Are &#x27;native&#x27; Irish and British the same race?

Original post by HermesTrismegistus

I would be very interested to actually see you answer the poster's question. No body claimed that is what you said. He was merely speculating about your motivation for saying what you said. I think I understand your position at this point. Now tell me, what is your point in showing that race is a social construct? What follows? Why is it relevant? Or will you say you ever only have in mind the academic aspect of the question and a disinterested pursuit of Truth for its sake? We aren't precisely discussing niceties of Russell's theory of definite descriptions here.

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I already answered this:

"The points of agreement in the following articles reflect a shared evolutionary perspective that focuses on describing and interpreting the apportionment of biological variation between individuals both within and among groups (see also Lee et al., 2008). We agreed that:

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There is substantial variation among individuals within populations.

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Some biological variation is apportioned between individuals in different populations and among larger population groupings.

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Patterns of within- and among-group variation have been substantially shaped by culture, language, ecology, and geography.

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Race is not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation.

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Human variation research has important social, biomedical, and forensic implications."

"There was really only one fundamental difference of opinion among the symposium participants, which was about the precise nature of the geographic patterning of human biological variation" (Edgar and Hunley, 2009; Caspari, 2009; Edgar, 2009; Gravlee, 2009; Hunley et al., 2009;Konigsberg et al., 2009; Long et al., 2009; Ousley et al., 2009; Relethford, 2009; Wolpoff, 2009).

The academic world disagrees. It's incredibly naive to suggest something as pervasive as 'race' does not have any implications; it's tantamount to saying people in various parts of Nigeria treat witchcraft as a real phenomenon, so there should be no attempt to challenge this belief. 'Race' as a discrete category implies a fundamental difference between various human populations, which is inherently divisive in itself.

It should be manifestly apparent that any system that supposes a fundamental difference between humanity is/or has the potential to be highly pernicious (the concept of the 'nation' is another force of this kind, as demonstrated repeatedly throughout history up to today). Like sexuality or gender, for example, an increasing number of people are realising the binary of 'straight' and 'gay', or 'male' and 'female' are arbitrary and facile attempts to separate a continuum (obviously, these are only continua of single traits, as opposed to an innumerable number that comprise the entire genome), and are relinquishing themselves of such labels (or employing neologistic ones that they feel better represent their state of affairs). People being able to express themselves how they wish without being pressured to conform to a set of traits because they are 'gay', 'male' or 'black' (+nationality), will attenuate the social problems corollary to such identification systems. Do you not acknowledge the pressure and implications of social conformity or the notion of biological/situational essentialism? If people no longer see themselves as part of a sociobiological 'group', their individual agency will be restored and they will aspire to fulfil their personal ambitions instead of gravitating towards particular members of society because they are 'of the same race and must stick together/act in a particular way'. Just like you don't pick your friends/treat people differently/categorise humanity on the basis of their eye colour or shoe size, I believe all biological concepts have the potential to reach this unrecognised status once the unwarranted importance they are afforded is revoked.

This is a social construct that is predicated on an uncritical misconception that it has an objective, existent biological basis; correct the misconception and the strength of the social construct will weaken.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 103

But proving something is a social construct doesn't do anything !

Like I said, football is also a social costruct. and so what that it is ?

The main point of this argument is -
racial differences. In IQ, crime, athletic ability, creativity, culture etc.

Reply 104

Original post by democracyforum

But proving something is a social construct doesn't do anything !

Like I said, football is also a social costruct. and so what that it is ?

The main point of this argument is -
racial differences. In IQ, crime, athletic ability, creativity, culture etc.

Would you support studies on the differences between the IQ, criminal propensity, athletic ability, creativity, culture etc. of witches, wizards and normal people? In what way is this productive or useful when the categories in question are baseless/arbitrary social constructs? What is the exclusive psychological/physical unity between the groups in question that predicated your choice to categorise them as a single, homogeneous unit of analysis?

Reply 105

Original post by whyumadtho

Would you support studies on the differences between the IQ, criminal propensity, athletic ability, creativity, culture etc. of witches, wizards and normal people? In what way is this productive or useful when the categories in question are baseless/arbitrary social constructs? What is the exclusive psychological/physical unity between the groups in question that predicated your choice to categorise them as a single, homogeneous unit of analysis?

Studies in racial differences are important for many reasons.

People united by a common history, common ancestors, a common culture and language - a group.
It is human nature to belong to something bigger than yourself, be it your race or nationality, which is why people do
- you can't just belong to the human race, well you could but I think your nation and countrymen should come first.

