The Study of Racialism
Posting Rules

Welcome to the study of racialism discussion group. The management hopes that your participation will be informative. You should familiarize yourself with the following rules and refer back to them often. They are presented in five topics: Overview, Courtesy, Content, Management, and Suspension. There are many rules under each topic. Violate even one of them and your posting privilege may be suspended. If you have a question or want clarification, visit the Commentary on The Rules forum in the website. If you cannot find the answer there, post a question in the Site Management forum, and a moderator will assist you.

1. Overview

1.1 Understand the Goal of the Group. — The site’s mission is to inform and to become informed about U.S. racialism, nothing more. The site does not support any political stance. It is not a support group for multiracial or biracial individuals. It neither supports nor opposes affirmative action. It neither supports nor opposes government demands for the collection of “racial” data. It does not strive to reduce “racism.” It does not strive to improve U.S. “race” relations. It is not a place to vent your grievances. Other sites have broader goals. Do not complain that the site’s mission is too narrow.

1.2 Either Teach or Learn. — Learners ask questions, challenge assumptions, request sources, and compare different interpretations to arrive at new knowledge about U.S. racialism. Teachers answer questions, defend or clarify assumptions, provide sources, and offer different interpretations about U.S. racialism. Most members perform both roles. Your every message should seek either to inform or to become informed.

1.2.1 As a Learner, Demand Sources. — If you think that someone is in error, ask them to cite their sources. If they just re-state an unsubstantiated opinion, report the message number to a moderator.
1.2.2 As a Teacher, Offer Sources. — When presenting something potentially controversial, it is good form to cite your sources before being asked. If you fail to cite sources before being asked you may be seen as careless. But whatever you do, do not fail to cite sources after being asked. Not once. (See 3.2 for details.)

1.3 Limit Political Advocacy. — You may say how things actually are (or were, historically) in any forum. But you may say how things should be only in the forums where political advocacy is allowed. Do not say how things should be or argue that a particular course of civic action is desirable, undesirable, just, or unjust anywhere in the site but in the forums where political advocacy is allowed.

1.4 Do Not Get Offended. — Many topics here might offend you. History forums tell how Europeans conquered, colonized, enslaved, and exploited everyone else. Anthropology forums discuss prehistoric ancestry. Ethnicity forums examine the Black/White test-score gap. Latin America forums cover lack of Latino assimilation. Each of these topics can offend some readers. But if the data presented are substantiated with sources (see 1.2.1) then you must not complain. If you are offended, leave the site. Do not complain that you are offended by substantiated data.

2. Courtesy

2.1 Do not retaliate. — No excuse for violating the following rules of courtesy will be accepted. If you retaliate against someone by violating a rule your posting privilege will be suspended. If you then say that you could not help yourself because you were acting in self-defense or defending your ethnic group, it will just make things worse and risk your permanent expulsion from the site. Do not retaliate. Ever.

2.2 Do not engage in ad hominem. — If you disagree with someone, focus your comments on the content of their message, not their person. Do not attribute motives. Do not ridicule them. Do not engage in any form of ad hominem.

2.3 Do not engage in straw man. — Make sure that you understand what the other person is saying before replying. Never caricature or distort another person’s argument.

2.4 Do not use first-person plural pronouns. — Since many threads deal with ethnic or “racial” self-identity, you may be tempted to switch to first-person plural to emphasize your point. For example: “We African Americans believe that...” or “We Hispanics agree....” Do not do this. Also, you might carelessly say something like, “We believe that the Native Americans first arrived 25 thousand years ago”, leaving ambiguous whether the “we” means you and the person you are talking to, your ethnic group, your nationality, your profession, or your family. Never use first person plural pronouns.

2.5 The “racial” or ethnic self-identity of other members is off-limits.

2.5.1 Do not discuss another member’s ethnicity or “race” without their permission.
2.5.2 Do not “racially” or ethnically label a member against their wishes.

