WA - Civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal pretending to be black, parents say #2

[otto]

It heips to read your own link. Blumenfeld begins by confirming what I've said all along: the American Association of Physical Anthropology published a statement in 1996 saying that race as a biological category does not exist. That is the consensus. She even points out that the concept of humankind being divided into races didn't arise in the West until the Renaissance, and she explains why. Previously it was merely thought that humans presented a spectrum of physical appearances.

She goes on to concede that race is socially constructed and that individual biological characteristics of a corpse do not necessarily conform to a racial identity that would have been perceived when the individual was alive. She's agreeing that "race" is basically an artificial stereotype and that when an anthropologist uses the old terminology, he or she is only describing the bone in question and not opining as to the individual's real-life identity.

In other words, a skeleton with a broad nose and a reduced chin may be said to possess "Negroid" characteristics, but that is not proof the person was perceived as black or identified as black when alive. (And how many white people do we know with so-called "weak" chins?) The characteristics may be factors in identifying the individual, but they tell us little to nothing about that individual's "race".

The nine victims in Charleston were chosen because they possessed two factors ((1) skin color and (2) membership in a traditionally African-American church) that fit Roof's stereotype of black people. They were killed because Roof also associated factors such as social privilege(!), criminal tendency and hypersexuality with blackness.

And that ought to be reason enough for us to work toward giving up the illusion of race. I say "work toward" because however inaccurately from a biological standpoint, we have assigned race as a social category to everyone and those assignments have consequences, some of which need to be addressed.

I understand anthropological race classifications, and no amount of "race is a social construct" is going to undo that understanding.

I don't understand anything about a 21 year old who believed that it was a good idea to shoot people in a church. What could have gone wrong in his education that he arrived at that thought?

 

[Nova]

Anthropology and perspective:

http://www.academia.edu/831938/The_concept_of_race_in_anthropology

Unless you are conceding the point, your link is once again an example of the importance of reading beyond headlines. That entire article is an extended argument for my point on this topic. Yes, the author explains, one CAN pick certain characteristics and divide humans accordingly, but the exercise is largely arbitrary (or more to the point, governed by social prejudices). Use a few more characteristics and you get many more races; use fewer and the races disappear; use a different set and you get different races. In consequence, the author continues, there are as many definitions of biological "race" as there are physical anthropologists. When a word has every meaning, it has no meaning.

And although the author concedes that forensic anthropologists still use the old classification system, she asserts they do so because they must work with laypeople who still think in terms of the 3-race system. If the scientists don't conform their responses to the expectations of their employers (DAs, defense attorneys), they are very quickly out of work. So the concepts of Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid persist in their work--despite the resulting inaccuracies.

When your own evidence supports my stance, I consider the matter settled. I don't have time to keep rereading the same thing.

 

[Nova]

Respectfully disagree.

Yugoslavia was a country that existed in several territorial and political constellations during a part of the twentieth century. A construction imposed on various groups. Serbs and Croats existed both before and after 'Yugoslavia'....

Yes, a construction imposed in 1918 on older constructions. But that wasn't the first time the Serbs and Croatians were joined in the same nation-state. They were at various times and to varying degrees joined in the empires of the Romans, Mongols, Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians. So?

Historians and anthropologists date both back to the same group of Slavs that settled the Balkans. Their differences are social (at various times, especially during WWII, Croatia tended toward the orbit of Germany, Serbia toward Russia), but of late they have been as deadly to one another as the KKK once was to African-Americans.

Majority of French muslims are of Maghrebi origin. There is very little colonial legacy in the actual problems that France experiences with islamism. Other European countries (that do not have France's history) experience the same problems.

The Mahgreb's heart is found in Algeria. It also includes Morocco, another former French colony. And Tunisia and Libya, of course, but I'll give you three guesses whence most French immigrants have come. How is this a disagreement with what I said?

Europeans and Arabs ARE different races per the 5-race system most commonly used in the early 20th century. As otto's link shows us, definitions of race are infinitely elastic.

That other European countries also have conflict between European and colonialist populations (i.e., immigrants from former colonies) only proves that these groups are equivalent to different races, regardless of what a forensic anthropologist may tell you.

