RACE, Reality of Race

Reality of Race

The Reality of Race Discussion and commentary regarding the claims by racial deconstructionists that the races of humanity are not real
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 07:49:34 -0400
From: “D.B.” in U.S.A.

In a correspondence dated June 27, 1990, professor Philip M. Peek (chairman,
anthropology department Drew University) responded to questions I had
concerning phenotypic similarities/differences concerning Nordics and
Mediterraneans. He replied “Since the advent of molecular biology (and its
offshoot, “molecular anthropology”), however, few human biologists base
racial classifications on any criteria that cannot be shown to be genotypic.
Many, such as Ashley Montagu and Frank Livingston, have abandoned all
biotaxic classifications of hominids below the species level. They therefore
deny the validity of the very concept of race as biological (rather than a
cultural) reality.” So… are we in the minority here?

__________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1999 09:08:50 -0400
From: “A. P.” in South Africa

Undoubtedly we are in the minority, but it depends more on political than
scientific reasons. Today it is “politically correct” to deny the importance
or the existence of human races, and, as prof. Philippe Rushton states,
every effort is made to deconstruct its very concept. Of course it’s not the
first time in history that ideology influences and hinders science. As for
the genetic studies, they are by far too incomplete and limited to
substitute for traditional physical anthropology, despite the claims of the
current cultural elites.
A.P.

______________________________________________________

Richard McCulloch’s reply and commentary,

To the above remarks by Professor Peep I would add the following excerpts from a newspaper article entitled “Scientists: Idea of Race is Only Skin Deep,” by Robert Boyd in the Miami Herald(Oct. 13, 1996; p. 14A):

WASHINGTON — Thanks to spectacular advances in molecular biology and genetics, most scientists now reject the concept of race as a valid way to divide human beings into separate groups. Contrary to widespread public opinion, researchers no longer believe that races are distinct biological categories created by differences in the genes that people inherit from their parents….”Race has no basic biological reality,” said Jonathan Marks, a Yale University biologist….Instead, a majority of biologists and anthropologists, drawing on a growing body of evidence accumulated since the 1970s, have concluded that race is a social, cultural and political concept based largely on superficial appearances. “In the social sense race is a reality. In the scientific sense, it is not,” said Michael Omi, a specialist in ethnic studies at the University of California at Berkeley.

The idea that races are not the product of human genes may seem to contradict common sense. “The average citizen reacts with frank disbelief when told there is no such thing as race,” said C. Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan. “The skeptical layman will shake his head and regard this as further evidence of the innate silliness of those who call themselves intellectuals.”

The new understanding of race draws on work in many fields. “Vast new data in human biology, prehistory and paleontology…have completely revamped the traditional notions,” said Solomon Katz, an anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania. This is a switch from the prevailing dogma of the 19th and much of the 20th century. During that period most scientists believed that humans could be sorted into a few…inherited racial types….As recently as 1985, anthropologists split 50-50 when one of their number, Leonard Lieberman of Central Michigan University, asked in a survey if they believe in the existence of separate biological races….As a sign of the change, Lieberman said most anthropology textbooks published in this decade [the 1990s] have stopped teaching the concept of biological race….[T]he revised concept of race…reflects recent scientific work with DNA….”We are beginning to get good data at the DNA level,” said a Yale geneticist, Kenneth Kidd….[which]“support the concept that you can’t draw boundaries around races.”

This is really a matter of semantics, a word game of political correctness. The motive can be easily understood. The ideology of racial nihilism, which always minimized the importance or value of race and racial differences, is now dominant enough to attempt to deny the very reality of race, as it seeks the destruction of race. The dominant elements in academia and the culture do not want race to exist so they deny its existence as scientifically invalid, engaging in a willing suspension of disbelief regarding the claims that “there is no such thing as race,” as if they can wish race into nonexistence by pretending it does not exist. They claim that race is only a cultural or political “construct,” an arbitrary creation of society that people believe exists only because they are taught to believe it exists, and that if people were not taught about race they would be unaware of it and it would be deconstructed, ceasing to exist. But since race actually is objectively real, a fact that people can see for themselves without any need to be taught, then its deconstruction actually requires that they be taught that it is not real, and does not really exist, in spite of what they see to the contrary. The role of supposed “experts,” possessors of superior and secret knowledge to whom ordinary people must defer, is central to this process, as described in Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes.

