21 November 2010

By Richard Lightbown

Our eyes tell us that people look different. No one has trouble distinguishing a Czech from a Chinese, but what do those differences mean? Are they biological? Has race always been with us? How does race affect people today? There's less - and more ­ to race than meets the eye:

Point 1.
Race is a modern idea. Ancient societies, like the Greeks, did not divide people according to physical distinctions, but according to religion, status, class, even language. The English language didn't even have the word `race' until it turns up in 1508 in a poem by William Dunbar referring to a line of kings.

Response to point 1:
The different biological divisions of humanity may not have been called races until about 500 years ago, but they had already existed for tens of thousands of years. They were created by divergent biological evolution, the same branching process that creates species, and represent an intermediate stage of raciation in a not yet complete process of speciation. Race is a biological reality that existed before people were aware of its existence, before they had an idea or concept of its existence, and independent of such an awareness, idea or concept. Race is not a political or social construct, although ideas and concepts of race are subject to political and social influences.

Until relatively recently, the great majority of people did not have direct contact with other races, but lived their lives in racially homogeneous populations where race was simply not an issue. For the great majority of humanity outside of the Western world this is still true. Until the last 550 years there was not even much knowledge about the existence of other races. It has been the activities of the Western world over the last 550 years in exploration, colonization and the building of new countries outside of Europe that has brought different races in direct contact with each other on a large scale. Along with that direct contact has come knowledge, and the study, of race and racial differences.

Among ancient societies, the Egyptians had contact with Black Africans in Nubia to their south, and they certainly made a racial distinction between themselves and Nubians, as is obvious in their art. They also took measures to prevent the movement of Nubians into Egypt. The Greek exposure to different races was essentially limited to the different Caucasian peoples of the Mediterranean world. The Romans also had very little direct contact with non-Caucasian races, but they did have contact with Caucasians beyond the Mediterranean region and were very aware of racial differences between themselves and the Semitic peoples of the Levant and the Keltic and Germanic peoples of Northern Europe. Black Africans were brought into the Greco-Roman world in small numbers as isolated individuals but never constituted a population or community in any sense. As individuals, they usually did not have access to a mate of their own race and either died without issue or were assimilated in small numbers, never forming a continuing racial presence.

Before the word race, an Old French term for "line," was applied to the different geographic populations of the human species it was traditionally used to refer to nations as well as almost any line of ancestral (biological or genetic) descent, even as narrowly as a specific family line. With the discovery of the different geographic populations of humanity the usage of the term race gradually changed to refer to these populations as the identifiable biological divisions, branches or lines of humanity.

Point 2.
Race has no genetic basis. Not one characteristic, trait or even gene distinguishes all the members of one so-called race from all the members of another so-called race.

Response to point 2:
Race does not consist of one characteristic, trait or gene. It consists of many characteristics, traits and genes, of a unique combination or ensemble of characteristics, traits or genes that distinguishes one race from another. At the level of the major or primary racial divisions, such as Europeans, Black Africans and East Asians, all the members of each of these racial divisions are easily distinguished from the others by their ensemble or combination of racial characteristics, traits and genes. At the level of secondary racial divisions, such as Northern and Southern Europeans, some individual members of the subdivisions are not easily distinguished from each other by their ensemble of racial traits, but the populations or subdivisions as a whole are.

Parents of the same race have children of the same race as themselves. Thus race is inherited from parents and ancestors from generation to generation. This is beyond question. There is no evidence, from science or ordinary observation, that race is not inherited, but overwhelming evidence that it is. Thus race and racial traits are inherited, and as genes are the only known or recognized means of transmission of inherited traits it must be assumed racial traits are genetic. Race is inherited from genes, and is thus in the genes and has a genetic basis. In fact, its only basis is genetic. It is created by genes and only by genes. It is completely and totally genetic. There is no environmental determination of racial inheritance. Even after many generations in America, the descendants of Northern Europeans and Black Africans are still racially unchanged from the native populations of their racial homelands.