 

[otto]

Unless you are conceding the point, your link is once again an example of the importance of reading beyond headlines. That entire article is an extended argument for my point on this topic. Yes, the author explains, one CAN pick certain characteristics and divide humans accordingly, but the exercise is largely arbitrary (or more to the point, governed by social prejudices). Use a few more characteristics and you get many more races; use fewer and the races disappear; use a different set and you get different races. In consequence, the author continues, there are as many definitions of biological "race" as there are physical anthropologists. When a word has every meaning, it has no meaning.

And although the author concedes that forensic anthropologists still use the old classification system, he asserts they do so because they must work with laypeople who still think in terms of the 3-race system. If the scientists don't conform their responses to the expectations of their employers (DAs, defense attorneys), they are very quickly out of work. So the concepts of Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid persist in their work--despite the resulting inaccuracies.

When your own evidence supports my stance, I consider the matter settled. I don't have time to keep rereading the same thing.

Please accept that I am an old fashioned believer of race classification as defined in anthropology, and that I firmly believe that anthropometry identifies those differences. Similarly, anthropometry identifies distinctions between male and female physical characteristics. Neither socialiology nor DNA negates anthropology and anthropometry.

Rachel Dolezal is a caucasian woman. Bruce Jenner is a caucasian man. I cannot celebrate what doctors have done to Bruce Jenner, and I cannot accept that Rachel Dolezal is a black woman ... but I'm old fashioned when it comes to language and definition.

 

[Hope4More]

It heips to read your own link. Blumenfeld begins by confirming what I've said all along: the American Association of Physical Anthropology published a statement in 1996 saying that race as a biological category does not exist. That is the consensus. She even points out that the concept of humankind being divided into races didn't arise in the West until the Renaissance, and she explains why. Previously it was merely thought that humans presented a spectrum of physical appearances.

She goes on to concede that race is socially constructed and that individual biological characteristics of a corpse do not necessarily conform to a racial identity that would have been perceived when the individual was alive. She's agreeing that "race" is basically an artificial stereotype and that when an anthropologist uses the old terminology, he or she is only describing the bone in question and not opining as to the individual's real-life identity.

In other words, a skeleton with a broad nose and a reduced chin may be said to possess "Negroid" characteristics, but that is not proof the person was perceived as black or identified as black when alive. (And how many white people do we know with so-called "weak" chins?) The characteristics may be factors in identifying the individual, but they tell us little to nothing about that individual's "race".

The nine victims in Charleston were chosen because they possessed two factors ((1) skin color and (2) membership in a traditionally African-American church) that fit Roof's stereotype of black people. They were killed because Roof also associated factors such as social privilege(!), criminal tendency and hypersexuality with blackness.

And that ought to be reason enough for us to work toward giving up the illusion of race. I say "work toward" because however inaccurately from a biological standpoint, we have assigned race as a social category to everyone and those assignments have consequences, some of which need to be addressed.

Maybe I'm just old and cynical, but bottom line, I don't think it makes any difference if race is an illusion or a social construct or biologically determined, or fill in the blank. If the U.S. didn't have any blacks at all we would have manufactured an underclass out of another category of people,IMO.

I think it is just part of who we are as human beings to categorize others, and I think the vast majority of us are uncomfortable with differences in others, the expression of that discomfort ranging from tinged curiosity to flat out paranoia and hatred.

I don't think it's necessary (or possible) to force people into celebrating those differences, nor IMO is it any more constructive to pretend we are all just all the same.

What I'm teaching my son is that it's normal to see the differences in people, that plenty of folks are going to see him as different too, and that's entirely OK. The line needing to be drawn, IMO, is pretty basic and simple.....what isn't OK is to assume different is lesser than, or to feel threatened by different.

 

[Nova]

I think this is relevant to the Kennewick man:
http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/race-reconciled-debunks-race/



JMO and I'm no anthropologist but based on the census of the population at the time, the pre-test probability that the Kennewick man was a Native American was probably pretty damn high and the likelihood that he was Polynesian was quite negligible so it would have raised the odds that the skull measurements were explained by internal variability within the Native American population. Any chance someone just said it looked Polynesian and deliberately ignored the NA possibilities because they wanted to go on examining it and not give it back to the tribes for burial?

Perhaps. But I think it's more likely they were excited by the idea of proving Polynesian immigration to the Pacific Northwest, since the central Pacific islands are believed to have been settled long after Native Americans had spread throughout the New World. Come to think of it, dating of Polynesian migrations would have been upset as well, since Hawaii isn't believed to have been settled by humans until 300 to 800 CE!