But according to you nothing can be categorised or labelled or defined ?
Of course it can.
Like dog breeds, horse breeds, differences within the group.

So let me ask you a question, what defines one animal, from another ? What separates a horse, from an elephant, from a tiger ?
Why can't they all just be the same ? All got 4 legs, may as well be.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 106

Original post by democracyforum

Studies in racial differences are important for many reasons.

People united by a common history

History is not delineated by putative understandings of 'race'.

common ancestors

We all have common ancestors.

a common culture

'Culture' is not delineated by putative understandings of 'race'.

language - a group.

Language is not delineated by putative understandings of 'race'.

It is human nature to belong to something bigger than yourself, be it your race or nationality, which is why people do
- you can't just belong to the human race, well you could but I think your nation and countrymen should come first.

What is the relevance of this argument?

But according to you nothing can be categorised or labelled or defined ?
Of course it can.
Like dog breeds, horse breeds, differences within the group.

Arbitrarily. Given the entire population of dogs and horses, people will sub-categorise them in various ways on the basis of various features. Which categorisation system is right or 'more correct'? If I chose to categorise things by hair colour, but you chose to categorise them by ear length, our systems will not be concordant. Determine what should act as the universal and unambiguous system of categorisation, by which we can meaningfully derive conclusions about various other things like athleticism, creativity, etc. The only unit I can see is the individual organism, who also has autonomy over all of the things you have listed.

So let me ask you a question, what defines one animal, from another ? What separates a horse, from an elephant, from a tiger ?
Why can't they all just be the same ? All got 4 legs, may as well be.

Biologically, it is the ability to produce fertile offspring. This definition has numerous problems (look up "species problem"), but it is the only one that can be considered to hold any degree of functional objectivity.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 107

Mick.w

18

Original post by AverageExcellence

A while ago i was having a discussion with some people about this in our history class and they were sure that Irish people are not of the same race as say scottish or welsh.

Even if you do argue that People of Norman origin are not the same as Gaelic then surely these people do share common ancestory and therefore are the same people.

But today i was reminded of it because i got my doctors form back and it asked me to state what race i am, either white british, white irish, or white other (presuming slavic peoples).

Is this differentiation purely for 'political' purposes to stress the separation of the countries or are the two different?

no irish are different. english are descendent from france and eastern europe.

irish are descendent from the south. from the iberian peninsula.

the irish are descendent from moors. theres not been a lot of funded research into it because the irish government wants to try and get chummy with europe.

but theres lots of evidence.

1. irish legend says they are descendant from an egyptian queen.
2. christianity was brought to ireland looong before it arrived in britain due to carbon dating the celtic crosses. ethiopia was one of the very first christian kingdoms so its very likely that christianity was brought to ireland from ethiopia quite possibly via egypt.
3. the ankh and the celtic cross do look quite similar.
4. there is a trail of dolmens leading from morroco all the way to ireland. the dolmens could be related to the worship of the golden stool in ghana.
5. beads found worn by irish royalty identical in manufacture and design to the faience beads found in King Tut’s tomb (1341-1323 BC). (Source: http://www.beadbabe.com/archives/html/the_case_of_the_mysterious_iri.html)
6. apparently according to this source (Source: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qgSDULk4KEMJ:moorishamerica.webs.com/latinoladinomoors.htm+basque+being+reclassify+niger+congo+biafran&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client) basque (a language known to be closely related to irish gaelic) is being reviewed to be reclassified under the niger-congo dialect with it being most closely related to igbo people. who are found largely in biafra. which is interesting because during the biafran conflict the guy in charge of Biafran forces thanked the nation of ireland for the aid and relief support that they gave.
7. evidence that ireland was still in contact with african sources up until the 9th century in the form of the Ballycottin cross. a celtic cross found with Bismillah written in kufic arabic on it. kufic arabic is the earliest form of arabic. it dates around 200 years after the profit muhamed's death.
8. ingredients for paints that could have only come from afghanistan used to make the irish book of kells.
9. Skellig Michael Monastery is frequently mentioned as an example of african monastic tradition that was brought to ireland.
10. the actual word for a black(african) person in irish is a "blue man" not a black man. this is interesting as the colour of the african Tuareg(that i mentioned earlier) is ingido. they were these huge impressive head wraps of indigo. many could say that indigo in irish would be translated into the irish for blue.
11. Crom Dubh. the black god of ireland (Source: http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/crom-dubh-the-black-god-of-ireland/)
12. St Bridget being black (Source: http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-fomuurs-the-originals-blacks-of-ireland-st-brigid-of-ireland/)

there is a theory that christianity in the form of egyptian ophitism was the original christianity that was brought to ireland. ophitism was quite unique as it worshiped nanash the snake who gave eve the fruit of knowledge and at times even depicted jesus as a snake crucified on the cross. it is believed that the story of St Patrick, supposedly a romanised welshman brought christianity to ireland and cast out the snakes, is quite possibly a piece of roman catholic propaganda. the metaphor of getting rid of the snakes meaning getting rid of the original church. of course all evidence shows that christianity was in ireland long before st patrick. in fact there is speculation on whether he exists at all as there seems to have been very little reference to him. and more worship was traditional held towards native irish saints such as Columbanus (of whom the book of kells was dedicated too) and St Bridget.