Races are phenotypically real. They can be distinguished by their phenotype -- their genetically inherited and determined physical characteristics, traits and appearance -- from other races. There is no phenotypic overlap between the populations of major races. All East Asians, Europeans and Black Africans are easily distinguished from each other based on inherited genetic racial traits. Even subraces, or racial subdivisions, are easily distinguished from each other as populations based on visible inherited genetic racial traits, although there may be overlap in phenotypic traits at the individual level. Thus the populations of Sweden and Italy are phenotypically distinct from each other although there is some overlap at the individual level.

There are racially mixed individuals and populations. Their phenotypes correlate strongly with the ancestral racial proportions in their mixture, providing further proof of the genetic reality of race.


Point 3.
Human subspecies don't exist. Unlike many animals, modern humans simply haven't been around long enough or isolated enough to evolve into separate subspecies or races. Despite surface appearances, we are one of the most similar of all species.

Response to point 3:
This is a denial or belittlement of the extent and value of human racial diversity and variation. What is the standard or definition for a race or subspecies? This is not stated. The racial deconstructionists who attempt to define race or subspecies out of existence either do not state a clear and objective definition or they arbitrarily change the definition so that it is essentially the same as species. There is an objective standard for the definition of species -- populations that are unable or unwilling to intermix under natural conditions. A human subspecies or race is simply any of the biological divisions of the human species consisting of a population connected by common ancestry and distinguishable from other populations by a unique combination or ensemble of genetically transmitted physical traits. This is the definition of race, the meaning and measure of race, in common usage for the last four centuries, and it is something that certainly does exist, that is visibly and objectively real.

Point 4.
Skin color really is only skin deep. Most traits are inherited independently from one another. The genes influencing skin color have nothing to do with the genes influencing hair form, eye shape, blood type, musical talent, athletic ability or forms of intelligence. Knowing someone's skin color doesn't necessarily tell you anything else about him or her.

Response to point 4:
This may all be true, but so what? Why the attack on skin color? Does it not have any value in itself? Must its value depend on its connection with something else? In many cultures of many races around the world skin color does have a value in itself, with lighter skin color generally being valued more highly. But what is the meaning or purpose of this seemingly nonsensical argument? It sounds like an attempt to trivialize race, reducing it to skin color. Whether or not the genes influencing skin color have anything to do with the genes influencing hair form and eye shape they are certainly strongly correlated with them, and are usually part of the same unique combination or ensemble of genetic traits that physically distinguish the different races from each other.


Point 5.
Most variation is within, not between, "races." Of the small amount of total human variation, 85% exists within any local population, be they Italians, Kurds, Koreans or Cherokees. About 94% can be found within any continent. That means two random Koreans may be as genetically different as a Korean and an Italian.

Response to point 5:
This is the "Lewontin fallacy" discussed above. As Sarich and Miele (cited above, p. 169) explain, the actual amount of total human genetic variation that exists within any local population is 67.5%, not the FST measure of 85%, yet even by the standards of the FST measure of 85% the amount of variation between human subspecies or races is comparable to the variation between the subspecies of other species. But the races of humanity do share 99.9% of their genes in common. What does this mean? The proportion of genes we share is consistent with the fact that all the races of humanity share hundreds of millions of years of common evolution and ancestry going back to the first mammals and before. Their divergent evolution and ancestry began only with their geographic dispersal and separation into isolated populations spread around the world. The proportion of genes the human races share in common roughly corresponds with the temporal length of their common evolution and ancestry. The genes and genetic traits that the human races share in common are those that evolved during their common evolution up to their separation and geographic dispersal. The genes and genetic traits that vary between the races, that are unique to the different races, are the newer genes and genetic traits that evolved after the ancestral racial populations separated from each other. Their proportion of the total of genetic traits roughly corresponds with the temporal length of that separation compared to the entire length of human and mammalian evolution.

The proportion (67.5%) of human genetic variation that is possessed in common by all human races already existed in the common ancestral population from which all human lines or races are descended, and continues to exist in all the descendant human populations. The proportion (32.5%) of human genetic variation that is unique to the different races is the newer part that has developed since the different lines that evolved into the different races separated and began their genetic division.

