who will be the first asian president?

barack obama

I am holding out hope for michelle malkin

the guy from heroes

the asian one

serious this is serious thread

oh in that case it will be someone in the future who we don't know about yet

why the fascination, if it happens it happens

i'm reminded of the courtroom scene in "A Matter Of Life And Death" aka "Stairway To Heaven", they're all Americans no matter what their ethnic ancestry, who gives a fuck about firsts

Michael Bloomberg

who will be our first bottle opener president

barack obama grew up in indonesia and hawaii

i am unaware of any asian american politician with a reasonable prospect of becoming President.

who gives a fuck about firsts

-- Just got offed, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:25 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

underrepresented segments of the population u dork

underrepresented segments of the population u dork

yeah and there are fuckloads of these if we're going by race alone, why can't they feel represented by someone with their interests at heart who doesn't necessarily have to come from the same ethnic background as them

more asian politicians would probably be good (i don't really know the US situation) but people should feel represented by a human being not a skin colour

your common sense arguments have humbled me

who will be our first bottle opener president

-- deej, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:26 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

loooooooooooooooooooooooool

http://i26.tinypic.com/ofndoh.gif

louis mad otm you will be our first british president

chad hugo probably

tom morello for first asian president

his whole inauguration speech could be that shitty fake scratching sound he does by rubbing the guitar strings

i'm reminded of the courtroom scene in "A Matter Of Life And Death" aka "Stairway To Heaven", they're all Americans no matter what their ethnic ancestry, who gives a fuck about firsts

-- Just got offed, Monday, June 16, 2008 8:25 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

uh dude the film was made in 1946: kind of bullshit

Jin

Kal Penn

Joe Djeeberman.

people should feel represented by a human being not a skin colour

-- Just got offed, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:29 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-slowburner.gif

Or Jerry Wang from Yahoo!.

There are currently 5 Asian-Americans in the U.S. congress, 3 of which represent Hawaii.

uh dude the film was made in 1946: kind of bullshit

yeah true and it was codirected by a limey but the message it was trying to put across, although unsubscribed to by most Americans at the time, was honourable and right.

is big hoos asian?

he's HOOSian

they're all Americans no matter what their ethnic ancestry, who gives a fuck about firsts

-- Just got offed, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:25 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

so innocent

Kal Penn

lols; would vote again and again

is lj's "why the fascination, if it happens it happens" philosophy an indication that he lost his virginity during his ILM sabbatical?

I am going to guess it will be an Indian-American.

yeah yeah i've read "a streetcar named desire", stanley all "DON'T CALL ME POLISH", keenly aware of immigrant status, the idea of America composed of foreign chancers and without an independent history...

...but surely we're beyond that now, for the most part?

"we?" when did you move to america?

I am going to guess it will be an Indian-American.

-- dan m, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:40 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

ditto

there has been 200 years of white guys so im guessing someones going to notice a difference

i kind of feel like calling a rescue chopper in, to pull louis out of this thread...

he's the kind of guy who just never knows when to up sticks and leave.

MORBIUS OTM

as soon as I opened this thread I did the ctrl f on that name

yeah yeah i've read "a streetcar named desire", stanley all "DON'T CALL ME POLISH", keenly aware of immigrant status, the idea of America composed of foreign chancers and without an independent history...

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh^

ok i'm out, i know i've been acting like a hopeless idealist, we're all silly young and limey once, altho as a parting shot i ask why you haven't started corresponding threads for EVERY "underrepresented" "race" ("asian" isn't a race btw kthxbi)

john cho as vice?

rise of the guy who played taj

yeah yeah i've read "a streetcar named desire"

lol 1947

seriously though there's got to be some hapa girl waiting in the wings we just don't know about kinda like hillary's gopher or something

tiger woods

...the first asian presiden?

over john mccain's dead body

Jordan you posted that wrong there's no question mark after that

shoulda just been JOHN CHO FOR VP

KAL PEND FOR PRESIDETN

Neil P Harris: UN Ambassador

("asian" isn't a race btw kthxbi)

"Asian," while serving as a catch-all term for people of various ethnic backgrounds, is surely as much of a race as "black" or "white." (This calls to mind arguments I had in 9th grade with kids who insisted that "Hispanic" was a race.)

this is awesome, xp

who will be the first jewtube president?

ok where did i refer to "black" or "white" as races

shit i forgot i'm not in this thread any longer

give up

alec guinness

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/2476/imageuploadimagekg3.jpg

OK, LJ, you got me: what's a race?

http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/csl1154l.jpg

is that a photograph of the unbanning of LJ

i miss the days when LJ just wore a dress and tried to throw his dick into stuff

Jaymc, I don't think many people know the answer to that question.

incl. u

I am going to guess it will be an Indian-American.