 

[Nova]

Well, I disagree. It's much more than an educated guess. Forensic anthropology continues to use racial categories, although with much more sensitivity and long-winded explanations and justifications: http://www.academia.edu/831938/The_concept_of_race_in_anthropology

The bottom line is that today, in 2015, anthropologists are able to determine by a reasonable certainty whether a skeleton comes from a person with biological roots in Asia, Africa, the Mediterranean, the North America, South America, Polynesia, Europe, etc. : "Further, our results show that humans can be accurately classified into geographic origin using craniometrics even though there is overlap among groups." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19226647

Right here on websleuths, in the unidentified section, we see that daily.

But it is a sensitive subject and anthropologists seem almost ashamed that this is a reality and also include preambles about social race, and sharing 99% of our DNA with each other, and how it's all a construct, before, eventually, admitting their are biological differences evident in skeletal structures: http://www.forensic-medecine.info/forensic-anthropology.html
http://observationdeck.kinja.com/ancestry-race-and-forensic-anthropology-1555724037

Look, there exist "racial" differences. Otherwise everyone would be able to contract Tay Sachs Syndrome or Sickle Cell Anemia. And Asians and Native Americans wouldn't have different ear wax than Europeans and Africans: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/gory-details/what-your-earwax-says-about-your-ancestry

But our similarities as humans are vastly greater than what amount to miniscule differences, in the grand scheme of things. So while science knows these differences exist, academia is conflicted (racial constructs versus biologic ancestry, etc.) and frightened of contradicting the advances we've made in understanding social constructs, or of giving fuel to racists who think minute, biologic differences impact intelligence, behavior, ability or potential, which they unequivocally do not.

Am I the only one actually wading through these scientific papers? LOL. With respect, Gitana, your first link is the same as otto's on the previous page. The author spends nearly two pages (48-49) deflating our expectations of the results of forensic anthropology in determining "race". Interestingly, racial classification is primarily an obsession of U.S. examiners, which reflects our history of racial obsession, not biology. (ETA I'm sorry. It occurs to me now that you were only citing the argument to show that forensic anthropology still uses the 3-race classification system and that much it does. But in the main, the author is on my side of the argument.)

The author concludes:

Far from substantiating a view of human races as important biological groupings,as the claims of some researchers would imply(Gill 1998, 2000), the work of forensic anthropologists actually testifies to the complexity and range of variation in human populations—and to the important ways in which social classifications and social pressures can mold the outcomes of scientific enquiries.

Yes, there is a disease that is found only in people from Africa, but the same author points out there is a disease that is only known among those from the island of Sardinia. Do we classify Sardinians as a separate race? Of course not. Naturally humans from the same region will share some traits, but the grouping into races remains driven by social pressure, not scientific method. (It is the same author who says forensic anthropologists have to identify "races" because their bosses (lawyers, politicians, the media) demand it.)

As the U.S. grows ever more genetically complex, the success rate of forensic anthropologists attempting to identify the "race" of human remains will necessarily decline, don't you think?

 

[Nova]

...It’s a denial of science to insist that there are no morphological differences among us that allow race and ethnicity to be determined....

So you're saying the AAPA is denying science? I think you need to read the links above. What they say is our understanding of a 3-race system is bad science.

I'm not offended by racial classifications per se. But as with all science, I think we need to understand how science can be corrupted by social pressures. The links (with supporting citations) provided by others suggest forensic anthropology is not as accurate as CSI portrays.

 

[Nova]

Gee, I don't know whether this will cause more drama, LOL...but here she is in 2012, reasoning that the old white guys on our currency are just a reminder of who is really in charge.

I'm a 50+ female...I have never lost sleep, or even pondered the subtle sexism symbols on our currency, and felt it was a slight to me that old white guys were on my currency. I'd be glad to take a lot more of them if given the chance And, it's MOO that we have far more critical and urgent needs in our country than spending goodness knows how much $$$ revising our current currency.


http://www.*********.com/big-govern...-2012-video-get-older-white-men-off-currency/

LOL, WS doesn't like b r e i tbart

We have to reprint old paper money with some frequency. So I doubt a redesign will really be that expensive. (Of course, it's Washington, so I may have to eat these words. LOL)

 

[Nova]

I understand anthropological race classifications, and no amount of "race is a social construct" is going to undo that understanding.

