own heart, whatever the outward appearance of the other, in the spirit of the Lord Jesus, whether you believe he existed or not. What is wrong with me? I have lived among people of different races and my own. Within one lifetime, I feel as though I have lived several different lives because the environments were so different. It has all taken a toll on me, adapting to all the varying people and circumstances. At nearly 80, I am angry with God and Man that life has been so stressful that I only wish to be ALONE. Apply this to intermingling racial (genetic) environments, biological differences, and differing ideas on how to live life. We might be asking too much of the nervous system of man in the interim situation of the unmelted pot.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Dear Beren: Since I feel too old to learn any language, especially ones as difficult as Russian and Serbian, please please give us an outline of what you have learned to be the TRUE history of earth. We really really need to know now.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Does it make me racist to be concerned about the fact that, as a white person, I'm now a minority at my place of work (very large office with over 100 people...I work for a multinational freight logistics company)....and I'm a minority where I live. I don't think I'm better than anyone else (and vice versa).....but I am concerned where this is headed. Sorry if that sounds racist....but that's how I feel.

    Dave - Toronto

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Spellbound (here)
    Does it make me racist to be concerned about the fact that, as a white person, I'm now a minority at my place of work (very large office with over 100 people...
    What does it make me to have worked as a minority in such environments my entire working life? Should i be concerned about where it has been? And also where it is going?

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    Default Re: Racism

    ..........
    Last edited by Franny; 23rd May 2019 at 18:51.

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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Rahkyt (here)
    Quote Posted by Spellbound (here)
    Does it make me racist to be concerned about the fact that, as a white person, I'm now a minority at my place of work (very large office with over 100 people...
    What does it make me to have worked as a minority in such environments my entire working life? Should i be concerned about where it has been? And also where it is going?
    @latte - Loved, loved the song above! It so captures the self-absorption and self-justification of EVERY group of humans. It quickly without artifice speaks on our flaws with humor which is refreshing.

    @rahkyt - thanks for finally saying something simple and honest above

    @spellbound - re: your question above - 'are you racist for being concerned about being a minority group?' -If there is one group that needs a 'safe space' to be able to merely express themselves it's Caucasians. We've needed it for almost 20 years now, to be able to express and share our experiences, our perceptions, our feelings, give eachother validation, question what is going on - Without interference of threat, harrassment, trivialization, etc...

    Alas, the human brain is wired to avoid pain, it's part of survival that doesn't always help us. The question you succinctly pose above is irrelevant, threatening or annoying to many non-whites, and to most whites - it's painful - so they will therefore run/avoid. Is the short-term avoidance of pain doing anything good for caucasians? nope, it's part of deliberate dynamics to create psychological apartheid and make them compliant with their own cultural eradication.... Human inertia is a B***h

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    United States Avalon Member Mark's Avatar
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    Default Re: Racism

    Quote Posted by Helene West (here)
    @rahkyt - thanks for finally saying something simple and honest above
    You're very welcome. Excuse me if my earlier responses were not simple enough. It is a complex topic as you know well and encompassing all quickly and succinctly is often difficult. Thank you also for returning to the thread. 😊
    Last edited by Mark; 30th June 2018 at 19:55. Reason: Spelling

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    Default Re: Racism

    The dangers of the current split in the American polity are apparent to all who are paying attention. Centuries now in the making and decades in the dismantling of are the effects and institutions of racial discrimination and enslavement, which have left the inhabitants of this nation - and, insofar as they have more or less inculcated diverse habitation, other nations in the world - with ingrained beliefs and biases that most of us are barely conscious of. What used to be racial is now oceanic, psychological and physical enslavement to paradigms and jobs are the lure beckoning the world to take the bait, be a part of this.

    Alternatively, the ideas of freedom and personal responsibility have their own dangers, tied too closely to racial dominance and mistaken for personal belief when, instead, it is a form of group-think masking as individualism.

    An individualism that dovetails quite nicely into authoritarianism, if not carefully guarded against by protecting those who are defenseless against collective predatory behaviors.