And a Christian Republican one at that.

at least i-dont-see-color racist lj is better than kill-all-the-muslims racist lj

HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO THE WHITE HOUSE

ethan, a) i was being stupid and renounced pretty much the whole lot when i realised what the terms i was using meant and b) i wasn't saying anything like that anyway, please stop referring to it, our political beliefs are nearly identical but you somehow get a kick out of trashing me for no good reason, and yeah i have the right to be butthurt because that's a pretty shitty accusation

"no good reason" vs "yeah i have the right to be butthurt"

BUTTHURTERY IS AFOOT

Louis, I'm well aware that our classification system for race is somewhat arbitrary and imprecise, but that doesn't mean that the word "race" is no longer meaningful at all or that we don't still use it in more or less pragmatic ways. If you off-handedly say "Asian is not a race," then that suggests to me that you have a working definition for what the word "race" means and aren't just playing semantic hide-and-seek.

if its not going to be me, then it'll never happen

Ralph Nader.

WHY ARE RUSSIAN PEOPLE NOT CONSIDERED ASIAN?

ok well i'm no anthropologist but i don't believe something so broad and yet confused as "Asian" indicates a race, i mean there are MANY different ethnic "origins" in Asia and maybe a tribal culture develops racial homogeny, but this is not the mode nowadays, especially in america, and besides i think it's harmful in modern society to pin people based upon such ethnic origins. my definition of race would be "those with identical or near-identical genetic features in a society together", which is or ought to be an anachronism (/challop)

because most russians - the pasty variety - are actually descendant from normans, same as england, france, etc; the vikings did a similar amount of, ahem, business to the mongols, we just conveniently forgot about their genocides and imperialism, because hey, why talk so rudely of ol' dad

GOOD ANSWER THANK YOU GENTLEMAN SIR

40% of earth is related to jengiz khan (KHAAAAAAN), the richest 20% are from beowulf, and the remainder are a compromise between Jaguar Paw and Djimon Hounsou

There's no genetic basis for race; it is all based on how the given political context creates in-groups and out-groups on supposed biological characteristics. In the U.S. Asian certainly works as a race, though not a coherent ethnicity.

There's no genetic basis for race

lol except for that one pair that says what color your skin is

but congrats on the ultimate chall-op there

40% of earth is related to jengiz khan (KHAAAAAAN), the richest 20% are from beowulf, and the remainder are a compromise between Jaguar Paw and Djimon Hounsou

-- El Tomboto, Monday, June 16, 2008 4:36 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

lol jaguar paw good ref

cant wait to tell asian dudes that white ppl said theres no such thing as race so nobodys gonna make chingchong joeks now

Also the idea that people with identical features living together in society should be an anachronism. RIP ethnic communities.

RIP ethnic communities.

Haha what? Tell that to the thousands of Polish people living up the street from me, speaking Polish to each other and shopping at businesses that advertise and deal in Polish-centric products. Or is that not what you were talking about?

he's talking about the future when LJ is prez

o rite

lol I should've read and what's post closer

no such thing as a "polish" race tho

look i'm stupid can we please stop before this becomes another bottleopener

"hey dr. morbius no time for love... we got company!"

-- s1ocki, Wednesday, May 28, 2008 3:28 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Link

oh louis.

Bobby Lee, maybe?

lol except for that one pair that says what color your skin is

There are no genes for "black" or "white."

Skin color isn't the only basis for racial categories, and categories shift dramatically in different countries. Race exists, but as a cultural and political construct naturalized by attempts to inscribe it on the body.

inscribe it on the body

WOOP WOOP undergraduate seminar alert WOOP

lmao

oh lord

Race exists, but as a cultural and political construct naturalized by attempts to inscribe it on the body.

*rimshot*

"take this social construct...please"

Excellent thread, guys.

hey enrique how is he wrong?

why is it usually white folks I hear saying bringing up race as "a construct"

you guys are missing the point, no one is saying it isnt a real thing with real effects and impacts, but its not a real thing BASED ON SCIENCE

Enrique's had a hate-crush on me ever since I said I had reservations about Kosovo's secession.

haha i'd forgotten that was you, you crazy stalinist.

Anyway, just got offed obviously didn't pay attention in undergrad seminar, so I felt it was my duty to school him in the proper jargon.

Nice save, but I know you keep your ILXor enemy list right next to your laptop and a box of tissues.

deej i dunno if he's wrong tbh; you'd first have to prove that "Race exists, but as a cultural and political construct naturalized by attempts to inscribe it on the body" functions as a meaningful sentence.