egyptian ophitism is of course gone but the most ancient form of african christianity in existence today is ethiopian orthadox.

its very interesting to note that ethiopian orthadox music sounds incredibly similar to traditional irish music.

this is a whole documentary im just referring to the music at the beginning of it.

skip about 3 minutes in with this one^

according to this site (Source: http://hermetic.com/bey/snakes.html - infact in this link is loads of information on african irish origin) "Ireland and Morocco have the only pentatonic scales west of China and Java" in regards to their music.

just for those who are not familiar with the sound of irish Sean-nos (meaning old style) music.
here is some examples

of singing.

think back to the singing of the ethiopian video.

playing the Irish Bodrhan

Bodrhan and singing.

now here is a lady of playing the Portuguese Adufe. the Adufe is of moorish origin. meaning from the moors who settled in portugal.
the singing and way the adufe is played is amazingly similar to irish music.

so yea quite a few links there. also theres genetic evidence coming out that points to all of this being true.

theres also the notion of the "Black irish"
in fact many irish have brown eyes.

many believed it to be from the spanish armada's that crashed along the west coast. however it turned out not to be true as they geneticists realised that due to how many irish had brown eyes and how many spanish landed in ireland that it wouldn't be possible. so many irish had brown eyes before then.

oh also in 19th to early 20th century science. it was largely believed that the irish were "africanoids"
(Source: http://www.victorianweb.org/history/race/Racism.html)

oh yea and heres some of the evidence that the english where trying to prove the irish were close to apes along with black people.

the two to the furthest left are monkeys...________________________________these are all europeans with the most
and the two on the right are irish and black_______________________________advanced to the furthest right being english

(edited 11 years ago)

RTÉ did a documentary on the origins of the Irish people a few years ago.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/bloodoftheirish/productionnotes.pdf

Can't find the actual documentary itself but the production notes are interesting.

Reply 109

FreeHat

Original post by Mick.w

theres also the notion of the "Black irish"
in fact many irish have brown eyes.

Studies have indicated the Irish are "almost uniquely pale skinned when unexposed, untanned parts of the body, are observed" and "40% of the entire group are freckled to some extent." Moreover, "in the proportion of pure light eyes", data shows that "Ireland competes successfully with the blondest regions of Scandinavia", as approximately 42% of the Irish population have pure blue eyes. Another 30% have been found to possess light-mixed eyes and "less than 1 half of 1% have pure brown".[13]

Reply 110

Original post by whyumadtho

History is not delineated by putative understandings of 'race'.

We all have common ancestors.

'Culture' is not delineated by putative understandings of 'race'.

Language is not delineated by putative understandings of 'race'.

What is the relevance of this argument?

Arbitrarily. Given the entire population of dogs and horses, people will sub-categorise them in various ways on the basis of various features. Which categorisation system is right or 'more correct'? If I chose to categorise things by hair colour, but you chose to categorise them by ear length, our systems will not be concordant. Determine what should act as the universal and unambiguous system of categorisation, by which we can meaningfully derive conclusions about various other things like athleticism, creativity, etc. The only unit I can see is the individual organism, who also has autonomy over all of the things you have listed.

Biologically, it is the ability to produce fertile offspring. This definition has numerous problems (look up "species problem"), but it is the only one that can be considered to hold any degree of functional objectivity.

People do all the time unite and connect with people of their own ethnicity. It is human nature, not a social construct.

Animals are not categorised simply on trivialities like ear length.

Considering you know what I mean when I say black person, Japanese person, a lion, a tiger, a horse, means you have accepted these social constructs and can see the differences between them !

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 111

Mick.w

18

Original post by FreeHat

Studies have indicated the Irish are "almost uniquely pale skinned when unexposed, untanned parts of the body, are observed" and "40% of the entire group are freckled to some extent." Moreover, "in the proportion of pure light eyes", data shows that "Ireland competes successfully with the blondest regions of Scandinavia", as approximately 42% of the Irish population have pure blue eyes. Another 30% have been found to possess light-mixed eyes and "less than 1 half of 1% have pure brown".[13]

nothing i said conflicts with this. you should read properly. or perhaps make a point rather than just quoting wikipedia

Reply 112

Original post by democracyforum

People do all the time unite and connect with people of their own ethnicity. It is human nature, not a social construct.

