Talk:Race (human categorization): Difference between revisions

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Hypostatization of Race -- The Mug Shots

§ To quell the edit war as quickly as possible I have tried to state what the photographs actually are to put them in a context that does not hypostatize race and does not simply revert the page. I have never done this before, but I will ask for article protection if there are any more reversions-without-discussion.

§ There are at least two very serious problems with using these photographs. (1) By using the pictures of people who are either felons or accused of being felons, the article tends to demean all of the [races] described. (2) By captioning the pictures with simple mention of the word "race", the article becomes strongly POV by tacitly assuming the existence of [race] as it is commonly assumed to be.

§ I knew these were mug shots without looking at the upload information. All of the people pictured are probably under stress and not at their best. As a person who grew up in a community with people who resembled the man in the first picture more than the others, I automatically discount his negative visual appeal because I know "in my bones" that he is atypical. When I look at an out-group picture, I may not be able to do an equivalent amount of discounting.

§ Whether intentional or not, I think the inclusion of the pictures was a rather ironic practical joke. P0M 15:38, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Regardless of the issue of hypostatization, these particular pictures are so poor as to be not worth keeping. The fact that they are mug shots only makes that matter worse. I suspect that there are better pictures to be had (pictures of US congress-persons or celebrities for example), which would present a more neutral account of the "census"-type distinction of races. I would recommend replacement or removal. --Rikurzhen 15:47, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

§ Agreed. But is there anybody out there who doesn't know what members of these [races] are supposed to look like? How about pictures of Thai people like the golfer Tiger Woods or White people like the film maker "Karma" Hinton? Or a representative Sardinian next to a representative Cyprian, and a representative Watusi next to a representative San, and, just to make things interesting, a Shan tribesman and the darkest person from Sri Lanka that we could find?

§ I think somebody is lurking, watching all the turmoil caused. At least the person had the honesty to label them "mugshots.jpg". At first I just thought they looked like mugshots. P0M

I think the photos are simply inappropriate in a general article on race. They illustrate (at best) a very narrow topic: race and law enforcement in the US. In the context of this article they are at best misleading. I do not see that they add anything of value otthe article. Slrubenstein

About the image: Race was listed on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates as an article missing pictures. An earlier attempt using Martin Luther King, Jr. was removed repeatedly. I tried to find an image that fits the article, and I believe a collage of different races is the best approach. I used FBI mugshots, because they are copyright free, and listed with the race according to the FBI definition. I also tried to pick the "prettier" photos, as ... well ... most criminals are butt-ugly. I was also considering adding other races, but there are not enough e.g. Australian aboriginals criminals in the US, and i did not want to add perfectly innocent people to a list of murderers.

Regarding your objections: Please feel free to change the captions. I considered Ethnicity, but since the article was titled Race i used race, knowing well that the word alone is controversial already. Even though these people are felons they still belong to different races, and all races are treated equally in the image. Every race has its criminals. Besides, the image caption did not list them as criminals. I think using images like Tiger Wood, Martin Luther King, or other celebrities is even less desirable, as these faces are too well known. Martin Luther King actually has been removed from this article twice. I think, the perfect image shows unknown members of different races, and I am happy to have my image replaced with a collage of other faces, but as long as there is no other image, I think Image:RaceMugshots.jpg is the best solution. Any of the critics here are welcome to contribute a better image. And, P0M, this was NOT a rather ironic practical joke but best intentions to contribute. -- Chris 73 | Talk 00:58, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

§ I was offended by the images, especially after I discovered that they really were people accused of being criminals, but I did not intend to be personally offensive in return. For that I apologize. I should further explain that by "ironic" I meant the quality of a communication that contains a hidden point, usually with some kind of twist in it. One thing these pictures seem to me to do is to subliminally encourage and reinforce negative feelings about out-group people. That effect is instructive and potentially valuable, but only if the reader becomes aware of the subjective biases of his/her own reaction. P0M 05:14, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I merely tried to select photos of people which are rather unknown and look typical. I thought mugshots are OK if all are mugshots. Personally, I think celebrity images are difficult, as they are too well known. Yet, if the majoprity wants celebrity images, then I can live with that. The less known the better. Just don't pick this guy ;-) Chris 73 | Talk 07:59, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I for the record support having the picture here. I think it's fun to look at and was done in good faith. Jalnet2 01:50, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I can understand the desire to have an image to accompany a featured article. My recommendation is that we compile a new picture set from current wikipedia images. US government officials are the easiest source -- Senators, Governors, etc; and most are well dressed and looking their best. Most are relatively unknown outside of their own state, and so it would not be too distracting. If we can compile a list of appropriate photos, I'll shrink and combine them. --Rikurzhen 03:31, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

That's fine. Just make sure you get the people's permission or use public domain government photos. If you're going to use government photos I would suggest Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas, Elaine Chao, Norman Mineta, etc. Jalnet2 03:45, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Keep the recommendations coming. I don't have time to fish out pictures, but I can do the Photoshop work if no one else can. --Rikurzhen 04:38, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

