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Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money!

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On 25/06/2015 13:19, Tom McDonald wrote:
> On 6/25/2015 4:11 AM, Alex W. wrote:
>> On 25/06/2015 10:02, Tom McDonald wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Jojo seems stuck in the OT, with the division into races based on the
>>> sons of Noah. I suspect he thinks the darker folks (Hamites) are
>>> inferior and made to be servants. That he has thought no more deeply
>>> about race than he clearly has suggests some need to classify people in
>>> a way that makes it easy for him to label folks without knowing them at
>>> all.
>>
>> In a very general way, there is such a need.  On official identification
>> documents, for instance, there is always a racial and ethnic
>> classification, ditto when the police are searching for a suspect.
>> Surveys and questionnaires also often ask for racial self-identification
>> ... although I would suspect this to be due to some arcane
>> socio-demographic reasons.
>>
>> And race, whatever that may be, can have real meaning.  The efficacy of
>> some drugs and treatments, for instance, depends on the patient's race.
>>   Diseases may affect certain groups more than others.
>
> In archaeology, one of the most important tools for analysis of remains
> is a set of sieves of progressively smaller mesh size. Many people are
> familiar with the large, rectangular sieves made of hardware cloth,
> usually 1/4" mesh, on simple wooden frames. Large quantities of dirt,
> sand, etc., are shoveled into the sieve, and it is shaken to let the
> dirt fall through while larger stuff, most especially human-made
> artifacts, stay in the sieve. You see these in almost every movie that
> involves archaeological digs.
>
> https://middlesavagery.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/screen.jpg
>
> What folks may not be so familiar with is the set of testing sieves,
> most usually stainless steel or brass and round, of a number of
> different size meshes that samples from the spoil from the hardware
> cloth sieve are put through. These allow archies to test for ever
> smaller bits of interesting stuff, winding up by putting the spoil from
> the tiniest mesh sieves in water and letting pollen and other
> microscopic stuff of interest float to the top for separation from
> other, less interesting stuff. Here's a picture of a set of such sieves
> together with a chart of sizes:
>
> http://www.sieves.us/

I wasn't aware of that, although it it pretty obvious with hindsight.

A most useful technique!
Especially if one has volunteers (the technical term is "first-year 
archaeology students, I believe) to do the hard work....



>
> This is how I see the sorts of racial classifications you mention above.
> The classifications on official documents and police reports are the
> grossest 'field' sieves, useful only for quick sorting of people by
> easily observed features and characteristics. For those purposes, three
> or four classifications are usually all that's needed.

Quite so.

In those terms, such classifications are useful and needed.

Although I would also add that racial profiling does also have its uses, 
however inconvenient it may be for the individual.


>
> But then try to tell me that a !Kung San Bushman from the Kalihari is
> the same race, in any important way, as a Bantu farmer from 20 miles
> away; or that a Dravidian Indian is the same as an Indian from Kashmir;
> or a Spaniard from Madrid is the same as a Hispanic from Central Mexico;
> and you've jumped the shark. (I know you're not doing this, but play
> along, OK?)

I certainly do not do this.

Not least because in such a case, we are not talking about "race" but 
ethnicity.


>
> The point here is that for purposes of things like medicine, things of
> real import, knowing a 'race' on that hardware cloth scale is useless.
> You need a series of sieves of much finer mesh. There is more genetic
> diversity, for instance, in Africa than in the entire rest of the world
> combined. Native Americans are also quite diverse, even though they
> appear to have only a few aboriginal genetic types from the bottleneck
> in, mostly, Beringia.

I'm not so sure I agree.  We do know that certain diseases do crop up 
more in certain racial populations.  We also know that some treatments 
and medications work better on some racial groups than others.  By way 
of a very banal example, British hospitals stopped giving milk 
(wholesome, healthy, good for health and recuperation) to all patients 
as a matter of general policy cause it turned out that black patients 
(ours are usually from the West Indies) had a far higher incidence of 
lactose intolerance which actively impeded recovery after illness.