It is noteworthy that a valid definition of race is given in the above article, i.e., “races are distinct biological categories created by differences in the genes that people inherit from their parents.” This is not typical of racial deconstructionists. More commonly they neglect to give a valid definition of race even as they attempt to define race out of existence. Without a definition there is no point or standard of reference from which to judge the merits of their claims. Often race is confused with species, and wrongly defined as essentially the same as a species (i.e., as including all populations fully capable of interbreeding), and as there is only one human species and therefore different human species do not exist, if race is defined similarly then there is only one human race and different races cannot exist. But a race is not a species, and should not be defined the same as a species. It is a subdivision of a species, or subspecies, created by the divergent evolution of isolated populations of a species in the same process that eventually produces new species. I offer three dictionary definitions that represent the mainstream of pre-1990s opinion so the reader can judge whether the populations they define are real or not.

1.) “Any of the …biological divisions of mankind, distinguished by [features of physical appearance]. ” Webster’s New World Dictionary (1966)

2.) “[A] group of persons connected by common descent, blood, or heredity….characterized by a more or less unique combination of physical traits which are transmitted in descent.” The American College Dictionary (1969)

3.) “A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics.” Reader’s Digest Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary (1987)

Next in order is a review of the definition of race offered in the above article, by which definition the reality of race is denied, i.e., “races are distinct biological categories created by differences in the genes that people inherit from their parents.” What part of this is not real?

Are the races not “distinct,” e.g., can one not distinguish one race from another? Can one not easily distinguish indigenous Northern European, Central African or Northeast Asian individuals and populations from each other? I think the answer to this is obvious. Of course, these are probably the three most distinct racial types, representing the specialized extremes of a tripolar human racial typology. The main problem with racial typology is that there are so many different types, so much diversity, to be classified and typed, depending on how specific (and accurate) you want to be. The other races tend to be more generalized and not so physically distinct as these three, yet even a slight degree of familiarity with almost any race normally enables one to readily distinguish it from any other, and certainly the members of any race usually have no difficulty distinguishing themselves from any other race. Exceptions may exist, but they are rare and not the rule, and if anything only tend to prove the rule. A population that cannot be distinguished from other populations by its physical or racial traits should not be classified as a separate race. There are also many hybrid individuals and populations, the result of racial intermixture, that cannot be properly classified as belonging to any one race. But because they cannot be classified as belonging to any one particular race does not mean that races do not exist, only that these individuals or populations should be classified as being a hybrid or mixed blend of two or more races.

Are the races not “created by differences in the genes that people inherit from their parents,” i.e., are not racial traits genetically determined and genetically transmitted from parents to their offspring? Again, I think the answer is obvious, and is as true for races as it is for any taxonomic or biological category. The most ordinary observation confirms that racial traits are clearly transmitted from generation to generation, from parents to their offspring, and are solely determined by this transmission, and not by any external or environmental influence. (Marxist dislike of this fact caused the Soviet Union to promote the contrary theory of “Lysenkoism,” which held that traits acquired from the environment could be inherited by subsequent generations, and which may be enjoying an implicit revival among Neo-Marxist racial nihilists in the West.) This was known long before there was any knowledge of genes, and therefore any accurate knowledge of the actual means of transmission. We now know that genes are the means of transmission of all physical traits, including racial traits, from the structure of the brain to the features of the face and the pigmentation and texture of the epidermis. If these traits are not genetically transmitted then how are they transmitted? I don’t know of any other credible explanation for the observed transmission of racial traits from parents to their offspring other than the genetic one, and I doubt that any anthropologist or biologist is explicitly offering one.

