Is it okay for oppressed minorities to evince blatantly racist attitudes, claiming, for example, that they are “genetically superior to other groups”? (Needless to say, the claim I’m discussing here is not backed by evidence.)
I’d argue that no, dismissing entire groups as inferior based purely on stereotypes is wrong, whoever does it. But it’s even worse when the racist is a co-leader of an important political party in a Western nation. And what’s triply bad is that the national press and government of that country, which happens to be New Zealand, fails to call out the racist.
That is, of course, because the racist is Rawiri Waititi, a Māori who is co-leader of Te Pāti Māori (TPM): the Māori party in New Zealand’s House of Representatives. And the report, which I can’t find elsewhere, comes from the World Socialist Website (click below to read). On the other hand, the racist quote seconded by Waititi comes from The Northland Age, part of the New Zealand Herald, the country’s most widely read newspaper:
Here’s the new excerpt, and the bolding is mine:
In an interview with TVNZ on Sunday, Rawiri Waititi, co-leader of Te Pāti Māori (TPM, the Māori Party) defended the blatantly racist statement: “It is a known fact that Māori genetic makeup is stronger than others.”
The statement was made to the Northland Age in September 2020 by TPM candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth while outlining the party’s call for a $100 million fund to invest in “Māori sport.” It was then added to TPM’s website and was only removed last year after the far-right ACT Party complained about it.
TPM did not issue a public retraction or apology. Now, with an election approaching on October 14, Waititi has doubled down on defending the claim that indigenous Māori are a superior race.
His comments reveal the utterly reactionary character of Māori nationalism, a form of racial identity politics that is dressed up as progressive by the New Zealand political and media establishment. They highlight the sham being perpetrated by liberal commentators such as the Daily Blog and pseudo-left groups like the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), which are supporting TPM as a “left-wing” party.
Speaking to TVNZ interviewer Jack Tame, Waititi defended the comment by stating: “How can it be racist when you’re trying to empower a people that are climbing out from the bottom of the bonnet [sic] of colonial violence for the last 183 years?”
He continued: “We’re trying to rebuild our people… [after] years and years of colonial violence on our people. And so why can’t we call ourselves magic? Why can’t we call ourselves proud? Why can’t we believe in ourselves? And why can’t we say to our people that your genetics mean something, that you can be proud of that?
Umm. . . yes, of course the Māori can believe in themselves and empower their people. Yes, they can be proud, though calling themselves “magic” is a bit too close to superstition for my taste. And of course your genetics does “mean something”, like which group you’re most closely related to (I’m betting on Polynesians).
But what you can’t say is that your group has a “stronger genetic makeup” than other groups. The term “stronger” is meaningless here, and is not used by geneticists to compare genomes of different groups.
The original statement was apparently meant to refer to sports, as seen in the quote below from Heather Te Au-Skipworth, but then she extended it to intellect as well. Here’s the statement from the 2020 NZ Herald:
“Exercise has been a big part of who we are, how we came here and how we would traverse the lands of Aotearoa,” TeAu-Skipworth said.
“Māori invented many sports prior to European arrival – running, swimming, fishing, waka, hunting, kī o rahi, taiaha/mau rakau/te whare tū taua, to name a few – all examples of a tūpuna mindset, an ancestral way of being and acting that we call Whānau Pakari…
To interrupt, I doubt that hunting, swimming, fishing, and running were literally invented by Māori. This cannot be true because people were doing these things all over the world well before the Māori came to New Zealand about 800 years ago (e.g., the Olympics in ancient Greece). Hers is just a dumb statement that is not at all specific to the Māori.
Te Au-Skipworth continued:
“There is much to be taught and learnt from the navigators of our past and how we can use that mātauranga to sail and paddle our way into a future frame by Whānau Pakari.
“It is a known fact that Māori genetic makeup is stronger than others. When there is commitment, dedication and great support around Māori to achieve a high standard in sport, it is guaranteed that Māori will thrive.
“Our ancestors were not just athletic, they were also strategic thinkers with intentions to survive. This all required stamina, resilience, endurance, speed, agility and logic.
It was racist when she said it, and it’s racist when Waititi says it. As the anonymous Kiwi who sent me this link said:
Surprisingly (or not), neither the media nor the Race Relations Commissioner has shown any interest.
If a white New Zealander said that “colonialist genetics were stronger than Māori genetics”, it would be all over the Kiwi news as an arrant example of racism, which it would be. So it’s telling that when a big-time Māori politicians says something equivalent, it’s ignored by the press, the government, and the public. That is what is known as “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” and all decent Kiwis, whether Māori or “colonialists”, should be demanding retractions and apologies.