I think he means tattooing.

i'm deliberately missing the point because it's irrelevant to the actual question of the thread

how does it not

xxp

unless yr one of those fundies from the states who things 'intelligent design' is just as legit as darwin i cant parse how the alternative, that race has some legit basis in science, can possibly be argued

who thinks

genetics isn't just about dna, you know?

PHENOTYPES

http://www.cfhf.net/lyrics/images/wacky-race.jpg

Enrique, you're in a gradskool, so don't play dumb. It just means there's no scientific basis for race, but there's been a long historical attempt to PROVE that black people are black ON THE INSIDE when they aren't, and the whole reason we think of black people as even a coherent group was because some people wanted exploit and oppress them.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Harold and Kumar joeks.

ppl should just shut up and listen to deej here because he's fucking right on the god damned money OK

kill em deej

http://www.thainewsland.com/images/en/281343.jpg

John McCain will have to break the scarred-face barrier first.

man i was all http://pages.prodigy.net/rogerlori1/emoticons/mutley-ani1.gif @ this thread even before dom posted that (xp)

unless yr one of those fundies from the states who things 'intelligent design' is just as legit as darwin i cant parse how the alternative, that race has some legit basis in science, can possibly be argued

-- deej, Monday, June 16, 2008 10:44 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

think theories and practises of racial superiority came along well before the science of genetics, is my point.

t just means there's no scientific basis for race, but there's been a long historical attempt to PROVE that black people are black ON THE INSIDE when they aren't, and the whole reason we think of black people as even a coherent group was because some people wanted exploit and oppress them.

well yeah

http://www.defenselink.mil/dodcmsshare/newsstoryPhoto/2007-07/scr_070704-N-2855B-006.jpg

ALL I'M SAYING: those things are real that have real-life consequences, ergo "race" -- whether or not it has a sound biological reckoning -- is about as real as it gets. i appreciate y'all trying to elevate the discourse but i just see the pomo language totally avoids addressing the issue of race at all and just goes *la la la race isn't real i can't hear you la la la*

wait, no, i take it back

yeah, i had a high school class called 'social problems' and the teacher pulled out an early 20th century textbook with tons of lol racial pseudoscience.

(uh, that was also the last semester that teacher was allowed to teach that class, partly because some students got butthurt when he was really just playing devil's advocate)

xp

elmo otm

the whole reason we think of black people as even a coherent group was because some people wanted exploit and oppress them.

i dunno who's doing the thinking with this one... the o.g. racists of the 18th century didn't think of all black people as a coherent group, at any rate, but i can see how it's important to make everything as tidy and amenable to theory as possible.

elmo OTM - in addition, there are echoes of standard right-wing talking points about how the damn minorities/liberals/etc. "won't move on," that since race "doesn't exist" then we don't have to actually deal with inequality or anything.

elmo, i don't think the perspective that race isn't a scientific category is connected to postmodern theory--it was a reaction to nineteenth century pseudo-science, the ultimate tendency of which is books like the bell curve. it's not about denying the ways race operates in people's lives. in other words deej otm.

i don't know the answer to the thread question, but fuck a bunch of bobby jindal.

http://www.vtennis.co.uk/Images/Tennis/Andre-Agassi/Andre-Agassi-Picture/Andre-Agassi-Picture-1-3-Small.JPG

"asian"

ethnicity is based in shared cultural heritage, genetics is based in science, race is based in psuedoscience

-- deej, Monday, June 16, 2008 4:00 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Just because it isn't biological doesn't make it not real.

yeah, that is another good way of putting it.

you guys suck

404 otm

Gavin is a troll btw please stop paying attention to him

there's a discourse of race that is based in pseudoscience, but showing it up as such doesn't get rid of race.

xposts to gbx

the question isn't "real," of course it's real insofar as the idea impacts people, but to therefore just shrug off the fact - that it's a social construct - is to ignore the elephant in the room imo

I can't believe deeznuts hasn't posted on this thread.

can we please get back to discussing the stars of harold and kumar

okay. maybe bringing it up in this thread had malign intent, and its kind of an abstract point unless people start talking about caucasoids, negroids, and mongoloids and need to be schooled.

xposts

hi dan m! i just saw this thread, ill post my thoughts in a couple mins

I can't believe deeznuts hasn't posted on this thread.

he will, this thread will still be going on when the next ice age comes around

xpost see?

thank god

sure, ok. xps

is anyone even disagreeing anymore?

