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The Myth Called ‘Race’
Townhall.com ^ | September 25, 2016 | Matt Barber

Posted on 09/25/2016 6:49:57 AM PDT by Kaslin

It’s often said, “There is only one race – the human race.” While the phrase has become almost cliché in repetition, it happens to be 100 percent accurate, both scientifically and theologically speaking.

From Ferguson to Baltimore, Tulsa to Charlotte – and on college campuses from coast-to-coast – a great divide is sweeping America. It is fueled largely, if not entirely, by half-truths and outright lies. Truth is irrelevant. Only the narrative matters. When “Hands Up Don’t Shoot™” can do so very much to further “the cause,” it matters not that it represents a holocaust-denial-level of detachment from reality.

Which tells you everything you need to know about the cause.

This is by design. These embers of racial division are purposely fanned to a red-hot flame by certain political leaders, “social justice” warriors and “community organizers” (cut principally from the same ideological cloth) in order to permanently ingrain a turbulent level of cultural division based solely upon the varying shades of people’s skin. This, in turn, is intended to provoke widespread governmental dependency and, thus, one-party political control in perpetuity.

Yet, even at its core the idea of racial division, of race itself, is a myth. To sub-divide humanity based upon nothing more than varying levels of skin pigmentation is to rely upon the weakest of genetic markers.

And “race” really does signify nothing more than skin color.

Science dispels the myth of ‘race’

In aFeb. 5 Scientific Americanarticle titled, “Race is a Social Construct, Scientists Argue,” journalist Megan Gannon writes, “Today, the mainstream belief among scientists is that race is a social construct without biological meaning. And yet, you might still open a study on genetics in a major scientific journal and find categories like ‘white’ and ‘black’ being used as biological variables.”

“In an article published today (Feb. 4) in the journal Science,” continues Gannon, “four scholars say racial categories are weak proxies for genetic diversity and need to be phased out.”

“It’s a concept we think is too crude to provide useful information, it’s a concept that has social meaning that interferes in the scientific understanding of human genetic diversity, and it’s a concept that we are not the first to call upon moving away from,” notes Michael Yudell, professor of public health at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Under the latest genetic research, race is “understood to be a poorly defined marker of that diversity and an imprecise proxy for the relationship between ancestry and genetics,” he adds.

While not directly involved with the research, Dr. Svante Pääbo, a biologist and director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, agrees wholeheartedly with its findings. “What the study of complete genomes from different parts of the world has shown is that even between Africa and Europe, for example, there is not a single absolute genetic difference, meaning no single variant where all Africans have one variant and all Europeans another one, even when recent migration is disregarded.”

Still, as the researchers likewise note, “Assumptions about genetic differences between people of different races have had obvious social and historical repercussions.” Indeed, there are those on both extremes of the political spectrum with a vested interest in making sure these social and historical repercussions remain as inflamed and catastrophic as possible.

“Race” is a divisive means to a selfish political end.

It is not a scientific reality.

God’s final word on ‘race’

We love labels. We love to pit people against one another and lump them into neat, fixed little categories of put-upons, most often based upon outward appearances: black vs. white; Hispanic vs. Asian; tall vs. short; skinny vs. fat; old vs. young; abled vs. disabled, and so on.

Yet these divisions are artificial. They’re man-made. Every human being is created by a holy God, in His image and likeness, and imbued by Him with infinite worth and import. There is only one true and transcendent physical division, and that division was both created and intended by God to become reconciled (as one flesh) through the holy bonds of marriage – this, to propagate the human race: “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis1:27).

Male and female. The XY and the XX. Immutable distinctions with a beautiful and bountiful difference. That’s it. All other physical divisions, especially racial divisions, remain artificial.

Our bodies, you see, are merely outward shells. As the great Scottish author and theologian George MacDonald once wrote, “Never tell a child ‘you have a soul.’ Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body.”

We are souls. We have a body – an outward shell or “earth suit” as one of my favorite professors used to say. Why on God’s earth are we so deceived to believe that we must separate ourselves and hate one another based upon superficial, almost cosmetic outward appearances?

“I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them” (Romans16:17).

To be sure, Christ Jesus alone can dissolve these divisions. “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him” (Romans10:12).