    Two features of American politics are omnipresent in the current media landscape. First, Donald Trump’s rhetoric regarding nonwhites routinely betrays a dehumanizing prejudice. Second, there has been a proliferation of what Duke University law professor Jedediah Purdy sardonically labels “crisis-of-democracy literature,” involving Americans’ apparent rebuke of democratic norms.

    Neither social intolerance nor inconsistent support for democratic norms, however, is particularly new.

    In fact, the one constant thread woven throughout American democracy is that white Americans’ track records regarding matters of racial and democratic equality is poor. To what extent, then, is prejudice related to negative assessments of democracy? Analyzing World Values Survey data from 1995 to 2011, our recent working paper finds a worrying negative relationship between social intolerance and support for democracy.

    Social identities, intolerance, and democracy
    Linking social (in)tolerance to attitudes about democracy draws from what social and political psychologists know about group identification and how group identification leads to discrimination against out-groups. First, the emergence of prejudice — like the belief that a member of an out-group is lazy, that integration is bad, or that immigrants are gang members — occurs when a pressing social situation like an election or economic crisis emphasizes distinctions between groups.

    Second, members of a group need to attach pride or significance to their sense of group belonging. When this occurs, the social environment is restructured into a simplistic arena of opponents and allies.

    Race has long been a — if not the — social and political categorization within American society. Opposition to the extension of the Voting Rights Act, support for cruel immigration policies, and negative responses to Muslims after 9/11, for example, are inexorably rooted in these intergroup dynamics. Throughout American history more generally, the extension of civil rights and access to levers of power in American politics have been grounded in race.

    If social intolerance involves high levels of expressive identity, then people who feel threatened by racial or ethnic diversity ought to feel less positively toward systems of governance that extend political access to these individuals. Thus, white Americans who exhibit social intolerance may actually prefer undemocratic alternatives because democracy provides the political pretext for persons belonging to “undesirable” out-groups to accumulate resources or power that undercut the perceived well-being of the intolerant person.

    Studies show social intolerance correlates with authoritarian preferences
    We investigated World Values Survey (WVS) data covering the period 1995 to 2011 to explore the relationship between social intolerance and democracy. (As such, our analytical window of time predates the election of Donald Trump, but not the social forces that may have propelled him to the White House.) To construct a measure of social intolerance, we used the WVS’ “least-liked” groups instrument, which asks survey respondents whether or not they would not want a person from a variety of groups as a neighbor.

    As the figure below indicates, most people possess relatively benign attitudes toward various groups of interest. However, among white Americans in our full sample, we calculate that roughly 17 percent of persons listed that they would not want a member of a different race, or an immigrant/foreign worker, or individuals who spoke a different language as a neighbor. (By 2011, the share of intolerant persons increased to almost a quarter of all white respondents.) This group of persons comprise our group of “socially intolerant” people.


    Nicholas T. Davis and Steven Miller

    We then analyzed the relationship between social intolerance and attitudes toward democracy: support for army rule, a preference for a strong leader, and opposition to democracy. The results are striking. In each case, social intolerance correlates with authoritarian preferences.

    Using a simulation-based analysis, we estimate that social intolerance increases the odds of an anti-democratic orientation by an average of about 10 percent across the three dependent variables. In 3,000 total simulations, a socially intolerant person on our measure is more supportive of autocratic alternatives than a socially tolerant person 100 percent of the time.

    Finally, because past research alleges that education should encourage good citizenship by emphasizing the importance of participatory behaviors and the value of reasoned debate, we tested to see whether a college education, for example, undercuts the negative effect of social intolerance on support for democracy. In fact, it seems to amplify it. We speculate that well-educated persons may be sensitive to the idea that democracy equalizes access to power, which broadly matches other research that shows that education may strengthen racial judgments.



    Nicholas T. Davis and Steven Miller


    Nicholas T. Davis and Steven Miller

    Democracy isn’t living up to its billing
    In theory, democracy is designed to safeguard the rights of minorities. Yet because the integrity of these protections relies on the strength of social norms of tolerance and political values that prevent illiberal behavior, it should come as no surprise that democracy often fails to live up to its billing in practice. American history, after all, is replete with human rights catastrophes.