2.6 Do not criticize anyone’s choice of ethnic or “racial” self-identity. — If you disagree with someone’s choice of ethnic or “racial” self-identity, keep it to yourself. This applies whether they are individuals or groups, and whether they are site members or not.

2.7 Do not generalize to a U.S. “racial” or ethnic group in the political advocacy forums. (Generalization is allowed in the comparative studies or technical and scholarly forums, where moral judgment is forbidden.)

3. Content

Members often disagree, even in forums where political advocacy is forbidden. The following rules about content always apply. But they are especially important whenever two members disagree about facts.

3.1 Familiarize Yourself With the Basic Literature. — Whether you are a learner or a teacher in any given exchange, you are expected to be familiar with the basics of of U.S. racialism before posting an opinion. You may ask questions about anything. But you must be familiar with a topic before posting an opinion about it. Some examples:

3.1.1 Before posting an opinion on history you should know approximately when the color line was invented (when intermarriage was first outlawed), when African slaves were first imported, when importation stopped, and roughly how many slaves and free Blacks lived in the United States in 1861. You should be able to explain the difference between class and “race” (endogamous group membership) and between the latter and ethnicity. You should know what the Jim Crow era was, and when it started and ended. You should know when intermarriage first became legal again throughout the United States. You should be aware that the inhabitants of the nineteenth-century lower South saw “race” differently from Americans today. (For example, Louisiana and Alabama had two color lines separating three “races,” wealthy South Carolina slaveowners were accepted into White society despite known slave ancestry, and Spanish Florida had no endogamous color line at all.) You should recognize the names: Prince Hall, Paul Cuffee, Richard Allen, Nat Turner, Frederick Douglass, Martin Delaney, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. For a refresher, we recommend the first 70 pages of Joel Williamson, New People: Miscegenation and Mulattoes in the United States (New York: Free Press, 1980).
3.1.2 Before posting an opinion on Latin America or the Caribbean, you must show that you have some familiarity with these regions and be able to compare and contrast, say, Jamaica with Barbados or Brazil with Argentina as to their legal and cultural concepts of "race."
3.1.3 Before posting an opinion on molecular anthropology or genetics, you must have read at least one introductory textbook on this topic and be able to name it.
3.1.4 Before posting an opinion on any specific journal article or book you must show that you have read it.
3.1.5 Because this site is sponsored by Backintyme Publishing, the site’s official “bible” on U.S. racialism is Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule (Palm Coast FL: Backintyme, 2005), which will be used as the authority to resolve disputes on any topic that it covers.

3.2 Substantiate All Factual Claims. — Unsubstantiated statements of fact are not tolerated. Moderators will challenge any statement of fact that appears to be simply made up. No exceptions. This is the rule that most often trips up newbies. Do not make factual claims in this site that you cannot back up with credible (preferably peer-reviewed) sources. Never. Not once. Claims that do not allege facts, like "Vanilla ice cream tastes better than chocolate," are exempt.

3.3 Avoid Ambiguous Word Usage. — This site demands precise terminology within its field of interest (U.S. racialism). The following are site-standard definitions. If you follow these standards in your writing, you need not explain your word usage. You may assume that readers are familiar with the following definitions. But if you use nonstandard words for the following phenomena or if you use one of the following standard words but with a different meaning, then you must explain precisely what you mean. Familiarize yourself with the following standard definitions. You are expected to know them before your first post.