Hu Jintao

wait no

my thoughts are this thread is unreadable

http://www.delawareonline.com/blogs/uploaded_images/IMG_3722-723679.JPG

PAL KEN FOR PRESIDNT

I don't see how you can say "race doesn't exist in genetic/physical terms" when there are certain physical features that are unique to different races of people?

omg marry me kal penn

summary

40% of earth is related to jengiz khan (KHAAAAAAN), the richest 20% are from beowulf, and the remainder are a compromise between Jaguar Paw and Djimon Hounsou

-- El Tomboto, Monday, June 16, 2008 3:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

There's no genetic basis for race; it is all based on how the given political context creates in-groups and out-groups on supposed biological characteristics. In the U.S. Asian certainly works as a race, though not a coherent ethnicity.

-- Gavin, Monday, June 16, 2008 3:38 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

kal penn just makes brown and smart look GOOD

oh shit i still have to see apocalypto

sucka

I made my GF watch it with me on friday and she is now a fellow apocalypto-vangelist

shit OWNS

Kal Penn has political aspirations and hung out at Obama HQ toiling in their zing factory for a bit?

Here's a recent article where the scientific/genetic thing revives. http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178123/ The guy eats crow in the end though.

think i got my evening plans sorted

I mean, the idea of race being genetic has been used in a malicious manner - to say that certain races are inherently inferior/have "smaller brains"/etc - but that doesn't mean that there isn't some truth to it.... Race identity as we understand it now is definitely a social construct, but I don't think that means that "we're all the same race" either.

james watson to thread

just kidding

Hu Jintao

lols

I mean, the idea of race being genetic has been used in a malicious manner - to say that certain races are inherently inferior/have "smaller brains"/etc - but that doesn't mean that there isn't some truth to it.... Race identity as we understand it now is definitely a social construct, but I don't think that means that "we're all the same race" either.

-- The Brainwasher, Monday, June 16, 2008 5:12 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

learn science

wait why are we talking about Apocalypto?

what do you have against apocalypto, horse shoe?

horseshoe hates mayans >:(

instead of being a snarky asshole why don't you direct me to scientific studies that say that race doesn't exist?

i have nothing against it and have not seen it! well, i guess mel gibson is not my favorite.

no

because gbx also secretly hates mayans & mayans are a RACE THAT DOESNT EXIST so that is evidence enough to him!!

lol

xps

No one says race doesn't exist.

mel gibson is a dick but the second half of apocalypto is pretty rad, if you like jungle traps etc.

fucking hell, I started this ;_;

I'm just saying that America needs to lose its morbid fascination with a self-determination that defines itself purely upon racial grounds. This fascination will only help to perpetuate aggressive racial self-definition, which will by default create racial tensions among idiotic people (none of whom are participating in this discussion). I mean sure it was necessary for oppressed peoples to have a strong voice way back when, but SURELY we're over that now, in America at least?

please shut up

I don't think we're "over it" at all.

High IQ thread of the day guys. Good job!

surely we're over oppressed peoples having a voice, right guys?

"I mean sure it was necessary for oppressed peoples to have a strong voice way back when, but SURELY we're over that now, in America at least?"

What experiences are you basing this on? Season 1 of the Wire?

http://www.beninati.com/images/TigerRoars2.jpg

for shizzle.

What experiences are you basing this on? Season 1 of the Wire?

-- caek, Monday, 16 June 2008 23:25 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

lol at the idea LJ has even watched an episode of The Wire

this thread could use a few wallogina.jpgs

tiger won the battle rocco won the war

i like italian americans more than calobacanasians btw

I mean sure it was necessary for oppressed peoples to have a strong voice way back when, but SURELY we're over that now, in America at least?

Jesus fucking Christ.

we're over the people being oppressed

look fuck it if you want to start threads creepily speculating about racial quotas being fulfilled like "first asian president" then be my guest

lol yes the infamous president "quota."

who will be the first cross-dressing Charlton fan president?

YEAH GUYS WHY MAKE RACE A TALKING POINT IN AN AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN THIS DAY AND AGE DUH SAVE IT FOR TRUMAN V DEWEY

guys he's british & is probably just saying 'surely we're over people being oppressed'

that i said i havent seen whatever apparently inflammatory comment he made earlier & dont intend to dig it out xps

we're over the people being oppressed

-- Just got offed, Monday, June 16, 2008 5:30 PM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

"Oppressing people is SOOO last century, right lads?"

i believe in equality for both races white and non-white

pip pip cheerio good show sir!

by just posting that i realize ive slipped onto exactly the same grammatical foibles as he did - surely people arent being oppressed

anyway imo this was just a troll thread that turned out pretty wonderfully, if jgo is just saying its a ridiculous question to ask he's right

ok gbx yr right being british is no excuse but still i dont see the use in intentionally mangling peoples points to prove yr own, its one step up from correcting shoddy grammar

lol jj

haha ethan must be in ecstasy right now. clusterfuck achieved.

