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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 32146" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Interesting feedback, Terry. I wish I'd seen the whole series, I only got to see about three episodes. The entrepreneurial exploitation I mentioned - that was my term, it was what I understood from 'shonky' real estate agents and speculators encouraging people in white communities to sell (to them, at reduced rates for a quick sale) on the FEAR (promoted by the profiteers) that values in the area would fall with influx of blacks. Then the same profiteers would on-sell, at profit, and make a motza. The people selling were responding to pressure and fear which, unfortunately, became realised the more sales happened. The same thing happens in the stock market - shares trading alone can influence shares prices, which can influence more trading, etc. A panic sale of shares will cause a drastic drop in market price which then affects negatively confidence in that company.</p><p>it was more detailed that that and because it was so new to me, I didn't follow it all. What stuck in my mind was the stuff that WAS familiar to me - I was about fifteen, with my parents visiting my married brother who lived in Dubbo, a country town on the edge of outback NSW. A well-dressed Aboriginal family were walking along the street - mostly kids in play clothes. My sister in law stuck her nose in the air a bit and commented, "I hope they've not moved in near us, the property values will go down."</p><p>I asked why, and was told, "People don't like living next to THEM. They're dirty, they don't look after their families, it's just not right to let them move here."</p><p>I pointed out, "They look clean, they're neat, the kids have their hair combed nicely, I can't see the problem. I went to school with Aboriginal kids, they were great."</p><p>"Look - they've got bare feet!" sister in law replied.</p><p>"So have I," I told her. "I prefer walking in bare feet."</p><p>The conversation was brought to a fast close by my mother, trying to be diplomatic. "You're too young to understand now, you will when you're grown up." (I hated that answer - I STILL don't understand, but I DO understand that all it takes is some people thinking that way and land values ARE affected.)</p><p></p><p>Terry, you mentioned diseased connected with some races. The program did touch on this, at least with sickle-cell anemia. It's much more than just a disease of African black people - sickle cell is selected for in any area where malaria has been significant. They showed a case of sickle-cell anemia in a Greek child and pointed out that it's not uncommon in other countries where malaria was found in recent times.</p><p>But I do agree - there are some diseased, including Tay-Sachs (there are others, can't think of them right now, brain is shutting down) where incidence is far more common if you have ancestors coming from some highly specific area. Other diseases - they are linked to cultural differences. Sometimes those cultural differences over a very long time have led to a greater susceptibility to diseases from which that group of people have been isolated. Example NOT given in the program is the very high incidence of Type II diabetes in people of Australian Aboriginal descent. As a race, they had a lifestyle which involved grazing on collected roots, berries etc and meat feasts. Then along come Europeans with white flour, sugar and alcohol (plus diseases that the Aboriginals didn't have immunity for) and they died like flies. Even now, diabetes is horribly common even where they make a huge effort to live a healthy lifestyle and diet. Meanwhile our white kids can eat junk all they want and have a lower incidence. Life isn't fair when you inherit genes which haven't adapted over centuries to a lousy diet.</p><p></p><p>Lactose intolerance - I used to believe that it was cultural, mostly. We're mammals, we're only supposed to drink milk in infancy. But when you continue to drink milk as you grow up to adulthood, you don't lose the enzymes you have in your body, to digest milk. In Western society we continue to drink milk. But if we stop drinking milk for years (or eating any form of dairy food), we often find lactose intolerance if we try to go back to dairy. husband works with a lot of Asian students, who often have lactose intolerance. However in almost every case those with lactose intolerance never had milk or dairy beyond infancy. He has not seen lactose intolerance in any Asian who was born here and grew up with a mixed Asian/Western diet. Those Maccas thick shakes, taken regularly throughout childhood and adolescence, seem to provide some protection!</p><p>Similarly, I've known people who got such a ghastly gastic bug that they lost their enzyme protection and were lactose intolerant from that time on.</p><p></p><p>Your DNA tests sound interesting. The 50,000 years thing is, I think, referring to that evolutionary bottleneck when (so they claim in this program) there was a very small number of people leaving Africa, and it is from that small group that we are ALL descended. Yes, in the time since there has been adaptive radiation around the world, followed by some level of natural selection - much of it skin colour in different regions to cope with that fine balance between needing to get enough Vitamin D, but still not be killed by skin cancer, plus a few other local variations to deal with other strictly regional oddities such as diseases - but what it is that makes us who we are, each of us; our intellect, our ability to cope with change, our success as individuals, is very similar from one person to the next. It is beyond race, beyond "I am tall and therefore smart; he is short and therefore dumb." We do have other stereotypes, such as the races considered to be astute and shrewd in business (Jews, Chinese, Indian, for example) but these can be traced back to culture.