>
> As medicine progresses, it will be the finest sieves, down to genetic
> testing of individuals, that is most important to treatments,
> transplants, blood transfusions, genetic treatments, etc. Even in law
> enforcement, DNA testing is currently the most important tool in, for
> instance, making sure we have the right killer when we want to kill them
> for killing someone else. Less-fine classifications lead to horrible
> injustices, even today.

That is true, but I daresay that individually tailored medications and 
treatments are a long way off yet for all but the wealthy.  For Africa 
and parts of Asia, this is the stuff of drams and will remain so for 
decades....


>
> The utility of a three-stage, Shem-Ham-Japhet classification, so beloved
> of Jojo and his fellow loser racists, is quickly exhausted, and its
> horrendous down-sides in terms of racism and prejudice overwhelms, IMHO,
> its limited utility.

IMO, the mistake they make is to misapply a superficial difference and 
elevate it to a core and fundamental characteristic.  They take a quick 
and dirty identification marker and invest it with values that do not 
and cannot apply.

Racists ....

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Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Joe Bruno <joebruno86@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 03:15 -0700
  Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-23 04:58 -0700
  Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Wexford Eire <wexford.eire.1798@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 08:22 -0700
    Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Joe Bruno <joebruno86@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 11:24 -0700
      Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Wexford Eire <wexford.eire.1798@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 11:38 -0700
        Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Wexford Eire <wexford.eire.1798@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 18:01 -0700
          Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! J <jdyoung1@ymail.com> - 2015-06-23 23:04 -0400
            Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-23 23:31 -0700
            Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! J <jdyoung1@ymail.com> - 2015-06-24 16:14 -0400
          Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Joe Bruno <joebruno86@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 19:30 -0700
    Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Attila <<prochoice@here.now> - 2015-06-24 03:51 -0400
  Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 11:25 -0700
    Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 11:48 -0700
      Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 12:23 -0700
        Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 12:55 -0700
        Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Wexford Eire <wexford.eire.1798@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 18:03 -0700
          Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 19:57 -0700
      Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-23 13:48 -0700
        Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 15:24 -0700
          Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-23 23:30 -0700
            Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Mattb. <Trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 00:37 -0700
              Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-24 08:02 -0700
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Tom McDonald <tmcdonald2672@charter.net> - 2015-06-24 10:05 -0500
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 13:02 -0700
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 13:15 -0700
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 12:57 -0700
            Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! talishi <talishi@example.net> - 2015-06-24 04:23 -0700
              Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-24 08:03 -0700
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! "Alex W." <ingilt@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-24 17:19 +0200
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-24 08:50 -0700
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 12:58 -0700
              Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 12:23 -0700
    Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-23 13:47 -0700
      Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-23 15:20 -0700
        Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-23 23:30 -0700
          Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Mattb. <Trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 00:35 -0700
            Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-24 08:02 -0700
              Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 12:54 -0700
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! cooltur2@gmail.com - 2015-06-24 13:51 -0700
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 14:28 -0700
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! "Alex W." <ingilt@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-25 11:00 +0200
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! MattB <trdell12345@gmail.com> - 2015-06-25 13:42 -0700
              Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! JTEM <jtem01@gmail.com> - 2015-06-25 16:39 -0700
      Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Joe Bruno <joebruno86@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 19:22 -0700
        Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Wexford Eire <wexford.eire.1798@gmail.com> - 2015-06-24 20:44 -0700
          Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Tom McDonald <tmcdonald2672@charter.net> - 2015-06-25 03:02 -0500
            Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! "Alex W." <ingilt@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-25 11:11 +0200
              Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Tom McDonald <tmcdonald2672@charter.net> - 2015-06-25 06:19 -0500
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! "Alex W." <ingilt@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-06-26 09:15 +0200
                Re: Harriet Tubman first woman on American paper money! Smiler <smiler@jo.king> - 2015-06-27 01:09 +0000

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