gbx is being a right royal tosser in this thread, exploiting the easy target rather than trying to make any useful points of his own

would this thread have gone the way it did if he had said "asian-american president"

yes

sweet

let the music play, boys

okay, i feel a little bad telling you to shut up, LJ, because you're so defenseless in these threads, but seriously, you don't have the first clue what you're talking about when you talk about race on ilx and you should really stop until you learn some things. sorry if that sounds condescending, but seriously.

xposts

Race relations for Oxbridge English undergrads:

"Don't do this and your problems are over"

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mulready/Courses/othello_welles.jpg

the point i'm making is that lj is doing that "geez guys we all agree racism is bad, but most of us are over it, so maybe quit bitching about it, huh? can't we just move on? we're all just a part of the HUMAN race!" routine that seems pretty endemic to naive college kids.

yeah well i'm a naive college kid

for two more weeks, then i'm a naive unemployed adult ;_;

gbx otm!

but seriously i think questions like "who will be the first asian president" are pernicious and they emphasise all the wrong things in numerous different ways

i mean, your heart is in the right place, dude, but to somehow suggest that an asian-american (or african-american or whatever) president wouldn't be a BFD to large segments of the population is bananas.

also you spelled emphasize wrong

devastating

'lypto fuckin RULES ok

can we get back to talking about jaguar paw

Oscar: Both my parents were born in Mexico, and they moved to the United States a year before I was born, so I grew up in the United States... my parents were Mexican.
Michael: Wow, that is a great story. That's the American dream right there, right? Um, let me ask you, is there a term besides ‘Mexican' that you prefer? Something less offensive?

also you spelled emphasize wrong

no, he got that right!

also you spelled emphasize wrong

Ha ha!

ok you've stopped being a tosser gbx :)

it's true that it would be a BFD, but only because of the crushingly negative weight of history. i'm a hopeless idealist, over and out

oh, only that

oh historypaws

that could be a fun game, "republican or idealist?"

the correct answer is obviously libertarian

I don't see how you can say "race doesn't exist in genetic/physical terms" when there are certain physical features that are unique to different races of people?

-- The Brainwasher, Monday, June 16, 2008 5:07 PM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

but there is no one measurable biological factor that is a common denominator for every person of a single 'race' which is why the idea of 'race' is a falsehood. there are common characteristics within, but you can create any group of people arbitrarily and find commonalities within that group.

, over and out

REALLY

no not really i got one more thing

ok not ONLY history (and the aforementioned aggressive self-definition and racial partisanship), but it'd be nice if a president of, say, chinese ethnic origin could get elected and ppl defined him (or her) by his/her policies and personality not by LOL CHINESE

NO THE CORRECT ANSWER IS MEL GIBSON

sometimes, you people, I swear

(and again im speaking purely scientifically here - obviously there are very real common denominators for every 'race' in practical, cultural, social and political terms) xxp

really? are we really going to solve this problem right here, on the internet, today? really? Because that would be amazing. I would be really impressed.

UNTIL THEN

KAL PENN

im not solving anything, im just answering bw's question

HE'S BROWN

I'M WHITE

VOTE FOR HIM
END THE FIGHT

you're complaining about something that hasn't even happened yet, lj

xps

it'd be nice if a president of, say, african ethnic origin could get elected and ppl defined him by his policies and personality not by LOL BLACK

WELL EXACTLY

you may be doing the right thing in yr primaries threads but there's a lot of people out there taking the LOL BLACK line

oh guys we fucked up at the get-go. and what meant "who will be the first president of asia?"

http://bp0.blogger.com/_AkHeUaEva5k/RbyBTJN2hLI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/y-cFG75SE9M/s400/sonatine+shoot.jpg

a: genghis khan!

I am pro-election by LOL BLACK

xposts oh LJ god no son

xp I guess I see what you're saying. I'll have to read up on it more.

uh, people don't elect based on issues. LOL PEANUT FARMER. LOL COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE etc.

Oh jesus I'm going to post my opinions and bits I have learned about the subject to this thread now god help me.

1) Race is totally socially defined because it's picking out a few genes that are completely arbitrarily decided based only on the fact that they present themselves visually. That said, gender is also almost purely socially defined, and I don't think anyone's arguing for us being "past" gender, either, or pretending that it's not significant. This is an idyllic goal, but not one we'll likely see until many, many generations after our own.

2) What's more, the lines of race have been in constant flux and remain so to this day. Less than a century ago, I, with mostly German heritage, would have looked at a person of mostly Irish heritage and thought that person was of a different race. Nowadays, I *might* be able to even tell if they're of mostly Irish heritage if I look real hard, but probably not.

3) Louis, even if someone waived a magic wand over the whole of North America eliminating all overt and covert racism, it would still take a good long while to eliminate institutional racism.