3.3.1 race (in biology) or bio-race — A sub-division of a species that is identifiable by a cluster of traits that vary together geographically. For example, the key lime and the Mexican lime are two races of Citrus aurantifolia that differ in several traits including peel thickness and color. Synonyms are: subspecies, variety, breed. No cluster of geographically co-varying traits (bio-race) has ever been found in Homo sapiens.
3.3.2 race (in vernacular) — A group of humans seen by the word’s user as somehow different from other groups. The claimed basis of such perception varies between users. For example, although many conflicting U.S. federal regulations enforce demographic classification by “race,” federal agencies disagree on the number and names of “races” and whether Hispanics are a “race.” The excuses most often cited for seeing a group as a “race” are their: appearance, associations, ethnic self-identity, religion, or nationality. Nevertheless, no matter which overt excuse is given in each case, the word’s strong connotation is that “race” is involuntary and genetically predetermined. Because the term has so many contradictory meanings whose only common thread is the user’s view that a group is different in some genetically predetermined way, site members should be extremely cautious in using this term. Its use without quotation marks tells nothing about the subject but reveals the ignorance of the user.
3.3.3 ethnicity — “A group of people with a common tradition and a sense of identity that functions as a subgroup within the larger society; membership is a matter of self-identification.” [Robert F. McNergney and Joanne M. Herbert, Foundations of Education: The Challenge of Professional Practice, 3rd ed. (Boston, 2001), 549.] Synonym: ethnic self-identity. The two essential elements of ethnicity are its positioning within a hegemony and its voluntary nature. First, ethnicity denotes a group’s self-identity within a larger mainstream culture. It does not refer to mainstream national cultures themselves. For example, the customs, traditions, language, and folklore of Spaniards living in Spain are not an ethnicity; they are a national culture. But the rhetoric of unity expressed by Spanish-Americans and their descendants in the United States is an ethnicity. Second, membership in an ethnic community is voluntary and not genetically predetermined. For example, about five percent of the members of the African-American ethnic community have no detectable sub-Saharan DNA admixture, while about thirty percent of the members of the U.S. White endogamous group do have detectable sub-Saharan DNA admixture.
3.3.4 racialism — A belief in the existence of bio-races (which see) in H. sapiens, despite the fact that no cluster of geographically co-varying traits has ever been found in that species. Note that this definition differs from that of most dictionaries, which define racialism as a synonym of racism (which see). In this site, racialism does not imply any such thing. It simply means a belief in the existence of bio-races in H. sapiens. For example: few USAmericans admit to being racists but virtually all USAmericans are demonstrably racialists.
3.3.5 racism — Belief in someone’s inferiority, or mistreatment, based upon ancestry but independent of appearance or wealth. For example, when Walter White investigated lynchings in the Jim Crow South, he rightly feared that he would be publicly tortured to death because of his invisible African ancestry despite his utterly European looks and his upper-middle-class socioeconomic status. Hence, he feared lethal racism.
3.3.6 colorism — Belief in someone’s inferiority, or mistreatment, based upon appearance but independent of ancestry or wealth. For example, when African-looking Cubans are passed over for jobs given to European-looking Cubans, even though the perpetrators know that all Cubans including themselves have known African ancestry, the victims suffer from colorism. Most sources define colorism as discrimination based solely on skin tone rather than on general appearance. This is appropriate when describing customs in southeast Asia, India, or among Native Americans. This site’s definition, on the other hand, is more general in order to cover Latin America, where people are often discriminated against because they have “bad hair” or African “features” despite a pale skin tone. Either usage is acceptable in this site because context usually makes clear whether the discrimination described is based upon African looks (common in Latin America) or based only upon skin tone (common in Asia).
3.3.7 classism — Belief in someone’s inferiority, or mistreatment, based upon wealth but independent of ancestry or appearance. For example, when wealthy Brazilians are labeled “white” in the census and admitted to segregated clubs despite having African appearance and known African ancestry, they enjoy the benefits of classism.
3.3.8 ethnocentrism — A belief that one ethnicity is somehow less worthy than another. To be precise, this term applies only when the rhetorical excuse given for the belief is the subject’s voluntary ethnic self-identity. If the rhetorical excuse given for the belief is ancestry, albeit invisible ancestry, it becomes racism (which see). If the rhetorical excuse given for the belief is appearance, it becomes colorism (which see). If the rhetorical excuse given for this belief is socio-economic status, it becomes classism (which see).
3.3.9 hypodescent — The principle that membership in the U.S. Black endogamous group is based upon having even partial or fractional African ancestry. Specifically, it is the idea that a person of any discernable African admixture is involuntarily Black, even if mostly of European ancestry. The term applies to first-generation biracial individuals being considered Black, to utterly European-looking individuals being considered Black due to “one drop” of African ancestry no matter how ancient, or to any situation in between. The second case is called the one drop rule and it is the most extreme manifestation of hypodescent.
3.3.10 one-drop rule — The notion that someone of European appearance who rejects a Black self-identity is involuntarily Black due merely to having “one drop” of known African ancestry, no matter how ancient, and is merely “passing for White.” The one-drop rule is the most extreme manifestation of hypodescent. Hence, all cases of one-drop rule are also examples of hypodescent, but the reverse is not true; not all cases of hypodescent (calling a first generation biracial invidivual “Black,” for example) are examples of the one-drop rule.
3.3.11. black — The word “black” has different meanings that are easily confused. Readers often misunderstand which meaning was intended by the writer, especially since many readers are not native speakers of U.S. English. For example, each of the following sentences uses the word to mean something different: “Black neighborhood traditions center on Protestant churches.” “Many Brazilians have Black ancestry.” “The untouchables of India are Black.” “Australian Aborigines self-identify as Black.” “Walter White was actually Black even though he looked White.” “Black people around the world, especially in Asia and the Middle East, were exploited and oppressed by European conquest and colonization.”

