What is a race?

[rowan]

Remember when one of the Australian rugby players called one of the touring British Lions a 'Pom' and the British media went berserk, claiming it was racism Is 'Yank' racist? How about 'Kiwi?' 'Ocker,' perhaps? Talk about over-sensitivity.

[Sandydragon]

Remember when one of the Australian rugby players called one of the touring British Lions a 'Pom' and the British media went berserk, claiming it was racism Is 'Yank' racist? How about 'Kiwi?' 'Ocker,' perhaps? Talk about over-sensitivity.

I don't recall that, but I do agree that it seems a bit sensitive to get upset about Pom, or Taff for that matter.

[rowan]

Prisoners Of her Majesty! Vicious

I love the French word for the English - Rosbifs!! (roast beefs). Wonder if that would hold up in court as a 'racist' slur . . .

[Galfon]

Prisoners Of her Majesty! Vicious

I love the French word for the English - Rosbifs!! (roast beefs). Wonder if that would hold up in court as a 'racist' slur..

No different to 'frogs' you could say..should it refer to the culinary aspect..though there was one rather odd looking french noble that was courting an english princess a few hundred years back who gained this association by his looks.
The POM thing is backronym I think..the most plausible origin was from immigrants arriving in thick overcoats being labelled 'jimmy grants' and kids doing their teasing thing singing 'jimmy granite..pome-granate' ( somebody wrote they heard this when younger )

[Banquo]

Remember when one of the Australian rugby players called one of the touring British Lions a 'Pom' and the British media went berserk, claiming it was racism Is 'Yank' racist? How about 'Kiwi?' 'Ocker,' perhaps? Talk about over-sensitivity.

really? I'd be surprised if that were true, unless it was the Sun...

[Banquo]

Remember when one of the Australian rugby players called one of the touring British Lions a 'Pom' and the British media went berserk, claiming it was racism Is 'Yank' racist? How about 'Kiwi?' 'Ocker,' perhaps? Talk about over-sensitivity.

I don't recall that, but I do agree that it seems a bit sensitive to get upset about Pom, or Taff for that matter.

I don't think anybody does, or limey. Now Saes.....


no-one gives a shyte about either.............

[rowan]

really? I'd be surprised if that were true, unless it was the Sun..

I don't actually read the British press. I think it was on Planet Rugby that I read it.

The POM thing is backronym I think..the most plausible origin was from immigrants arriving in thick overcoats being labelled 'jimmy grants' and kids doing their teasing thing singing 'jimmy granite..pome-granate' ( somebody wrote they heard this when younger )

I'm pretty sure it comes from Prisoners of her Majesty. Thick overcoats in Australia :shock:and kids turning jimmy grants into jimmy granites and then to prome-granates and then to Poms sounds just a tad far-fetched to me.

[Galfon]

tad far fetched..

or maybe not!
though not heard the sunburn / pomegranate colour thing...
(The overcoats reference was bemused locals watching them getting off the boat in their usual : attire from home.)
from wiki..
"There are several folk etymologies
 for "Pommy" or "Pom". The best-documented of these is that "Pommy" originated as a contraction of "pomegranate"
 According to this explanation, "pomegranate" was Australian rhyming slang
 for "immigrant" (""Jimmy Grant"").
 Usage of "pomegranate" for English people may have been strengthened by a belief in Australia that sunburn occurred more frequently among English immigrants, turning those with fair skin the colour of pomegranates.
 Another explanation – now generally considered to be afalse etymology
 – was that "Pom" or "Pommy" were derived from an acronym such as POM ("Prisoner of Millbank"), POME ("Prisoner of Mother England") or POHMS ("Prisoner Of Her Majesty's Service").
 However, there is no evidence that such terms, or their acronyms, were used in Australia when "Pom" and "Pommy" entered use there."

[Banquo]

really? I'd be surprised if that were true, unless it was the Sun..

I don't actually read the British press. I think it was on Planet Rugby that I read it.

must be true then!

[rowan]

POHMS ("Prisoner Of Her Majesty's Service").

A reference to prisoners newly arrived on the red continent by Europeans already settled there - obviously. The prisoners' clothes were apparently stamped thus.

must be true then!

[Galfon]

perhaps but unlikely. as no hard evidence..yer'd think there'd be shed loads of remnants.?
might be true...but sounds a bit reverse-engineering...anyhoo, from yahoo (au):

" This amusing anecdote is doubtful as anything more than a fanciful invention, as acronymic origins antedating the mid-twentieth century are automatically suspect, and the use of "pommy" has been recorded at least as far back as 1915. Moreover, nobody has yet turned up corroborating evidence that "Prisoner of His Majesty" or "Prisoners of Mother England" were actually common designations for criminals transported to Australia. The best guess at this time is that "pommy" was based on the word "pomegranate" -- either because the redness of the fruit supposedly matched the typically florid British complexion, or because (like "Johnny Grant") it was used as rhyming slang for "immigrant." 
"

[morepork]

Speaking of marginalised race:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36012578


Jesus Christ.

