Customer Reviews

American Mixed Race: The Culture of Microdiversity

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Straight to the point, I have not read this book.

The real point of this review is to boost the overall score and compensate for the vacuousness of other reviewers, who shoot the book down from a racist point of view. Such reviews are politically motivated and disingenuous. So while I admit that my review is disingenuous as well - for my not reading the book - I am attempting to prevent people from turning away from reading it simply because it has a low rating.

These essays are presented in support of Zack's contention that race does not exist.

Zack believes that, because more genetic difference occurs within racial groups than between groups, that differences between individuals are far more meaningful than differences between races.

Imagine that marbles came in two colours of bag, red bags and blue bags. Each bag contained marbles in many different colours. Imagine that some colours of marble were more highly prized than others, with green marbles being the most highly prized of all.
Only the blue bags contain green marbles.
Irrespective of how different blue marble bags were from each other in chromatic composition generally, there would still be a consistant specific and important difference (at least to marble dealers) between blue marble bags and red marble bags.

General variables do not obviate specific differences. However entertaining the essays Zack presents may be, they are presented in support of a theory which she chooses to base on a logic fallacy.

Most of the heritable differences betwen human beings are irrelevant. It does not matter much whether someone can roll their tongue or whether their belly-button goes in or goes out. The important differences between human groups are differences in temperament and cognative function. Race is real.