Are the races not “biological categories,” i.e., are they not biological entities, and is their existence not a biological phenomenon? One more time, the answer is obvious. Genes are a biological phenomenon, a part of biology, and probably the most fundamental part. If different races are “created by differences in the genes” then they are biological categories. Specifically, they are a category below the category of species. Also, races are a product of the biological process of evolution. They were created by the same process of divergent evolution — the branching of life into different forms that occurs when populations are isolated from each other, usually due to geographic separation — that created all the biological diversity, or biodiversity, of life on earth. Races are part of that biological diversity. Races are a necessary part of biological evolution. They are the first step in the differentiation or divergence of life into distinctly different forms, the means by which different species are created. They are the stage of evolution a diverging or differentiating population must go through as it develops into separate species. If there were no races there would be no divergent evolution and differentiation of life into separate species.

What did Kenneth Kidd mean when he said, “you can’t draw boundaries around races,” with the inference that this means races are not real? This sounds like a reference to the fact that the different races of humanity can and do interbreed, that there are no biological or genetic boundaries separating them from intermixture with other races, and hybrid populations or “clines” of intermediate, racially mixed type do exist. But that is why they are defined as races and not as different species, which are separated by biological or genetic boundaries which make them unable to interbreed and produce hybrid populations. Races do not have to be incapable of interbreeding with other races to be considered genetically and biologically real or distinct. If they were they would be classified as species, not races. The fact that hybrid populations or clines exist means that the different populations of humanity are different races, not different species. The matter of clines has been too much abused by those who seek to use them to deny the existence of different races. The existence of clines proves that all humans are part of the same species, not part of the same race. Indeed, one would expect clines to exist within a species consisting of different races. Also, the existence of clines actually implies the existence of races, as how could there be clines of intermediate types between races if there were no races?

Or, alternatively, perhaps Kidd’s remark is a reference to the fact that because of hybridization or intermixture there are no clear dividing lines or boundaries between the races, but instead a continuum of individuals and populations forming a gradient or cline of gradually changing racial type between the races, so choosing a single point on this continuum of intermediate racial types as a boundary or dividing line between the distinct races at the two ends of the continuum must be somewhat arbitrary, as the types that are located on each side of the dividing line will be more similar, and more closely related, to the type next to them on the other side of the dividing line than they are to the distinct type at the far end of their side of the line. But the existence of a cline or continuous range of intermediate or hybridized racial types between two distinct races does not mean that there is no distinct difference between the two races at the polar ends of the racial continuum. As with any continuum of type, or space or time, the two ends of the continuum are the most distinct from each other, while any two intermediate points on the continuum are less distinct from each other. To suggest that the absence of clear boundary points along a continuum (which is a defining characteristic of a continuum) is evidence that the distinct ends of the continuum do not really exist, and cannot be clearly distinguished from each other, is the product of either simplistic thinking or semantic obfuscation. The solution to this apparent dilemma is to “step out of the box” constructed by false logic and recognize that it is arbitrary to insist on dividing a continuum of gradually changing types into just two parts, when three or more parts — the two distinct parts and one or more intermediate parts — would be a more accurate description of reality. The logical error; or intellectual dishonesty, is only compounded when this arbitrarily imposed inaccuracy is then used as an argument to deny the reality — the existence — of the distinct races at the ends of the continuum.

The different races, like species, are biological and genetic entities. Their distinguishing traits are genetic traits, meaning that they are genetically determined and genetically transmitted or passed through the generations, by inherited genes, from the parents to the children, from one generation to another, and thus, despite the denials in the Miami Herald article, obviously “created by differences in the genes that people inherit from their parents.” Thus racial traits are genetic traits, and genetic traits are biological traits. Thus race is genetically and biologically based or determined, and thus genetically and biologically real. This is obvious for everyone to see, so obvious that no so-called scientist or expert can credibly or believably deny it, and why denials elicit disbelief by those still in possession of common sense, and are accepted only by those who engage in a “willing suspension of disbelief” in order to conform to the dictates of “political correctness.” Leonard Lieberman’s survey of belief, mentioned in the Miami Herald article, is an obvious tool for inculcating and enforcing political correctness or ideological conformity of belief.

