you seem to move between using race in a biological context and in a sociological context.

well, you could say I am discounting a biological basis for race altogether.

85 percent of human variation occurs within populations, and not between populations, argued that neither “race” nor “subspecies” were appropriate or useful ways to describe populations (Lewontin 1973). Some researchers report the variation between racial groups (measured by Sewall Wright’s population structure statistic FST) accounts for as little as 5-7% of human genetic variation.

As such, my personal references to ‘race’ are exclusively sociological in nature, and the only times when I do refer to ‘race’ in a biological context is when I am criticising that very usage.

Taking a sociological definition of race, there are many ?races? out there who have a culture markedly defined by their ?racial? heritage.

Let us consider this thought experiment. Think of a ‘racial’ group, any one of your choice, which has distinctive cutural practices traceable to their ‘racial’ heritage. And then, let us take a newborn baby of that ‘race’, and raise the child in a family of a completely different ‘race’.

What would the result be? Granted, the very first flaw in this experiment is that if the child grows up in a society where every other person treats him or her differently because he or she looks substantially different, then the child will surely feel dislocated from that society.

But imagine for a moment now, that any physical differences are minimal. Would the child retain the cultural characteristics of his or her own ‘race’? Or would he or she grow up with the cultural characteristics of the adoptive parents?

I still argue that ‘race’ is a pure social construct. ‘Race’ is irrelevant if the environment is changed i.e. do black kids in the US have more in common culturally with black kids in Africa or with white kids in the USA?

I would agree with your assertion on culture not being a monolith but then your comparison of the two students almost treats culture as such. I would expect that their experience of contemporary culture would differ but they perhaps share other areas of culture (language, festivities, music, art etc.). This would be along the lines of the paragraph in which you described the shared cultural experiences of the Malay, Indian and Chinese people in Singapore.

I would generally disagree with the idea that race is not significant in culture. Taking a sociological definition of race, there are many ‘races’ out there who have a culture markedly defined by their ‘racial’ heritage. Perhaps, in a Singaporean context though this is correct. I’m not Singaporean so I’m taking a different experience into this discussion.

So we can safely assume that he’s a himbo?

And mine wasnt a first hand account. I only read the ST article and was then prompted to share my experience.

Cheers!

And he’s downright weird la. Though the King of Kings (some pageant shit for all the hall/school/blah kings), he never failed to amaze people with his silly antics.

Once he went up to this acquaintance of mine and went, “I think you’re good-looking, and good looking people are worthy to be friends with. Let’s be friends.”

And not to mention the massive rumours about him shitting into the washing machine/laundry (cos someone removed his clothes from it) going around.

P.S. I spoke to Bala too!

I didn’t know you’re a grammar nazi.

And anyway, no one’s talking about censorship here. I support free speech, no matter how loony, remember?

I support free speech so that I can lay the smackdown on morons like that when they crawl out of the woodwork.