How Your Brain Looks at Race

There has been so much talk about how Americans are dumbed down and are considered to be less competent in this new era of globalization. This is what i have to say to the Nation lets get serious about academics no more stock characters which mock intelligence i.e. steve urkel and screech which help to create an anti intellectual atmosphere of which we live in today. do away with subjective relativism as well all these so called Rights.

Race is a social construct- the many who are uneducatedf fall into the traps of this divide and conquer tactic. There have been many wars which ultimmatley result in contact and conqeust. In other words people are all mixtures of different types of human beings. it would be logically impossible to distinclty catagorize one race separate from others. After all what determines our skin color it , environment maybe. the next time you venture out in the sun and notice that your skin has changed colors ask yourself what would happen if you were to move to a climate which was hot and dry year around. After thousands of years eventually, you would adapt,thicker hair darker skin thicker lips it's survival wake up America.

Face it. My neurons are formed to discern person of my accent and my skin color to be brethren or akin to my family members. All other accents and races are alien. I will automatically classify if a person I am dealing with shares my ancestral background. If yes, the subconcious will automatically conclude I am safe as I am with my family members. .I will try to exploit it to form a base of relationship to expand what looks like family.

I am seeking an answer to more complex form of discrimination and hatred. Some holy books and scriptures sanction slavery and hatred, thus discrimination. When studying Leviticus which sanctions slavery of neighboring states, what color perception it generates in the minds of those students with light color skin? Because the slaves were always portrayed in the modern media as blacks or asians, I wonder if the mind automatically visualizes slaves as black or an asian. Also, among the jewish community, which is largely a melted pot and most are "whites", is there discrimination towards the black jews? Are they looked down upon?

Although the implications of this article are positive, I'm insulted that the topic even merited a two page spread in your magazine. The old-line media -- Newsweek included -- need to get over the idea of "tolerating" a non-white candidate. Did it ever occur to you that some of us white folks might actually PREFER a multi-racial candidate? That the patience and tolerance that it takes to operate as a racial-minority politician are also the characteristics needed to salvage badly damaged relationships with virtually every other nation on Earth? That we want a president who represents not just our parents and grandparents, but also our kids, who are in schools where five different skin colors and ten different languages are the norm in a class of 20 children? I'm disappointed that Newsweek considers Obama's race an obstacle to be overcome, rather than a unique and important qualification that no other candidate can bring.

es248, do you think that Obama looks like a black man? You cant possibly think so. He's about as black as Bill Clinton. Of course black voters will vote for Obama, just as they thought O.J. deserved to go free even though he disowned the blacks too

"Clinton's tremendous supports of black issues"? Were either of them civil rights lawyers and activists at any point of their long political career? Perhaps Bob from Arizona can avoid insinuating that black voters cast their vote for Obama merely because he looks like them and because he actually has a record regarding "black issues" (ie being an activist who worked on matters) while the Clintons talk a good talk but when opposition from conservatives appear, so disappears their support for black issues, as when Bill Clinton backed down from nominating what would have been the first black woman to federal judgeship, Lani Guanier.

After reading your article I am taken aback by the suggestion that ,assuming Mr Obama actually becomes the
Dem nominee but then doesn't win the election, white racism must be the reason! It seems that Newsweek & the press in general are gearing up for a campaign to brand any critisim of Mr Obama's record, experience, positions on issues, etc as ' racist/racism'. Are we to assume that to agressively question & confront him is off-limits? Finally where is the balance in your suggested white racism when it appears the Mr Obama is benefiting from almost unanamious support from black Dem voters even though the Clinton's have always been tremendous supports of black issues. Bob/Phoenis Az.

Obama voted for Cheney's energy bill in 2005. Clinton voted against it.

Obama's 2007 League of Conservation Voters report came out this week. Obama's score is a mere 67.

Obama's largest contributors to his campaign are executives of a nuclear power company.

Robert Kennedy, Jr who is an environmental lawyer with the NRDC (Robert Redford sits on board) backs Clinton. He's stumping for her now. The media completely ignores this.

Kennedy wrote Crimes Against Nature. There's a chapter on the nuclear industry.

Footnotes

NYT's article on Obama's connection with Exelon
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/us/politics/03exelon.html

On the Cheney Vote, Conference Report H. R. 6 Vote Summary 2005
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00213

2007 LCV Voting Scores
http://lcv.org/

Crimes Against Nature
http://www.amazon.com/Crimes-Against-Nature-Corporate-Plundering/dp/0060746882/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203982347&sr=8-1

I think, that, we, the american people, are at our wit's end.
We would elect anyone, reagrdless, of all the qualifiers, that we thought, might, actually, make a change.
Maybe, it's time for a constitutional amendment.
1. make recall elections, much easier.
2. Any person, may be elected to any one position, for one term, only.
3. Each legislator, proposing a new bill, must specify, where the money, is coming from, and who will be impacted, the hardest.

If this premise was true why wouldn't White people respond the same way to Chinese? They look different. The truth is that 75% of the violent crime in America is committed by young Black men. White's view young Black men with apprehension because they have experienced being victimized by them.

Memo to writers: Saying "back when" as in "back when the human brain was evolving a few million years ago" just suggests you are either clueless or intentionally dishonest.

If you are trying to write something neurosciency then at least get the science write. The brain was evolving back then -- sure. But it's been evolving even faster the last few thousand years, with the dawn of settled life, then agriculture. In the last few years we now even know a bunch of brain protein encoding genes that are only 5000 or 10000 years old. And we'll likely soon pull from the data some even more recent that are a response to having alphabets, written language, bureaucracy -- that is that are selected because the info manipulators whether bureaucrats or traders could skim off a good living and have more kids.

That said the basic premise here is certainly sound. Skin color, or more accurately race\ethnicity -- which is a fancy way of saying a large group of more closely related people -- serves as a quick immediate proxy of "who's on my side?", but the brain is perfectly capable of other proxies life "color of jersey" or "my nations uniform". Basically we just want some way to sort out who the bastards are that will take your stuff or do you harm.

Obama doesn't wear an American Flag Lapel Pin because he couldn't find one that was made in America due to NAFTA and other trade agreements

Why does obama refuse to wear an American Flag lapel pin?

Be honest before you answer this question... How would you describe Baracks' complection?
Im' willing to bet hardly ANYONE thought "dark skin white man"

The lesson in the Obama candidacy is that gender trumps race as a disqualifier, without minimizing the importance of the "black" candidate being shown with his upper middle class, white grandparents.

Again shows it stupidity by classifying the turmmoil in Kenya as tribe vs. tribe. Man, Obama is going to work hard to restore America's image if literary sources such as Newsweek can print inaccuracies like this, be bias, and presumptious. What happened to the America that worked with others?

So this article was less about the brain, and more about Barack Obama. Unfortunately for him, this article calls explicit attention to his race, and therefore heightens that amygdala response that (this article suggests) makes us racist jerks. Nice try, though.