[rowan]

Reminds me of this:

[onlynameleft]

Thanks for the legal definition. It's not a genetic or anthropological definition. Nationalities cannot possibly be regarded as races. Can anyone define the American race, or the Brazilian, the Russian or the Australian, just as a few examples. Even in Europe now, Britain, France, Germany . . . they're all multi-cultural today.

That isn't a legal definition of 'race', it is simply the definition used in the Equality Act to determine what characteristics a claim for discrimination can be based upon. Hence if I refused to employ someone because they were French it would be race discrimination, it doesn't mean the French are a 'race' for any other purpose.

[rowan]

Thanks, but wouldn't that make it a legal definition? In any case, I think we're agreed that that race and nationality are entirely separate issues - except for when it comes to legal rights, apparently.

[onlynameleft]

Thanks, but wouldn't that make it a legal definition? In any case, I think we're agreed that that race and nationality are entirely separate issues - except for when it comes to legal rights, apparently.

For a very specific purpose and wholly irrelevant out of context, perhaps.

[onlynameleft]

Thanks, but wouldn't that make it a legal definition? In any case, I think we're agreed that that race and nationality are entirely separate issues - except for when it comes to legal rights, apparently.

And to be fair I should have said that isn't 'the' legal definition of race which was the comment I was responding to.

[rowan]

Most everyone knows that the islands of the South Pacific are some of the most remote and unique places on Earth, but a new study reveals just how unique they really are.
According to a report from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, researchers have found traces of a previously unknown extinct hominid species in the DNA of the Melanesians, a group living in an area northeast of Australia that encompasses Papua New Guinea and the surrounding islands.
A computer analysis suggests that the unidentified ancestral hominid species found in Melanesian DNA is unlikely to be either Neanderthal or Denisovan, the two known predecessors of humankind to this point.
Archaeologists have found many Neanderthal fossils in Europe and Asia, and although the only Denisovan DNA comes from a finger bone and a couple of teeth discovered in a Siberian cave, both species are well represented in the fossil record.
But now genetic modeling of the Melanesians has revealed a third, different human ancestor that may be an extinct, distinct cousin of the Neanderthals.
“We’re missing a population, or we’re misunderstanding something about the relationships,” researcher Ryan Bohlender told Science News. “Human history is a lot more complicated than we thought it was.”

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/paci ... s-ancestor

Not too much of a surprise, really. & I wouldn't be surprised if a similar discovery is made in the Americas some day either. For some time anthropologists have claimed humankind is divided into four major ethnic groups - African, European, East Asian/Native American and South Asian/Austronesian, with considerable hybridisation involving the latter group in South Asia (with Europeans) and South East Asia (with East Asians). DNA appears to have confirmed all this, but Israeli historian Yval Noah Harari goes a step further in his international best seller 'Sapiens' in suggesting the differences emerged principally through hybridisation with other now extinct species of primitive man. Europeans are considered to carry around 2.5% Neanderthal DNA for example, while Asians and Austronesians were thought to have at least that amount of Dinosovian DNA. However, that doesn't explain the obvious differences between East Asians and South Asians/Austronesians. This new finding does. Sub-Saharan Africans are the only ones who didn't hybridise. This includes both black Africans and the San Bushmen who are a minor separate race.

[morepork]

Was this published anywhere?

[rowan]

Google the title and it brings up numerous links to articles published. For example http://www.sciencealert.com/pacific-isl ... an-species

[morepork]

Google the title and it brings up numerous links to articles published. For example http://www.sciencealert.com/pacific-isl ... an-species

I meant in a peer reviewed journal.

[rowan]

You mean, a journal that people peered at and reviewed? No idea.

But there's loads more where that came from: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/ ... t-ancestor https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dna ... n-relative http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... minid.html

[morepork]

You mean, a journal that people peered at and reviewed? No idea.

But there's loads more where that came from: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/ ... t-ancestor https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dna ... n-relative http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... minid.html

Hmmmm. Not quite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review

[Donny osmond]

Google the title and it brings up numerous links to articles published. For example http://www.sciencealert.com/pacific-isl ... an-species

I meant in a peer reviewed journal.

Jesus fucking christ MP, peer reviewed? THE FUCKING INTERNET SAYS SO. Repeat that until you achieve understanding.

[rowan]

Google the title and it brings up numerous links to articles published. For example http://www.sciencealert.com/pacific-isl ... an-species

I meant in a peer reviewed journal.

Jesus fucking christ MP, peer reviewed? THE FUCKING INTERNET SAYS SO. Repeat that until you achieve understanding.

Nothing to go into a frothing seizure over, Donny. Just an interesting item I came across, which appears to have been widely published.

Meanwhile, have you actually read Yval Noah Harari's best seller on the topic - 'Sapiens' ?? If not, I suggest you go away and do so before you try to join in any discussion with adults on the subject.