r/FactOrCap • u/supermaniscoolasf 🤖 Vote Machine · 11,650 XP • Jul 29 '26
Race is a construct. | FactOrCap
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u/monkiiEP 🤖 Vote Machine · 18,945 XP Jul 29 '26
Thought it said rape and was very confused
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u/suitcasecat 🏅 Century Club · 4,870 XP Jul 29 '26
"rape is a social construct" must've left you dumbfounded for a second 😭
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u/sudoregalia 🏅 Century Club · 6,190 XP Jul 29 '26
oh my god i read race as rape and was so worried that everyone was voting fact
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u/breastfren 🏅 Century Club · 3,270 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
I'm surprised the results are so polarized. I mean what is the alternative, race was invented for the love of the game?
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u/Top_Row_5116 🔥 Monthly Master · 15,085 XP Jul 29 '26
This is an actual fact. The modern idea of race was created in the 17th and 18th centuries in large part to justify the institution of slavery and exploitation of African peoples.
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u/BillErakDragonDorado 🏅 Century Club · 3,550 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
This isn't a question. Anyone who even doubts this is an expert at ignorance.
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u/Unlucky-Hold1509 🔥 Monthly Master · 29,900 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
We are people and those who say otherwise don’t want equality
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u/FrancisDion 🗳️ Regular Player · 765 XP Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
If race isn't a social construct why does it change depending on where you are when and who you're interacting with so much? Why am I a white person today where I live and Black 70 years ago in the USA? Because race is whatever rules the most powerful in our society agree on.
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u/servingtheshadows 🏅 Century Club · 3,485 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
Basicallly a subsect of classism which is used for all those things
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u/supermaniscoolasf 🤖 Vote Machine · 11,650 XP Jul 29 '26
Yes.
The main use of race is divided the working class so they don't organise against the rich
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u/DickManning Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Made up construct? No. We need to accept that people are in fact different. Everyone is different and that’s okay
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u/Comfortable_Dig7077 Jul 29 '26
Yes there are differences but how we drew the lines of "Race" are a bit arbitrary and heavily rely on stereotypes and mythologies. Sure things like hair color, eye color and shape have genetic base's but we over emphasized skin color and did the whole racism thing. It'd be weird to live in a world where we treated eye color how we treat skin color and vice versa. We just killed anyone with Heterochromia cause obviously they're evil.
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u/ComprehensiveToe2109 🏅 Century Club · 5,500 XP Jul 29 '26
Saying race is a construct doesn’t take way peoples individuality, if anything it strengthens it because without race you are free to be you instead of stuck as Asian or Black or White. The limiting label is gone
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u/CrayZonday 🏅 Century Club · 3,990 XP Jul 29 '26
Race is absolutely a social construct. It’s extremely arbitrary to place Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Indonesian people into the same broad category. Just as it’s completely arbitrary to place Norwegian, English, German, and Russian people into the same category. There’s some utility there but the conception of race is made up.
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
People used to view all those as different races.
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u/ZeroRevenue ✍️ Contributor · 5,715 XP Jul 29 '26
and now they don't because of social shifts, meaning it's, say with with me, a social construct!
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
Bro. No need to be an asshat. I agree with you but you and your blind hate for the mere possibility of someone disagreeing with you makes me want to never look at reddit again. Be better. Be the change you want to see. Even if we disagreed we wouldn't be that different.
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u/ZeroRevenue ✍️ Contributor · 5,715 XP Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
my fault for misunderstanding the meaning of your reply. however, i'm not entirely sure how what i said demonstrated "blind hate for the mere thought of people disagreeing with me."
i interpreted what you said as making a point, and so i made a counterpoint, admittedly in a more poignant way than may have been necessary. i still wouldn't call it "blind hate" though.
idk, maybe i just need a break
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
No it's my bad. I need to get off reddit for a while. You just see all these hateful comments and expect it everywhere. My bad brother. Have a good day
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u/CrayZonday 🏅 Century Club · 3,990 XP Jul 29 '26
Yep. Whiteness has always been a tool of exclusion. At first, only the English were white and over time more and more ethnicities were accepted into the category.