These are not financial riches, but riches of love, life Spirit and salvation.

As a man with an Italian wife, a black sister-in-law, a Filipino uncle and biologically related half Filipino cousins, a step-grandmother who illegally immigrated from Mexico, biologically related half Mexican aunts and uncles, and dozens of foster brothers and sisters from across the globe, I have learned firsthand throughout my life that “race” is truly meaningless – it’s less than skin deep.

Until we learn this as a nation, we will remain a nation divided.

Yes, love is the answer. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John13:34).

There is no political fix to this problem.

It’s a spiritual problem, requiring a spiritual fix.

And His name is Jesus.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: race
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To: sargon

” Separate but equal?”

Who said separate but equal?

I said separate, each to live as they see fit.

The patently false assumption that all races are equal is what’s causing all these problems.

Open your eyes and stop deluding yourself.


41 posted on 09/26/2016 9:08:40 AM PDT by aquila48
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To: aquila48
I said separate, each to live as they see fit.

You've got a small problem to overcome: the fact that this is a Free country.

You appear to want something else. You appear to want to forcibly divide people into racial groups.

Will. Not. Happen.

America will never embrace the repudiated authoritarian separatist "vision" you cling to.

So my suggestion would be to concentrate on functioning within the real America, dealing with real Liberty, and coexisting with all peaceable Americans, as opposed to embracing a naive and inherently flawed idea which also suffers from the problem of being antithetical to the notion that "all Men are created equal" and, in general, everything America should stand for.

You're entitled to believe whatever you want, but neither you nor any mob will ever impose such absurdity on the rest of the People. Not in a Free America.

Bob's your uncle...

Vote Trump!

42 posted on 09/26/2016 10:01:39 AM PDT by sargon (Anyone AWOL in the battle against Hillary is not a patriot. It's that simple.)
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To: sargon

“You’ve got a small problem to overcome: the fact that this is a Free country.”

Oh jeez, you can’t be that naive and detached from reality, can you?

Do you know how many thousands upon thousands of laws and regulations there are in the books. Millions of pages, all telling you what you can and cannot do. Many telling you what you MUST do.

Are you free to pay or not pay your taxes? Are you free to discriminate, are you free to enter into a contract with another party without the government sticking its nose in it, are you free to buy or sell the electric bulb, toilet, shower head that you want, are you free to buy or sell whatever health insurance you want? etc, etc etc.

“So my suggestion would be to concentrate on functioning within the real America, dealing with real Liberty, and coexisting with all peaceable Americans.”

That’s the problem - we are not “peacefully coexisting”, not only that, it’s getting worse with each passing year.

There are more and more overt, widely accepted and sanctioned attacks on whites - from BLM to “white privilege” to the war on cops, to the propaganda organs brainwashing people, to the madrassas that pass as schools, to the demonization of our founders, to the rewriting of our history, to the outright illegitimization of this country.

Wake up from your dream world, will you? I know having to face reality can be a shock, but America is no longer what it once was.


43 posted on 09/26/2016 12:42:32 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: aquila48
Wake up from your dream world, will you?

You're the one in a dream world (and a bigoted one at that) if you think that anything approaching what you're suggesting will ever happen in America, or even could happen in America.

It's flat out ignorance and sheer fantasy. Period. End of story.

The fact is that huge numbers of people, blacks, white, latinos, Protestants, Catholics, atheists, even Muslims, are peacefully coexisting all over this country.

In a nation of over 300 million souls, you choose to build your prejudices around the rare exceptions to that rule.

Shame on you.

44 posted on 09/26/2016 3:14:18 PM PDT by sargon (Anyone AWOL in the battle against Hillary is not a patriot. It's that simple.)
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To: aquila48

I see you choose to stick your head in the sand and spout platitudes.


45 posted on 09/26/2016 3:22:02 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: euram
If race is a “social construct” how come a forensic dentist can tell identify the race of a person by looking at a single tooth?

Author is delusional; what about race specific diseases: sickle cell anemia, Tay-Sachs, alpha-thalassemia, etc. Dogs share over 99% common DNA, but there are not different breeds? No statistically significant differences in patterns of aggression? Size? IQ? Please. Same is true for human races, and only an idiot would pretend otherwise; the data is out there and ample empirical evidence.

