Talk:Race (sociology)

Accuracy

The 20th century section had some unjustified cause-and-effect statements. Editors should realise that widespread social movements rarely have a single simple cause. In the case of racism:

1. Racism was rampant long before the theory of evolution was proposed.
2. Racism provided justifications for evil acts which might well have happened anyway. For example, it is quite clear that most of the trans-Atlantic slavery was primarily economically motivated. And, slavery occurred in almost all historical societies. Anti-semitic arguments in Europe were present both before and after the Hitlerian period. Jews were heavily disadvantaged in Russia when the official ideology was quite race-neutral. The connection between opinions and actions is often rather mysterious. Macdonald-ross (talk) 09:07, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Scientific racism

This article was mentioned at meta:Talk:Black_Lives_Matter#Scientific_racism as an example of how Wikipedia and Google automation are actively promoting scientific racism (screenshot near the bottom of the section). IMHO, that is not the fault of Google automation, but of this article. To improve it, I'd suggest:

• Correct Some scientists argue that although race is a safe taxonomic concept in other species, it cannot be applied to humans.. That sentence is neither simple English nor correct (it's not "some scientists", but "scientific consensus").
• Shorten the section on historical definitions of race.
• Move most of the pictures (all that are not related to the meaning of race in sociology) to another article (still not sure, which).

--Rsk6400 (talk) 09:49, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

 Done --Rsk6400 (talk) 12:25, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I have added the image of a historical map from the 1880s, showing the supposed "distribution of races" across the world. --Eptalon (talk) 07:35, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

The map shows the ideas of biologists more than 130 years ago, the whole concept of races in a biological sense has been debunked more than 30 year ago. That's why I can't see any connection between the map and the article. --Rsk6400 (talk) 18:13, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

As long as there are groups of people who take these (or very similar) ideas as a foundation to build theories that they are a group that is better than other groups, this is hardly relevant. What this article needs is a good illustration, with a proper text. And yes, while some of these groups were defeated in the Second World War, most of these ideas live on. The en:Sharpeville massacre (related to Apartheid) happened in 1960. The en:Marikana massacre happened in 2012, long after Apartheid officially ended. The explanations we have here may be bad,the theories that they are based on may be old. Racially-motivated violence is current; no matter whether it is South Africa, in the US, in Asia or elsewhere. In this context it is important, that we have a good explanation. Together with this explanation we need fitting images. I tried twice, with old images of the 19th century, both were removed. So: please find images that you consider appropriate, that can be used to illustrate the text. --Eptalon (talk) 18:56, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

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Oh, before I forget, we do have an article Scientific racism. The discussion cited above was done in the summer of last year. Criticism needs to be constructive, simply pointing a finger does not help. --Eptalon (talk) 19:19, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

I have re-added the image of Karl Ernst von Baer, of 1864. I suggest we leave it, until a better image is found to replace it.--Eptalon (talk) 19:56, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

I like the image you added. I totally agree that racially-motivated violence is current. My problem with the map is that I don't believe that racism is based in theories, but in narcissism (I want to belong to a superior race) and economics (I want to have my Jewish / Black / White neighbour's shop or job) --Rsk6400 (talk) 06:20, 17 May 2021 (UTC)