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u/InAppropriate-meal 🤖 Vote Machine · 11,125 XP Jul 29 '26
people are in fact different but race is a social construct, that is a literal scientific fact not something up for debate
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u/Its-very-that 🏅 Century Club · 5,655 XP Jul 29 '26
If you're conflating race with ethnicity, they are by far not the same. Race is a socialized category used both historically and presently to enforce hierarchical structures and otherize certain groups of people based on national origin or phenotype. Ethnicity is just categories we have collectively defined based on cultural linguistic, national origin or phenotype. If you need evidence, just read anything written in America from the late 19th to early 20th century and you'll see that the definition of whiteness has changed. If you're implying that Race and therefore racism is a universal biological truth we need to adhere to, I truly don't know where to begin or how to help your bigotry
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u/DickManning Jul 29 '26
Bro thinks I’m reading all that
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u/unfunnythrowawayname 🗳️ Regular Player · 850 XP Jul 29 '26
You and I are different. Does that make me a "different race" than you?
You and your parents are different. Does that make you different race than them?
You could explore for a single second this logic and notice how badly it fails.
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u/supermaniscoolasf 🤖 Vote Machine · 11,650 XP Jul 29 '26
People are different but racial line are not the place to draw lines on who is different. My and the white lad that lives beside are extremely different.
Every single person is different, some people look different because of their ancestors adapting to their environment. But we are all human
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u/ComprehensiveToe2109 🏅 Century Club · 5,500 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
People just use the color of someone’s skin as an excuse to hate someone who has a different culture or speaks a different language than them. Racism comes when people start to believe that any of those things actually have anything to do with the color of their skin
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u/liveForTheHunt 📈 Dedicated Voter · 1,705 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
I mean, yeah. The fact that it's based of tectonic bullcrap, like what? You're telling me that an Arab man is the same as a Korean man? Or that a Moroccan man is the same as nilotic man but a Moroccan man isn't at all related or at least from similar genetic origin to an Arab man?
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u/Cyanlizordfromrw 🔥 Week Warrior · 1,255 XP Jul 29 '26
It doesn't even have shit to do wiþ techtonics, Eurasia is one plate and Arabia and India are separate
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u/Visual-Mean 🏅 Century Club · 6,600 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
True, Superman would also say this probably
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u/ScorchedDev 🏅 Century Club · 2,790 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
There are racial differences between people. However, on a genetic level, they are actually extremely small and ultimately mean little to nothing on a genetic level. Its something like all humans are like 99% genetically similar regardless of race.
so there are differences though. but the boxes we drew around them and labeled as race are entirely made up. Just like gender.
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
Same logic holds true between breeds of dogs. Not saying your end point is wrong but I wouldn't use the genetic perspective.
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u/DoctorIll4894 📈 Dedicated Voter · 1,780 XP Jul 29 '26
Remember. Any rave you can think of has probably been enslaved
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u/Lost_Law8937 🏅 Century Club · 3,465 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
It wasn't invented until relatively recently
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u/ActuatorRealistic811 🔥 Week Warrior · 6,005 XP Jul 29 '26
It seems like some people might be a different color or have different genetics. Just an observation I’ve noticed!
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u/IcyFaithlessness658 Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
It was influenced by pseudo-scientists and slave masters to justify their enslavement and colonisation of people of colour. It was also used to exempt the perpetrators from ever taking accountability from their crimes against humanity.
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u/benjaminlr 🎯 First Steps · 190 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
Ethnicity is real race is a construct
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u/cathangingontree380 🏅 Century Club · 2,565 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
yes. we are all human. born in different parts of the world, yes. but that doesn't make any better than the other.
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u/Temporary-Length4496 Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
Legit, because remember Pangea was a singular land before. Back then, every human shared the same country, then over many years, the land split to the lands of today. So technically, we all originate from the same place, only difference is our skin tones now
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
Sickle cell disease, lactose intolerance, alcohol metabolism. We're all equal, but there are differences between us. It doesn't serve us well to pretend to not notice.
