Brandon Berg wrote:
> "Brett Robson" <deep_m_m@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:cm4rhi$ou6$1@nnrp.gol.com...
> 
>>Brandon Berg wrote:
>>
>>>"Brett Robson" <deep_m_m@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
>>>news:cm4ouu$o7s$1@nnrp.gol.com...
>>>
>>>>To use your analogy that means classifying every single color as either 
>>>>red, green or blue or Asian, Black, White.
>>>
>>>It means classifying some colors as red, green or blue, others as cyan, 
>>>magenta, or yellow, and yet others as various and sundry combinations 
>>>thereof.
>>
>>I'll give you a hint, there are only 3 primary colours.
> 
> 
> I'll return the favor: I know that. Is your argument, then, that color is a 
> useless concept because not every color is a primary color?

No, my argument is that race is a useless concept.


> 
> 
>>>The existence of innumerable shades of gray does not negate the existence 
>>>of black and white.
>>
>>It's interesting you changed the analogy from colours to shades.
> 
> 
> I thought it would clarify the point. It's the same principle, but with one 
> primitive instead of three.

We know what white is, we always did. We didn't know what red was 
until recently.

> 
> 
>>  How many colours are there in the rainbow or how many shades of gray? 
>>Nearly infinite, and that is the point.
> 
> 
> And yet we have a scheme for the classification of every one of those colors 
> in terms of three primary colors.

We don't know what Black, Asian and White means.


> 
> 
>>Classifying people as a race attempts to turn a continuous variable into a 
>>discrete variable.
> 
> 
> You're tilting at strawmen.

This "tilting at strawmen" a recognised term?


> Is using words like "red" and "green" an attempt 
> to turn a continuous variable into a discrete variable? No one's claiming 
> that every person is a racial archetype.

No one is a racial archetype.


> 
>>Is yellow red or green?
> 
> 
> It's a more or less even combination of red and green, just as there are 
> people who are more or less even combinations of two races. Race may not be 
> a terribly useful concept, but it's just silly to claim that it's 
> invalidated by the existence of people of mixed race.

Read this aloud so you can understand it: "Everyone is mixed race".