    Whether social intolerance causally degrades support for democracy is something we hope to answer via survey experiments. However, our analysis establishes a clear and robust connection between social intolerance and anti-democratic orientations among white Americans — a relationship that manifests a full 20 years prior to Donald Trump’s callous rhetoric linking words like “animals,” “thugs,” and “rapists” to immigrants.

    The policies we have observed since Trump’s inauguration, the human rights indignities that migrants and their children are suffering at the hands of the US government, and the support that Trump still enjoys from his core voters, may well be an ugly manifestation of the argument we provide. In some sense, this social intolerance is a rejection of the struggle to maintain “full” democracy.

    Nicholas Davis is a Research Scientist at Texas A&M University. He studies the sorting of political and social identities and the popular meanings citizens associate with democracy. Steven Miller is an Assistant Professor at Clemson University. His research focuses on international conflict, democratic peace and conflict behavior, and public opinion.
    Last edited by Mark; 2nd July 2018 at 21:22. Reason: additional content, links and grammar

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    Default Re: Racism

    Understanding that border laws privilege immigrants from certain classes and locations is essential to understanding why it is so easy for so many to approve of what is going on at our southern border. Despite the nature of the current political imbroglios, beneath the positioning, there are very real, human tragedies going on right now.

    The refugees coming from the South are indeed people who have been affected by the depredations of the Elite factions, from "economic hitmen" and the USA's propensity to control by way of corporate personhood, the political and economic lives of Southern nations.



    This has ramifications. These are the ramifications. Despite the desire to wish these ramifications away, the onrushing "hoards" coming from the South into the North, they are what they are. When the living environments of those within countries that have been eviscerated by the USA and Europe are no longer livable, when their economies are torn apart and when their children must join gangs and armies just in order to survive, what other option do they have but to come North? To the places that they see in the movies where it is relatively safe, and where their dreams for their children's futures, may still come true?

    Since they can, no longer, in their own countries?

    No one wants to leave their home. No one. Unless they have a spirit of adventure, what some call the "American" spirit, to be all they can be, and emigrate. Then, the economic requirements of doing so favor certain classes within countries and we see that happening daily.

    Not everyone can afford it. Or have the education. But still want the opportunities because jobs in their nations are either gone, priced out by global economics, or pittances. The attitude of Americans and Europeans of all ethnic groups toward incoming populations is notoriously bad, I've seen it in black, brown, yellow, white and red populations alike. Acknowledging the implicit bias that exists within our perceptions and looking at the very real tragedies that often typify these migrants' lives necessitates us looking at our own attitudes, and seeing where we might have some personal bias toward them, whether acknowledged or not.

    All of us here in the developed nations, from black to white and all shades in-between, benefit from being here, if only for the relative perception of safety and the ability to take advantage of the enshrined socialized benefits, as much or little as they may be for each nation. That makes each of us a part of these nations, and responsible for what the Elites have done, as we benefit, every day, in every way, little and large, in our qualities of life as compared to those seeking to come here now to experience that selfsame benefit for themselves. And why should they not deserve it, considering what the Elite have put them through? And why should we not be responsible, given the advantages we live every day and have gained by being the homes or origin points of these out-of-control corporations?

    It was Europe's expansion and creation of companies like the East and West India Corporations, that acted in the place of governments, America's cooptation of the 14th amendment that gave them "personhood", all if it has created the predatory, psychopathic global climate within which we currently exist.

    Since we are here, now, no matter where we are on the scale of oppressor and oppressed, we are all responsible for each other and the state of these nations and this world because we choose it, consciously and unconsciously, collectively and individually, with our inactions and actions. Owning up to our individual, familial and societal responsibilities - and our national and cultural birthrights and the ramifications of our greater or lesser level of inclusion within them - seems to be one of the hardest things in the world to do.



    The research on race that helps explain Trump’s use of family separation at the border

    The dehumanization of people of other races makes it easier to carry out atrocities.


    Crying. Screaming. Shouts of “Mami!” and “Papá!” This is what President Donald Trump’s policies sound like on the ground as asylum-seeking families are split apart. In the audio published by ProPublica, though, Border Patrol agents do not appear to show empathy, with one agent hearing the sobbing children and joking that “we have an orchestra here” and that “what’s missing is a conductor.”