Don’t hold your breath. It would be considered racist to call anything said by a Māori “racist.” That’s how far the fear has spread in New Zealand.
Apologies, but I find that worth reading again:
Rawiri Waititi :
“It is a known fact that Māori genetic makeup is stronger than others.”
Rawiri Waititi :
“How can it be racist when you’re trying to empower a people that are climbing out from the bottom of the bonnet [sic] of colonial violence for the last 183 years?”
Rawiri Waititi :
“We’re trying to rebuild our people… [after] years and years of colonial violence on our people. And so why can’t we call ourselves magic? Why can’t we call ourselves proud? Why can’t we believe in ourselves? And why can’t we say to our people that your genetics mean something, that you can be proud of that?”
[ end quotes]
Very clear Dialectical Leftism (IMHO).
Weds truth to not necessarily lies, but here, dubious assertions.
The thing “you” do is wrong but not when “I” do it.
… but my god, did I read and requote that right? I’ll never really be sure – I have to rely on Waititi like a wizard because what do I know. My confidence in these areas is now weakened (the hostile intent of the Dialectic).
Or what Mao Zedong called “a new basis”.
It is unfortunate that Bertrand Russell’s once-famous piece on “The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed” (from the collection Unpopular Essays, 1950) is seldom remembered today. One begins to wonder whether there exists any cure for what many are calling the “woke mind virus”.
Found on line and bookmarked.
Thanks! There’s a copy of Russell’s piece here: https://criticathink.wordpress.com/2018/04/11/the-superior-virtue-of-the-oppressed-bertrand-russell/
Interesting essay.
I’m wondering if a happy resolution which requires power at last being “equalized” could come about in a society which holds fast to the idea that equality is impossible because oppression permeates everything and will always exist.
I’d put my money on momentum. If the oppressor’s ramparts are breached, the oppressed class will pour through the breach sweeping all before them. There will be no one left in the oppressor class with whom to have the discussion that “all the talk about superior virtue was nonsense.” Rather like the walrus and the carpenter being not surprised that the oysters didn’t have any reply to their colloquy, “but answer came there none –/ And this was scarcely odd, because / they’d eaten every one.”
(L. Carroll)
“… the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), which are supporting TPM as a “left-wing” party.” And, of course, in Weimar Germany we had the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei). The political horseshoe seems to just reform itself over and over and over again. A contemporary, comic-pathetic example in the US is the MAGA Republicans’ adoption’ of Chomsky-Left language about NATO and Ukraine. It is probably worth pondering why this horseshoe is such a regular, repeatable phenomenon.
If this were any other case of a phenomenon occurring repeatedly in populations separated in time, space, and (to a lesser degree) information, then one would be tempted to infer that the phenomenon was a natural characteristic of the population involved. I can see how to construct such an argument. But it would raise very awkward questions about whether “natural” is also “good”, and “if to change it, how to, and to what?”
Good luck getting sane discussion on that.
the mistake is in assuming that politics can be measured on a one dimensional scale. It’s an obvious fallacy and yet the left-right spectrum seems ingrained in our politics dialogue.
OK, I feel like being controversial. And I reject any notion of the “superiority” of groups, partly because, on any relevant attribute, dispersion within groups is always much greater than differences between group means, and anyhow there are many different attributes matter. But, like many, I’ve been watching the current rugby world cup.
Now, why do the Polynesian nations of Tonga (population 106,000, ranked 15 in world rugby), Samoa (population 206,000; ranked 11) and Fiji (population 900,000; ranked 9) hold their own against much more populous nations, and, in particular, often beat Japan (population 1200 times that of Tonga at 125,000,000; ranked 14)?
It’s not that hardly anyone in Japan plays the game (Japan has more rugby players than Tonga has people), and it’s not that the Japanese lack skill (that’s obvious watching them). It’s that Japanese players tend to be smaller and Polynesian players tend to be bigger, with greater athleticism and, in particular, the upper-body strength that matters a lot in rugby. This is clear to anyone watching rugby.
Further Maori/Polynesian players are over-represented in the All Blacks (NZ rugby team, often the world’s best), and (I gather) in the American NFL, compared to their small population fractions.