Is point #5 claiming, or implying, that the newer genes and genetic traits that evolved since the geographic separation and isolation of the different branches of humanity, that are unique to the different branches and not shared by all, are of no value or importance? That only the older genes and genetic traits that evolved before the separation of humanity into different isolated branches, that all humanity shares in common, have value or importance? That nothing of value or importance has evolved or developed since that time? If so, what is the standard that determines which genes and genetic traits have value and importance? Is commonality, sameness or equality the standard, that only those older genes and genetic traits which evolved before the separation of humanity into different branches, and which all branches share equally and in common, have value or importance? This would be the egalitarian ideal, and hence presumably the Marxist ideal, but it is arbitrary. People do and always have attributed great value and importance to the newer genes and genetic traits that have evolved since the separation of humanity into different branches and that are unique to those different branches, lines or races.


Point 6.
Slavery predates race. Throughout much of human history, societies have enslaved others, often as a result of conquest or war, even debt, but not because of physical characteristics or a belief in natural inferiority. Due to a unique set of historical circumstances, ours was the first slave system where all the slaves shared similar physical characteristics.

Response to point 6:
The different races of humanity are almost as old as the dispersal of humanity into geographically separated and isolated populations that evolved into different races. This means that the human races are as old as the earliest hunter-gatherer stage of existence similar to that of the Aboriginal population of Australia. Is slavery as old as that, or even older, predating it? Or is it not more likely that slavery began after the development of agriculture, with settled communities and the development of social and economic heirarchies and inequalities in the distribution of property, power and wealth? Whatever the answer, it is certainly true that historically slavery has usually had little or nothing to do with race as such. But this is necessarily true, because as pointed out in the response to statement #1 the different races had little or no direct contact with each other until the last 550 years. So it is only in the last 550 years that there has been a clear racial connection to slavery, with a dominant people first having access to large numbers of slaves of another race.

Point 7.
Race and freedom evolved together. The U.S. was founded on the radical new principle that "All men are created equal." But our early economy was based largely on slavery. How could this anomaly be rationalized? The new idea of race helped explain why some people could be denied the rights and freedoms that others took for granted.

Response to point 7:
There is no evolutionary connection between race and freedom. They are two very different things. Race is a biological division of a species and a stage in the evolution of a species that is created by the biological process of divergent evolution or speciation. Freedom is a social or political condition that is created -- socially and politically constructed -- by people. Ancient Athens, the celebrated birthplace of democracy and the ideals of freedom and equality, had an economy based much more on slavery than antebellum America. Indeed, some Southern apologists for slavery, such as John C. Calhoun, justified it by comparing it to the example of ancient Athens and the high civilization it produced. Even without racial differences between slaves and freemen the Athenians justified slavery on the grounds that the slaves were inferior. That is the common historical justification or rationalization for slavery, which until the last 550 years was usually based on national, cultural, religious or class differences rather than racial differences.

Point 8.
Race justified social inequalities as natural. As the race idea evolved, white superiority became "common sense" in America. It justified not only slavery but also the extermination of Indians, exclusion of Asian immigrants, and the taking of Mexican lands by a nation that professed a belief in democracy. Racial practices were institutionalized within American government, laws, and society.

Response to point 8:
The belief in the superiority of one's own people and the inferiority of other peoples is very common among many cultures and races, and has often been used to justify and rationalize the conquest, domination, enslavement and even extermination of other races. This belief and practice has been documented among American Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Mongols, Asian Indians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards and others. It has no doubt also been common among peoples of whom we have no record. It is in no sense unique to the Southern Europeans who founded and built Latin America or the Northern Europeans who founded and built North America. What may have been unique to the Northern Europeans was that, as a population, they were the first to rise above these beliefs and practices and renounce them. The exclusion of other races, necessary to maintain the racial separation and isolation required for racial preservation, should not be equated with the enslavement or extermination of other races, as implied in point 8.


Point 9.
Race isn't biological, but racism is still real. Race is a powerful social idea that gives people different access to opportunities and resources. Our government and social institutions have created advantages that disproportionately channel wealth, power, and resources to white people. This affects everyone, whether we are aware of it or not.