    In just five weeks, US officials separated more than 2,300 children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. While the Trump administration has been deliberately obtuse about its intents, the “zero tolerance” approach appears to be part of a strategy to scare people from illegally crossing the border — by, essentially, using the possibility of parents losing their kids as a threat.

    It’s easy to wonder how any of this is possible. How can someone care so little about children and families that they’re willing to use kids — and separation from their parents — as pawns in immigration policy? And how can the people implementing that policy on the ground hear sobbing children and joke about what’s going on?

    One inescapable answer is race. These are, after all, immigrants of color coming from Latin America. Many of the people implementing these immigration policies, from Trump and his Cabinet down to border agents, are predominantly white. And based on the research, that makes them much less likely to view brown kids and their parents with a sense of humanity.

    The dehumanization of minority groups
    Consider a small 2007 study that examined the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In that study, researchers found that people tended to believe that victims in racial groups that they don’t belong to suffered fewer “uniquely human” emotions like anguish, mourning, and remorse than victims in racial groups that they did belong to. They also found that the aftermath of a natural disaster, perception of fewer “uniquely human” emotions led participants to be less willing to help victims of a different race.

    A 2009 study similarly found that when participants looked at images of people in pain, the parts of their brains that respond to pain tended to show more activity if the person in the image was of the same race as the participant. Those researchers concluded that their findings “support the view that shared common membership enhances a perceiver’s empathic concerns for others.” Other studies reached similar conclusions.

    There’s a basic concept behind this: Once someone can relate to the person who’s suffering, it becomes much easier to empathize. But since the majority of the public and policymakers in America are white, this line of research suggests that Americans are simply less likely to care for suffering Latinx families.

    There’s also research, which Brian Resnick covered for Vox in greater detail, looking at dehumanization, which history and psychological studies show is a key contributor to violence and antipathy toward minority groups. This research has found that Americans outright dehumanize people of certain groups, including Mexican immigrants. (Many of the asylum-seeking families are actually from other Latin American countries, but in the public dialogue, they are often mischaracterized as “Mexican immigrants” — so it’s a useful proxy when looking at this kind of research.)

    In one study led by Northwestern University psychologist Nour Kteily, participants — who were mostly white Americans — are asked to rate “how evolved you consider each of the following individuals or groups to be,” based on (inaccurate) images of human ancestors slowly changing to walk upright on two legs.


    Javier Zarracina/Vox

    The results: Mexican immigrants, along with Arabs and Muslims, are much more likely to be dehumanized. On a scale of 1 to 100, Americans were rated 91.5 and Europeans were 91.9, while Mexican immigrants were rated 83.7.


    Javier Zarracina/Vox

    This dehumanization appears to be more common among Trump supporters, another study led by Kteily found. That’s “consistent with the idea that support for some of the Republican candidates (and Trump in particular) comes not despite their dehumanizing rhetoric but in part because of it,” Kteily and his co-author, Emile Bruneau, wrote. (This is part of a growing body of research tying racism to support for Trump.)

    There are, of course, other possible explanations for Trump’s policies. Some people really do believe in doing everything possible — even carrying out horrific acts — to stop illegal immigration, regardless of the race of the immigrant. And, in general, the American system affords fewer rights to foreigners than it does to US citizens, enabling the poor treatment of foreign families.

    But it’s impossible to escape that the victims here are people of color. So when I heard those little children crying for their parents as a Border Patrol agent mocked them, the research on race and dehumanization provided some clarity for what was going on.
    Last edited by Mark; 2nd July 2018 at 21:49.

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    Default Re: Racism

    What is often called racism is merely prejudice, mis-characterized. What people often consider to be expressions of hate are sometimes just preferences for people of a similar type. That is understandable, tribal and human.

    There is only one human race, throughout creation that, apparently, has the ability to interact and procreate. The presence of so many different tribes of the human family upon our beautiful, blue orb must be for a reason. And if that reason isn't to work out difference and find a higher way, beyond the physical, then what might it be?



    Medieval Scholars Joust With White Nationalists. And One Another.

    Each May, some 3,000 people descend on Kalamazoo, Mich., for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, which brings together academics and enthusiasts for four days of scholarly panels, performances and after-hours mead drinking.