</p><p></p><p>I'd really like to learn more about the Human Genome Project and DNA. I had always hoped that the Project would help answer questions as to where and how various groups arrived where they did in the world, but it sounds like we were all too closely related 50,000 years ago to be able to get much information that way; it would be a 'noisy' DNA signal.</p><p></p><p>But while we wait for researchers to continue poring through the piles of information, we can still enjoy the search and the snippets of information along the way. I LOVE anthropology.</p><p></p><p>One last thought - many years ago at uni I had to study a 'make-weight' subject called "People and Culture". We got thoroughly indoctrinated to avoid EVER using the word "race". It was simply wrong, we were told. The concept of "race" is wrong, we refer to "culture". There is no "race", we had to accept. "Race" is a derogatory, degrading term which serves only to segregate and devalue a group of people. It was implied that use of the wrong word could even lead to a fail grade in the course. it was, of course, political correctness gone overboard.</p><p>It took me years to be able to say "race" to anyone, unless I was referring to a sporting event. There ARE times when the word "culture" simply won't suffice. For example, I am Australian-born, but I'm not Aboriginal in any way. What race am I? It is a legitimate question, the closest answer is "Anglo-Saxon, probably going back to the small, dark Welsh people". What culture am I? Australian.</p><p></p><p>For so many years scientists tried to quantify race, to find some way to clearly and specifically define it. They have failed to do so. In the attempts, a lot of harm has been done to a lot of people through misunderstandings and misinterpretation. Then the pendulum swung too far the other way, to the idea of a melting pot of full cultural interchange with the potential to lead to some sort of coffee-coloured unified blandness.</p><p></p><p>We now need to accept that we live in a world of amazing and wonderful variety. Cultural differences need to be valued and studied, but we are losing much of our variation as we intermingle and choose what we personally like out of the cultural smorgasbord available to us. We need to value our variety, but accept change and choice.</p><p></p><p>Hearthope, if you have bi-racial kids in Alabama with no problems, then we are well on the way to a society with more tolerance that we have demonstrated in the past.</p><p></p><p>DDD, I'm trying to avoid political discussions - we've just had our state election and we're already in the rundown to a Federal election at the end of the year (which is shaping up to be an interesting and dirty fight). Besides, it rally doesn't matter who you vote for because no matter who, you always end up with a <img src="/community/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/2012/censored2.gif" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":censored2:" title="censored2 :censored2:" data-shortname=":censored2:" />! [that censored word is "p o l i t i c i a n" - why, oh why?]</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 32146, member: 1991"] Interesting feedback, Terry. I wish I'd seen the whole series, I only got to see about three episodes. The entrepreneurial exploitation I mentioned - that was my term, it was what I understood from 'shonky' real estate agents and speculators encouraging people in white communities to sell (to them, at reduced rates for a quick sale) on the FEAR (promoted by the profiteers) that values in the area would fall with influx of blacks. Then the same profiteers would on-sell, at profit, and make a motza. The people selling were responding to pressure and fear which, unfortunately, became realised the more sales happened. The same thing happens in the stock market - shares trading alone can influence shares prices, which can influence more trading, etc. A panic sale of shares will cause a drastic drop in market price which then affects negatively confidence in that company. it was more detailed that that and because it was so new to me, I didn't follow it all. What stuck in my mind was the stuff that WAS familiar to me - I was about fifteen, with my parents visiting my married brother who lived in Dubbo, a country town on the edge of outback NSW. A well-dressed Aboriginal family were walking along the street - mostly kids in play clothes. My sister in law stuck her nose in the air a bit and commented, "I hope they've not moved in near us, the property values will go down." I asked why, and was told, "People don't like living next to THEM. They're dirty, they don't look after their families, it's just not right to let them move here." I pointed out, "They look clean, they're neat, the kids have their hair combed nicely, I can't see the problem. I went to school with Aboriginal kids, they were great." "Look - they've got bare feet!" sister in law replied. "So have I," I told her. "I prefer walking in bare feet." The conversation was brought to a fast close by my mother, trying to be diplomatic. "You're too young to understand now, you will when you're grown up." (I hated that answer - I STILL don't understand, but I DO understand that all it takes is some people thinking that way and land values ARE affected.) Terry, you mentioned diseased connected with some races. The program did touch on this, at least with sickle-cell anemia. It's much more than just a disease of African black people - sickle cell is selected for in any area where malaria has been significant. They showed a case of sickle-cell anemia in a Greek child and pointed out that it's not uncommon in other countries where malaria was found in recent times. But I do agree - there are some diseased, including Tay-Sachs (there are others, can't think of them right now, brain is shutting