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Identifying as a different race - transracial

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We are all different, and we must accept those differences. You can't pretend that all humans are the same-we are EQUAL,but we are not the same. My white friends have different features to me,as do my Asian ones;we are different,but do these differences matter? Absolutely not. Racism is not recognising someone as different. It's when you when discriminate against someone solely because of those differences. As humans, we class each other into groups every time. It's just natural

Your White friends also have different characteristics to another another, which begs the question, why are you dividing people based on looks into races, when people within said races look different anyway?

White man

White man

Non-White man

it's clearly nonsense

Reply 61

teenhorrorstory

Original post by Feel Tha Bern

See above, race is determined by customs, language and folklore, not genetics, I can change all of these things.

So provided I learn Arabic and behave within Arabic cultural norms, I will become an Arab.

So, if a native African person grew up in the UK their entire life and strongly identified with British culture,according to your definition of race, that person would have become transracial and have adopted a new race?

Culture =/= race
You will not become an Arab, you do not share any historic,geographic or ethnic background with the Arabs. You'd just be a wannabe

Reply 62

SMEGGGY

Haha

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 63

Feel Tha Bern

Original post by teenhorrorstory

If they want to then yes.

Reply 64

teenhorrorstory

Original post by Feel Tha Bern

White man

Non-White man

it's clearly nonsense

I look more different to my white friends than my white friends look to each other. No **** we all have different characteristics,that's sort of how variation works.
That has no relevance to my argument. I'm arguing that having different races in itself is not a bad thing. Keep up

Reply 65

teenhorrorstory

Original post by Feel Tha Bern

If they want to then yes.

Right. Quite obvious you struggle to understand what the term 'race' actually means.

Reply 66

TheGreatPumpkin

I was born a human but I identify as a pumpkin :smile:

Reply 67

username380364

Original post by teenhorrorstory

We are all different, and we must accept those differences. You can't pretend that all humans are the same-we are EQUAL,but we are not the same. My white friends have different features to me,as do my Asian ones;we are different,but do these differences matter? Absolutely not. Racism is not recognising someone as different. It's when you discriminate against someone solely because of those differences. As humans, we class each other into groups every time. It's just natural

So how far do you want to go with your categorising? All blondes in this group, all green eyed in this group, all tanned skin in this group? Of course we are all different in different ways, so why is it that skin colour has been made into such a defined construct that has implications towards your place in society?

There are a lot of factors behind racism and it isn't just the blatant racism that is down to being seen as inferior. That type of racism is slowly being eradicated because it is easy to spot. But the subtle racism that comes down to being classed as different when you are not, is difficult to uproot. You can clearly see that even from your comments on this thread, along with some others, how blind you are to it's affects unless you have experienced it. And it's a shame that instead of listening to somebody with experience, you just challenge and think that you know better.

Yes my skin has more melanin and my hair is a different texture and my eyes are brown, but none of these features should have any affect on anything else to do with my life of who I am as a person. Everyone is still the same no matter the hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, tongue colour whatever. No one is denying people have different skin colours, but it doesn't need to be a defined construct that has any basis in society.

Reply 68

childofthesun

Original post by Feel Tha Bern

Why can't I identify as an Arab, especially given that race is basically a social construct anyway?

Because the Arabs don't want you

Dibs on North Korean

There is no such thing as transracial...I can't believe that this s even a thing.

Reply 71

balanced

Original post by RobML

False.

Posted from TSR Mobile

He means sex

Reply 72

Feel Tha Bern

Original post by childofthesun

Because the Arabs don't want you

The salt is real :rofl:

Reply 73

Feel Tha Bern

Original post by teenhorrorstory

I look more Arab than some Syrians and Levantines, Moroccans and Sudanese all look different but are classified as Arabic.

Reply 74

Copperknickers

Original post by Feel Tha Bern

If people can sexually identify as the opposite gender, despite all biology and DNA indicating the opposite

Why can't I identify as an Arab, especially given that race is basically a social construct anyway?

The terminology of race is a little different from the terminology of gender. The word 'gender' incorporates a variety of things, from biological sex to sociocultural gender identity, as well as sexuality. Whereas 'race' in the narrow sense literally just refers your appearance in terms of your ancestry. I don't think anyone would deny that an adopted black baby from Nigeria who grows up in England in a largely white area to white step-parents is culturally and socially English, not Nigerian. But in terms of 'race' they are still considered African purely on the grounds of phenotype.

By the same token, if a girl were hypothetically to be raised by two male step-parents and grow up in a 100% male environment without ever meeting or learning anything about other women, she would probably identify herself and be identified by some others as a man, although she would still have a female brain and exhibit some behavioural differences from most other men. Obviously this would be unlikely to happen in the real world because it's almost impossible to insulate people from the gender divide, although there are plenty of tomboy girls who are treated as 'one of the lads' by their mainly male friendship group even if they don't literally identify as men.

Transgender is different to transracialism therefore for two reasons

1. Race is a very narrowly defined category based largely on physical appearance. The proper comparison would be between gender identity and socio-cultural identity. And in that case, the equivalent of a trans-gender person would be people like that African child born and raised in white England I mentioned above, whom most people would have no problem identifying as 'English' despite not being 'racially' (i.e. biologically) English in terms of heritage.

2. Carrying on the same point, no transgender person can ever be biologically the opposite gender: even with all the surgery in the world they will still have the wrong chromosomes. In the same way, no African living in England can ever be biologically an indigenous Brit.

So the point is, what is more important? Considering people by their genetics, or by their own identity and experiences?

The other point about transracialism that I forgot above, is that to be considered English you obviously have to have been very saturated in English culture and not have much input from other cultures. Which is easy enough for the above African in a homogenous part of the UK. But things get more complicated when you talk about things like African American racial identity, because African Americans have their own culture which coexists with white American culture. So it's possible for a white person to grow up being heavily exposed to both A.A. and white culture in the US (or Afro-Caribbean culture in South London for example).

Personally I would argue that it boils down to how you should treat other people. Most people would agree that you should treat my black English adoptee in the same way as you would treat a white English person. Less people would agree that you should treat a trans-woman (i.e. man -> 'woman') as a woman when s/he is biologically male, although people are slowly coming round. I guess you just have to use a bit of common sense. Should you identify a nutcase white guy who swears he is actually black despite growing up in a white area with white parents as black? Probably not. But should you identify a white person who grew up with mainly black friends in Brixton and speaks an inner city London 'black' dialect as culturally 'black British'? It might be very helpful in certain contexts to do exactly that.

Anyhow, to sum up, the conclusion we can draw from all this is that our black and white (excuse the pun) categorising of everything into distinct pigeonholes is just a heuristical technique for explaining the world. Gender and race are not exactly 'social constructs' because they do both have unalterable biological characteristics. They are best viewed as linguistic constructs, block 'identification guides' which are sometimes helpful, but which increasingly serve to hide the fact that the things referred to under the umbrella of 'gender' and 'race' do not always form distinct monolithic identities, the reality on the individual level is that a person can occupy different places on different continuums that to not directly correspond to 'male' or 'female'.

In short, whilst most 'black people' live in Africa and are culturally African, and conversely most Africans are black, it is perfectly possible for there to be white Africans and black Americans and culturally African American white people, or indeed any other mixture imaginable.