Talk:Race (social)

Race (social)

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Plan for this article

(moved to top as per LS suggestion)

What is clear to me from reading the Talk page above, and also looking at the Wikipedia article on this topic, is that there exists a fundamental philosophical problem of "knowledge" with this topic. That is to say, there is an interplay between "commonsense" knowledge of individuals, the incomplete scientific knowledge on the matter, and the predominant [but not unanimous] social science view of "race" as a social construction. These interact to leave a space where people's opinions and different life-experiences emerge and conflict.

The Wikipedia article solves this by claiming that there is no consensus and providing massive detail without guidance, such that anyone [including me] is completely intimidated by the mass and complexity of information and unable to agree or disagree! On CZ, this article can potentially show the difference between Wikipedia and CZ, and great care should be taken that we come out looking better. My proposal is the following:

(1) we should wait for a reasonably definitive survey of the biology literature by Nancy in Race (biology), which will exclude the substantive debates in science from this article

(2) this article will then focus on three aspects of race: (a) understandings of the word in common discourse (b) historical aspects of race, globally and with some nation-specific coverage [e,g, USA] (c) social science analysis of the issue, including some minor dissenters; including an explanation of what social scientists mean when they say that race is "socially constructed"

(3) we include the scientific knoweldge, as determined by Race (biology)

(4) some conclusions concerning the validity of the concept

I am not sure about the exact structure: these are just preliminary thoughts. Suggestions are welcome. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 09:01, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

Biological discussions of race should be placed on the Talk page of Race (biology) which is under construction.--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 21:37, 4 June 2007 (CDT)

Martin, an excellent plan. I agree on all points. You should be aware as well that, in coordination with Nancy, I'm working on an entry on Eugenics which connects with her Eugenics and sterilization; the two may very probably end up merged. This entry should, I hope, serve a function oppostite from, but connected iwth Race (biology), in that it will give a clear, historical account of the many false notions of race and inheritance, many of them not entirely abandoned in popular consciousness. So, with this entry for the pseudoscience, and the Biology entry for solid science, the Social Sciences should be able to keep an even keel, buoyed as it will be on either side -- a sort of controversy catamaran! Russell Potter 09:56, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

Yes, sounds like a good plan. Please move it to the top of the page so that it will not be archived. I am nervous, however, about (4). The guidance that CZ:Neutrality Policy provides is simple: if there is significant disagreement about some conclusion, then CZ officially has no stance on it, but instead fairly and sympathetically represents the different sides of the debate, allowing readers to make up their own minds. That's our policy. Anyway, before saying any more, I propose to wait until you've actually produced the conclusions.  :-) --Larry Sanger 10:16, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

Larry, the conclusions of an encyclopedia article should summarize and evaluate the various positions in different sources of knowledge. The different sides of a debate may not have equal force, and it is a mistake to pretend otherwise out of "political correctness". To some extent this hinges on what one means by "significant disagreement", and, I repeat, this is where CZ should show its superiority over wikipedia. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 10:59, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

---

Sports

What about "race" in sports as running races, such as "100m race"? Yi Zhe Wu 23:03, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

That would be a matter for another entry entirely, something like [[Race (sport)]]. Russell Potter 23:22, 2 June 2007 (CDT)

Actually, I found an interesting journal article on racism in sports: we can include that:-)--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 02:30, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

This should be a disambiguation page

This page should be, and should remain, a disambiguation page. There are two drastically different common meanings of the word "race" in English (my Concise Oxford Dictionary gives a third: a ginger root), and each of those has related subsidiary meanings. There is the meaning used in the phrase "races of man", which should probably have a biology article and an anthropology article, and perhaps a history article as well. There is also the meaning of "a contest of speed", which would at least link to pages about various kind of racing, and possibly also discuss the computer-science meaning of "race condition".

Deciding that this page will end up, eventually, as the CZ article on the anthropological and biological meanings of the word would be doing as much a disservice to our readers as to leave only articles which discussed contests of speed. Anthony Argyriou 12:49, 31 July 2007 (CDT)

This is not a disambiguation page

I am not aware that you are an Editor on CZ, Mr Argyriou. The page was blanked temporarily, and it will shortly be unblanked. You may state your opinions/objections on this Talk page. My opinion is that the word "race" in the sense of motor cars etc. is so uninteresting that it is doubtful that it should even be on CZ. Race as an idea about humans, on the other hand, is highly contentious and should be of great interest to our readers. Thus far, we have only an incomplete Race (biology) article, so this article needs to be created. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 13:42, 31 July 2007 (CDT)

I am not aware that your status as an editor empowers you to be rude to mere authors. Anthony Argyriou 16:14, 31 July 2007 (CDT)

I do not see any rudeness in the above, merely a hint of exasperation in the management of these issues. Please just leave this page alone and a discussion of disambiguation and/or moving of pages can be done at a later date.--Martin Baldwin-Edwards 16:38, 31 July 2007 (CDT)

I was not the person who placed the {{diambig}} tag on the page; I found that the article had that tag, and re-arranged the page to better conform to the norms of a disambiguation page. Even without the disambiguation tag, and after your other edits, the page still is, in fact, a disambiguation page, as all it does is point to other articles describing the various senses of the word "race", whether those articles exist or not.

Wikipedia has an article at "race", and a disambiguation page at "race (disambiguation)". Looking at the content of both those pages, I think they've got it wrong - that given the various senses of the word "race", the article race should be the disambiguation page, and articles on the various senses of the word race should be at race (subject area). Anthony Argyriou 10:06, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

I am not going to weigh in here except to say that race (sports) or racing sounds like a perfectly appropriate topic for an encyclopedia article. And come to think of it, race (sports) might need to be disambiguated: there's the topic of racing, and then there's the topic of racial issues in sports.  ;-) --Larry Sanger 00:39, 1 August 2007 (CDT)

Revised plan and some text

I have restarted the page, with some changes to the previous suggested structure. Feel free to make minor changes to the text, but please discuss here any significant changes which you feel are needed. THe topic has been far too controversial to allow laissez-faire contribution, but comments and suggestions are always welcome. --Martin Baldwin-Edwards 20:23, 1 August 2007 (CDT)