The Great Whatever

He looks both white and black to me. It shows in his accent and mannerisms as well. He can affect both white and black English, and he affects either ...

"people of color" stopped watching lol

Obama as a black president is a media creation, and I'm skeptical about that as a litmus test because the media can claim whatever it wants with virtu...

One, I think it's just counterfactual that anyone abides by a 95-5 rule. Two, I agree that there's a notion of white as the absence of ethnicity rathe...

The problem is, the only way to make the conversation interesting is to equivocate: if you emphasize that it's a social identity, then you can't actua...

Marchesk, again, you're confusing the application of words as social construct with that they denote as social construct, which is a use-mention error...

Again, this doesn't strike me as interesting. The confusion of what words are used for what things, and what those things are, is a pedestrian one.

Seems the same to me. The use-mention distinction is a first test of decent philosophy, IMO, and failure to grasp it is the start of a lot of bad thin...

Which chunk of land you consider a continent is arbitrary. But the continents themselves are obviously not. You could have considered Europe three con...

Shame is an important motivating force in the world today. I think it's a (post-)Christian thing.

Yes, the European continent is objectively real. Hahahahaah

I thought I already showed you why that was nonsense? Or where was the train of thought? I agree except I think that we are in a post-enlightenment ep...

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize that was all that counted. Are you white btw?

So were white people. Or did you not know that or something?

I think they never began or ended. It's because of vanity that white people focus on their own exploits -- being the best at being evil gives them som...

No, it wouldn't be. The idea of being dark would be the same. People would just think different things about dark people.

In such a world, there would be light and dark skin, and black and white people, as much as there are in this world. See how that works?

I think ethnicities exist, and are traceable to where your ancestors came from. I think they're not a social construction, that white people are an et...

White people are utterly delusional about race, and all minorities know this and exploit them for it, so their opinions don't matter on the subject. A...

Which is not the same thing as saying that whiteness is a social construct or was invented to justify colonialism and slavery.

Well, considering I am an American minority...maybe I should ask myself?

So people thought that those of European ancestry were superior to those who weren't. OK, how does that mean that being of European ancestry was inven...

I understand Marchesk's position but am being deliberately obtuse because sometimes that's what it takes to show that a position's dumb. I mean, I wen...

How could it have been a social construct? If there was nothing to latch onto, it wouldn't have worked, because you literally wouldn't have been able ...

In what way can one express racial superiority/inferiority, if there is no race to be inferior or superior to?

And what is the reason?

Yes it does. It may also be that being of European descent puts you in a historically privileged class. That does not mean that this is the meaning of...

It doesn't matter. Maybe neither. Using the vagueness of categories or exceptions of categories is not grounds for the dismissal of a category – again...

I mean that "black" and "of sub-Saharan African descent" are roughly synonymous, at least as I understand the words in my idiolect.

In the case of ethnic identity? Clearly not. No amount of expression will make it so that your ancestors originated from somewhere other than from whe...

OK, but people from sub-saharan Africa are black. So what you say makes no sense. They wouldn't be considered inferior or enslaved, but that wouldn't ...

OK, but having European heritage is just having ancestors that lived in Europe. So what you're saying makes no sense.

If it weren't for the slave trade, there would still be black people, obviously. Why would you say something so clearly false?

Not at all. Who belongs to a group depends on the qualities of the person and the qualities composing the group. We can change labels for groups, and ...

So being white is being of European descent. But being white was invented to justify colonization and slavery. It therefore follows that being of Euro...

Except I wasn't talking about colors, obviously, but categories of people metonymically named on the basis of those colors, so this is irrelevant.

No, it meant being European. Being European meant you got to dominate, yes. But you're committing a fallacy. Notice that no one not from Europe become...

They would be "white?" Well, they would be black ex hypothesi, as you just said. We could use the word "white" to mean what we now mean by "black," su...

What does this even mean? Does it mean that we talk about them? Okay, yes we do. But that is a weird way of saying that. Does it mean that ethnicity i...

OK, but 'white' means roughly 'of European descent.' To be of European descent is not a social construct, nor is it somehow equivalent to evil ethical...

...Yes, the Portguguese and Ukranians are genetically related, not as closely as the Spanish and Portuguese, and more closely to each other than the P...

OK, I legitimately can't tell. Are you serious?

Yes, there were many groups, which were more closely related to their neighbors than those farther away. This correlates with physical traits, the mos...

So you're denying that people who descended from European ancestors are part of a group? What do you mean by 'racial group,' and how does that differ ...

Marchesk, please tell me where you begin to disagree: 1) There are different groups of people who originated in different parts of the world. 2) These...

What exactly do you think is absurd? That there are ethnic groups? I seriously don't know what you're trying to say here, nor how protesting that clas...

Not at all. Identity politics is a driving force in modern Western politics, and is being exported to the rest of the world.

Not quite. It views white people as without identity. Although the moderate right does evoke the 'colorblind' position.

No, it stems from the fact that people come from different places and look different ways based on where they come from. There would still be white, b...

Nah. The idea of being white is the idea of roughly being from Europe ancestrally. It's true that that ancestry has been used to justify slavery and c...