Response to point 9:
As explained in the previous response to point #2 race is certainly inherited, and is therefore necessarily genetic, and is therefore biological. Racism, like any "ism," is an ideology, a system of beliefs and values. But unlike most other ideologies, it probably consists of more than this, being grounded by its biological connections to something much deeper, more fundamental, instinctive and intuitive, to something that is pysically real and physically exists, to emotions and behavior that were shaped by, and helped to shape, the evolution of humanity in general and each race in particular. Racism is ethnocentric, centered on, loyal to, and promoting the interests of a person's race. In the homogeneous racial societies that are our natural state of existence, and in which we existed until the modern creation of multiracial societies, race was not an issue, did not give advantages to one group in the society over other groups, and did not affect anyone. There were no racial differences to be aware of. Only in multiracial societies, in which the interests, including the vital life-essential interests, of the different races conflict with each other, does race become an issue and a source of conflict and problems, including the ultimate problem of racial preservation. Unfortunately, in the context of a multiracial society, the measures required to preserve a race and protect its vital interests necessarily include a competition for dominance and control of the society.

Point 10.
Colorblindness will not end racism. Pretending race doesn't exist is not the same as creating equality. Race is more than stereotypes and individual prejudice. To combat racism, we need to identify and remedy social policies and institutional practices that advantage some groups at the expense of others.

Response to point 10:
This is a call for action to advance the interests and position of "non-white" groups at the expense of the "white" group, whose existence is supposedly only an illusion anyway. And it is being heeded, not only in the United States, but also in Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, France, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In all these countries the "white" populations are being dispossessed, displaced, replaced and ultimately destroyed by actions and policies that promote and benefit the interests and position of "non-white" groups at the expense of the most vital interests of the "white" groups, including their very survival.

Points 6-10 above are not relevant to the issue of whether race is real or an illusion. All five of these points serve only one purpose: to beg the argument that race is not real, but is only an illusion, by the claim that the belief in race leads to bad things -- including slavery, social and economic inequality, racial exclusion and racial extermination (genocide) -- so the belief in race is itself bad and the reality of race must be denied for moral reasons. By this logic, those who deny the reality of race, who believe that race is merely an illusion, are considered morally superior to those who believe race is real. This is the logic of political correctness, that objective reality must be denied to serve the worldview, agenda, ideology and moral values of the dominant globalist and multiracialist power structure. But the belief that race is not real can also lead to bad things, very bad things, for the interests of the European peoples in America, Australia and Europe. In fact, its effects on the European peoples include their dispossession, displacement and replacement by the non-European races, and ultimately their destruction, extermination, annihilation or genocide as their very existence is lost. Racial denial, the denial of the reality of their existence, paves the way for the destruction of their existence by the claim that nothing real is being destroyed, that it is all an illusion, so it is not a legitimate matter for concern. European racial preservationists, who believe in the reality of race, do not seek, advocate or promote the domination, enslavement or destruction of other races, but the race deniers and deconstructionists, who claim that race is an illusion, do promote an agenda that leads to the destruction of the European races. And they pose as morally superior while doing so.

Conclusion

Before racial denial became the lead argument of the opponents of Northern European racial preservation their main argument was the claim that the Northern European race was mixed rather than "pure," and that because of this racial mixture and impurity was not worthy of preservation. Of course, these were the same people who were advocating more, in fact total, racial intermixture and impurity for the Northern European race, not the opponents of intermixture who wanted to prevent it in order to preserve the race. Also, of course, they did not describe the nature or extent of the intermixture they were referring to, nor provide any definition or standard of what constitutes racial "purity" and what level of it is required to justify racial preservation. Their arguments for racial impurity were, and are, as ambiguous as the arguments for racial denial. My answer to them was, and is, the same as my answer to the race deniers who claim that the race I love and want to preserve is not real and does not exist, and that there is thus nothing there to preserve. I tell them that I love and want to preserve my race as it is, to preserve what is as it is, whatever that might be, and whatever they might call it. Whether they call it a race or not, or pure or not, it is the population and associated phenotypes that I love and want to preserve. And they know what I am talking about. On an operative level, they know what my race is as well as I do, and it is as real for them as it is for me. The difference is that I want to preserve it and they want to destroy it.