We shouldn’t shy away from the likelihood that there are indeed on-average genetic differences between different human groups. If one traces back the ancestry of the fastest 100-m runners, a large fraction trace back to a remarkably small region of West Africa. If you do the same with 1500-m runners, you get a high fraction from the high plateau in East Africa (adaptation to lower oxygen levels?).
So, I am ok with the concept that Polynesians might have genetic packages that tend, on average, to advantage them in certain sports. We shouldn’t automatically discount any such possibility.
If you feel like being controversial, perhaps you should apprehend what’s being said. Here:
“It is a known fact that Māori genetic makeup is stronger than others. When there is commitment, dedication and great support around Māori to achieve a high standard in sport, it is guaranteed that Māori will thrive.
“Our ancestors were not just athletic, they were also strategic thinkers with intentions to survive. This all required stamina, resilience, endurance, speed, agility and logic.
It’s not just rugby or football, it’s ALL SPORTS, and not only sports, but strategy, logic, and, well, almost everything. I’m not denying that groups can differ because of their genes, but you’re basing your conclusions on watching the rugby world cup. When you come up with some genetic differences that affect all sports and in “strategic thinkinging”, then we’ll ltalk. All I see you doing here is making conclusions based on THE RUGBY WORLD CUP. I’m not sure you’ve grasped what these people are trying to claim.
I thought the same – that it would be quite OK for a group to claim genetic superiority in a particular area, provided that it is backed by evidence; e.g. I would have no objection to the statement “We Sub-Saharan Africans are genetically superior with regard to solar radiation endurance”. But the Maori speaker claimed something else.
Outrage at opinions of any kind being expressed by oppressed people must surely be leavened by an understanding that they are alienated, hurt and angry at their decimation and endless struggle to emerge from their oppressed state. At the very least, you could take it with a pinch of salt and perhaps even reach out to some Māori and start some conversations. If you do, don’t expect an easy time of it…
Sorry, but the Maori are now being catered to left and right. They are not being decimated but sacralized. Much of the “offense” is pretense, an excuse for a power grab.
As I said before, apologize to the other commenter for your rudeness about “people of your stamp”. You have no idea how to comment here as a newbie.
Population and number of players are irrelevant. What you need to know is at what age they start practising, and how many hours per day the spend practising. It could be the case that, for example, by the age of 20, a Māori player practised twice as much as a Japanese player.
Turns out that “stamina, resilience, endurance, speed, agility and logic” were no match for guns, germs, and steel. Of course it’s an accident of history that Maori and Europeans 200 years ago differed in their development of those two sets of traits, and says nothing about the superiority of either group.
I think this is funny, in a chickens-come-home-to-roost way. I mean, once one concedes that Maori “ways of knowing” are equal to those of science, such claims are as inevitable as they are irrefutable. I think NZ is in for a whole lot of such “knowledge.”
The dodge they use is to say racism is prejudice plus power. Replace “Maori” with “Aryan,” though, and it sounds familiar.
Madness. Here in Canada, all we hear about about is “systemic racism”, yet the worst examples of racism I’ve seen & heard is from the indigenous people themselves, yet nobody ever calls them out on it.
Of course you cannot call them out on it, haven’t you been paying attention ? You have to continuously atone for your colonial sins and oppression. Never mind about any good you may have “accidentally “ done. Mind you I don’t see much call for the Romans and Vikings to atone and continuously apologise, for their colonial sins albeit a much longer time ago, but then of course they are not people of colour, they are white and just like the Israelites who are mostly indistinguishable from north africans and middle eastern folks they are also considered white and so deserve everything they get!
Mr. Waititi rants “And so why can’t we call ourselves magic? Why can’t we call ourselves proud?”
If the people who conquered and subjugated you can’t call themselves magic or proud, why should you? Because you were victims?
Encapsulated here is one of the great blights of our time: the elevation of victimhood to moral virtue. Perhaps it arises from American therapy culture, but now it has spread across the world. Victimhood is equated with moral purity and righteousness. Everyone now wants to be oppressed and traumatized—being a victim is so much easier than actually accomplishing or being responsible for anything!
By the way, other people (the Moriori) were victimized by the Maori.
Conflation comes easily to people of your stamp. The Moriori were wiped out under the averted noses of the NZ government of the day by a tribe of displaced Māori from the Taranaki region. Tragic, yes, and seen from a modern perspective, barbaric, perhaps. Genocide has occurred repeatedly throughout history. Show me a militarised culture that is exempt from that evil. We have seen plenty of it in the intervening years since colonisation.