Those who claim race is not real cannot see the forest for the trees. They concentrate on the building blocks and cannot see the building. Thus they make statements such as “all blood is red” or the same color, or all people have the same organs inside, or we are all the same under the skin, etc. (although racial appearance is determined by bone, cartilage and muscle as well as skin, hair and eyes) to make the point that racial differences are not important, as only the building blocks or components are important, not their arrangement or what they form. A physicist I knew in college liked to say that at the sub-atomic level of neutrons, electrons and protons all matter is essentially indistinguishable, and at that level a non-specialist could not determine the difference between a human or a piece of rock, and he was right. Thus anthropologists now adhere to the politically correct racial nihilist dogma of racial denial by stating that at the molecular level of DNA or genes the different races are essentially indistinguishable, and only a specialist could hope to do so. But our senses do not operate at the molecular level, or at the level of our various internal organs, but at the level of the complete being they form, not at the micro level of the component parts (or building blocks) but at the macro level of their completed arrangement or construction. It is this complete construction that those who seek to deconstruct race deny is real, on the grounds that the differences seen in the complete or macro form in which our senses operate cannot be seen by a non-specialist at the micro level of its component parts. The Nordish race is as real as all the individual members who comprise it, who form its existence. They are the Nordish race, and the undeniable reality of their existence is also the undeniable reality of its existence.

This brings us to the important subject of the criteria for racial classification. In order of importance, they are:

1.) Phenotype: the subject’s physical appearance, especially facial features and other obvious physical racial markers. This is the means used by people from time immemorial to identify and define race. Different people, based on their study, awareness, experience and aptitude, have different degrees of ability in this area, yet nearly all people of normal ability can easily distinguish between the primary racial types, and most can also distinguish between the subtypes with which they are most familiar (e.g., Englishmen can usually distinguish between a number of the more common English subtypes). The ability to make these distinctions is to some extent unconscious, seeming somewhat unscientific, subjective and almost intuitive, yet it is an inherent human ability constantly used to identify many common things which are familiar to us, and was used for racial identification long before anyone attempted to construct scientific criteria for this purpose.

2.) Anthropometrics: the subject’s measurements and the indices derived therefrom. This requires some simple measuring tools and expertise in their use, but the results can be cross-checked and verified to a significant degree by the unaided but experienced eye. Carleton Coon, like many classical physical anthropologists of the first half of the 20th century, belonged to what could be called the anthropometric school. Unfortunately, when anthropometrics are given priority over phenotype in classification the result can be a subject classified as something which they don’t really look like. Thus Coon’s reference to exotic Nordic types, from places far removed from the Nordic centers, who conform to the Nordic anthropometric indices but really don’t “look” Nordic in appearance. When there is an inconsistency between phenotypic and anthropometric classification the phenotypic appearance should generally be given priority. The fact is that a person’s physical appearance or phenotype involves much more than is measured by all the different anthropometric indices. There are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of subtle, genetically determined things we notice almost unconsciously about a person’s face that are not measured by any of the anthropometric indices of facial features, and this is also true of other areas of the body. This makes phenotype a much more accurate and comprehensive method of racial classification than all the anthropometric measurements yet devised. Anthropometrics originally began more as the measurement and study of the differences between the known European subraces than as a method for classifying or reclassifying them, and I believe it was improper to elevate it to the primary means of racial classification with precedence over phenotype. Anthropometrics should be seen as an aid to assist in phenotypic classification in difficult cases, perhaps casting the deciding vote in case of a phenotypic impasse, rather than as something that replaces or takes precedence over it.

3. Genetics: This measurement of molecular phenomena is based on something that is effectively invisible and unknown to the human senses. It is subject to the most abuse as the layman has no means of independently evaluating, verifying or checking the claims made by the supposed expert geneticist, as to do so would require extensive laboratory facilities and equipment, samples, and specialized scientific expertise. As a result, the claims are essentially taken on faith or trust in the competence and honesty of the experts, and can be easily misinterpreted, selectively reported or even falsified. Therefore genetic measurements should be regarded with suspicion when they are inconsistent with more visible means of classification. Also, geneticists do not yet really know what specific genes are involved in the determination of those traits which constitute the racial phenotype, so their measurements do not really involve those genes which are actually racially determinative but arbitrarily selected genes that determine genetic traits that are often really racially neutral (e.g., blood factors, etc.) and are present in all races, basing their measurements on the different frequencies of these genes in different populations.