4) Furthermore, one of the reasons it's worthwhile to talk about the first *insert group here* President, or big league baseball player, or whatever (yes I am quite aware the question was just clusterfuck bait, don't care), is that when a highly visible position like that is occupied by a member of that group, the children of that group see people who look like them doing that job, making it far more conceivable that they too might one day hold such a position.

but there is no one measurable biological factor that is a common denominator for every person of a single 'race' which is why the idea of 'race' is a falsehood. there are common characteristics within, but you can create any group of people arbitrarily and find commonalities within that group.

-- deej, Monday, June 16, 2008 11:55 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

www.wikipedia.com/nonsequiturs

the idea of 'race' is a 404

the lines of race have been in constant flux and remain so to this day

well exactly. appealing to archaic racial authority is not only anachronistic but dangerous

but there is no one measurable biological factor that is a common denominator for every person of a single 'race' which is why the idea of 'race' is a falsehood.

tell that to the aborigines.

but that's not to say that the idea of race (complex as it is) is archaic, louis. it's still present and you can't just wish it away.

by which i mean "tell that to a population that has been genetically isolated for 40,000 years."

i mean, your point is basically sound, but there's no denying that some genetic variation can be observed to have a meaningful genetic distribution. still not an argument for "race," of course.

oops, "can be observed to have a meaningful GEOGRAPHIC distribution"

why am i not doing my laundry

I think there's a difference between race-identity and physical traits of a particular race. Like, take Tiger Woods.. he may not self-identify as 'black' and that's his choice but he has "black features'... Am I making sense or....

I know it's present (xposts) but many of the authorities people appeal to ARE simplistic and archaic. I have to define myself as "White British Male" on passport applications when actually I've got German, Arab, all sorts in there.

the lines of race have been in constant flux and remain so to this day

the whole "it's a social construct" line of argument often throws this in there: i guess to compensate for the entirely synchronic nature of their arguments, they can only deal with history as totally arbitrary. it's not exactly a great insight that things -- perceptions of race, the meanings of words, laws -- change over time. within a concrete historical continuum, like the US, as well as this change there is also... continuity.

See though, to keep up with the Irish example, that line-blurring and falling away of institutional and personal bigotry didn't happen through people all of a sudden pretending they didn't see that they were Irish or ending the use of that demarcation, it happened when Irish people were integrated into all walks of life through a combination of the repealing of institutional barriers and community-based empowerment, both done under the banner of the same identity politics you're decrying.

xposts to LJ

I should say, Irish-American. Am not well-versed in Euro sociological history, Surprise.

Hmm. Maybe it works in some cases. I don't see it happening much nowadays, mind.

wow

"I don't see" != "I don't think there is any"

it = "perhaps I am underinformed"

I'd say it's working alright, at least. Gay folks have gone from being pathologized in the 70's to having the right to marry in California, (homosexuality also socially-defined demarcation, btw, and a relatively recent one), women are no longer legally considered property, black folks have gone in fifty years from being denied all sorts of rights to having laws explicitly prohibiting such practices (not that they don't go on constantly still), etc. etc.

I mean, this shit ain't even close to getting fixed, but progress has been made, and most of it done by rallying together using the socially-defined identities already in existence.

don't women get to be folksy too?

Hmm. Maybe it works in some cases. I don't see it happening much nowadays, mind.

-- Just got offed, Tuesday, 17 June 2008 00:22 (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

You're enjoying this, aren't you?

but there is no one measurable biological factor that is a common denominator for every person of a single 'race' which is why the idea of 'race' is a falsehood. there are common characteristics within, but you can create any group of people arbitrarily and find commonalities within that group.

-- deej, Monday, June 16, 2008 11:55 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

www.wikipedia.com/nonsequiturs

-- banriquit, Monday, June 16, 2008 6:03 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

spell out for me what im misunderstanding here plz instead of weak url responses that i can only assume are clusterfuck-bait cuz wtf (keeping in mind the parenthetical i posted after)

what you've said is '"race"-defined-as-a-measurable-biological-factor is a falsehood', not the idea of 'race' is a falsehood. i'm not even sure what that word-sequence means. maybe there are some people who came to racism via 'the bell jar', but the historical conditions that created slavery and colonialism had little to do with those kinds of argument.

while the historical conditions that created slavery is a pretty thorny one to disassemble, the conditions that created jim crow were certainly based on the false believe that there was an actual difference between 'blacks' and 'whites', that these categories were based on some sort of logical classification

poorly worded answer but its 2am here on a worknight, maybe someone else will take a stab otherwise ill try again in the morning

what it comes to tho is im pretty unconvinced by the argument that no one was basing racial categorization on some sort of psuedoscience on some level at the time. if yr gonna argue that line can you at least come up w/ an alternate theory as to how these designations naturally came to exist???