I get that your mind is closed on the subject (though I can only wonder at your motive), since you refuse to believe your own links! But to paraphrase Foucault, when we realize that certain concepts are social constructions, we can work to change them. If we think of them as biological inevitabilities, we are their prisoners.

I don't understand anything about a 21 year old who believed that it was a good idea to shoot people in a church. What could have gone wrong in his education that he arrived at that thought?

Here we agree. I don't understand it either, except that racist rhetoric (subtle and not so subtle) seems to have become increasingly acceptable over the past decade. If they live in a world that talks the talk, how long until somebody puts the talk into action?

I'm particularly baffled that he sat with them for an hour and STILL shot them! Unlike, say, the Boston bombers, Roof had plenty of time to humanize these people and see them as individuals, not as representatives of their race. Who were the six middle-aged to elderly women going to rape?

 

[Nova]

Maybe I'm just old and cynical, but bottom line, I don't think it makes any difference if race is an illusion or a social construct or biologically determined, or fill in the blank. If the U.S. didn't have any blacks at all we would have manufactured an underclass out of another category of people,IMO.

I think it is just part of who we are as human beings to categorize others, and I think the vast majority of us are uncomfortable with differences in others, the expression of that discomfort ranging from tinged curiosity to flat out paranoia and hatred.

I don't think it's necessary (or possible) to force people into celebrating those differences, nor IMO is it any more constructive to pretend we are all just all the same.

What I'm teaching my son is that it's normal to see the differences in people, that plenty of folks are going to see him as different too, and that's entirely OK. The line needing to be drawn, IMO, is pretty basic and simple.....what isn't OK is to assume different is lesser than, or to feel threatened by different.

Well said, and I agree with you. Except that I do think knowledge matters and we have to understand that science is a process of testing and retesting of hypotheses. When we insist on clinging to what we were taught in high school, we do science--and all human culture--a disservice.

 

[wenwe4]

Here is an article from kxly and Jeff Humphreys who interviewed Dolezal and asked if she was black, about how the whole story came to light. Interesting read for those who have not seen it previously.

I found it extremely interesting that out of 9 alleged hate crimes against RD, all but 2 were reported to media by RD herself and the 2 were reported to LEO but could not be substantiated.

It was a touching storand a stark difference between RD's comments about already speaking to the citizens of Spokane and standing by her record vs. supporting and enhancing the community and good people of Spokane through transparency and honesty.

http://www.kxly.com/news/spokane-news/rachel-dolezal-the-story-behind-the-story/33608002

 

[Donjeta]

From wenwe's link

“Be careful what you believe.”

A law enforcement source spoke those words to me more than five years ago and they've always stuck with me. That source was referring to Rachel Dolezal, who had just reported for the second time that someone had placed a noose on her porch.

The police smelled a rat ages ago

 

[al66pine]

Short Version:
Recruiting ppl 'likely to have contact w LE' & 'ltd bkground check' attracts who? Ms D? Arrestees, detainees, convicted criminals?

Long version:
City passes ordinance to form a police ombudsman commission; city wants limited background checks of applicants; not want to deter ppl who may have a 'misstep or two in their past;' wants panel to include people most likely to have contact with PD.
And who would those ppl be? Arrestees, detainees, convicted criminals?

The Irony???
Kinda moot question, since Ms D resigned, but if she had not quit and had bn convicted of offenses re filing false reports w PD, would that be cause to remove her from office? Seems not because, appointees are supposed to include ppl w contact w PD. Is a (hypo) conviction like this just a 'small misstep' like city spokesman referred to, below?

And what are limited background checks? Include or not include -
-Criminal background check? For Spokane only or previous residences?
-Obtaining transcripts from high schools, trade schools, colleges, universities?
-Verification of employment - current and past?
-Verifying professional references named on app?
-Verifying other info applicant reports on form?
Or does 'limited' or 'low-level' mean depending on 'honor system' in self reporting?

Without more info about Spokane panel, I can only speculate, but (imo) its Police Ombudsman Commission may be great in theory, not so much in RL. JM2cts, could be all wrong. If seems familiar, you may have seen some of it in June 13 post.


__________________________________________________
* https://my.spokanecity.org/opendata/charter/article-16/ City charter: "Article XVI: Office of Police Ombudsman & Police Ombudsman Commission" eff date Feb 2013.