Since the particular genetic traits that the geneticists measure are present in all human populations and races, varying only in frequency, and they have not yet identified the specific genes responsible for the inherited traits that distinguish the different races and are thus unique to a particular race, genetics is thus far only of very limited and questionable value as a means of racial classification. (Although forensic scientists can now fairly accurately identify a subject’s racial ancestry from DNA samples.) To base a system of racial classification on it, as is perhaps most famously done by Luigi Cavalli-Sforza and his collaborators, can lead to some gross inaccuracies. For example, Cavalli-Sforza’s widely reproduced chart of genetic distances between populations (“The History and Geography of Human Genes,” page 78, Figure 2.3.2.B) groups the Japanese, Koreans and Mongols in a common category with Europeans while grouping the south Chinese in a different category with Polynesians, etc., indicating greater genetic distance between Japanese and southern Chinese than between Japanese and Europeans. Simply put, the particular genetic traits he uses for racial classification are more similar in Northeast Asians and Europeans than they are in Northeast Asians and Southeast Asians. This result should have set off alarm bells, clearly discrediting these genetic traits as irrelevant for the purpose of racial classification, but the genetic anthropologists persist in their use. Given this logical, or illogical, paradigm, is it any wonder that the genetic anthropologists come to the conclusion that the different races don’t really exist, because they don’t really exist in the particular genes they use for their studies?

We have not yet found the specific genes that determine race and racial differences, yet we know the traits that differentiate the races are real and are genetically determined, inherited from the parents and earlier ancestors, and from this readily observable and consistent fact we logically (and scientifically) deduce the existence of those genes. It is scientific arrogance, and very arbitrary, illogical and unscientific, to claim — as the genetic anthropologists referred to by Prof. Peek do about race — that something does not exist, is not scientifically valid, and is not real until science can fully understand and explain it, or in his words, that racial classifications cannot be based “on any criteria that cannot be shown to be genotypic.” What is the standard for “shown?” It is obvious to the most normal observation that the physical traits or criteria that are popularly used for racial classification or identification, with virtually error-free accuracy, are consistently and predictably inherited from the parents and passed through the generations. The only possible logical deduction is that these inherited traits are genetically transmitted, and that they are genotypic, even if they cannot yet be “shown to be genotypic” in the sense of being identified, observed in action and fully understood and explained at the genetic level. Such an extreme standard or requirement for scientific acceptance is arbitrary and illogical. Scientific explanations for most common and easily observable phenomena are very recent, yet those phenomena — those facts of nature and reality — existed and were no less real before they had a scientific explanation, and were accepted as real by science, regardless of whether their underlying existence was proved or their nature understood. Things exist and are real independent of our scientific understanding of them, otherwise nothing would have existed until quite recently. Science is the study of reality, not the creator of reality.

Attempts to minimize or trivialize race and racial differences as meaningless and unimportant — or even nonexistent — on the grounds that the races share 99.9% of their genetic code or genome in common sound impressive until put in perspective with regard to the degree of human genetic similarity with other life forms. For example, we share 20-30% of our genetic code in common with yeast and bacteria, 80% in common with birds, 90% in common with non-primate mammals (e.g., cows, horses, pigs, cats, dogs, raccoons, etc.), and 98.6% in common with chimpanzees. Seen in this perspective a .1% genetic difference actually looms large as a degree of difference that is very meaningful and important.