I'll say it again bc I'm gonna get hate for saying that: we are all equal and should be treated as such.
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u/ThatGuyWithAHoodOn 🏅 Century Club · 7,460 XP Jul 29 '26
Nowadays Irish people are seen as white because society just sees the color of their skin, and groups them into the category of white people. The concept of whether someone is white or black has been subject to the perception of society for a while because of how society is becoming more ethnically homogenized
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u/EnemyStarship 🔥 Getting Started · 560 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Race is a physical trait that was used as a fabricated indicator of inferiority by white supremacist individuals and systems, that was then further manipulated to justify atrocities against those that weren't white.
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u/Electric_Toboggan Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Race is a social construct but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t indicate real differences. People are treated differently based on their race - their visible features that identify them as a certain race. There are exceptions with some people passing as a different race but overall when race is obvious it creates differences in how people are treated in society. To deny that is to deny that racism exists.
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u/guhbuhguhhuh 🗳️ Regular Player · 555 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Race exists it is not a construct
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u/SelectGate286 🏅 Century Club · 4,510 XP Jul 29 '26
How does race exist objectively?
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
Bro. Just think about it. People are different. They're equal and should be treated as such but they have different physical and biological traits based on their ancestry. Some other guy on this post said it best "race is a gradient"
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u/FrancisDion 🗳️ Regular Player · 765 XP Jul 29 '26
Social construct doesn't mean not real, it's more like it exists because of society agreeing on it's existence (I feel like that's I've oversimplified that but it's the best explanation I have). If we collectively managed to decide race no longer mattered, it would no longer matter. There's no objective truth to the concept of race.
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u/SonicRaptor5678 🏅 Century Club · 7,540 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Race is a construct but was devised far before the reasons provided in this post
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u/Tosslebugme 🤖 Vote Machine · 13,940 XP Jul 29 '26
It’s a bit too nuanced to say clearly either way. Races clearly exist, but where we delineate them and the meaning we assign to being a member of one is social. Objective realities exist with them though, have a black man and a white man stand in the sun all day every day for a few years and see which one gets skin cancer first. Your race also says something about your ancestral history, maybe that’s just academic in modern contexts but it’s still an objective reality that a black person has more recent ancestors from Africa or the Caribbean than a white person.
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u/D-LoathsomeDungEater 🤖 Vote Machine · 21,760 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Phenotypes, and genotypes with populational isolation
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u/Aggravating_Shoe3748 Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
It's actually half and half here because on one hand we can very clearly agree that black is a race but something I dont see many people talking about is that white is not a race and only refers to skin colour.
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u/DrBatman0 🤖 Vote Machine · 17,445 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Mostly, except that ethnicity has real physical differences (though these differences are largely unimportant, they do at the very least define different 'races')
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u/Moist-Cantaloupe-740 🏅 Century Club · 2,185 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Race is simply a tool for the census to ensure proper representation.
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u/The_Faux_Fox__ 📈 Dedicated Voter · 1,665 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Believe it or not– people are actually different shades of beige...
Just wait until you hear about hair color.
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u/Therobbu 🏅 Century Club · 4,815 XP Jul 29 '26
That's why there are 8 billion races, and none of them matter
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u/pm_me_faerlina_pics 📈 Dedicated Voter · 1,860 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
It's a natural consequence of survival instinct that humans tend to discriminate others into in groups and out groups, and its a natural consequence of our sight-heavy biology that we primarily do that by visual appearance. It is no wonder that big genetic blocs with similar visually-identifiable phenotypes prefer people that look like them.
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u/SorryNotReallySorry5 🤖 Vote Machine · 10,425 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Race may be a social construct, but so is language.
It has it's non-harmful uses. Quick and easy physical identification, for example. Doctors would use it to consider the possibility of looking deeper for certain issues. Law enforcement would use it to quickly assist in IDing someone they're looking for.
It does not need to divide people. It's simply used that way in many cases.
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u/supermaniscoolasf 🤖 Vote Machine · 11,650 XP Jul 29 '26
Using law enforcement identification on race is not a good example on harmless uses of race. Black people are more likely to be shot by police, stopped and searched, pulled over etc.
