[ExI] Well-roundedness and character

[Dan TheBookMan]

On Jun 4, 2020, at 10:55 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, Jun 4, 2020 at 7:46 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Universities are trending toward de-emphasizing objective metrics for admissions.  Otherwise, their campus would be almost entirely Asian.  Some schools find this unacceptable, so they look for ways around it.
>> 
> 
> ### This is a topic of some interest to me, sincy my daughter who was born last week is half-Polish and half-Han. I had to answer questions about the race of her parents on the birth certificate and I filled her father's race as "Other" (Polish). Her mother wrote "Asian". In retrospect this was not the best approach. We could have both filled "Other" (Unknown).
> 
> I am thinking about identifying as African-American, or maybe Latino. After all, if your gender is nowadays not determined by your sex chromosomes or your genitals but by how you identify, then race, which on good authority does not objectively exist and is a social construct, should be also open to individual interpretation. We have Ms Dolezal, genetically Czech but very black with the help of some heavy-duty tan cream and hair-curlers, so why not? Getting a 200 to 400 point boost on admission to an Ivy is definitely worth it. 
> 
> I'll start filling out all forms asking for race with "Other", "Unknown" for now but then let the events guide further interpretations. You never know if Oceania would continue to be at war with Eastasia forever, so flexibility may be very useful. 
> 
> I am reasonably confident though that filling in "Other" (American) would be seen as very suspect, possibly seditious and altogether racist. Failing to mention race every five minutes is the loudest dog-whistle we have for racists, as we all know, so saying you are American would be the death-knell for one's chances of success in our society.
> 
> I'll get some tanning cream and give it a try.

The view that either or both gender and race are social constructs doesn't exactly mean they're not objective -- at least not in the sense that they're totally whimsical. Think of money or language. Both are social constructs, but it's not true that anything goes with either. For instance, money relies on other people accepting what someone views as money.

And gender and race are somewhat like this -- as one can see by variations on both across societies. For instance, with race, judging who's Black depends both on overall social rules and how people present themselves. On the latter, someone who can pass as White often does (and did more so in the past) and they were often accepted as White. (And what's White in the US varies over time and across communities.) And who's White or not doesn't map onto ancestry per se. Rachel Anne Dolezal certainly couldn't have passed the other way if this were not so. I'm wonder if you met her before she was "exposed," if you'd have thought she was passing or not -- as opposed to being a "light-skinned" African-American.

Regards,

Dan
   Sample my Kindle books at:
http://author.to/DanUst
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