What kind of insult is it to say “people of your stamp”? Apologize for that or I will ban you. And read the “commenting Roolz” on the left sidebar to learn how to be civil.
Do you see how rude your first statement is?
Q. 1) By whom were Taranaki Maoris ‘displaced’?
A. 1) Other Māori tribes.
Q.2) When did the genocide begin?
A.2) Four years before there was an NZ government.
Q.3) How much power did early NZ governments have to control unruly subjects?
A.3) Very little.
As for the verdict, ‘…seen from a modern perspective barbaric, perhaps.’ Mmm, let’s not rush to judgement.
Maybe, but colonisation by Western imperial powers also brought many benefits, especially when compared to those associated with being slaughtered by a rival tribe. Modern dental and healthcare for example. In NZ child mortality rates have nosedived over the last 100 years and prosperity has increased massively. These modern developments are possible because of colonisation, but they are never mentioned by the oppressed and colonised ‘victims’.
I could quite happily accept their arguments about Western colonial guilt etc if they were prepared to give up the benefits of colonisation. But somehow I don’t think they will. Few people will give up modern, pain free dentiistry.
Indeed, what *have* the Romans ever done for us?
True, very true but of course along with this comes a whole league of individuals who can make a career out of apologising for all that oppression even though they are in no way individually slightly responsible but they can signal their virtue and gain credence and respectability and become politicians, usually.
The PM of Canada is a prime example who has made an entire career from saying sorryeeeeey, for everything!
Yes, recommended reading: “The Victim Cult” by Mark Milke.
I’m proud to be inferior.
That’s the result of borrowing the term “genetic” from the imperialist Western culture! Had the racist used the corresponding Maori word, there would be no controversy, except maybe among the few who understand Maori.
(I surely don’t think that the Maori have invented genetics before Westerners, but “hereditary” or at least “inborn” is likely to exist in any language.)
Narcissists, both individual and collective, often have so little self-awareness. “How will this go down in the eyes of the others who aren’t as great as me?” is not a question they ever ask themselves. (Some other disorders share this: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is one: “My problem, doc, is after two hours scrubbing I can’t get my hands clean” – not, “I’m washing my hands for two hours…”)
Self awareness.
Within the Maori party a collective narcissism has taken hold for a few decades now if you look at their ever more shrill messages.
D.A.
NYC
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2020/06/10/photos-of-readers-93/
ps Richard Dawkins tweeted this story from WEIT.
Too think the party once had some great blokes in it who did some good stuff.
I suppose that belief in your group’s superior genetics gives greater force to claims of systemic racism in health services etc when life expectancy statistics clearly show that, while improving steadily and more quickly than the majority group, Māori life expectancy is still about seven years less than the dominant group’s, and has nothing to do with significantly higher smoking and obesity rates – that would be blaming the victim.
Since NZ European life expectancy is about three years lower than NZ Asian life expectancy, I am eager to find out how minority Asians are oppressing my majority group in the health services so I too can be a victim.
Note that Waititi refers to 183 of colonial violence, which conveniently ignores the previous 500 years of occasional tribal violence, and particularly ignores the intense tribal warfare from 1815 to 1840, estimated to have killed ten to fifteen times as many Maoris as the later colonial wars, and possibly responsible for the subsequent 50 year decline in population with the loss of so many of child bearing age.
They may get over it all when a very long time has elapsed as have the European countries considering the invasions and rapacious conduct of Romans and Vikings and north africans in Spain but then of course there was no social media and internet to spread and expand the misinformation. In either case I will not be around to see it that is for certain.
I couldn’t agree more! As a white British male, I must be one of the most oppressed individuals on the planet. Living in Yorkshire has meant that my ancestors have faced all manner of invasion, pillage, violence, conquest and enslavement. All told I’m still waiting for reparations from 4 or 5 different organisations. It started when Julius Caesar invaded in AD 55, and they soon built their northern capital in Eboracum (York), they killed 10-15% of the British population and made a right mess too – they built villas everywhere around here and we’re still not allowed to demolish them!
They ransacked our people and resources for over 450 years, then left with no warning. They didn’t even tell us how to fix any of their buildings and technology, so it all went to waste. Unbelievable.
We were just getting back on our feet, then wallop – the Vikings started killing, pillaging and berserking my ancestors. I live near the river near Stamford Bridge (so obviously that must be exactly where my ancestors lived too!) and every few years they’d turn up on the river to terrorise and murder us. These guys made the Romans look like Sunday School teachers but I’ve still to receive an apology or any compensation.