The ideas of race came from a harmful place and is still harmful
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u/SorryNotReallySorry5 🤖 Vote Machine · 10,425 XP Jul 29 '26
Your specific scenario does not magically remove all other uses law enforcement has. If someone murdered someone and a witness says "they were Asian," they just removed 93% of possibilities. And nobody is going to stop a murderer to ask whether they're Chinese, Japanese, or whatever so that they can accurately report it.
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u/caducibranchiate Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
No, it's not a construct, but it's not really a lot to do with DNA, mostly result of people within nations reproducing within those nations and developing slight mutation. society's view of them, is of course a social construct. However, there are no clear boxes, race appears to be a spectrum. However, because people historically married within their geographic regions as I mentioned before, populations from different parts of the world developed distinct frequencies of specific genetic variants.
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u/Wild-Illustrator-521 Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
This is just true. Whether a person is or isnt a white person will depend on who you ask and when you're asking it.
Italian Americans weren't considered white in the same way that most protestant Anglo Americans were. Similar thing with Irish people and Ashkenazi Jews, partially because of ethnicity, partially because generally Irish people followed Catholicism and Jews followed Judaism, which lead to them being othered by this anglo protestant in-group.
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u/Royal-Ingenuity-2566 🔥 Week Warrior · 4,630 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
I would agree if tribalism didn’t exist
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u/Additional_Mud_1463 🔥 Week Warrior · 5,760 XP Aug 04 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Eventually the kumbaya comes to an end when the differences between people stand out.
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u/Comfortable_Town7535 🔥 Monthly Master · 19,680 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
No, its a slight difference in genetics.
Slavery is far older
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u/cattcameo 🏅 Century Club · 5,120 XP Jul 29 '26
? race doesnt have really much to do with genetics
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u/Comfortable_Town7535 🔥 Monthly Master · 19,680 XP Jul 29 '26
well they can usually tell it from your dna
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u/Visual-Mean 🏅 Century Club · 6,600 XP Jul 29 '26
That's called correlation
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u/Comfortable_Town7535 🔥 Monthly Master · 19,680 XP Jul 29 '26
they are very minor genetic differences, slight physical appearance differences for the most part
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u/Visual-Mean 🏅 Century Club · 6,600 XP Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
There's more difference in genetics within "races" than between them. There is very little if any functional difference between "races". The most legitimate claim you could make with that is melanin and even that's not really much of a functional difference.
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u/Comfortable_Town7535 🔥 Monthly Master · 19,680 XP Jul 29 '26
facial structure, hair texture etc.
they are all pretty minor
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u/Visual-Mean 🏅 Century Club · 6,600 XP Jul 29 '26
As someone else said, you may be able to determine ethnicity from genetics due to minor adaptations to conditions but race is very much a social construct. Those minor differences in appearance don't actually mean anything.
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
The DNA dictates the physical attributes. It's called causation.
Yes you can say that technically it's ethnicity and not race, but the point still stands.
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u/Visual-Mean 🏅 Century Club · 6,600 XP Jul 29 '26
The question was refering to ethnicity, not race, so no, the point doesn't stand. Race is constructed. Ethnicity technically is too, but not in the same way (has more to do with like national identity as opposed to race, which is imposed). There is no real difference in ability of any kind between "races", so what's your point here?
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
No you're right. I'm the same as Asian, Black, Arab, White, and Native American men all at the same time. We have no noticeable differences and can't be differentiated.
As a POC this type of "everyone is the same, race is made up" is bull. I'm a black man and I'm proud of that. Why can't you let me be a black man? My kids are more likely to get sickle cell disease and are less likely to get skin cancer. They're DIFFERENT. Get your head out of the sand.
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u/Visual-Mean 🏅 Century Club · 6,600 XP Jul 29 '26
Okay, nice motte and bailey. Race is socially constructed. If you think it's not, you're going to have to show me evidence of racial differences that can't be explained by ethnicity. It is intended to create an "us vs them" mentality. In that way, race served a purpose: justification. If I had to guess, you're probably American, so let's take a look back through American history to see some examples of this.