The active or functional part of the human genome or genetic code consists of about 22,000 genes (2007 estimates) containing about 87 million “genetic letters,” or nucleotide base pairs of DNA (DioxyriboNucleicAcid), of the total of about 2.9 billion base pairs in the complete human genome, or an average of about 4,000 genetic base pairs or “letters” per gene. The races of the human species share 99.9% of their 2.9 billion genetic base pairs in common, with genetic differences in .1% of the base pairs, a proportion which represents about 2.9 million genetic differences in the genome, or 87,000 genetic differences in the genes, or an average of four differences in genetic base pairs per gene. A single difference in the genetic base pairs or coding of a gene can significantly alter its effect, so a .1% difference in the genetic code could theoretically change the effect of virtually every gene in the genome. Seen in this perspective, as in the perspective in the preceding paragraph, a .1% genetic difference actually looms large as a degree of difference that is very meaningful and important.

The common argument that there is a greater degree of genetic variation within a race than between races is so misleading as to be suspect of deliberate deception. First, those who use this argument (frequently citing Luigi Cavalli-Sforza et. al. as their authority) often fail to state that the genetic difference between races they are referring to is in the racial average of the given traits. Thus what they should be saying is that the difference between the average in the given genetic traits between two races is less than the degree of variation in those traits within each race. Of course, to a thoughtful person this should be obvious, as it is logically impossible for there to be less variation in a given trait in two races than in one race. But leaving out the fact that they are comparing the full extremes of variation in a genetic trait within one race with the difference between the averages of that trait in two races is like leaving out the fact that one is comparing apples and oranges, and that such a comparision is not really very meaningful. Second, and most important, the genetic traits they use for these comparisons are not among those that are racially definitive and determinative, the traits on which racial identity is based and that are unique to each race, but among those that are not racially definitive or determining, that are racially neutral, and thus not really racially meaningful. The same argument could be used in a comparison of humans with chimpanzees, as the degree of difference between the average of humans and chimpanzees in the genetic traits they share in common is less than the degree of difference or variation in those traits within the human or chimpanzee species. It is the genetic traits that the human races do not share in common that determine the differences between them, just as it is the genetic traits that humans and chimpanzees do not share in common that determine the differences between them, and these are the only traits that are meaningful or important when discussing the differences between races and species.

At the risk of being repetitive, I’d like to add something I wrote on this subject to another correspondent. A political analysis is necessary because the ultimate motive for denying the reality of race is itself purely political in origin, not scientific.

The claim that races don’t really exist, ludicrous and absurd as it is, is being encountered with increasing frequency, and is central to the cause of racial preservation, so we have to take it seriously and expose it for what it is: an exercise in thought control to impose an incredible falsehood as politically correct orthodox dogma to which all must conform or suffer condemnation and reprisal [cf. Lieberman's survey of belief cited in the Miami Herald article above]. The purpose can only be to eradicate every vestigial trace of European racial consciousness and awareness. Thus a person of European racial type can’t love or care for their race, or have any loyalty or positive feelings or emotions towards it, as these feelings are based on racial consciousness which the dominant culture condemns as politically incorrect, and even pathologizes as mental illness. This tactic is ineffective on persons with a high degree of intellectual and moral autonomy, but people of less independent thought — who depend upon the opinions of experts for their own opinions, yet characteristically and perversely regard themselves as superior to the independent thinkers — are easy to control.

Personally, I trust what I can see with my own eyes over any claim to the contrary. I was well aware of primary racial differences before the age of eight, even though they weren’t discussed in my home and I had no special training or education in this matter. The reality of race was simply self-evident: I could effortlessly see it with my eyes. I could also easily associate racial types with the appropriate areas of the world from which they derive. At age eight, when I saw the movie “The Bridge Over the River Kwai,” I understood and could identify the racial distinction between the Japanese and British soldiers, even without their uniforms, and if a Briton had been cast as a Japanese, or vice versa, I would have instantly recognized that as improper. My racial identification process had nothing to do with the subject’s blood type, cephalic index, IQ, height, or numerous genetic variables, although some of these can be seen with the eye while others cannot. You could provide me with all this information about a person and I wouldn’t be able to identify their race, but show me a good picture of them and I can identify them most readily (and could when I was eight years old, although I wasn’t as aware of the finer points of racial identification as I am today). Even if they are of mixed type, I can identify the dominant type in the mixture and possibly the other types as well. (For example, golfer Tiger Woods’ dominant type is Congoid, although his ancestry is 50% Thai [Southeast Asian] and less than 50% Congoid, as he has some Amerindian and Caucasian ancestry as well. Yet my knowledge that he is part Amerindian and Caucasian is different than my knowledge that he is predominantly Congoid. I can see his Congoid ancestry with my own eyes, so it is first hand knowledge. I can’t see his Amerindian or Caucasian ancestry, it is not evident to me, so my knowledge of it is second hand, based on what I’ve read or been told.)

