So, let's talk a little bit about everyone's favorite subject, Mormons. I do adore them most days, in the way I am entertained by the Smurfs- there is nothing remotely attractive about being a Smurf, but it's a lifestyle I don't understand and find fascinating. I also talk a lot of trash about Mormons, because they have quite a few rules that are just not for me (particularly the ones about swearing and drinking).
But occasionally, I do need to give them credit. Underneath all of the capped sleeves and boring suits, these are people who do seem to legitimately care about their community, and this is why Utah will be a great place to live when the zombie apocalypse finally hits. That, or it will be a theocratic hell. I'm guessing it's a combination of those two.
Like I was saying, they do things that impress me sometimes, and right now would be one of those times. See, I don't know if you pay much attention to what goes on in the Wild West, but it is dry. I mean, goddamned dry. Drier than Temple Square on a Sunday. There are currently wildfires everywhere in this state that grow by the thousands of acres. Not nearly as bad as Colorado, but if the whole hot, dry, windy thing continues, we're going to look remarkably like our neighboring state.
Right now, it is 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) with wind speeds at around 30 miles per hour. These are perfect conditions if you are a wildfire, and the worst conditions if you are a living being.
I am telling you all of this as a bit of a prologue to the main story. See, the closest fire to Salt Lake shot from being around 800 acres on Friday morning to 4,000 Friday night. This growth was so alarming that the police evacuated multiple neighborhoods in the towns of Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs (displacing about 9,000 people Friday night). What is incredible to me is that these people all took it in stride. The firefighters actually received so much food from volunteers that they started turning away donations. They had a shelter at one of the high schools up and running, plus multiple places that were housing animals free of charge. The families evacuated left their homes with almost no fuss, and they all had 72 hour kits ready for when they left (Google it if you've never heard the phrase "72 hour kit" before).
This is what impresses me about Mormon culture: they are prepared for anything. For all their high and mighty bullshit, they will drop everything and lend a hand when disaster strikes. I suppose a part of it is that they're waiting for the apocalypse. I mean, the "Latter Days" part of Latter-Day Saints is referring to waiting for the Savior (typed "savor" the first time, lololol) to return and go all Revelations on our asses, right? Part of their dogma is that they legitimately believe that's coming any day now, that we're at the end of days, and if we don't have our survival supplies ready at the door, Baby Jesus will cry. (Okay, made up the last bit).
Like those Daily Bread products (Again, Google is the friend of anyone unfamiliar with these strange Mormon ways). Daily Bread offers MREs that are supposed to be good for twenty-five years! Seriously! Can you imagine buying products that are going to sit in your basement for the next quarter-century, all so when the zombies show up you can still have your freeze-dried chicken fajitas? Well, the Mormons can imagine doing just such a thing, because Daily Bread ads are all over here.
This is how they live their lives- a low dose of paranoia every day. They have guns, they have indestructible food, they have survival kits ready to go in the hall closets, they have water purifiers in the trunks of their cars. On the one hand, I love it; on any given day, I would rather be fighting off the zombie hordes during an apocalypse than doing homework. On the other hand, though, it creeps me out a little. These are people who live in a constant state of low-grade fear.
Let's be honest here, though. When you live in a place like Utah, wildfires, avalanches, and earthquakes are all very real possibilities. We could potentially have the power go out for weeks because it is ten degrees outside and everything is frozen. It's kind of an extreme place. So if a fire breaks out tomorrow and swoops down through the Avenues towards my apartment, I'm glad that there are people around me waiting with water bottles and a sincere desire to help.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Why "Caucasian" is Discriminatory
This is a bit off-topic, but it's something that truly bugs me. Unfortunately, this is a concept so deeply embedded in our current culture that most do not consider these terms used to describe "race" beyond a superficial level.
First, I use quotations for the term "race" because I am a human biologist and, strictly speaking, there are no races in the human species. The biological term "race" denotes a subset of a particular species that is recognizable and distinct. Because no groups of humans meet these criteria, there are no races within Homo sapiens. Don't get me wrong, this is not an attempt at race denial or discrimination based on our cultural concepts of race. This is simply an attempt to clarify on a technical level, and as such, I'll be using "ethnicity" instead of "race," as ethnicity is a cultural construct used to divide populations. The continued use of the word "race" only serves as a continued white attempt to differentiate between white people and people of another demographic. Therefore, I reject the word and substitute my own.
Anyway, this centers on the term "Caucasian," which, ironically, Google insists I capitalize. If you are white, I'm sure you're familiar with the term. Even if you're not white, you still probably hear the term constantly. In American culture, we have historically struggled with finding terms to describe ethnicity in ways that are not offensive to the groups being described. I don't need to go into that history, you can look it up yourself if you truly care to do so.