    But in recent years, the gathering affectionately known as “K’zoo” — and the field of medieval studies itself — has been shadowed by conflicts right out of the 21st century.

    Since the 2016 presidential election, scholars have hotly debated the best way to counter the “weaponization” of the Middle Ages by a rising tide of far-right extremists, whether it’s white nationalist marchers in Charlottesville, Va., displaying medieval symbols or the white terrorist who murdered 50 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, using weapons inscribed with references to the Crusades.

    And hanging over it all is an even more fraught question: Does medieval studies have a white supremacy problem of its own?

    To some scholars, the answer is yes, and not just because the field is overwhelmingly white. Scholarship on the Middle Ages, they argue, helped create the idea of white European superiority, and still bolsters it today. There have been calls to “decolonize” medieval studies by confronting the structural racism that has kept both nonwhite scholars and nonwhite perspectives outside its gates.

    On the other side are those who see the field as under siege by activists seeking to replace scholarship with ritualistic denunciations of white male privilege, pursued with a with-us-or-against-us zeal.

    There have been vitriolic blog exchanges, expletive-laced social media conflagrations and conference blowups. (Some members of the group Medievalists of Color have announced they will be boycotting this year’s Kalamazoo conference, which begins on Thursday.) Facebook groups have splintered amid charges and countercharges of bullying, cybermobbing and infiltration by trolls.

    In the middle are the broad mass of medievalists, who may sympathize with one camp or the other, but mostly want to stay out of the fray.

    “People don’t become medievalists because they want to be political,” said Richard Utz, a literary scholar at Georgia Tech and president of the International Society for the Study of Medievalism. “Most are monkish creatures who just want to live in their cells and write their manuscripts.”

    The term “medieval” came into use in the 19th century, to refer to Europe from roughly 500 to 1500, between the end of the Roman Empire and the rise of modernity. But while the field may seem divorced from the contemporary world, its own origins were hardly apolitical.

    In Europe, academic study of the Middle Ages developed in tandem with a romantic nationalism that rooted the nation-state in an idealized past populated by Anglo-Saxons and other supposedly distinct “races.”

    In the United States, universities, cultural institutions and wealthy elites drew on Gothic architecture, heraldry and other medieval trappings to ground American identity in a noble (and implicitly white) European history. So did Southern slaveholders and the Ku Klux Klan.

    Today, the field is sprawling and interdisciplinary, and includes historians, literary scholars, art historians, philologists, archaeologists and others. Its boundaries have expanded past its traditional focus on Northwest Europe to include the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and even, among those advocating a “global Middle Ages,” the entire world.

    But it remains an intellectually conservative field that has largely resisted the waves of critical theory that have washed over much of the humanities in recent decades. It has also been slow to take up the subject of race.

    While archaeological evidence shows that Africans and other nonwhite people were present in medieval Europe, some scholars argue that race is a modern construct, with limited relevance in a period when differences in religion mattered more than skin color.

    But other medievalists see in such arguments a desire to wall off medieval scholarship from uncomfortable questions.

    “It’s about asserting the racial and political innocence of the Middle Ages,” said Cord Whitaker, an assistant professor of English at Wellesley College and a member of Medievalists of Color. “For medievalists to try to protect the field from engagement with race is ultimately to try to withdraw from the world.”

    If withdrawal from the world was ever possible, it has become harder lately. During the 2016 election, memes like Donald Trump in armor on a horse and the Crusader slogan “Deus vult” (God wills it) began proliferating on social media. White nationalists stepped up recruiting on college campuses, sometimes co-opting the language of identity politics with calls for students to explore their “white heritage.”



    Some marchers at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 displayed medieval symbols, like the rune shown on this flag, which was also used by the Nazis.
    Credit: Edu Bayer for The New York Times


    Then came Charlottesville, where the sight of marchers carrying shields evoking the Knights Templar or holding banners with Anglo-Saxon runes came as a shock to many scholars.

    “Medieval Studies always wants to be relevant,” said Ruth Mazo Karras, a historian at Trinity College, Dublin, and president of the Medieval Academy of America. “But now we’ve become relevant in the wrong way.”