Interestingly, all the claims that races are not real and simply don’t exist are based on differences (or lack of differences) in things which are not racially definitive, which have never been used by ordinary people for racial identification, whether things we can’t see (genes, blood types, IQ, etc.) or things we can (height, cephalic index, etc.). Some scientists may have attempted to identify different races through these things, but they are of marginal utility as racial identifiers, and at best secondary to the primary identifiers of physical appearance. They are actually completely unnecessary for racial identification and are only a matter of interest to those scientists who study such things. Their use as racial identifiers probably began in good faith, in the search for measurable and quantifiable means of racial identification, but now they are used by the racial nihilists, racial gnostics and other race deniers to claim that races don’t exist, are not real, because the differences between the different races in these things are either minor or essentially nonexistent, often based on the assertion that the variation in these things between different individuals within a race are greater than the average variation in these things between races. So what! These things are not primary racial identifiers. They are at most secondary racial identifiers. As I said, you could tell me all these things about a person and I wouldn’t be able to identify their race. But I can identify their race by their physical appearance, as I can identify different types of animals or plants by their appearance but not by such things as genes, blood types, etc. Yet the race deniers press on with their insistence that races don’t exist, based on their measurements of these improper racial identifiers, and present this logical fallacy to the public as the scientific view. I’m sorry to say that Luigi Cavalli-Sforza is also guilty of this intellectual dishonesty or incompetence. We don’t need scientists to identify races for us. I was able to do it with great accuracy by age eight without reading any scientific work on the subject, and everyone in my family, and everyone I knew or know, was and is able to do it without help from any scientist. Luigi Cavalli-Sforza and other scientists who proclaim race doesn’t exist are willfully racially blind, and only fools allow the blind to lead them. Unfortunately, racial blindness, whether real or feigned, is a precondition for success, or even survival, in the present culture. It is the price which all must pay to qualify for advancement to positions of influence and power. (Reminiscent of “Gulliver’s Travels,” where blindness was the price required for immortality. Who was Swift satirizing? All the willingly blind conformists who prefer social success to objective truth.)

This is the reason why I often compare our situation to Hans Christian Andersen’s story “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” In the story, the population is told by the expert authorities that the Emperor’s clothes are real, told to believe something contrary to what they can see with their own eyes, to distrust their own judgment and deny the evidence of their own senses. But a child, uncorrupted by political correctness, naturally trusting what he sees with his own eyes, exposes their fraud. Like the child, we must trust what we see with our own eyes, and virtually every person of anywhere near average intelligence who has eyes to see can readily identify a person’s dominant primary racial type by their physical appearance. Even the race deniers can do this, but claim that physical appearance is not the proper racial identifier, insisting against all logic that the proper racial identifiers are those things with which they, and we, are actually unable to identify a person’s race. Thus the race deniers attempt to define race out of existence with word games. But it is a physical reality that people see with their own eyes, however much they have been told to be racially blind and not see it, and to deny they see it.