Race denial should not be regarded as an isolated phenomenon. It is very much a product of its times. It can only be properly understood in the context of the racial revolution and shift in ethno-racial power of the last half century. It is part of the ethno-racial offensive against the Northern European race that is destroying the Northern European peoples racially, genetically and biologically by multiracialism and racial intermixture. The existence that it denies is the existence that it is helping to destroy. As a recent paper on genetic studies that affirms the reality of race informs us:

Geographic isolation [i.e., racial separation] and in-breeding (endogamy) due to social and/or cultural forces over extended time periods create and enhance genetic differentiation [i.e., create and preserve races], while migration and inter-mating reduce it [i.e., multiracialism and racial intermixture destroy races]. [Note #14]

Race denial is more than a fallacy. It is more than the sum of the many fallacies, the false arguments, used to support it. It is not an end in itself but a means to an end. It serves a purpose. Race deniers beg their argument with the claim that belief in race leads to racial oppression and genocide, so the purpose of race denial is to end racial oppression and prevent genocide. Actually the reverse is true. The real purpose of race denial is not to prevent genocide, but to prevent racial preservation, specifically the preservation of the European races, and most specifically the Northern European race. In short, the real purpose of race denial is not to prevent genocide but to help cause it. The true motive and intent behind race denial is to promote and assist the racial dispossession, replacement and destruction of the Northern European race. Race denial, and every race denier, is against racial preservation, and specifically against the preservation and continued existence of the Northern European race.

Ironically, race denial is racially motivated. It's source and base of support is among the non-European ethno-racial groups. It is they who seek the dispossession, replacement and destruction of the Northern European race, even in its ancient homelands. It is they who benefit from it, they who are the dispossessors and replacements. The existence of the other races is not threatened by race denial, so they can promote it from a position of racial immunity. It is the European races, and only the European races, and above all the Northern European race, who are threatened with extinction, and whose destruction is assisted by racial denial. Race denial is anti-Northern European in the most extreme sense of the term, as against the very existence of the Northern European race. Thus race denial is itself a part of the racial competition, and a product of the racial dynamics, the racial dialectic, of multiracialism and the process of racial destruction that it promotes. It might appear to be a political phenomenon, with political motives, but it is actually a racial phenomenon, with racial motives -- motives much stronger and deeper than politics, which is only the means to serve racial ends. It serves as a cover for those racial ends. It hides the process of racial destruction behind the protective cover of a false dogma that says that the race being destroyed does not really exist, thus nothing real is being destroyed, and there is no valid reason to resist or oppose the destruction. But the race that is being destroyed, the population and its traits that the race deniers are trying or helping to destroy, are real, and they are mine. They are the object of my love and devotion, the center of my concern. They are all the people of Northern European ancestry and type, in their many millions, whose existence is being denied, and under the cover of that denial is being destroyed.

How should racial preservationists deal with the growing wave of race denial in academia and the media? How much of our time and energy should we devote to the controversy over the reality, meaning and substance of race? Both sides in the controversy have an agenda determined by their own group interests. The race deniers are predominantly members of non-Nordish minority groups who want to lessen the racial solidarity of the Nordish majority to advance the interests of their own groups at the expense of Nordish majority group interests. The race affirmers are predominantly members of the Nordish majority ethno-racial group who want to increase the racial identification and solidarity of their group to secure its preservation and well-being. Denying race raises the bar or threshold for addressing the issues that really matter: the issues of ultimate racial interest that are never discussed, but are evaded and ignored. The more time and effort we put into overcoming these preliminary arguments the less we can put into addressing the vital issues of our racial interests.

But this is not just an academic exercise that racial preservationists can ignore. There are motives and purposes behind these claims. For minorities in majority Northern European countries who want to secure their position and weaken the position of the majority Nordish population it is in their interest to assert that race does not exist to preempt and weaken majority opposition to their presence. To racial nihilistic "idealists" whose ideal is a world without different races asserting that race is not real is a method of promoting their goal. To those who seek the dispossession and destruction of the Nordish race in particular, by replacement and intermixture, claiming the Nordish race does not exist, or that it is already mixed, serves to discredit and weaken opposition to intermixture and destruction.

