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chriswylson
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
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 Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Even more confusing indeed... as YOU wrote, you're Black. Why are you ashamed of who you are? |
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Alyallen
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Location: The 4th Greatest Place on Earth = Jeonju!!!
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:28 pm Post subject: |
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| chriswylson wrote: |
| Even more confusing indeed... as YOU wrote, you're Black. Why are you ashamed of who you are? |
Are you ashamed to be an idiot? Apparently not... |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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| chriswylson wrote: |
| adventurer, if your brother has black hair and green eyes, and you have blonder hair and brown eyes, does that mean you have different parents? of course koreans don't look exactly the same, they're not all twins!! |
Yes, but we would say that we are both Caucasians while Koreans view themselves as separate Asian race. Based on that, I say no. You have to understand our concept of race is generally different. The Korean concept of race in some cases resembles the way Europeans spoke of race 50 years ago or longer which made no sense. Give your exact definition. Are the Japanese then one race and the Chinese? What is the point of this thread, anyway? How are the Koreans not of the same race as the Chinese? Look, if the Koreans want to say they are one race, I don't care, but this idea of Tangun (whatever way you spell his name) reminds me of ancient Romans talking about being descendants of Rumulus and Remus.... Now what do you mean by one race? |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:35 pm Post subject: |
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| chriswylson wrote: |
"For example, I'm Black"
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=97417&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
This is what you wrote, alyallen. If race is a mad concept, how come you state that you're Black? You also posted your opinions in the thread entitled'Interracial marriages in Korea". Since race, in your opinion, is an illusion, how can you even post in such a thread? You're confused, that's all I know.
Jajdude, if you feel Ethiopian, then by any means please go back there. You probably have a similar IQ as the people there anyway. |
While race is a social construction, the construction exists. Alleyallen feels black because she comes from a culture that assigns meaning to the colour of her skin.
This, however, is irrelevant. Korean is a linguistic group at best. Not a race. They don't even fit the loose criteria to be called a race. Maybe an ethnicity. And the proper comparison would be if Koreans said Asians were one race, as Asian is thought to be a race in the way as is Black. There is so much wrong with your post.
And adventurer is right. Koreans are visibly from different tribes.
Reject everything you hear from the mouths of Korean nationalists/racists. |
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Saxiif
Joined: 15 May 2003
Location: Seongnam
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chriswylson
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:39 pm Post subject: |
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"Are you ashamed to be an idiot?"
Name calling = I'm losing the argument.
Anyway adventurer, you're finally posting something that makes sense by raising interesting questions.
"we would say that we are both Caucasians". Good. Then you yourself accept the existence of race, which you were denying just 5 minutes ago.
"race 50 years ago or longer which made no sense". Why not? What liberal college in Canada taught you that?
"Are the Japanese then one race and the Chinese?" you asked Koreans, and they gave you the answer. what more do you want?
"if the Koreans want to say they are one race, I don't care". you seem to care a lot, and it disturbs you, which is natural because they are right.
"reminds me of ancient Romans talking about being descendants of Rumulus and Remus" so what? this belief is natural and present in every sane culture! |
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blynch
Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Location: UCLA
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 11:51 pm Post subject: |
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One of America's most common ignorant question, "Is he white, black, hispanic, asian?" In this country if we exist at all, we come in all colors. Still, I know what the Americans mean with the term "asians". They mean yellish brown with a strange asian surname - ting, yang, kong, chang, wang, chen, choi, mitzukushi, tran.
We love to label people in this country. we do it without thinking, or asking why.. mostly, i think, because it makes stereotyping and generalizations easier. One of those labels is the notion of a "Korean" race, a notion that flies in the history that brought them all here to America. Yes, it's a race. |
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Adventurer
Joined: 28 Jan 2006
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:03 am Post subject: |
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| chriswylson wrote: |
"Are you ashamed to be an idiot?"
Name calling = I'm losing the argument.
Anyway adventurer, you're finally posting something that makes sense by raising interesting questions.