down) where incidence is far more common if you have ancestors coming from some highly specific area. Other diseases - they are linked to cultural differences. Sometimes those cultural differences over a very long time have led to a greater susceptibility to diseases from which that group of people have been isolated. Example NOT given in the program is the very high incidence of Type II diabetes in people of Australian Aboriginal descent. As a race, they had a lifestyle which involved grazing on collected roots, berries etc and meat feasts. Then along come Europeans with white flour, sugar and alcohol (plus diseases that the Aboriginals didn't have immunity for) and they died like flies. Even now, diabetes is horribly common even where they make a huge effort to live a healthy lifestyle and diet. Meanwhile our white kids can eat junk all they want and have a lower incidence. Life isn't fair when you inherit genes which haven't adapted over centuries to a lousy diet. Lactose intolerance - I used to believe that it was cultural, mostly. We're mammals, we're only supposed to drink milk in infancy. But when you continue to drink milk as you grow up to adulthood, you don't lose the enzymes you have in your body, to digest milk. In Western society we continue to drink milk. But if we stop drinking milk for years (or eating any form of dairy food), we often find lactose intolerance if we try to go back to dairy. husband works with a lot of Asian students, who often have lactose intolerance. However in almost every case those with lactose intolerance never had milk or dairy beyond infancy. He has not seen lactose intolerance in any Asian who was born here and grew up with a mixed Asian/Western diet. Those Maccas thick shakes, taken regularly throughout childhood and adolescence, seem to provide some protection! Similarly, I've known people who got such a ghastly gastic bug that they lost their enzyme protection and were lactose intolerant from that time on. Your DNA tests sound interesting. The 50,000 years thing is, I think, referring to that evolutionary bottleneck when (so they claim in this program) there was a very small number of people leaving Africa, and it is from that small group that we are ALL descended. Yes, in the time since there has been adaptive radiation around the world, followed by some level of natural selection - much of it skin colour in different regions to cope with that fine balance between needing to get enough Vitamin D, but still not be killed by skin cancer, plus a few other local variations to deal with other strictly regional oddities such as diseases - but what it is that makes us who we are, each of us; our intellect, our ability to cope with change, our success as individuals, is very similar from one person to the next. It is beyond race, beyond "I am tall and therefore smart; he is short and therefore dumb." We do have other stereotypes, such as the races considered to be astute and shrewd in business (Jews, Chinese, Indian, for example) but these can be traced back to culture. I'd really like to learn more about the Human Genome Project and DNA. I had always hoped that the Project would help answer questions as to where and how various groups arrived where they did in the world, but it sounds like we were all too closely related 50,000 years ago to be able to get much information that way; it would be a 'noisy' DNA signal. But while we wait for researchers to continue poring through the piles of information, we can still enjoy the search and the snippets of information along the way. I LOVE anthropology. One last thought - many years ago at uni I had to study a 'make-weight' subject called "People and Culture". We got thoroughly indoctrinated to avoid EVER using the word "race". It was simply wrong, we were told. The concept of "race" is wrong, we refer to "culture". There is no "race", we had to accept. "Race" is a derogatory, degrading term which serves only to segregate and devalue a group of people. It was implied that use of the wrong word could even lead to a fail grade in the course. it was, of course, political correctness gone overboard. It took me years to be able to say "race" to anyone, unless I was referring to a sporting event. There ARE times when the word "culture" simply won't suffice. For example, I am Australian-born, but I'm not Aboriginal in any way. What race am I? It is a legitimate question, the closest answer is "Anglo-Saxon, probably going back to the small, dark Welsh people". What culture am I? Australian. For so many years scientists tried to quantify race, to find some way to clearly and specifically define it. They have failed to do so. In the attempts, a lot of harm has been done to a lot of people through misunderstandings and misinterpretation. Then the pendulum swung too far the other way, to the idea of a melting pot of full cultural interchange with the potential to lead to some sort of coffee-coloured unified blandness. We now need to accept that we live in a world of amazing and wonderful variety. Cultural differences need to be valued and studied, but we are losing much of our variation as we intermingle and choose what we personally like out of the cultural smorgasbord available to us. We need to value our variety, but accept change and choice. Hearthope, if you have bi-racial kids in Alabama with no problems, then we are well on the way to a society with more tolerance that we have demonstrated in the past. DDD, I'm trying to avoid political discussions - we've just had our state election and we're already in the rundown to a Federal election at the end of the year (which is shaping up to be an interesting and dirty fight). Besides, it rally doesn't matter who you vote for because no matter who, you always end up with a :censored:! [that censored word is "p o l i t i c i a n" - why, oh why?] Marg [/QUOTE]
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