A bunch of them turned up on the river again in 1066 to fight Harold II, in the middle of town! What a mess they made, but Harold kicked them back up the river. However, it was all for nothing, as within a couple of weeks we were colonised again, having been conquered by (this is hard for an Englishman to say) William of Normandy! A French man, oh the horror!
My grandparents appealed for reparations from Benito Mussolini and Charles de Gaulle, my parents wrote to ABBA, but all requests have gone unanswered.
To top it all off, I have a surname of Norse origin, which shows just how stupid all this nonsense really is. I am no doubt a descendant of the Romans, Vikings and Normans, in addition to any Anglo Saxon roots. And just like every other human, my ancestors were rapists and enslavers but were also raped and enslaved. None of us have ‘belonged’ to the land of our ancestors since time immemorial, and no one can be held responsible for what their ancestors did. But if they ever are, given my people’s rough deal, I will be first in line looking for the handouts.
Absolutely spot on! My ancestors suffered the same over generations in Ireland and the UK. Also white male and privileged, like me you have it all. Where are our reparations?
(Needless to say, the claim I’m discussing here is not backed by evidence.)
That’ll be those “other ways of knowing” at work. *sigh*
Further madness from New Zealand. The Labour government is campaigning on (amongst other things) shifting the burden of proof onto the defendant in sexual assault cases. More depressing still, the opposition National Party (neoliberals) has agreed to “consider” affirmative consent legislation too.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/election-2023-labour-national-commit-to-considering-legal-definition-of-consent-in-sexual-offences/X6SEBBYLQBB7NF7CC6W76XCKH4/
Not madness at all. The weight is already against the accuser in sexual assault cases and consent should exist in any interaction. Affirmative consent laws are a bare minimum requirement to ensure it and if people don’t like it, they should consider why it’s become necessary.
In Anglo-American criminal law, the burden of proof lies with the Crown or The People, which it must satisfy beyond a reasonable doubt. The weight is supposed to be against the accuser (who is the Crown, not the victim, who is only a witness for the Crown’s case.) It is the Crown who has all the resources of the state to investigate a crime. The defendant has only his ability to cross-examine the Crown’s witnesses and raise doubt about their credibility.
No man in his right mind will have sex with a woman if, in a he-said-she-said, the tie goes to the prosecution. Women may think this is a great idea until the man is someone she actually wants to have sex with and he says, “No deal unless I can record the encounter.”
Affirmative consent laws also sound great until a man goes to jail because a woman who really did consent but regrets the act the next morning now goes to the police because she had a glass of wine with him before the act and said, “C’mon, stop asking me all those questions! Can’t you tell?” Again, it means men will avoid being in the same room with a woman unless there is a witness. Is this really what women want? Affirmative consent itself isn’t so much the problem as documenting that consent actually occurred. If it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen, says the law.
Maybe only one woman in, oh, four or five, would behave this way. But if I get that one woman, my life is ruined. So for prudent risk management, I assume all will behave that way given sufficient incentive.
It’s a ridiculous claim. Superiority in a genetic sense of one group over all others.
Here are examples of this type of claim that actually have merit and could be made on the same grounds (but would be just as ridiculous) for these groups.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_adaptation_in_humans
This for two.
“The Bajau are a seafaring population in Southeast Asia who have this adaptation. They can hold their breath for over 5 minutes, while highly trained divers from other populations can only hold it for 3 or 4.”
Genes make us who we are, they don’t make us superior, only different.
Okay, this may seem petty of me, but I find non-white racial supremacy to be even more absurd than white supremacy. At least a white person can point to the British conquest of much of the known world (and the ‘lesser’ races upon it) as proof that they are better. When a people who have thoroughly been conquered declare that they’re genetically superior though… uh… no?
Listen, it’s a bad idea to play this game period. But if you’re going to play it, then you really shouldn’t be declaring that you’re superior to the people who conquered you. A rabbit could at least claim it’s superior to the wolf because it can outbreed what the wolf hunts. But humans are not herbivores vs predators. And if your race hasn’t discovered metallurgy, and been conquered by people who have invented firearms, then if you REALY want to play this game, YOU are are the genetically inferior people.
Which should be a pretty major reason to not engage in racism. Or at the very least, this kind of racism. Keep it to the “The white man is wicked, and thinks only of domination” kind of racism. That at least has SOME basis in reality. But when you start sounding like some punk on an online video game saying his opponents suck at this while he’s losing 0 to 10, then maybe you should just shut the hell up.