    A week after Charlottesville, the Medieval Academy and 28 other scholarly groups released a statement condemning the “fantasy of a pure, white Europe that bears no relationship to reality.” Some medievalists overhauled their teaching, discussing misappropriations of history along with the history itself. Suddenly, professors began worrying about how to respond to students who might bring up white nationalist themes in class — or who might assume that medievalists themselves are white supremacists.

    “We had to think about, ‘Who do they think we are?” said Nicholas Paul, director of the Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University and a co-editor of the forthcoming book “Whose Middle Ages? Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past.”

    The idea of medieval studies as a haven for white nationalist ideas gained ground when Rachel Fulton Brown, an associate professor of medieval history at the University of Chicago, began feuding with Dorothy Kim, an assistant professor of medieval English literature at Brandeis, after Dr. Kim, writing on Facebook, highlighted an old blog post of Dr. Fulton Brown’s titled “Three Cheers for White Men,” calling it an example of “medievalists upholding white supremacy.”

    Many scholars were outraged when Dr. Fulton Brown, in a riposte to Dr. Kim written a few weeks after Charlottesville, tagged the right-wing writer Milo Yiannopoulos, whose website then ran an article about the dispute. Last July Mr. Yiannopoulos followed up with a 16,000-word attack on the field, which assailed Dr. Kim and others as “an angry social justice mob.”

    The article caused a furor, as scholars accused colleagues of providing screenshots of private Facebook conversations and surreptitious recordings of conference sessions to Mr. Yiannopoulos.

    Since then, Dr. Fulton Brown has become more isolated, as some who initially supported her have distanced themselves after she began citing the far-right writer Vox Day and even, in a recent blog post, entertained the idea that the Christchurch shooting might have been a “false flag operation.” (Dr. Fulton Brown, in an interview, said the depiction of her as a white supremacist or a member of the alt-right is “a misnomer” that “depends on a fantasy about me.”)


    But the climate of intense suspicion and division the feud helped foster, particularly on social media, remains.

    Paul Halsall, editor of the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, is among the scholars who remain friendly with Dr. Fulton Brown, the author of highly regarded studies of medieval devotion to the Virgin Mary, though he said he disagrees with her political views “profoundly.”

    Last summer, he started two open Facebook groups after one dedicated to the Kalamazoo conference erupted in a dispute about racism and its comments policy, which resulted in a number of people, including its moderator, leaving or being expelled from the group.

    Dr. Halsall deplored what he called the “cooties” approach that he says has taken hold, chilling debate.

    “There’s this idea that if you talk to someone, you are stained,” he said. He added: “Anyone who is vaguely middle of the road or conservative is suddenly racist or white nationalist.”

    Dr. Kim, a member of Medievalists of Color, said white medievalists who say they fear weighing in, lest they be accused of racism, are enacting a “classic white fragility script.”

    “Those of us from marginal, targeted groups have no choice” about speaking up, she said. “This is about our own survival in the field.”

    Some efforts to make the field more inclusive have met with resistance. Last year, the Medieval Academy created an annual award for scholars of color named for Belle da Costa Greene, the first manuscript librarian of the Pierpont Morgan collection, and an African-American woman who passed as white.

    An anonymous group left a donation of $350 with a letter declaring support for the idea of inclusion but objecting to “skin pigmentation as grounds for a scholarly grant,” according to Lisa Fagin Davis, the academy’s executive director.

    Last year, there was an outcry after the Kalamazoo conference, which is run by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, rejected a number of panels proposed by Medievalists of Color. An open letter, signed by more than 600 scholars, denounced the organizers for “a bias against, or lack of interest in, sessions that are self-critical of medieval studies, or focused on the politics of the field.” The panels about race that were accepted, some scholars noted, were organized by white scholars.

    Jana Schulman, the director of the Medieval Institute, said procedures for selecting panels this year were being overhauled to be more inclusive and transparent. She said she regretted that members of Medievalists of Color were staying away, calling their critique of the field “important.”

    “An individual’s area of interest completely colors what it is they look at” in the past, Dr. Schulman said. “Those of us in the field need to be aware that ours was maybe limited.”
    Last edited by Mark; 23rd May 2019 at 17:20.

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