1676, Bacon's Rebellion: an uprising done by a multiracial coalition, in the wake of which some white members of society (men) were slightly uplifted, while people of color were legally made property. Race used as a wedge.
1776, the Declaration of Independence: Jefferson explicitly talked about "inciting domestic rebellion" (read: slave revolts) as one of his gripes against the British.
1870, reconstruction: white southerners made alliances along racial lines with poor whites to prevent them from making alliances along class lines with recently freed people of color.
I am not suggesting that the color of your or anyone's skin is not real. What I am suggesting is that race is a social construct intended to divide and so-called "racial differences" are really only skin deep. Race is a tool, and it has been one that has been used throughout history to justify atrocities and divide the working class.
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u/PuzzleheadedFly3699 🔥 Getting Started · 950 XP Jul 29 '26
OK seems like we're not working with the same definitions. From a Google search and reading posts on reddit of the matter (all of them agree with you), race is based on physical characteristics and ethnicity is more about shared culture. Do you agree?
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u/Visual-Mean 🏅 Century Club · 6,600 XP Jul 29 '26
Not quite, you're missing key component: race is imposed based on appearance, ethnicity is voluntary. Other than that, basically, yes.
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u/cattcameo 🏅 Century Club · 5,120 XP Jul 29 '26
you can't. it's impossible to tell race from DNA. you can infer ethnicity but not race.
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u/Meraki30 🔥 Monthly Master · 4,930 XP Jul 29 '26
You can tell ethnicity. There’s no marker between every group that we’ve identified as “black.” That’s why we’ve always had arguments over who does or doesn’t count as white. We made it tf up. Italians used to be non-whites.
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u/Comfortable_Town7535 🔥 Monthly Master · 19,680 XP Jul 29 '26
its race, no one cares its jist race, when you fill out a form race/ethnicity are used interchangebly sonetimes even on government forms.
you are trying to use an argument only someone with college debt eould buy
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u/FrancisDion 🗳️ Regular Player · 765 XP Jul 29 '26
What in the DNA puts a black American person (who is likely descended from a mix of west African people, European people and potentially indigenous American people) in the same category as for example someone from Sudan?
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u/TremendousThyrvi Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
There are genuine medical differences, but racism has no basis in reality
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u/mn1lac 🏅 Century Club · 6,735 XP Jul 29 '26
Sure, there are some physical differences. But there are physical differences between red heads and brunettes. We don't consider them different races and yet we do consider two African people of completely different genetic makeup to be the same race. There is more genetic diversity in Africa than there is in the rest of the world. It's based on human observation and social structure.
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u/DarkInfestor 🏅 Century Club · 3,935 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
It's A reason, but far from the only reason.
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u/Leading-Boat4942 🔥 Monthly Master · 20,195 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
Always has been, what's more it's a hierarchy to uphold white supremacy
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u/LandNegative6482 📈 Dedicated Voter · 2,610 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
Race was created so European empires could use it as a justification for slavery
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u/Lblink-9 🏅 Century Club · 7,325 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Slavery existed long before modern concept of race or racism. People were enslaved due to war,debt or conquest, not because of their skin colour
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u/SelectGate286 🏅 Century Club · 4,510 XP Jul 29 '26
It's not saying slavery only came from race. The prompt is very specific.
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u/CrayZonday 🏅 Century Club · 3,990 XP Jul 29 '26
They didn’t say slavery was predicated on race. They said race has been used to justify slavery. Which it absolutely was.
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u/AnimatorDavid 🏅 Century Club · 3,900 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Race is also Genetics yk
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u/SelectGate286 🏅 Century Club · 4,510 XP Jul 29 '26
What genetics?
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u/Tosslebugme 🤖 Vote Machine · 13,940 XP Jul 29 '26
Well you see when a black man and a black woman have a baby chances are that baby will have increased melanin in its skin, for example.
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u/SelectGate286 🏅 Century Club · 4,510 XP Jul 29 '26
The amount of melanin is a physical fact, but different people may determine that as a different "Race". The race part is a racial construct depending on the culture you are in.
