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non_radical_centrist  8mo ago (astralcodexten.com)   2897 thread views

How Should We Think About Race And "Lived Experience"?

astralcodexten.com

I'm generally a fan of "blurry" definitions where something can qualify as X if it fulfills a few of many criteria. I think trying to create hard rules around blurry areas like race and culture is fool's errand, and Scott does a great job laying out how overly strict definitions can go wrong.

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Certain racial categories are fuzzier and an American invention: whites and blacks.

If you socially define two categories, and then people in each category intermarry, they become biological categories.

Can you explain further?

With lots of intermarrying inside groups, and rare between groups, each group becomes more similar genetically and culturally. Africans from various countries were indiscriminately mated and their children do not longer retain differences in language, culture and genetics that their ancestors had.

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