Do you as an autistic person have a racial identity?

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That would have been truth if there had been dozens of generations of selective breeding of humans.

The breeding of enslaved people in the United States was the practice in slave states of the United States of slave owners to systematically force the reproduction of enslaved people to increase their returns.  It included coerced sexual relations between enslaved men and women, forced pregnancies of enslaved people, and favoring women who could produce a relatively large number of children.  The objective was to increase the number of enslaved people without incurring the cost of purchase, and to fill labor shortages caused by the termination of the Atlantic slave trade.  Slaves were also bred for strength, endurance, and a docile nature.

In short, slaves in America were considered more cattle than human beings.

Apart from how horrible I find this reality, none of my ancestors were bred like that, and I still consider race a concept largely alien to my culture.

Last edited by magz on 29 Jul 2020, 9:19 am, edited 5 times in total.

That would be yes.

I'm black/African American and I'm autistic. So the answer is yes.

But that did not make them cattle, did it?  The point I made (and which you reinforced) was that "race" is not a social concept, but a different term for "breed" in humans (to differentiate us from wild beasts, I suppose).Someone else also said that most white people raised in a mostly white culture do not consider themselves as members of a particular race.  Were I still living in Michigan, I might still have no concept of racial identity, racial politics, or racial discrimination.  As it is, I see people all along my street "representing" for each of their races in some way -- music, decorations, clothing, et cetera.  Only the white people seem to be leading bland vanilla lifestyles, while everyone else seems to know how to live!

This makes sense ........ !

WOW, this conversation turned dark quickly!

Race has no biological or genetic reality. It is simply a social construct primarily used in the social sciences.

Eugenics, a very much discredited field, was the area that gave race a biological "reality" (which, as I said, is not supported by science). This was reinforced by concepts of breeding in livestock. But breeding in slavery was very complex, where forced mating and rape were used to breed out perceived negative racial qualities and an easy way to increase "stock". Although, interbreeding with other races was not considered acceptable for the "superior" race. The extremes of this concept led to inbreeding in lines of royal families. This is a pretty global behavior found in cultures around the world at one time or another.

Humanity has not been known for its application of logic...

Are you blind?  You can see the superficial cosmetic differences between human races, just as you can see the superficial cosmetic differences between animal breeds.  It's all right there in front of you.  LOOK!

That is what taxonomy was based on. Animals were grouped into species and families based on their appearance. Genetics have redefined a number of family members because, while they had similar physical features, they were genetically distinct.

You are correct that race is superficial, which is my point. There is no genetic difference that can point to specific racial groups as the human genome is too similar across the species. Humans also adapt and change, that is simply natural selection or evolution, so race does not even have a fixed reference point.

Race is simply a human construct based on superficial visual comparison.

Wrong.  The human genome has been mapped sufficiently to pinpoint such details as hair color and texture, skin pigmentation, eye color, bone structure, and other cosmetic features characteristic of a person's race. This DNA analysis has been used successfully to not only determine the appearances of long-dead crime victims, but the appearances of the people involved in crimes, as well.

There is a genetic basis for race; but race itself is both superficial and cosmetic -- there are no genes that make any race inferior or superior to any other.

Really. What race is black hair? Or are you say that combinations point to race. OK, lets test it. Lets take India, where people are Asian, and they predominantly have black hair, but they also have skin colors ranging from fair to dark. Height and facial features are similarly diverse. Likewise, those classified as white have a great variation in hair color, skin color, and eye color, so nothing defines them with genetic markers. Lets take a genetic trip from Europe through the middle east to east Asia, at what point does the race flip from white to Asian genetically?

Yes, you can identify individuals and their ancestors by DNA, but ancestry is not race. Facial reconstruction through DNA is not very accurate either--except on TV. But as noted, physical appearance is not race.

I would recommend simply searching for "race and genetics" and you will find that race does not have an identifiable genetic basis. And why should it--we all belong to the same species.

That question is meaningless.  Hair color is not race; but each race seems to tend toward certain hair colors, hair textures, bone structures, et cetera.This.  And "points to" is the operative phrase.  If confronted with black curly hair, a flattened nose, dark eyes, and dark skin, you could say that you are looking at a human of African ancestry.  You could also say that you are looking at a sheep from Scotland.

As we both have agreed, race is cosmetic, and more so than genetic, even though genetics have immense influence on cosmetics.  Added to this is that there is no cosmetic feature that is unique to any one race, although a collection of features may "point to" a person's race, and the broader the definition of "race", the more accurately these common features can be applied to identify a person's race. Thus, we have the "Asian" race, and not the Sapporo race, the Hokkaido race, or even the Japanese race. Instead, we have Mongolians, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, et cetera, all lumped in together as "Asians".I beg to differ.  A man and a woman of pure Norwegian ancestry are not likely to give birth to an Aborigine from Australia, nor would two pure-strain Asians likely produce an African child.  While ancestry alone may not define race, a person's genetic ancestry will determine their race -- or their racial mix.Again, I beg to differ.  Those fictional accounts you see on the police procedurals were drawn from actual police cases -- people have been identified from nothing more than a partial skull and the DNA collected from inside their teeth.  Genetics will determine the most likely cosmetic features that that the victim had when alive (i.e, eye color, skin color, et cetera), and the reconstruction will take this data into account.  Some of those reconstructions have been uncanny -- it's like looking into the face of the victim, except for the lack of makeup and a different hair style, perhaps.

(The remains of one of my cousins were identified this way.)

So, to wrap up this post, I will assert and re-assert that:

• Race is not a social construct -- "Race" is to "Human" as "Breed" is to "Animal".
• No race is "inferior" or "superior" to any other race.
• Genetics, via ancestry, plays an important role in determining one's race.
• The politics of defining race are where the social construction occurs.
• We humans are a collective species, not merely a single race.

Of course, as always, your assertions may differ.

Wait are talking the human race or the genetics of the heretofore (known as ) the human race .
FnordS expression above does lend some clarity to these concepts .

Last edited by Jakki on 29 Jul 2020, 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Idk, I'm like 1/4 greek. a bit native american, european and idk the rest. If I was forced to claim a nationality it'd probably be greek. My Grandfather was greek (parents immigrated) My Grandma was part blackfoot indian. Honestly, I don't know that much about my ancestry. People would say i'm white though. And As far as identifying as white. Not so much. I mean I'm white, but do I identify as white not so much. To be entirely honest. I'm a bit acultural. The only thing i'd really say I Identify as is Autistic.

I am not offering an opinion. The current state of science simply finds no genetic evidence for race.

There is no "Human Race". We are a species.