It just bugs me. We shouldn’t be judging people by race. But if I was forced to do so, I would have to look at the scientific, social, and military successes of various european peoples, and declare them the clear winners. This is a fight non-whites cannot win. Which should give them all the more reason to realize the fight is stupid to begin with.
Hmmm, I would have thought that conquest would be proof of inferiority, savagery, brutality and underdeveloped morality and ethics. Surely the conquerors are the inferior races with inferior cultures.
What is proposed is to change the definition of consent – not the same thing as shifting the burden of proof which will still remain with the prosecution. Simplifying a bit, the present situation is that the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant did not subjectively/actually believe there was no consent. This is not an easy thing to do. The referenced article lists some proposed definitions of consent but the prosecution must still prove that the specified level of consent did not exist. Essentially either that a reasonable person would not have believed consent was given or that there is no evidence that actual/affirmative consent was given or there was evidence that consent was withdrawn.
A politician is racist. In other news water wet and fire hot.
Claiming any mythology is not science is one thing but this is more politics than science and unnecessary. It is a fact that many Maori/Rarotongan/Polynesian men and women are exceptionally big and muscularly strong and that there may well be a genetic element to that.
Unnecessary? Look at this quote:
It’s not just sport (and ALL sport, including swimming, running, skiing, and so on, but also a “stronger genetic makeup” for strategic thinking with intentions to survive. This all required stamina, resilience, endurance, speed, agility and logic.” Where’s the genetic evidence for that claim?
The answer, as you surely realize, is that there is NONE. You are again thinking of rugby and perhaps weightlifting, but apparently didn’t apprehend the entire quotation, which is simply unsubstantiated racism.
The problem is that you are thinking of rugby and not everything else meant in that quote. “There may well be a genetic element to that.” Okay, where is the science behind it? “May well me? does not equate to “is”. And there “may well not be, right?”
And where is the science behind the claim that the Maori have a greater genetic propensity than other groups
I deliberately singled out one area in which there may be genetic basis for claims of superior muscular strength, if somewhat tongue-in-cheek. (For the record, for my feminism, I do recognise the need for categories of sport between men and women, for example, on the same basis of physical difference. I do also note it’s not always true as a generalisation. I was in the grip of a Māori man once, a friend just giving me an innocent hug. I’ve fought off many white men with ease and I can say I’m glad I didn’t have to fight this man off as I, literally, physically, would not have been able to. I do note that none of the white men I’ve fought off were world heavyweight boxers.)
My point was that your article seems more political than scientific.
“If a white New Zealander said that ‘colonialist genetics
were stronger than Māori genetics’, it would be all over
the Kiwi news as an arrant example of racism, which it
would be.”
“It would be considered racist to call anything said by a
Māori ‘racist.’ That’s how far the fear has spread in New
Zealand.”
Among your? replies to comments I note
“Sorry, but the Maori are now being catered to left and
right. They are not being decimated but sacralized. Much
of the ‘offense’ is pretense, an excuse for a power grab.”
These are political statements, nothing to do with science.
I note you state “I’d argue that no, dismissing entire groups as inferior based purely on stereotypes is wrong, whoever does it.”
On that, I am in total agreement with you.
I don’t pretend to be familiar with all your work so, genuine question, no presumption or offence intended. Are you this outspoken about claims of white supremacy in the United States, i.e. racial superiority claims supposedly based on science/genetics? For example, what are your thoughts on this Scientific American article?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-must-not-be-used-to-foster-white-supremacy/
(I realise you’ve probably already seen it and may have commented on it previously, so forgive my lack in that.)
I applaud you for not tolerating rudeness between commentors, with threat of banning, if necessary, a level of moderation sadly lacking from some other online forums.
Jo Davis
(Sorry for the name mix-up. I usually use my mother’s name, Davis, as my nom-de-plume. An auto-fill got ahead of me on this occasion).
I fail to understand your repeated assertion that my article was “more political than scientific”. The ASSERTION about the “strong Maori genome” is not a scientific one, but a political/ideological one. There is no genetic data on ANY TRAIT that the Maori claim makes them superior, and so if you want a scientific response, that’s mine: NO DATA.
And yes, I’ve always pointed out the lack of data for claimed traits differentiating races (save pigmentation genes); see my paper with Luana Maroja online.
I would appreciate if you’d stop accusing me of being unscientific when i’m attacking an ideological claim and pointing out the lack of data. You’ve said this twice now, and your point is misguided. This discussion, I’m afraid, is over.