Of all the terms now seen as offensive, though, "Caucasian" has survived. Such a strange term, isn't it? I mean, when we think of people with European heritage, we generally do not think of the Caucasus (or Caucas) Mountains, which form a geographical border between Europe and Asia (think Russia). Even those ethnicities like Italian or Spanish were not regarded as "white" until relatively recently. So why would we refer to those of Anglo-Saxon heritage as being from the Caucasus Mountains?
It's a fascinating story, and you can look it up for yourself if you want better detail, but the basic story is this: around the end of the eighteenth century, explorers uncovered human remains in the Caucasus Mountains. A skull found in these remains was regarded as being a "perfect" skull, a template, if you will, of what good, beautiful European people should look like. It was proposed that these remains represented the ancestors of all European people, simply because it was a subjectively-attractive skull. This is especially fascinating considering we hardly possess adequate technology for facial reproduction in this modern age. The fact that these remains were used as some kind of type example without any ability to know what the living human looked like stands as proof that this was about pure discrimination. The term "Caucasian," as it is used in terms of ethnicity in our culture, comes straight out of a desire to justify the division between Europe and the rest of the world.
So, while we have moved away from using terms used to describe various ethnicities that are seen as overtly discriminatory, we are still frequently using a term that originates in white history's continued attempt to prove there is a difference, and more importantly, there is a superior ethnicity. As a human biologist, I'm here to tell you that's a giant crock of shit. And that's a scientific term, you can quote me, if you like. My point here is that, while some apologists may prefer more specific terms like "Irish-American" or "English-American," the proper term for describing those of European heritage is either "European-American," or, for efficiency's sake, "white." It's not that hard, and if you're really that attached to such an outdated term as "Caucasian," you need to get a life.
First, I use quotations for the term "race" because I am a human biologist and, strictly speaking, there are no races in the human species. The biological term "race" denotes a subset of a particular species that is recognizable and distinct. Because no groups of humans meet these criteria, there are no races within Homo sapiens. Don't get me wrong, this is not an attempt at race denial or discrimination based on our cultural concepts of race. This is simply an attempt to clarify on a technical level, and as such, I'll be using "ethnicity" instead of "race," as ethnicity is a cultural construct used to divide populations. The continued use of the word "race" only serves as a continued white attempt to differentiate between white people and people of another demographic. Therefore, I reject the word and substitute my own.
Anyway, this centers on the term "Caucasian," which, ironically, Google insists I capitalize. If you are white, I'm sure you're familiar with the term. Even if you're not white, you still probably hear the term constantly. In American culture, we have historically struggled with finding terms to describe ethnicity in ways that are not offensive to the groups being described. I don't need to go into that history, you can look it up yourself if you truly care to do so.
Of all the terms now seen as offensive, though, "Caucasian" has survived. Such a strange term, isn't it? I mean, when we think of people with European heritage, we generally do not think of the Caucasus (or Caucas) Mountains, which form a geographical border between Europe and Asia (think Russia). Even those ethnicities like Italian or Spanish were not regarded as "white" until relatively recently. So why would we refer to those of Anglo-Saxon heritage as being from the Caucasus Mountains?
It's a fascinating story, and you can look it up for yourself if you want better detail, but the basic story is this: around the end of the eighteenth century, explorers uncovered human remains in the Caucasus Mountains. A skull found in these remains was regarded as being a "perfect" skull, a template, if you will, of what good, beautiful European people should look like. It was proposed that these remains represented the ancestors of all European people, simply because it was a subjectively-attractive skull. This is especially fascinating considering we hardly possess adequate technology for facial reproduction in this modern age. The fact that these remains were used as some kind of type example without any ability to know what the living human looked like stands as proof that this was about pure discrimination. The term "Caucasian," as it is used in terms of ethnicity in our culture, comes straight out of a desire to justify the division between Europe and the rest of the world.
So, while we have moved away from using terms used to describe various ethnicities that are seen as overtly discriminatory, we are still frequently using a term that originates in white history's continued attempt to prove there is a difference, and more importantly, there is a superior ethnicity. As a human biologist, I'm here to tell you that's a giant crock of shit. And that's a scientific term, you can quote me, if you like. My point here is that, while some apologists may prefer more specific terms like "Irish-American" or "English-American," the proper term for describing those of European heritage is either "European-American," or, for efficiency's sake, "white." It's not that hard, and if you're really that attached to such an outdated term as "Caucasian," you need to get a life.