those kinds of arguments are usually post facto: i don't imagine the reconstruction would have been greatly different if modern geneticists had been on hand because the "actual difference" between whites and blacks was present in all sorts of ways, "inscribed" (or "embedded") in daily life. undoing it was going to take more than revelaing the truth of our inner biological unity.

what i can't make sense of in gavin's posts is sequence: there is a free-floating need among elites to assign status to groups, and in this case it happened to be inscribed on the bodies of, etc etc -- it doesn't feel convincing as an account of how the world works.

xpost

people were basing racial categorization on the uhhh "shared experience" or european conquerors and traders in their "interactions" with the people they alternately bought, bought from, ruled, shared power with, exploited, killed, etc. why they came up with the idea of white superiority -- it's an interesting question; i would guess that, before the 19th century, christianity as great a role as pseudoscience.

You're enjoying this, aren't you?

I kinda assumed all the examples N i c k subsequently listed had already happened (and hence weren't "nowadays"), but obviously there's work still to be done. Gay marriage, for a start, is only just getting off the ground.

http://alumweb.mit.edu/upload/PX/Jun_Choi_Pic_Sep_2007_19213.gif

classic thread, so sorry i missed it

ctrl-f "chung"

?!?!?!

you really think the aeon flux dude could pull it off?

haaaaaa.

ask top level.

Anyway, the answer now is clearly Onch.

http://www.mtv.com/onair/paris_bff/cast_bio_pics/onch/140x105.jpg

Tila Tequila

I guess George Takei's a bit old for the job now.

Genghis Khan

EXHUMED CHIANG KAI-SHEK

jindal will be the fred thompson of the 2012 GOP primary

people should feel represented by a human being not a skin colour

-- Just got offed, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:29 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-slowburner.gif
― J0rdan S., Monday, June 16, 2008 7:35 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark

<3

gotta be this guy

He's locked up the crucial treky vote.

Eagerly courted nerd bloc reconsiders endorsement after 'treky' gaffe by Wu surrogate

asia come asia go

what did the Sunz of Man say now

there will be like 3 people who get that joke and none of them will laugh

as you can tell i have much to show you grasshoppa (the next wu surrogate obv. et cetera)

people should feel represented by a human being not a skin colour

-- Just got offed, Monday, June 16, 2008 2:29 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-slowburner.gif

― J0rdan S., Monday, June 16, 2008 3:35 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i just wanted to register "fuck bobby jindal" somewhere

like as a suggestion? cuz he's married

for now

P.S. in answer to this thread, I saw a toddler in a store the other day who seemed pretty sharp, so keep an eye on that kid

yeah fuck this guy. being unemployed in louisiana has got to be a traet already...

can we take a moment to lol at how ugly Jindal is

http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/bobby-jindal-shaking-hands.jpg

the duke boys have really changed

http://disgrasian.blogspot.com/2009/02/babewatch-supriya-jindal.html

Re: turning down the funds, is it fair to say this is an insanely explicit statement that you're now more concerned with politicking the nation as a whole than you are with appealing to the people you actually represent? I'm sure there's plenty of truth to the idea that this is being done solely to help business in the state, but that also seems like it's a fig leaf for setting the guy up nationally

what a butthorn

this thread makes me miss tom

"who will be the first asian president?"

Gary Locke, maybe?

aka 駱家輝

(oops, strike "solely" from my post -- like I'm sure business is happy, but something about it seems like a man whose priorities aren't just about his state anymore)

I'm sure there's plenty of truth to the idea that this is being done solely to help business in the state

yeah except no

This thread also reminds me of how "Asian" now does double duty, referring both to East Asians and also to anyone from Turkey to Japan to Siberia to Ceylon.

anyone from Turkey to Japan to Siberia to Ceylon.

Well, this is literally what is meant by the word "Asian," it's just that in the U.S. most of the "Asians" you meet have traditionally been East Asians, just as in the U.K. most of the "Asians" have been South Asian, and so the term carries those respective connotations.

Note, there's no longer an unambiguous, unracist single-word epithet for East Asian comparable to "Anglo" or "Hispanic," though maybe there needn't or shouldn't be.

(The word "epithet" does similar double duty, funnily enough.)

Gary Locke is not going to run for, let alone be, President

Bobby Jindal has a reasonable chance of being on a ticket in 8 years, maybe even 4 (unlikely), and may be threatened more by religion than his ethnicity

like as a suggestion? cuz he's married

― nabisco, Tuesday, February 24, 2009 4:06 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

god, no. also, fuck this dude.

Kahn Supanousanphone Jr.