"we would say that we are both Caucasians". Good. Then you yourself accept the existence of race, which you were denying just 5 minutes ago.
[Incorrect, I did not deny the concept of race. I said the Koreans were not made up historically of one race but rather of Central Asians, South East Asians, Mongolians etc.... You are assuming I meant that I don't believe race exists.
"race 50 years ago or longer which made no sense". Why not? What liberal college in Canada taught you that?
[That is easily explainable. How would the French and English be of a different race if the English have Germanic ancestors and so do the French as well as Celtic and vice versa. That is why I disagree, for example, with the notion with say the French and English being of separate races. Anyway, that concept of race in Europe was based more on nationalism rather than them really being distinct Caucasian groups.
That's where you run into problems.
"Are the Japanese then one race and the Chinese?" you asked Koreans, and they gave you the answer. what more do you want?
[They may view themselves as one race, but several Asian groups formed their DNA obviously. They are all Asians, but Koreans are ethnically different and often look somewhat different than the others, but in many cases the Japanese and Koreans resemble each other and as do the Tibetans and Mongolians. You still did not define what you mean by Koreans being a race.
"if the Koreans want to say they are one race, I don't care". you seem to care a lot, and it disturbs you, which is natural because they are right.
[No, I think it is idiotic to talk about some ancient Tangun, it almost seems like talking about fairy tales. When I see some people looking like Cambodians and swarthy and some looking like Genghis Khan and very pale then I don't see how Koreans are such a monolithic racial group.
You might argue that is like white Germans having brown hair and blonde hair, but they do have the same skin colour.
"reminds me of ancient Romans talking about being descendants of Rumulus and Remus" so what? this belief is natural and present in every sane culture! |
You are joking, right? The Arabs do talk about being related to Ishmael and the Jews talk about Isaac in some cases, but these notions are kind of outdated and not substantiated historically. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:11 am Post subject: |
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One of America's most common ignorant question, "Is he white, black, hispanic, asian?" In this country if we exist at all, we come in all colors. Still, I know what the Americans mean with the term "asians". They mean yellish brown with a strange asian surname - ting, yang, kong, chang, wang, chen, choi, mitzukushi, tran.
We love to label people in this country. we do it without thinking, or asking why.. mostly, i think, because it makes stereotyping and generalizations easier. |
Couple things.. I don't think America is unique in this at all. Secondly, the race of a person in a society with such a hypersensitivity to skin colour difference brings with it a list of cues of how one can interact in relation to the person in question. It is not possible to speak in the same way about a White, Black, Hispanic etc. So, the simple answer is "Americans like to generalize" but the more sophisticated answer will take into account all the information and cultural norms that involves speaking of people of different races.
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One of those labels is the notion of a "Korean" race, a notion that flies in the history that brought them all here to America. Yes, it's a race. |
Korean is a linguistic group or ethnicity. While it is the case that race is largely a recent social construction the Koreans do not meet the criteria within the SC to be a race. Too bad, so sad. Not a race. They belong to the human race, which might upset more than a few actual bonified racists living in the ROK. |
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chriswylson
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:18 am Post subject: |
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| bjwd, ir race is an illusion, then why are you talking about 'racism'? you're confused, too. |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:22 am Post subject: |
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| chriswylson wrote: |
| bjwd, ir race is an illusion, then why are you talking about 'racism'? you're confused, too. |
No, I'm not. Racism is a belief by people who believe in race that one race is better than another. Both of their beliefs are wrong, but the opinion is real regardless. My group is better than your group exists, even if the groups authentically do not.
