Ebony and ivory

Racial belonging, either claimed or assigned, is sometimes absolutely clear, but sometimes fuzzy. At the fuzzy points it becomes obvious that race is not only genetic and geographical, but also political and local, dependent on which categories you use and why you use them.

Barack Obama, for example, as much genetically White as he is Black, is Black.

So the borders can never be decided "objectively" and once-for-all, even by genetics.

But that does not make the categories meaningless, as some perfectionists like to pretend. If only objectively decided and hermetically sealed categories were real and important, we'd be reduced pretty much to writing mathematics.

IMHO, and for the sake of my fantasied Alternative Republic, you're White if your predominant genetic loading is from haplogroups in Europe.

White = European (or descended unmixedly therefrom).

That makes it clear for a lot of people.

But where does Europe end? That's a matter of convention, as many borders are. Since Whiteness is not only genetic but cultural and political, for my purposes, Europe (with the exception of parts of the Balkans) ends where Christianity ends and Islam begins. Russians and Armenians and Georgians are Europeans. Turks and Chechens and Khazaks are not.


In a Black vs White race riot, though, Dhokar Tsarnaev, Alan Dershowitz and me are all on the same side. At least as far as the Blacks would be concerned.

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