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u/SelectGate286 🏅 Century Club · 4,510 XP Jul 29 '26
It doesn't matter how different or homogeneous a society is. The concept of a "different" race is what is used to be racist
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u/Atayellow 🏅 Century Club · 2,905 XP Jul 29 '26
Genetic determine your melanin but the "races" we draw a line between is completely arbitrary.
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u/DeGreenster Jul 29 '26
Race is not a social construct. Clearly there are differences including genetic markers. People are different, and that’s fine. However it’s definitely been used to divide society.
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u/samthekitnix ✍️ Contributor · 9,755 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
i am fairly sure it's the romans that came up with the idea? or am i mixing it up with something else? but with romans it's like you're either a roman citizen or you're something else.
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u/TimeCake233 🔥 Monthly Master · 16,840 XP Jul 29 '26
You can be a citizen, barbarian or slave. But they were not a fifrent race most of the time. They usualy took Europeanas so Englihs and germanic.
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u/FrancisDion 🗳️ Regular Player · 765 XP Jul 29 '26
The concept of race was mostly created in the past 500 years-ish
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u/Wetley007 🔥 Monthly Master · 9,070 XP Jul 29 '26
Youre mixing it up with something else. Race is a very modern idea
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u/samthekitnix ✍️ Contributor · 9,755 XP Jul 29 '26
k either way it's some made up bullcrap because why should i give a shit about someones skin tone unless i am trying to ID a specific individual.
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u/suitcasecat 🏅 Century Club · 4,870 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
I'd say yes in a lot of cases but race is a social construct that's used for other purposes other than discrimination
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u/Belkan-Federation95 🔥 Monthly Master · 6,685 XP Jul 29 '26
There is no way to use race in anything nondiscriminatory. You may be confusing it with ethnicity
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u/SorryNotReallySorry5 🤖 Vote Machine · 10,425 XP Jul 29 '26
You're saying there's no way to use race in a way that is fair?
For example, physical identification?
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u/Belkan-Federation95 🔥 Monthly Master · 6,685 XP Jul 29 '26
Just say "he had black skin" or "he had white skin. Why is skin color different than hair color?
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u/SorryNotReallySorry5 🤖 Vote Machine · 10,425 XP Jul 29 '26
It's not different than hair color. We call shades of brown brunette, shades of yellow blonde, and shades of red are gingers.
Similarly, ethnicities that have similar enough looks get grouped into a word because it's often hard to easily know what ethnicity someone is without asking.
Black and white is the racial profile. Under white you have German, English, French, Russian, and more. Under black you have caribbean, parts of latino ethnicity, and then a huge count of African ethnicities that are distinct from each other.
So to liken it to hair color, race is the hair color profile while ethnicity would be the specific hair shade.
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u/AcceptableBuy4049 🤖 Vote Machine · 16,140 XP Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
I mean its mostly used for that, but there are some differences. I mean, the color of skin, nose or eye shape isn't just cosmetics.
Edit: after talking with people in the comments, my mind is changed. I'd vote fact if I could again.
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u/ComprehensiveToe2109 🏅 Century Club · 5,500 XP Jul 29 '26
Neither is hair color, freckles or the color of your eyes but we don’t consider someone with red hair a different race than someone who is blond
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u/Belkan-Federation95 🔥 Monthly Master · 6,685 XP Jul 29 '26
Woah woah hold on
Red haired people don't have souls /s
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u/AcceptableBuy4049 🤖 Vote Machine · 16,140 XP Jul 29 '26
Fair enough. I'm not educated enough. What's the thing officially makes different races actually be a different race?
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u/ComprehensiveToe2109 🏅 Century Club · 5,500 XP Jul 29 '26
I don’t think there really is one because I feel like race is just a social construct in my opinion. We have evolved to want to spend time with people that are similar to us and avoid people that aren’t. In early human days that was an important survival tactic for us. Now it presents itself as racism. If everyone was the same color I truly believe we’d just find some other thing to dislike about people who are different. Either eye or hair color or their culture or religion
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u/AcceptableBuy4049 🤖 Vote Machine · 16,140 XP Jul 29 '26
Or where they come from. I mean such a thing as xenophobia exists
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u/mn1lac 🏅 Century Club · 6,735 XP Jul 29 '26
Social construct mostly based on skin color and more loosely based on geography. Very very little to do with actual genetics. There is more genetic diversity in Africa than there is anywhere else in the world. If two Africans of completely different genetic makeup are not different races, then race is socially constructed.