In my own debates with race demeaners and deniers I have found that it is important to press them for specifics. With those who make allegations that my race is already thoroughly mixed, or that a particular individual is mixed, with the purpose of using this allegation to support further mixture, I ask for specifics about the alleged mixture, its extent, origin, proportion, etc., and for the evidence that supports the allegations. In short, I tell them to prove or substantiate their allegations or they will not be credible. With those who deny the reality of race I stress the importance of definition, give my definition, which is something that clearly does exist, and ask for their definition, which they usually will not or cannot provide. The point is that the allegations of the race demeaners and deniers are seldom substantiated by specifics or definitions, but are deliberately vague. Specifics make their falsehood obvious.

That said, it does little good to argue with the race deniers and race mixers. Their position will not be altered by refuting their falsehoods as their positions are not really based on them, but on the interests of their racial group. Still, it is worthwhile to remove their cover and expose their true motives. It is also worthwhile to expose the so-called idealism of multiracialists for what it really is: a program for Nordish destruction and extinction.

1. See Glayde Whitney's review of The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium by Joseph L. Graves, Jr. in the Winter, 2001 issue of the Occidental Quarterly (Vol. I, No. 2). Graves' claim that race is not real is explicitly motivated by his opinion that the belief in race is an obstacle to "social justice" and the elimination of racism.
2. The substance of some of these exchanges can be found on my website at http://www.racialcompact.com/reality_of_race.html
3. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/first/gill.html
Dr. George W. Gill is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wyoming. He also serves as the forensic anthropologist for Wyoming law-enforcement agencies and the Wyoming State Crime Laboratory.
4. The methodology that shows a human-chimp genetic difference of about 1.6% shows a genetic difference of less than .2% between the human races. Feng-Chi Chen of National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and Wen-Hsiung Li of the University of Chicago (2001) put the human-chimp gene difference at only 1.24%. Prof. Roy Britten of the California Institute of Technology, using a very different methodology, puts the figure at 5.4% (2002). This raises the obvious question regarding the difference between the human races using this same methodology. Would it also be more than three times as great?
5. Masatoshi Nei and Arun K. Roychoudhury; "Evolutionary Relationships of Human Populations on a Global Scale," Molecular Biology and Evolution, Sept. 1993 (pp.927-943):
http://www.molbiolevol.org/cgi/gca?sendit=Get+All+Checked+ Abstract%28s%29&gca=10%2F5%2F927
It is unfortunate that no Scandinavian (Swedish, Danish or Norwegian), Slavic or Arabic populations were included in this study, and that the English, German and Italian groups were not divided into regions. It is possible that an east English group would be genetically closer to a Danish or northwest German group than to a west English group.
6. These genetic studies are based on nuclear DNA, the genes that are actually responsible for racial variation. Other studies of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), such as that of Jody Hey and Eugene Harris (1999) show a difference between the human races that is about 4% of the difference between humans and chimpanzees.
7. http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007/
"Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease," Neil Risch et. al., Genome Biology 2002 3(7): comment 2007.1-2007.12. Published 1 July 2002. This article is an excellent scientific summary of the evidence from genetic studies for the reality of race.
8. http://anthro.palomar.edu/vary/vary_2.htm
This is a tutorial page on the website of the Behavioral Sciences Department of Palomar College, San Marcos, California, authored by Dennis O'Neil. Palomar College is a public two-year community college with about 30,000 students. The views expressed on this page are probably representative of what most social science students are currently taught about race. This should have probably been a predicted and expected result of multiracial education, with its chilling effect on racial research, where racial truth is the first casualty.
9. Op. cit., footnote 7 above.
10. Robert Boyd, "Scientists: Idea of Race is Only Skin Deep," The Miami Herald (Oct. 13, 1996) p. 14A
11. For a detailed examination of this subject see Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements, Praeger, 1998.
12. Doug McAdam, in "Picking Up the Pieces," Part 5 of the PBS series Making Sense of the Sixties , televised January 23, 1991. It can be assumed that in the context of this Racial Marxist debate at the Weatherman convention it was understood that the term "white" did not include Jews.
13. Op. cit., footnote 3 above.
14. Op. cit., footnote 7 above.

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