§ Both Peak and Slrubenstein have deleted the earlier pictures, and an edit war was getting started because other people were reverting deletions. I personally would not be happy with pictures that show the "summit" cases on a map of [racial] characteristics and do not show the "valley" cases on the midpoint isogenetic curved lines that form the boundaries between [races], for instance, somebody from central Asia who might look rather "western" to a Chinese, and vaguely "Chinese" to a European. Let's see whether we can achieve a consensus rather than a reversion imbroglio. P0M 05:14, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. A nice range of human facial features. I think it would be instructive to present faces that blur the lines between census typologies of race. Although it is worth keeping in mind that the vast majority of US citizens still self-identify as belonging to a single particular race. One could say that it is disingenuous to preferentially picture "multiracial" faces when they are in fact in the minority. Finding all the pictures is outside of my time budget right now, but I'm willing to put pictures together if we can build a list of good ones here. --Rikurzhen 06:39, Jul 27, 2004 (UTC)

Suggested Images

So far the suggests are:

File:Chao.jpg File:Hillary 1.jpg File:Winonaladuke.jpg File:Ben Nighthorse Campbell.jpg File:Rushdie.jpeg

Please add or subtract.

For a good source of images see: List of people by nationality Chris 73 | Talk 08:11, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Races to consider

I think we also should consider images of what races we should add, otherwise the above process would quickly plaster the entire article with images. I suggest a male and a female each of some selected races/ethnicities: Please add/comment to the following list: Chris 73 | Talk 08:41, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• Caucasian
• East Asian
• African
• Hispanic
  • Maybe, maybe not -- Chris 73 | Talk 08:41, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
• Native Indian
• Indian

I'm not sure about this whole project. There are a lot of subtle racial gradients in the world and they will be hard to depict clearly. If we are showing major continental racial groups, we should probably include Bushmen and Australian indigenes. Presumably, also some sort of Polynesian peoples, too. But there are a lot of question marks. Under "Caucasian", do we show Europeans, and, if so, do we have a separate spot of Arabs or Berbers? If include the latter, what about Jews? For Indians, do we show north Indians (or does that, too, fall under, Caucasians) or South Indians, or both, or try to find people that show a mixture of physical characteristics? Do we include Mongols and/or Turks separately from East Asians? What about Southeast Asians? Eskimos separate from American Indians? etc., etc. - Nat Krause 09:02, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree, there are probably hundreds of ethnic groups in the world. How would you make an imgage for the article? Chris 73 | Talk

I also agree. I see nothing wrong with the images currently included, especially as labelled to make the point that these are non-academic "racial" classifications of people by appearance as actually used by the FBI in the USA, however odd some of the classifications might be from an academic viewpoint. I far prefer those images to the suggested replacements with the idiotic plastic grins displayed by most of those imaged. The current illustration seems to me to be just that, an illustration of one practical though unacademic system used by a federal agency in a particular country to classify moticeable broad types of appearance. An attempt to produce an NPOV list of real races is impossible since classification systems disagree. And there are also wide variations in appearance among people within the races distinguished by any such individual classification systems. For example most Inuit and some "Amerindians" are not distinctively different in appearance from most southeast Asians: that is you will find many southeast Asians who look more Inuit than some Inuit do, as least to many people. Similarly for "Amerindians". Would a freckle-faced red-head by acceptable as the official NPOV example for a Caucasian, or would someone who very much "looks" Jewish, or "looks" Lebanese, or "looks" Italian, or "looks" German, or "looks" Scandinavian, or "looks" Iranian? The current illustration presents itself as just an example from a POV source, and a somewhat lightweight example, but one that gives excellent vividness to the article. Attempting to produce a better "NPOV" replacement is probably impossible. I am particularly unclear as to why Hispanic is considered a separate "race" in the list above, distinct from Caucasian. Instead Hispanic describes, in respect to appearance, a common type (based on heredity and therefore on "race") within the U.S. which is noticeable there because average Spanish/Portuguese features and skin tone are sufficiently different on the average from average northern European features and skin tone to be contrasting in enough cases to be a useful distinction in describing someone, especially taking into account the amount of Amerindian mix in American "Hispanics". Accordingly one can say someone looks Hispanic and be understood. One can also say someone looks Scandinavian or that someone looks Jewish or that someone looks Irish or look Italian (even though there are Italians who look more Scandinavian than many Scandinavians and vice versa). Jallan 14:51, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

§ There are books like The Family of Man that are available to people who want to see what people adapted to different regions and having different genetic histories look like. Both sets of pictures posted so far are mostly U.S. residents, which isn't appropriate to an encyclopedia. How about making a world map showing sampled skin tones something like the mock-up in the detail below:

§ Then if we could find a public domain Tutsi image, for instance, we could put it in the Atlantic and draw an arrow to the appropriate band of color on the map of Africa. That would indicate that the image of the individual represents a "high point" on the map, and that the colors shade gradually into the lighter tones of N.W. Europe, etc. P0M 17:37, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The problem with the photos is they reinforce the ignorant discredited view that superficial differences/similarities are meaningful. There are two specific problems with the photogrqaphs that would need to be addressed before including photos. First, if the photos are meant to illustrate biological differences then they illustrate populations and not races. But are we sure which photo goes with which race? Perhaps we can find photos of people from two distinct populations (e.g. Papua New Guinea and the Congo) but who look alike. Similarly, in Brazil two people who look very different can belong to the same "race" -- maybe we can find good photographs to illustrate this. In short, illustrations should support the way the article raises questions about common non-scientific views (at least in the USA) and not reinforce popular American prejudice. Slrubenstein

§ I agree. P0M 17:36, 28 Jul 2004 (UTC)