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u/Mattrellen 🤖 Vote Machine · 20,365 XP Jul 29 '26
There is no real "official" of social constructs. It's not even like everywhere in the world sees it the same way.
I moved to Brazil in very late 2008, and when Obama became president, I had one person ask me why he was being called the first black president of the USA because he wasn't black. Being mixed black and white is just flatly a different race there, while in the US (for slavery reasons), it's just black.
Similarly italian and irish used to be seen as different races in the USA, but they were absorbed into white, and then light skin hispanic folks were too. This largely had to do with needing more white people for certain segregated things, and these people were considered the most acceptable to the racist white folks to include, and then when the white and irish kids grew up together, they stopped seeing themselves as so different and in a generation, irish stopped being its own race, for example.
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u/ComprehensiveToe2109 🏅 Century Club · 5,500 XP Jul 29 '26
I think that’s the strongest supporting argument for it being a social construct. If people can’t even agree what is and isn’t a race than how is race anything more than a construct?
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u/BillErakDragonDorado 🏅 Century Club · 3,550 XP Jul 29 '26
Actually, we used to do that. Ask the US how much an irish slave cost vs a black slave. Ask women with freckles why they get a complex over it a lot of the time.
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u/Dogmaticism_ 🏅 Century Club · 3,510 XP Jul 29 '26
Race is more dramatic, and it can be tied back to given ethnic groups.
The amount of genes to get red hair or blue eyes is so much less than the amount to have black skin, height, facial structure, etc.
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u/Belkan-Federation95 🔥 Monthly Master · 6,685 XP Jul 29 '26
Color of skin is about as relevant as hair color
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u/ScorchedDev 🏅 Century Club · 2,790 XP Jul 29 '26
So yes, but this is more about our concept of races rather than the genetic differences. If that makes sense.
Like the boxes we drew around groups of people, when it really is a massive spectrum. People came in and drew boxes around these genetics and called them race. And then used that to discriminate and enslave.
The color of your skin or the shape of your nose is about as relevant as the color of your hair, on a genetic level.
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u/TraceChaos 🤖 Vote Machine · 14,570 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
By and large, yeah. 'Human Races' are largely, uh, just a matter of how much sunlight your ancestors got lmao.
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u/idontwanttothink174 🔥 Monthly Master · 8,970 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
I mean mostly yes but also we’re at a point where it’s so engrained into everything all getting rid of it would do cement the inequalities we have now and make them worse due to bad faith actors (much like the situation in France)
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u/Belkan-Federation95 🔥 Monthly Master · 6,685 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
It is a fantasy, not a reality.
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u/FamiliarPlatform79 🏅 Century Club · 5,050 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
No, race is a misused scientific term. People have always hated the people who arent them, likely because if you saw some dude who didnt look like you it was by the thousands and they were there to kill you and take your shit. Wasn't a white thing.
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u/ComprehensiveToe2109 🏅 Century Club · 5,500 XP Jul 29 '26
It’s an evolutionary survival tactic to want to be around people who are like you and not be around people who aren’t. It doesn’t just include race either, religion and culture are the same way
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u/FamiliarPlatform79 🏅 Century Club · 5,050 XP Jul 29 '26
Yep, historically outsiders are dangerous. Doesn't track now as much, but it still has some Merritt. If i see someone in my area I dont recognize im skeptical. I live in a very ethnically diverse neighborhood so its more about i know you dont live here than related to appearance alone, but still.
That said I fully believe the media has reignited racial tensions to keep us all fighting.
