Except you will gladly demean others by saying there's only one human race.
How is acknowledging that there is one human race demeaning people? Humanity is not demeaning. What about our swiftly growing population of "multi-racial" people? Are they "demeaned" by their parentage?
When you attempt to shut down discussion of race by repeating "there's only one human race," you're demeaning people.
The rest of what you said there is nonsense and I suspect you know it.
No, I'm pointing out that white people conflated genetics with culture, and while there is no inherent link between the two, they've been treated the same for long enough that certain cultures are associated with certain ethnic groups based around their skin color and appearance. This is why "black culture" exists--not because being black automatically imparts someone with particular cultural traits, but because white people have marginalized and denigrated black people and denied them a place in white culture for so long that black people developed their own distinct culture.
Obviously. What does that have to do with the fact that there's one human race?
What does wigglewobble have to do with goobyguppy? Herpy derpy, bafflebumps!
That's about as much sense as your question makes.
Who's handwaving anything? Maybe the piece of the puzzle that you're missing is that all that historical oppression of minorities that you're talking about is based on the misconception that "non-whites," as you call them, are genetically, or racially, inferior. That belief persists among real racists, like the Klan and Aryan Nation and their sympathizers. So, yes, it is vitally important that there be no question that there is only one human race.
Uh, that piece is exactly what I was talking about, so what the fucking fuck are you blathering about?
So you're literally saying we shouldn't take about race because it lets the KKK believe race, as they interpret it, is real? That's a serious argument you're making?
By conflating "race" with "hard-fought identities," you are indeed perpetuating racism. You keep repeating this notion that people are trying to "wish racism away," but that's a fiction that exists entirely in your head. People have been fighting racism for decades-- much longer than that, but the people you're talking to have been fighting for decades. Acknowledging that there's one human race, which you have admitted is a scientific fact, hardly indicates that that there's no fight against racism-- it's the foundation that it's built on.
So you're just completely ignorant of the fact that white people constantly invoke "I don't see why we need to think about race at all when there's only one human race" in order to a) stifle discussion of racism and b) erase people's identities by intimating that their experience doesn't matter. Race does not exist as a biological scientific fact. It
does exist as a social construct, one that is still very much with us. Apart from those who use it to promote an oppressive agenda (like the KKK), it's also a shorthand for cultural/ethnic identities that only exist because the concept of race was constructed in the first place.
You literally suggested earlier in this thread that having race checkboxes on forms perpetuates "separatism," so you'll pardon me if I doubt your motives.
Maybe you could do to re-read this paragraph
tsq wrote earlier, as it sums up the problem with your argument just fine:
I've never heard a POC tout the "One Human Race" line, because, as CultCross said, it's a very privileged position. I know that it is not your intent, but imagine how dismissive this position feels to a POC. Firstly, when you are not white you can't just dismiss the reality of race because it bangs you in the head every single day -- and yes, it is a reality; we are social creatures, just because race is a social construct doesn't make it any less real. As I said, 50% of who we are is environmental, of which a huge portion is sociological. Second, white people have a long history of using and abusing others based on their race; dismissing the very real differences in the experiences of a white person and a POC in the modern world is an extension of that abuse.