46 posted on 09/27/2016 10:50:33 AM PDT by LambSlave
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To: tx_eggman
There's a real cat whose face is naturally like that.

Venus the Cat


47 posted on 09/27/2016 10:59:01 AM PDT by MUDDOG
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To: sargon

Here’s more of your “peaceful coexisting” in action...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3473951/posts


48 posted on 09/28/2016 12:17:48 AM PDT by aquila48
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To: sargon

More peaceful coexistence - and guess who’s disturbing the peace?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3475737/posts


49 posted on 10/01/2016 7:19:10 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: aquila48
None of your observations justify your un-American, authoritarian embrace of racial separatism.

I can go outside my front door and snap a picture of my middle class, mixed race neighborhood, which includes many blacks, and which is perfectly peaceful. But that doesn't prove anything any more than your broad brush racial animus does.

Your "evidence" is neither compelling, nor does it support the causal relationship you're feebly trying to imply between violence and race. There are a myriad of factors other than race which contribute to the situation, and which serve to effectively dispel the tidy, convenient, cut-and-dried conclusions you jump to.

As I've said, you're perfectly entitled to harbor separatist impulses, however misguided they might be, but you're not entitled to impose your "solutions" on any other Americans.

Indeed, in this diverse country, under this superb Constitution, neither you nor any mob (majority or otherwise) will ever be able to legitimately or legally establish your distorted vision of an American Utopia.

In view of Unalienable Rights, such inferior shortcuts stand exposed as utterly untenable, and will persist in being strongly repudiated by We the People as long as this Republic stands. Thus, you should probably seriously consider adopting a different strategy and tact, along with additional, more nuanced assessment of the reality which confronts you.

The Revolution is ON!

Vote Trump!

50 posted on 10/01/2016 8:54:49 PM PDT by sargon (The Revolution is ON! Vote Trump!)
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To: sargon

“None of your observations justify your un-American, authoritarian embrace of racial separatism.”

I’m not “embracing anything”. I’m simply recognizing some hard realities, like Lincoln did. Denying or ignoring reality is the most un-American action you can undertake.

If you haven’t read this from Lincoln yet, I suggest you do, it’ll be an eye opener...

http://www.etymonline.com/cw/lincoln.htm

“But that doesn’t prove anything any more than your broad brush racial animus does.”

You may find this hard to be believe, but I have no amimus toward any race or ethnic group, but I do have a soft spot for reality. In fact I think that our race problem is an absolutely tragic situation and the way we’re confronting it will lead to nothing more than increased misery for all involved.

You choose to spout banalities as solutions. You remind me of the character from Candide, when he keeps repeating “we live in the best of all possible worlds” as he watches people being tortured and disemboweled.

“In view of Unalienable Rights...”

Unalienable rights is a crock. The only “right” you have is that which you are willing and able to defend. Go tell the jews in the concentration camps or the black slaves, or christians in the middle east about their unalienable rights and see what they would tell you.

“Thus, you should probably seriously consider adopting a different strategy and tact, along with additional, more nuanced assessment of the reality which confronts you.”

It’s the reality that confronts you too, but you refuse to confront it. Have you checked your white privileges yet?

“Vote Trump!”

We do agree on that one!


51 posted on 10/01/2016 9:45:32 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: aquila48
Unalienable rights is a crock.

Orly?

52 posted on 10/01/2016 9:52:44 PM PDT by sargon (The Revolution is ON! Vote Trump!)
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To: sargon

Would you care to elaborate on your understanding of “unalienable rights”, and “rights” in general? What they are, where do they come from, how you keep them?


53 posted on 10/01/2016 10:08:11 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: sargon
America will never embrace the repudiated authoritarian separatist "vision" you cling to.

As I was reading this part of the thread, I was actually a bit amused by it. It shows that certain people have more in common with radical black separatists, for example, than either side probably prefers to think.

54 posted on 10/04/2016 7:38:33 PM PDT by Lonely Bull ("When he is being rude or mean it drives people _away_ from his confession and _towards_ yours.")
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