http://www.golf.com/golf/tours_news/article/0,28136,2012613,00.html?hpt=T2

Sheesh, their son is only 1. That’s gotta be hard.

but some asian girls are really hot because they look so asian?

Sig makes me laugh. Sometimes.

King,

I definitely agree with you because as you said, it’s impossible to say who “owns” which genes. Some Chinese people, for example, have big noses. It’s not supposed to be a typical Chinese trait, but there it sometimes exists, in the middle of China.

I think for shorthand, some people like to say, for example, “I’m half Chinese and half German.” It’s hard to say who is what…I, for example, think I’m 100% Chinese, but I know it’s likely that I have other stuff coming in from way back when. Still, maybe it offers an approximation so that people can make sense of Olivia Munn, Apolo Ohno, and Tiger Woods.

So…I agree.

C’mon Zig, I can understand why the rest of us might feel this way, but how can you?

For years, Asian guys have been pointing out to you how some Asian women have been making this exact same choice to go for “white and blonde” men and you have been vehement defending it under the colorblind banner. In fact, you have been encouraging it! You yourself are interested in only “banging” Asian women, and have made an online career of justifying it.

Now, a blasian guy is exclusive “banging” White chicks and you object?

The rest of us are at least being consistent in our objections. Is there really no limit to the extent of your hypocrisy?

Long week! Sorry for the delay.

OK, lol! ? Yes, you’ve busted me at speaking in genetic shorthand because I thought to avoid the awful burden of complexity. However, I should have known better, remembering how relentless you are! But maybe I can still take a stab at a somewhat simplified explanation.

True, all humans posses the human genome, there are no traits that any of us have that can’t be found within that human genome. Therefore, of course, race is not a matter of the actual “genes we possess” but rather it’s based on what genes are turned “on” and “off” within the genome. This produces a variety of phenotypes which we have translated (along with their corresponding cultural identities) as ethnicity.

So, when we are talking about say, a Scandinavian and an Asian, we may consider them to be two different ethnicities, but in reality, more than 90% of their active genetics will be identical (as human beings) and the differences are based on the minority of genetic variance. In other words, only say… 7% of the active genetics may be different as a result of specific genes being turned off or on. So when we talk about inheriting genetic differences, we’re only talking about inheriting a relatively small phenotypical variance within the whole of genes that we all possess.

But based on this obvious complexity of definition, it becomes even harder to break up a human being into neat, genetic, percentages. It is almost impossible to divide genetic variances into comprehensive ethnic bundles, especially since many of the ethnicities share common variances. For instance, East Indians are of Caucasian ancestry, and yet may have the same hue of dark skin as persons of Negroid ancestry. Try figuring out who “owns” that specific genetic trait?

Therefore, I would argue that the assertions than Tiger Woods is 1/4 or 1/8 of anything is probably meaningless. It’s like mixing two reactionary chemical compounds together to make an explosion, and then trying to divide the smoke, by percentage, back into the two original chemicals. It doesn’t work after the reaction has happened.

—So, the obvious question is, if this is all really true, then how can we strictly define any race on a biological basis. The answer is that we can’t. Race/ethnicity is not primarily a biological construct, so much as it is a social one. However a social reality is just as binding, in its consequences, and in its requisite implications to privilege as a biological one. “Race” still exists, even if it’s traditional definition is an illusion.

Maybe someone with a better grasp of genetics can answer this, but don’t you get a 50 mix either way between two parents? Meaning that if Seal has a child with Heidi Klum, the child will have dark hair because of the dominance of the dark haired genes, but the child still carries the allele for blonde hair with him. I think they symbolize it “Bb” or something. So if Seal’s son also finds a blonde wife, the offspring of that relationship could be blonde.

Now things would be more complex after the third generation. If the son’s son is blonde, I don’t know if that son still carries any trace of Seal’s hair color in his genetics.

So, in other words, King, you’re right, especially since so few of us are 100% anything. I’m just playing with the details. (Although I did read somewhere that it’s possible for two blondes to give birth to a dark haired child although extremely improbably. Any geneticists in the house?)

The African American/Asian American discussion goes well with the Justice course. The next episode, Episode 11, deals with community obligations vs. freedom, or Aristotle vs. Kant. It echoes the earlier Justice discussions or morally-focused societies vs. freedom-focused societies. This isn’t to say that one is more moral than the other, or that one is more free than the other, but perhaps communities put different focuses on different areas at different times.

I’d actually like to say something else, but maybe I should watch Ep 11 first. Just two more episodes of Justice. It’s been fascinating.

However, my own main objection was to the use of simple race-of-parent data in determining ethnic percentage in mixed offspring. I realize that this method is used a lot, to describe ethnic admixtures, but it’s hopelessly inaccurate.

Ethnicity is based on genetic marker transfer. If you have a White parent and a Black parent, the child is not really 50% White and 50% Black. Which race he is, and in what percentages, would be determined by the uneven genetics he inherits. That was my only observation. There probably really is no way to divide Tiger Woods (or anybody else) neatly by ethnic percentages%—I doubt if we have the scientific precision to do so.

Now, having said that, Tiger is basically the result of an Afro/Asian mixture of genes. I will assume that nobody here cares very much about what the exact formula is—I know, I don’t. But one thing we can probably all agree on is that he’s nowhere close to being White. However, when asked to describe his ethnicity Tiger calls himself a

Canablasian: No, no! Not a “Cannibal Asian!” see below

Ca (Caucasian)
NA (Native American)
BL (Black)
Asian

Notice how far down the made-up word you have to travel before you actually get to the Black and Asian part… Suspicious, but perhaps forgivable. So Tiger marries a very White wife… no problem, love crosses color lines. But then, for the first time, we have an opportunity (through Tiger’s indiscretions) to glimpse into what kind of women he is attracted to. And when we do, we find a very long list of mostly blonde, White women—no Asians, no Blacks, no Native Americans, no Hispanics. So, it seems that it’s not just that he happened to fall in love with a Swedish wife, he seems to have pursued a strict “Whites only” dating policy.

Now, my argument is not now, and never was, that Tiger is Black, because I’d also find this behavior to be questionable if he was 100% Chinese, 100% Thai, or 100% Native American.

The point, as uRB4N so eloquently put it, “is about his choice in women, not splitting hairs about his biracial mix.”