What does this even mean? Do Norwegians 'connect' with Anders Breivik? Do Europeans, Americans and Australians all connect with him? Whether or not I associate with somebody is determined exclusively by how similar they are psychologically and if they are compatible with my fundamental interests and beliefs.

Animals are not categorised simply on trivialities like ear length.

Why not? What isn't 'trivial'?

Considering you know what I mean when I say black person, Japanese person, a lion, a tiger, a horse, means you have accepted these social constructs and can see the differences between them !

I also know what you mean when you say 'fire-breathing dragon', but it neither makes the concept a reality nor implies I believe this imagery is anything other than an idiosyncratic, imagined visualisation of an abstract concept based on what I have seen categorised as a 'fire-breathing dragon' in the past. Everyone can stereotype the appearance of any particular concept based on how the concept is commonly portrayed, but it doesn't mean acknowledging the existence of a stereotype means I personally agree with it or don't recognise stereotypes are false by their very definition.

Reply 113

Original post by whyumadtho

What does this even mean? Do Norwegians 'connect' with Anders Breivik? Do Europeans, Americans and Australians all connect with him? Whether or not I associate with somebody is determined exclusively by how similar they are psychologically and if they are compatible with my fundamental interests and beliefs.

Why not? What isn't 'trivial'?

I also know what you mean when you say 'fire-breathing dragon', but it neither makes the concept a reality nor implies I believe this imagery is anything other than an idiosyncratic, imagined visualisation of an abstract concept based on what I have seen categorised as a 'fire-breathing dragon' in the past. Everyone can stereotype the appearance of any particular concept based on how the concept is commonly portrayed, but it doesn't mean acknowledging the existence of a stereotype means I personally agree with it or don't recognise stereotypes are false by their very definition.

ever heard of black history month ?

In fact ever heard of any organisation/club soley based on race ?
Of course you have, there are thousands of them, they exist because race is a social reality.

You still didn't answer me, do you accept that different animals exist, and that within each animal there are different breeds ? Forget this social construct rubbish, that's your answer to everything.

Reply 114

Original post by democracyforum

ever heard of black history month ?

In fact ever heard of any organisation/club soley based on race ?
Of course you have, there are thousands of them, they exist because race is a social reality.

There are also organisations in Nigeria and India dedicated to helping people who have had the invidious appellation of 'witch' ascribed to them. Something being a social reality does not mean steps should not be taken to eviscerate it, and it shouldn't be necessarily accepted, either. When it was a social reality that all African people were biologically inferior and were only useful as slaves, should society have accepted that state of affairs? Should the pernicious caste system in India be unchallenged?

You still didn't answer me, do you accept that different animals exist, and that within each animal there are different breeds ? Forget this social construct rubbish, that's your answer to everything.

There is biological variation, yes. Every organism can logically be classed as a 'different breed'.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 115

Original post by whyumadtho

There are also organisations in Nigeria and India dedicated to helping people who have had the invidious appellation of 'witch' ascribed to them. Something being a social reality does not mean steps should not be taken to eviscerate it, and it shouldn't be necessarily accepted, either. When it was a social reality that all African people were biologically inferior and were only useful as slaves, should society have accepted that state of affairs? Should the pernicious caste system in India be unchallenged?

There is biological variation, yes. Every organism can logically be classed as a 'different breed'.

Okay, what do you think of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome ?

Reply 116

Original post by democracyforum

Okay, what do you think of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome ?

From what I read on Wikipedia it seems to be referring to the established concept of the emotional contagion and a child's upbringing in general. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the name seems strange.

What exactly does it entail?

Reply 117

Original post by whyumadtho

From what I read on Wikipedia it seems to be referring to the established concept of the emotional contagion and a child's upbringing in general. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the name seems strange.

What exactly does it entail?

I have no idea.

Reply 118

IRSP044

Original post by Mick.w

Bodrhan and singing.

Duno if it is the same Pól MacAdaim but Pól is a brilliant singer and id reccomend Cíarán Murphy.

Don't worry about the h8ers in this thread mate. Be proud of what you are an stand tall. In my opinion its not where your from or anything that defines you. But your actions define you. And from seeing your posts I reckon you've the makings of a good socialist you will stand by the vulnerable and weak through think and thin!

Reply 119

DaveSmith99