Jin

― Hurting 2, Monday, 16 June 2008 20:34 (8 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

As a national candidate, Jindal is nothing but downside - he's a generic crazy rightwing christian nutbag, but isn't white and thus is gonna turn off at least *some* of that base. The racist-in-a-different-way GOP leadership likes him cause he's brown and obv. that's all it takes to be president these days, but I don't see him getting far in the primaries.

Jindal is, like any other good candidate, a good communicator. what's gonna hurt him is not the color of his skin, but the fucked-up things he has at times communicated.

don't think going mano-a-mano against the most popular man in America is gonna be great for his image either

which is why, as i said above, he's unlikely to do so. wait 8 years.

he'll only run in 4 if Obama's numbers tank

I don't see why 8 makes more sense than 4 - obv 8 years is a LONG time away in politics - but I don't think it's crazy to say that Obama's not gonna win re-election if the economy hasn't significantly improved. but if it has, stimulus bill is gonna be looked upon as reason #1 - meanwhile Jindal's been setting himself as the public face of the anti-stimulus movement. as such, would think best hope is 4 years from now, economy in the toliet.

http://www.josephcaoforcongress.com/

Man, I saw that guy on the news one time, boasting about his low-voter-turnout strategy.

Good luck getting that to work in a regular election cycle, Joe-Cow.

still, he's gonna have had the most exciting two years of his life

I don't see why 8 makes more sense than 4

uhhhhh

did you read any sentence past that first one, or did you decide to just stop there and uhhhh

it's early yet but i can't see any candidate out there beating obama in 4 years

whatever obama's poll numbers, four years from now:
1) barack obama will remain the most-skilled, most-iconic, best-known, and perhaps most popular figure on the political landscape, perhaps by far
2) bobby jindal will be barely-40 and if elected, the youngest President in history

2) bobby jindal will be e-40 and if elected, the first rapper President in history

> it's early yet but i can't see any candidate out there beating obama in 4 years

If the economy continues to tank, there won't be an incumbent left in washington in 4 years.

If you mean you can't see the economy continuing to tank, well, hell, I wish I was you.

bobby lee, that fat gay korean "comedian". if that guy can find a way to stay on TV, he can find a way to be president.

marc loi

Note, there's no longer an unambiguous, unracist single-word epithet for East Asian comparable to "Anglo" or "Hispanic," though maybe there needn't or shouldn't be.

Oriental?

Meantime, from a fellow commenter at Balloon Juice:

I guess Jindal was worse than I thought. I thought he was "Meh" but certainly not in Palin territory. Then I come in to work and even the most wingnutty of Republicans in my office are visibly angry at how bad he was. As one of them put it, "When he started to give the Sesame Street version of African American history, I almost threw my beer at the TV."

Jindal pushed back on the notion of big government, saying, "Today in Washington, some are promising that [big government] will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us.

"Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina -- we have our doubts."

hahaha wait, he really threw HIS OWN PARTY under the bus like this????? DAMMIT I SHOULD HAVE WATCHED THIS

Note, there's no longer an unambiguous, unracist single-word epithet for East Asian comparable to "Anglo" or "Hispanic," though maybe there needn't or shouldn't be.

Oriental?

My daughters tell me that that's analogous to "colored."

(Oops. Wrong formatting.)

Yeah, "oriental" is pretty much the epithet equivalent of hitting a gong every time you say an Asian person's name.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090427/pl_afp/uspoliticsobama100daysasia

It's kind of amazing that the article mentions his time living in Indonesia, but doesn't mention that he grew up in HAWAII.

First POTUS of asian descent will be someone we have not yet heard of. Most likely coming out of California. When it happens I suspect it will provoke very little comment, unless China seems especially menacing at the time.

who will be the first asian president?

Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy (March 22, 1869 – February 6, 1964) was a Filipino revolutionary, politician, and a military leader who is officially recognized as the First President of the Philippines (1899–1901) and first president of a constitutional republic in Asia.

I think it was this guy?

Unless And What actually meant "the first American president of Asian descent", in which case I think it was Alberto Fujimori.

:|

Tuomas you're obviously making a point here about the supposed US-centricity of the question but it's pretty clear what hunangarage meant.

Tammy Duckworth.

Tammy Duckworth.

― Wes Brodicus, Tuesday, November 22, 2016 8:37 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^^

Duckworth 2020 I'm on board

Nikki Haley[1][2] (born Nimrata "Nikki" Randhawa)

Kamala Harris

i get daily facebook updates from her and they cheer me up a lot

This article is about the American politician Kamala Harris. For the professional wrestler Jim "Kamala" Harris, see Kamala (wrestler).

what's the word on Ted Lieu?

Xi Jinping.