As an example, a Korean who says that all SE Asians are "dirty" is making a bigoted/racist statement because he, and the culture he comes from, believes them to be a different race. Humans make meaning. |
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chriswylson
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:25 am Post subject: |
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| There are plenty of obvious and well-documented differences between races. If Koreans think they're better than S-E Asians, why does that bother you? Don't you believe that your mother is better than your friend's mother, that your child is more precious than your neighbor's? |
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thepeel
Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:35 am Post subject: |
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| chriswylson wrote: |
| There are plenty of obvious and well-documented differences between races. If Koreans think they're better than S-E Asians, why does that bother you? Don't you believe that your mother is better than your friend's mother, that your child is more precious than your neighbor's? |
There are differences between groups of people but those differences are not limited to, or contained within what we commonly think of being the races. As DNA is further understood scientists are learning more and more about how we evolved into differing tribes and the like. Humanity emerged from Africa, and we took different paths from there. However, a clearly defined separation between these groups, largely based on appearance, is not scientifically justified.
Why do I care if Koreans are racist... Well, I have a hard-on for this idealistic world that exists in my head about how humans ought to interact with each other in a macro and micro sense. Racism, religion, nationalism and others serve to create artificial differences and cause conflict. I think all must be fought with reason and criticism. If a Korean acts like a racist, as they often did, I challenge them on it. If a white dude acts like a racist I call him on it too. Culture, religion, ideas, nations and the rest of it are fair game for aggressive criticism. But saying that a group is inherently better/worse than another is not appropriate for 2007.
I think my mom is a lovely woman. I'm sure yours is too. I'm not at all concerned with which of them is better, or how we would go about quantifing/qualifying what constitutes better. |
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Alyallen
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Location: The 4th Greatest Place on Earth = Jeonju!!!
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:45 am Post subject: |
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| chriswylson wrote: |
"Are you ashamed to be an idiot?"
Name calling = I'm losing the argument. |
Excuse you....
[quote="chriswylson']Name a race where everyone looks EXACTLY the same....
That's precisely my point, you dummy. That Koreans resemble (in your eyes) Mongolians or Japanese doesn't mean Koreans are not a race.[/quote]
You lost this argument long ago, dummy  |
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nateium
Joined: 21 Aug 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 7:22 am Post subject: |
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The answer to the OP's question depends on how closely you are looking.
Korean is not a race (as one poster pointed out, it not a sound scientific concept) but "Korean" is a relatively homogenized population group with specific genetic markers. So; Koreans are very closely related to other population groups in the area, but they are often identifiable. Markers from other Asian groups can be found, but with a low frequency.
| Quote: |
Recent advances in the study of polymorphisms in the human Y-chromosome have produced evidence to suggest that the Korean people have a very long history as a distinct, mostly endogamous ethnic group, as male Koreans display a high frequency of Y-chromosomes belonging to Haplogroup O2b1 that are more or less specific to Korean populations.
Though they have interbred to some extent with other East Asian ethnic groups over the ages, for the most part Koreans still display phenotypes revealing their Altaic origins. These features include tall stature, long bridged noses, higher cheekbones, and the Mongolian spot, a genetic predisposition for a bluish birthmark on the lower body which remains until early childhood. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreans
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9270329&dopt=AbstractPlus
What does this mean practically? If you are a Korean nationalist/racist than it means everything. If you are a geneticist, it only means it's possible to find a handful of different nucleotide sequences (out of billions of base pairs) unique to most Koreans and only if you are really looking for them (needle in a haystack).
Can these few sequences code for unique characteristics or superpowers (like the elevated IQ suggested by some ignorant posters)? Nope. The phenotypes displayed by Koreans (the things that make you look at someone and say "that person looks Korean") are the more complicated expression and interactions of whole genes that all human beings (and East Asian population groups) share, and that are just subtle differences in the gene frequency and expression. What can seem so obvious to your eyes as the Japanese or Korean or even Scandinavian "look" are really minor statistical differences in the prevalence of certain genes. Tiny differences look like a lot to a human observer, but functionally the differences are insignificant in the broader context of the entire human genome.
All human beings have nearly identical sets of instructions (there are no major differences betweens groups at all-just a few "markers"), but small differences in the average expressions of certain phenotypes within a population group appear to make some groups look unique and different
(the graph for any one trait considered morphometrically from any sampled population group-such as nose length, or ear shape, etc., that is compared with another population group, would show most of the area under both bell curves to be overlapping) . |
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