CJ,
I see where you were going with your comment to Banjo but you might like to say something less open to misunderstanding to explain your problem with (one of) Banjo's posts.

Banjo,
maybe I missed something seen by others in your posts, but to my mind you are a level-headed, clear-thinking non-racist. I hope I am not wrong in thinking so.

Rainier,
I believe you stand on my side of the 'line-drawn-in-the-sand' here and are fervently anti-racist. I have to say though, that you occasionally misread posts and blame people for comments they made to others than yourself as being made against you personally, please go back and read some posts carefully and if possible, without believing people like Banjo are opposed to you. Thanks for your posts exposing the race myth.

Obviously,
(Oh to be young again)... Did the book you have read and rely (seemingly exclusively) upon have anything to say that the most 'obvious difference' between you and your OWN SISTER is the abscence of a 'Y' chromosome - meaning you have 953 DIFFERENT genes between you and your 'identically' genetic, same 'race', sister (assuming you share the same parents and your mother was faithful and neither of you are genetic mutants (virtually impossible if the latest research is proven to be correct - DNA replication of 3,000,000,000 base amino acid pairs in every single cell of humans is unlikely to ever be completed PERFECTLY.

If you can completely miss something that bleedin OBVIOUS you have NO credibility in the rest of your well constructed but ludicrously simplistic and false arguement. Q.ED : )

You have a fairly decent brain, it seems - try opening it just a little more than you have so far. That is not to say that you MAY have already opened it more than your past might have prevented it from being. Keep on learning and not falling for 'reasonable sounding' prejudice and hatred.

(cont.)

from before..

Anyone of you lot see Quantum on ABC last night? Mice and men share a common ancestor - 125 million years old, it is now able to be shown. That is why we share so many similar genes with mice (and chimps). Species evolve from the same source to become unique - So do thoughts. Finding a common ancestor is the key to both. The differences in species are able to be genetically identified Uniquely.

Humans are ALL the SAME species. Homo Sapiens. Race cannot be uniquely identified genetically in all cases. You cannot prove a human's race by an individual's genetic code

Cultural differences (eg. language) can result from isolated interbreeding groups forming common atrophy of some muscles; that does not make a racial difference. Take a Japanese or Vietnamese baby at birth and bring them to Australia and you cannot tell their voice apart from an Aussie once they reach maturity if they 'learned' only English. Another Obvious mistake! I grow tired of pointing them all out.

Oh thou blind Steve madden….
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/
“Researchers conducted the study using the 270 DNA samples and health information that had been collected for the Haplotype Map. That map, completed last fall, was the first catalogue of common genetic differences -- SNiPs -- between four major ethnic groups, the Han Chinese, the Japanese, U.S. citizens of European descent and the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria.”
Genes: The essential units of heredity. Each gene encodes a recipe to make a protein and proteins make the stuff that help to make us human -- lips, liver, the frontal lobes of our brains.
“The Haplotype Map, like the 2000 Human Genome Map, suggested there were few differences between these groups of people, with only rare examples of mutations that appeared only in one population.”
“The new work suggests the differences could be more pronounced, largely because researchers had access to new technology that changed the vantage point of the genome.”
Ill repeat it again for you Steve listen this is what this new information says……
“The Haplotype Map, like the 2000 Human Genome Map, suggested there were few differences between these groups of people, with only rare examples of mutations that appeared only in one population.”“The new work suggests the differences could be more pronounced, largely because researchers had access to new technology that changed the vantage point of the genome.”
Your theory “Steve madden is right, Richard dawkins is wrong” made me laugh..
The mere fact that we were 99.9% related, is now closer to 99.5% related, completely verified what I was saying because now as the statements above suggest from (globeandmail) there is now more obvious difference between races! It has verified what I was repeating from dawkins!
Simply Steve, as much as you don’t wish this, you are more closely related to me then to a Guatemalan Pigmy ok, Because our common European ancestor is far closer to that of your common ancestor with a Guatemalan Pigmy

Braindrain, I'm anti racist out of neccesity, not because its politically fashionable and so I was on that side of the sand line you speak of when i was born and people like me have historically made that mark in the sand.

That said, the basic and underlying logic and subtext of all Banjo's statements are quintesentially benign but racist. I call it like I see it. I

f he's not refering to me directly, he's certainly making assumptions about people just like me.

And as far as I know most of you are white men,taking about racism in isolation from those it most affects - so I'm just taking it up for the brothers and sisters who are not here to defend themselves.

Sorry, its a black thang, if you get my drift.

This doesn't mean I don't appreciate your posts, I do, its just that I'm used to frying these fish solo. Its what i do, - and no holds barred. From long experience its the only way to do it.

Cheers

obviously

Go and read the full article, not abstracts found in newspapers.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7118/full/nature05329.html

Yes I do have a degree in genetics and have worked for the Research School of Biological Sciences (Genetics Dept) ANU.

Let me know what you don't understand. The evidence does not support your race theories. :)

Ah what an array of pent up emotion and drivel, a venerable bitch slapping contest of irrelevance.

The only reason this post caught my eye was it had crancked (too apt a word) 160 responses already.

All to decry or defend the holy of holies, that last bastion of the impotent, “multiculturalism”.

Lets get it straight, multiculturalism, is merely a fad which will be eroded, in time, by the natural processes of assimilation.

Migrants, when they arrive from overseas bring skills and traditions with them. Those skills are used to sustain themselves physically whilst the traditions sustain them spiritually.

The importance of “Old World traditions” are less significant to the children of migrants because the children are developing as Australians and should be mixing with other children, not simply the ghetto folk of their parents race.

Get to third generation offspring and usually the only thing which distinguishes the grandchild of an immigrant from other “Australians” is the family name.

So boom and bluster, tell us how much better off we are in a multicultural society but remember this, the right to individual expression and religion are not universally available.

Many immigrants have escaped religious, political and ethnic persecution, which were in some cases, the accepted “cultural practices” in their historic homeland, before they arrived here, seeking acceptance by this alien land with its alien people and alien ways. Polgroms in Russia have been going on since before Australia was discovered by Europeans. Even the Pilgrim Fathers were escaping religious persecution when they hit the Shores of the New World, 200 years before Cook discovered this piece of dirt.

To fit with this “Australian Culture” requires the immigrant to surrender, over time, their old world traditions.

I can speak with some experience in this matter, I was 33 when I migrated to Australia. I still get called names but mostly by friends and as you can imagine, give back as well as I get.

The duty is on me and every other immigrant to work toward our individual assimilation in Australia, not the other way around.