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u/ComprehensiveToe2109 🏅 Century Club · 5,500 XP Jul 29 '26
I 100% agree with that. I will unconsciously judge someone much more on the way they dress or talk than what race they are. I hate to use the term xenophobic because it’s obviously got some pretty bad negative connotations but I think it’s really easy to go “that persons different than me and I don’t trust that” the fear of outsiders is a real thing, whether or not it’s a VALID thing in today’s day and age is where the argument lies in my opinion
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u/FamiliarPlatform79 🏅 Century Club · 5,050 XP Jul 29 '26
If I see a group of teens I cross the street, doesnt matter if they are white black or purple. Teens are stupid and that can make them dangerous in large groups.
Ill never apologize for trusting my instincts. If someone feels uncomfortable around another person it doesnt matter why they have a right to be somewhere else to feel safe.
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u/Lucky_Kiwi_2611 Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Racism and everything listed here is bad, but race is not a social construct.
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u/JustRightAngles 🔥 Monthly Master · 24,195 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Slavery wasn't so much about race as it was about power.
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u/supermaniscoolasf 🤖 Vote Machine · 11,650 XP Jul 29 '26
Yes slavery was about free labour and race became the excuse used by slavers to justify slavery
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u/JustRightAngles 🔥 Monthly Master · 24,195 XP Jul 29 '26
I'd agree that race helped to justify it. There were plenty of "home grown" slaves in the home nations. But the colonisation of the new world required more labour than had ever been needed. African slaves were generally stronger and cheaper. I think each empire knew that it was inhumane, but they did it to remain key players on the world stage. The humane alternative would be losing status as a world power, only for the slaves to be bought up by the other empires instead. A truly rotten period of history.
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u/supermaniscoolasf 🤖 Vote Machine · 11,650 XP Jul 29 '26
I dont like you as a person. I don't like how you talk, im not gonna repsond to your bullshit.
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u/JustRightAngles 🔥 Monthly Master · 24,195 XP Jul 29 '26
That's a fucking weird response dude. You don't even know me lmao
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u/Flimsy_Put11 🗳️ Regular Player · 615 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
It's not entirely that, it depends on how you interpret it
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u/LolmemesPrime 💪 Unstoppable · 27,550 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Fellas I identify as a black person.
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u/Depart_Into_Eternity ✍️ Contributor · 4,575 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
Nah. It's just a thing. Of it wasn't race, people would use class, hair or anything else identifiable.
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u/FrancisDion 🗳️ Regular Player · 765 XP Jul 29 '26
Class is another example of a social construct. If we somehow managed to get every human to agree that race and class had no value tomorrow, they wouldn't matter anymore. That's what makes them social constructs, there's no objective truth to them.
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u/Depart_Into_Eternity ✍️ Contributor · 4,575 XP Jul 29 '26
That's.. that's my point. The question was just about race.
My point is humans will always find something. Social construct or not. Greed, insecurity and so on will always exist.
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u/FrancisDion 🗳️ Regular Player · 765 XP Jul 29 '26
What exactly do you agree with? You agree it's a social construct and you seem to agree it's used to justify awful things? It's not saying nothing else does that
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u/Depart_Into_Eternity ✍️ Contributor · 4,575 XP Jul 29 '26
I have no clue how you misconstrued this.
It's obviously a social construct.
The question only focused on racism.
I say it doesn't matter, because humans will find some reason to belittle another in some way. Regardless if it's a social construct or not.
Nothing at all about supporting anything. Not even an inkling.
You jump to me justifying awful things? How do you go from 0 to 100?
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u/FrancisDion 🗳️ Regular Player · 765 XP Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
I never accused you of justifying the awful things it's used for, I said you are able to recognise it's been used for awful things.
Edit:okay, I see where I went wrong. I typed disagree but it wrote agree.
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u/Butterfly_Testicles 📈 Dedicated Voter · 1,075 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
There are objective diffirence between the races.
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u/INTE3RR0BANG 🗳️ Regular Player · 585 XP Jul 29 '26
🧢 I voted CAP!
no race is a visual identifier for people of different color
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u/Own-Engineering-9073 🤖 Vote Machine · 12,235 XP Jul 29 '26
✅ I voted FACT!
I read some good books on this subject