Spokane City spokesman re 2014 events re Police Ombudsman Comm
from http://www.cdapress.com/news/local_n...f021c423f.html June 11
"...job descriptions were written and we began recruiting applicants," he said.
Spokane Mayor appointed her."
"Coddington said the selection committee was formed in May that year and a decision was made based on community input to do very limited background checks on the applicants.
"The community wanted diversity and limited background checks," Coddington said, explaining that the committee didn't want to deter applicants who may have had a misstep or two in their past. "The low level background checks were intentional."
"Dolezal's application ... was signed by Dolezal and submitted in May 2014...acquired through a public record request."
"On the application...to declare ethnicity. On Dolezal's...was white, African-American, Native American and two or more races.
While ethnicity was not a criterion for selection, Coddington said it was certainly taken into account.
"... city ordinance ...lists six characteristics given serious consideration in the appointment process. One of them is the individual's ability to "Contribute to the diversity of the commission so that the makeup of the commission reflects the diversity of the people most likely to have contact with members of the police department, including geographic, racial and disability diversity."
The Police Oversight Committee has a significant amount of power in Spokane city government,...."
"Coddington said if it is determined that a commissioner fabricated information on his or her application, the City Council has the authority to remove or appoint members to that committee." bbm

 

[Donjeta]

The Irony???
Kinda moot question, since Ms D resigned, but if she had not quit and had bn convicted of offenses re filing false reports w PD, would that be cause to remove her from office? Seems not because, appointees are supposed to include ppl w contact w PD. Is a (hypo) conviction like this just a 'small misstep' like city spokesman referred to, below?

She resigned from the NAACP and was asked to resign from the police ombudsman's committee too. However, she refused to do so, and was consequently voted off by the city council.
http://www.krem.com/story/news/loca...zal-off-police-ombudsman-commission/28941571/

 

[Rocco]

Gee, I don't know whether this will cause more drama, LOL...but here she is in 2012, reasoning that the old white guys on our currency are just a reminder of who is really in charge.

I'm a 50+ female...I have never lost sleep, or even pondered the subtle sexism symbols on our currency, and felt it was a slight to me that old white guys were on my currency. I'd be glad to take a lot more of them if given the chance And, it's MOO that we have far more critical and urgent needs in our country than spending goodness knows how much $$$ revising our current currency.


http://www.*********.com/big-govern...-2012-video-get-older-white-men-off-currency/

LOL, WS doesn't like b r e i tbart

Maybe I should send her a reminder that coins are considered currency. Susan B. Anthony, active in the anti-slavery movement and women's rights and Sacagawea, a Shoshone Indian, are each on $1 coins whereas Kennedy, Washington, FDR, Jefferson and Lincoln are all on coins of lesser value.

 

[gitana1]

I understand anthropological race classifications, and no amount of "race is a social construct" is going to undo that understanding.

I don't understand anything about a 21 year old who believed that it was a good idea to shoot people in a church. What could have gone wrong in his education that he arrived at that thought?

I guess that's a discussion more for another board but according to a few who knew him, his family was absolutely not racist! I think, like many of these mass murdering cowards, he was weak-minded and socially awkward and found a focal point for his rage.

 

[gitana1]

Yes, a construction imposed in 1918 on older constructions. But that wasn't the first time the Serbs and Croatians were joined in the same nation-state. They were at various times and to varying degrees joined in the empires of the Romans, Mongols, Ottomans and Austro-Hungarians. So?


Historians and anthropologists date both back to the same group of Slavs that settled the Balkans. Their differences are social (at various times, especially during WWII, Croatia tended toward the orbit of Germany, Serbia toward Russia), but of late they have been as deadly to one another as the KKK once was to African-Americans.






The Mahgreb's heart is found in Algeria. It also includes Morocco, another former French colony. And Tunisia and Libya, of course, but I'll give you three guesses whence most French immigrants have come. How is this a disagreement with what I said?


Europeans and Arabs ARE different races per the 5-race system most commonly used in the early 20th century. As otto's link shows us, definitions of race are infinitely elastic.


That other European countries also have conflict between European and colonialist populations (i.e., immigrants from former colonies) only proves that these groups are equivalent to different races, regardless of what a forensic anthropologist may tell you.

