(Im)purity of Race

Ultimately, the will to purity of race will not be overcome by any directive of politics, or general opinion, but by human nature itself:

The eroticism of the different.

Of course in choosing a mate we look for the familliar, commonalities of perspective, the right number of arms and legs... But also we seek difference, a particular shade of skin, a curve of eyebrow, the subtle archs and hollows of form.

For some, this carries further than the arbitrary borders of the place they call home. There is a primordial drive that pulls us in the direction of that which we have not seen before, to spread ourselves across the Earth. This spills over into our sexuality, we seek diversity, not the same old same old. Purity of race is a lost cause. And those that uphold it, anti-nature.

Purity, memetically speaking - a closed system of shared cultural references and values and ideas, is also doomed. For it will ultimately have to seal itself off to preserve it's 'cleanliness', and so with time, become slowly more antiquated, stale, and eventually what is outside, will find it's way in.

Either that, or it will find itself in a war it cannot possily win, without dooming itself along with the competing races it attacks. The thing with a quest for purity, it never stops - there is always that which is more pure. Those on that quest will tear themselves apart till the only purest number possible of them exists... One.

What is 'Race' exactly, what defines it..? Let us first look at what race is not:

*I am English. I live in Turkey. I speak fluent Turkish, with a reasonable accent. I can converse with anyone, begger or politician, like a native. But I remain English, a foreigner. Race is not defined by language.

*I am English. I live in Turkey. In one year's time, I will have spent more of my life, as an adult, in Turkey than in the country of my birth. It matters not, I could live in this country until I die, and still, remain an Englishman on foreign soil. Race is not defined by location.

*Is race dependent on the axiom "Born and Bred" ..? Let us imagine a tragedy: A chinese couple, living in London, have a baby. The mother dies in childbirth, the father, in a paroxysm of despair - takes his own life. The infant is adopted into a childless English family. He grows and learns English as his mother tongue, he speaks with a fuency and accent to match any Londoner. He grows up with English TV and American fast food. His education is in an English school, he knows exactly as much about China as any English child. His culture, sense of history, his value-system, is entirely that of England.

And yet, throughout this thoroughly English life, at each level of his development from child to boy to man, ask any of his peers to describe him and they will say - "Oh, that chinese kid/lad/man." Race is not defined by upbringing.

*I am English. I live in Turkey. The sun has turned my skin a shade well within the national average, my hair, my height, my build, my eye colour, are all within that same average. My facial structure differs slightly from the norm - but not distinctively so. And yet, I remain English.

Very well - the Turks and the English do not display the degree of difference exemplified by say, the English and the Chinese. But say I went there, and had my skin bleached and tinted to match theirs, my eyes surgically given epicanthic folds, I dye and straighten the hair on my head, and wax off most of my bodily hair, would I suddenly 'be' Chinese..?Of course not. So Race is not defined by simply looks alone.

*My child, according to the states involved - has dual-nationality. By Passport - he is at once a British citizen, and also a Turkish citizen. But as you point out, he, at the same time, is niether. In England he will be forever half-Turkish, and in Turkey he will be half-English. I myself could take Turkish citizenship, if I wished. Would that make me Turkish..? No. Race is not defined by paperwork.

So, what does that leave us..? With blood.

Let's first tidy up the language. Blood has no race. Blood is red, and carries oxygen and nutrients and everything else around the body. My blood is exactly the same in form and function as that of any man, black, brown yellow or pink. Do we distinguish race by blood-group..? "Hi, I'm an O(rhesus-ve)'er, how do you do" No. It's genetic heritage we are talking about. Not blood.

• I have a sister - How do I know she is English..?
  
• Because we share common ancestors, Mum and Dad.
  
• How do I know Mum and Dad are English..?
  
• Because their ancestors too, were English.
  
• How do I know Gran and Grandad were English..?
  
• Because they too had English ancestors. And so on.

But my half-Turkish boy may go on to marry an English girl. And their child, one quarter Turkish now, to marry another of English descent... And so on. When will that child, with it's fraction of Turkish derived DNA, become wholly English..? Perhaps when no obvious none-English distiguishing feature remains, in thought, word, physique, or deed..?

But, common ancestory can be taken back. To a time, perhaps in Africa, when the whole of mankind was one.

What is an Englishman, a German, a Japanese man, saying when they declare "I am English.", "I am German.", "I am Japanese." What do they really mean..?

What defines race..? Time. Adaption. Enviroment. Geographic isolation.

The distinct differences in physique are the results of the slow evolution of an isolated gene pool. The long straight blades for noses in Desert people, to deal with hot dry air, the snub noses of polynesians, with their warm, moist climates. Over countless millenia, evolution has equipped these people of the same species with atributes intimately linked to survival in their specific locales.

Genes code for basic behaviors too. So it is not totally unfounded to say that some distinctions in racial character have some rootage in the genetic heritage of the group.

So to answer the question: "I am English." "I am Japanese."

They are both saying exactly the same thing: "I have evolved to the point where I am slightly better equipped to live in this enviroment than you are."

This remains as the best, and only justifiable definition of race. A definition that has only Evolution, and Geographic isolation as it's pillars.

However. The 'Races' are no longer Geographicaly Isolated. I am an example of that, as are millions of ex-pats of differing State-defined nationalities, around the globe. The human species, in it's natural extensions of memetics, society and technology is changing and adapting at a pace far outstripping simple biological evolution. The pillars supporting the concept of 'Race' have fallen.

Humankind will end, just as it began, as one.

...Continued...