The ultimate purpose of race denial is to promote racial intermixture, for if race is not real there are no legitimate grounds for racial preservationism — or opposition to intermixture — as there is no race to preserve. Ward Connerly, chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute and a regent of the University of California, is an advocate of interracial marriage. In this he practices what he preaches, or vice versa, as he is Congoid and his wife is Caucasian. Connerly is widely admired by racial nihilist American “conservatives” for his crusade to end “Affirmative Action” racial quota programs, consistent with his belief that all racial values and considerations should be eliminated. The following is from an article by Connerly that appeared in David Horowitz’FrontPage Magazine in September, 2000, entitled “Loving America:”

When the history books are written about “race” relations in the last half of the 20th century, I expect 1967 to be a big year….1967 marks a turning point in America’s race relations…. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that laws forbidding “interracial” marriage were unconstitutional. The significance of this ruling cannot be overstated. Throughout the 20th century, scientists told us that “race” is a human invention, and that it does not represent a natural biological division between humans. Nevertheless, Americans continued to divide people along “racial” lines. Until 1950, we only allowed “whites” to become naturalized American citizens….By mid-century, however, cracks began to appear in our racial lines….Rev. King moved Kennedy, and then Johnson, to pass the Civil Rights laws that we currently observe. But, these merely broke down the artificial barriers between the “races.” A number of states still maintained the fundamental barrier — they forbade “black” and “white” people from marrying.

That is why Loving is so important. After Loving, people began to ignore the government’s racial lines. Individuals whose skin color didn’t match began to date, marry and have children in ever-increasing numbers. The effect was difficult to see at first. There were many who gasped when the University of Georgia’s star running back, Herschel Walker, had a white girlfriend. Today, though, the cable network E! may ask Tiger Woods and Joanne Jagoda, Julia Roberts and Benjamin Bratt and Maury Povich and Connie Chung about their love lives, but not because they are “interracial” couples. Sober observers of race relations today recognize the fundamental sea changes at work. Later this month the Jerome Levy Institute is sponsoring a conference devoted to “multiraciality.”

It is easy to lose sight of the powerful effect the “interracial” community is having on America….In California today, there are more children born to “interracial” couples than are born to two black parents. As the Hispanic and Asian diasporas continue, the “California trend” will become the American trend. By 2070, perhaps sooner, “black,” “brown,” and “white” will be historical concepts. Café-au-lait will be reality….We are on the cusp of the age that forgot “race.” Today’s young children will never understand “race” like their parents. Their playgrounds are “interracial.” The skin of their friends and classmates represent every hue imaginable. We are finally nearing the summit, when the government will stop stuffing the richness of our common humanity into their stifling “race” boxes. The transition from a “race” paradigm to one in which there is no such thing as “race” will not be easy. There is no road map to get us there. Political obstacles will emerge at every step of the way, because of those who hold that “race” is one of those “self-evident truths.” Because certain Americans look roughly alike, they must be members of the same “race,” so the argument will go. We must induce the scientists to step forward and refute the myths of “race.”

Our language must be modified to reflect more appropriate ways of identifying people other than “African-American,” “Asian,” and “Hispanic.” We must argue for the abandonment of terms such as “minority” to reflect the reality that Americans are not part of any socially defined “racial” groups. Thus, there is no “majority” or “minority.” More Americans must be encouraged to acknowledge the “diversity” of their backgrounds. When more “African-Americans” readily and proudly acknowledge the diversity” of their backgrounds — the fact that they are the product of America’s melting pot — then the concept of “race” will disintegrate…

Once social outcasts because of their defiance of social conventions, interracial people can and must now be leaders in preparing our nation for the future. We are truly one people, a merging of those who believe in a colorblind society, who are willing to act on those beliefs in the things that matter most. Now is the time to step forward, to be counted, and to show what a Loving America really is.

The purpose of this race denial, again, is obvious. It seeks to delegitimize racial existence by denying that existence. Something which doesn’t exist has no legal or moral standing to claim a right to exist or any other rights: no right to life, to control of its life, or to the conditions it requires for life; no right to preservation, no right to independence, freedom or self-determination, no right to its own territory and homeland, no right to be. Since it doesn’t really exist there is nothing to preserve or protect, its continued existence is not a matter of legitimate concern, and nothing will be lost by its nonexistence, destruction or extinction. The basis for a Nordish racial preservationist challenge to the multiracialist goal of Nordish racial extinction is cut off at its source, delegitimized as unreal and pathologized as mentally ill (paranoid delusion?), and it will likely be eventually criminalized as a threat to the multiracialist civil order.

Richard McCulloch