Ok. I finally understand what you're saying. (I'm thick sometimes). You're not saying that there isn't variation among humans but that shoving people of various ethnicities into certain racial categories is problematic as those are no longer science based models of human variation.


So a forensic anthropologist may be able to tell if a skull is more likely from an American black person or American white person, and they may ID the remains according to those definitions, but those are socially constructed ones not based on science. Instead, the anthropologist may ID those remains not according to "race" which doesn't actually exist, but ethnicity, which does exists but evolves.


So while we may pigeon hole a set of remains as "black", the anthropologist in his or her own notations, may state that the remains appear to be from a person with "Nilo saharan" ancestry, for example, not "black, which doesn't exist in science to define people. Is that right?

If so, I think I've been a knucklehead!!.

 

[Donjeta]

Yeah my understanding of the discussion and the articles is that biological diversity is an undeniable fact. Some of us have more melanin than others, some of us have straight hair, some of us are taller than others, some of us have distinct skull shapes etc., and it's not because we made a choice to identify with a particular socially constructed race, it's because of our DNA and the other biological factors that influenced our physiological development.


Forensic anthropologists are trying to correlate these features to the race categories that are likely to come up in missing persons reports, and they have had some success in doing it, but frequently the race can't be determined or, when the UID is identified by a DNA database match, the initial guess turns out to be wrong. Sometimes they got the gender wrong too.

The traditional race discussion is leading us astray in that it is not a biological fact is that this diversity can be neatly classified in three races, or four, or five, and many anthropologists have proposed different ways of categorizing. For example, the range of skin tones can't be prettily divided in three (or however many) groups that correspond to the races, but the range of skin tones is a continuum, and it's quite arbitrary where you draw the lines.

You can group people by geography and populations and expect people in the same population to share some commonalities that people in geographically separate populations that don't intermix much don't have as much but there's a lot of overlap and migrations have changed the picture even more. People can't be clustered neatly in groups that are neatly separated and distinguishable from each other, it's a continuum of variation along numerous features from skin tones to ear wax to height to hair texture to frequency of certain alleles that cause little or no variation that is obvious to us when seeing a person.

So there's nothing that scientifically says that there are three races (or four, five, etc.), it's an arbitrary choice. The race categories that we have been using are largely a shorthand for social categories that arose historically and not something that scientists can find in the natural world. It's not that human diversity doesn't exist but it can't be put in a small number of boxes and labeled like that based on the available science.

IMO it's a bit like color, or Labov's cups, a cognitive psychology experiment. (Here I'm going off on a personal tangent that wasn't discussed in the anthropology articles.) Cognitively people like to categorize the things they see in the world around them, to help process the complexity, and one way is to use prototypes, so there might be a prototypical cup and a prototypical bowl, prototypical red color, prototypical green color and so on.

But the wavelengths of light are more accurately a continuum, and the line between certain colors is not set in stone, some viewers might describe the same color as blue and some as green. And we think we know what a cup is, right? Something so simple. But even people's perceptions of what is a cup or a bowl or a vase when they begin to stray from the prototype is influenced by the context.

http://pyersqr.org/classes/Ling177/meaning2.htm

And I think race is a bit like that. People think of prototypical, or stereotypical examples of what they consider a typical AA appearance, a typical white appearance, a typical Native American appearance, a typical Asian person, and categorizing the prototypical people might seem straightforward and intuitive, so it must be true and the categories must exist in the real world, right?

But it simplifies the issue. It's like having round slots and square slots and triangular slots, and expecting everyone to fit one of them, but in the process we end up trying to fit many elliptical and irregularly shaped people in slots that don't really match.

The anthropological view, as far as I understand, is that the number of slots we use largely depends on the particular viewpoint, so it's a social construct. It's not something you can put in the computer where you factor everyone's features, and come up with a mathematical factor analysis that groups us into black, white and Asian.

 

[ZaZara]

That other European countries also have conflict between European and colonialist populations (i.e., immigrants from former colonies) only proves that these groups are equivalent to different races, regardless of what a forensic anthropologist may tell you.

Please do not twist my words.
European countries other than France also have problems with people from the Magreb although this was not a colony of theirs at all but of France.

Please be aware that not everybody shares the American view of race and anthropolgy. Exporting these views regardlessy damages situations where people used to be able to live together before those views were imposed upon them.