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Kidd said First off, humans are not dogs.
Really? They aren't? I had no idea.
And here I thought me and my pet dog shared the same mother.
Kidd said There is more genetic variation between dog breeds than there ever was or will be between humans. Humans on different are more genetically similar than than even monkeys within the same species. (I use monkeys as an example because we're closely related to them anyway.)
Now thats what you should of started with (rather than one other thing which I'll get into later) rather than stating the obvious. :P
Kidd said Let me make a point here:Even though these twin girls girls are more genetically similar to one another than you and I (and we're both "white") are, they're considered different races. They're literally twins and one will grow up being called "black" and the other "white" because they're apparently so biologically different.
I should clarify, when I say race I am referring to things such as Asian, African-American (This one we already admitted is in need of mass adjustment), Hispanic and Caucasian.
Not something such as "You are a black race, you are a white race". That being said though, even if we chose to discount race entirely those two would still be called black and white. Not cause of race... but because that's their skin colour.
In the same sense where one of them will be called brown haired, and another blond.
Kidd said And I'm sorry, but if you think that makes sense on a genetic, scientific, and objective level, you're an idiot.
Objectively it's a visual fact, they have different skin colours.
Genetically and Scientifically, there is still some gene variance causing their skin to be different colours.
Now would that alone indicate different race? Probably not, but let's at least not act like there isn't any variance going on here.
+As we expose farther below your knowledge in this is not something you picked up at elementary school or something. This is specialized education you obtained from post-secondary education. In a course that the vast majority of people would not have taken. So fine, for this case you probably know better than I do, but recognize that you received specialized training for this, and others who have not done so are not suddenly idiots.
Kidd said And again, you seem to have this idea in your head that race creates diversity
I never said this.
I refer you to examples I made in my OP.
My argument is that they serve as ways to better explain, discuss etc without having to go into long unnecessary detail each time.
So me saying "______ is asian" is not creating more diversity, but it's saving me from having to go "________ is from _______ country, has ______, ______ & _______ facial features as well as ______, ______ & _______ body features" etc.
Kidd said Diversity exists without race
Really? I had no idea.
And here I thought me my friends who happen to be black, brown and asian were completely the same as me.
Kidd said Race creates groups--limited groups. Diversity is a spectrum, though, with no clear distinct lines between humanity as a whole.
I never said it wasn't flawed.
Hell I outright admitted it was back when I agreed that the term "African-American" was outdated and misused.
Kidd said Denying race does not mean we're ignoring diversity. it actually means the opposite: it means we see that there is more diversity than our made up labels can contain.
Once again, they're descriptive terms made to help save time.
No one who uses terms such as Asian or African American is acting like that's all that defines people.
Even genetically, no one who uses those terms acts like all people of ______ race are the same genetically.
For a non-race example. I am a hetereosexual, one my best friends is bi, and another is asexual.
But by saying this I am not suddenly labeling them as such, or saying that's all they are. I am not at all suggesting that is the extent of who we are, nor do I need to abandon such terms to be able to see them as independent and unique individuals.
Kidd said I am an anthropology major (that means I study humans since I get asked a lot--everything about humans) and in literally every anthro class I've had, the first and most fundamental thing discussed is that These are subjects taught by professors with Ph. D's who have been studying this subject longer than I've been alive (this is almost 20 years, btw).
That's fine, and it's good you told me this.
But for future reference, if you ever intended to discuss a point such as this to someone try starting off with your educational background rather than ending with it.
That way whoever you're trying to convince it aware of your knowledge/expertise from the start, rather than forming opinions/counter-points and then suddenly having to re-think/do it all at the end.
Kidd said So I'm real tired of getting into "discussions" about this with people who keep insisting they know more about human diversity than these professors do.
Being in ECE (Early Childhood Education) I can relate to this, but normally when people start claiming stuff like "Hitting your kids for punishment is not only acceptable, but requires for respect" and "Only Physical abuse exist, all this emotional and psychological abuse and condition crap is bullshit". It can be very frustrating to have been trained to know better in X field, but constantly see everyone else getting it so wrong.
However, with that having been said...
Kidd said I mean, if a physicist explains quantum theory to a person, said person does not go "oh no, that's wrong." But for some reason, anthropology merits a debate.
Like I said above, this was not stuff taught in elementary or high school for everyone. Some of this is specialized knowledge/training, as frustrating as it is to see most people not know better you can't really blame them either. That's like a surgeon getting mad at their patient for not understanding the surgery procedure, or it'd be like your professor getting mad at you for not understanding the stuff you just explained to me before you had even had your first class.
If an expert comes up, set's things right and then people keep arguing and saying otherwise, then you have a legitimate reason to be angry with them. The Expert has to be able to inform the person first, you can't expect everyone else to know it just because you already heard it in class, you need to take the time to explain it to them first.
Kidd said However, people give it more credit than it actually has.
Probably, but a lot of that could be due to what I explained above.
Most people are not properly trained/educated in that content, so you're going to have a lot of people make mistakes about that until more public/generalized education or awareness can get around about it.
's the deal with dating anniversaries? They seem so contrived."Today is the anniversary of when we first met!""Today is the anniversary of our first date!""Today is the anniversary of when we became an official couple.""Today is the 6 month anniversary of when we got back together after we broke up from fighting about our time spent together."The worst part is that people actually have these little anniversaries for months instead of years.Dating someone for a year is worthy of something, I guess.I just find it odd because I never have noted the date for any of these things.