Two usages are particularly confusing: African-American and Sub-Saharan. Most usages of “Black” on this site refer to the African-American ethnic community as in, “Black neighborhood traditions center on Protestant churches.” To avoid ambiguity use “African American” instead (or A-A for short). Another usage denotes someone of apparently African phenotype or ancestry. As in, “Many Brazilians have Black ancestry.” To avoid ambiguity use “sub-Saharan ancestry” instead (or SSA for short). The two usages of “Black” in combination make your text virtually unintelligible. If you write, for example “Black neighborhood traditions center on Protestant churches and most Brazilians have Black ancestry, ” no one will be able to decipher what you mean. The first clause uses “Black” to mean “African American” (since the vast majority of Brazilians are Catholics), but the second then suggests that most Brazilians have African-American ancestors (obviously a false statement). But if the reader assumes that “Black” means “sub-Saharan,” then the second clause makes sense (most Brazilians really do have some sub-Saharan ancestry) but the first clause is obviously false, since Protestant church-centered neighborhoods are unique to North America. And so, always avoid using “Black,” rather than the site-recommended terms, “African-American (A-A)” or “Sub-Saharan (SSA)” unless you make very clear which meaning you intended. Never strive for deliberate ambiguity. Never refuse to clarify which meaning you intended. And never insist, for example, that Australian Aborigines are “Black” in the same sense that Walter White was “Black.”
3.3.12 mixed (biracial, multiracial, mulatto, etc.) — These terms are often employed with three different meanings: self-identity, DNA, and appearance. Confusion results when members fail to make clear which of those meanings they intend in any given message.
- Self-identity mixed — refers to people who, when asked which side of the color line they are on, answer something other than solely “Black” or solely “White.” For example, less than 3 percent of the U.S. population who check off “Black” on the census, also check off something else. So, according to the census, less than three percent of African Americans are self-identity mixed.
- Genetically mixed — refers to people whose autosomal DNA shows both subsaharan and European ancestry-informative markers. For example, one-third of the White U.S. population and virtually all African-Americans show markers from both continents. In this sense, virtually all Black Americans and one-third of White Americans are mixed.
- Visually mixed — refers to people who, in the eyes of the person writing, “look mixed.” For example, to the person writing these words, Mariah Carey looks unmixed White.
When you use the term “mixed” (biracial, multiracial, mulatto, etc.) please make clear which of those meanings you intend. You will not be challenged if the context makes your meaning clear. For example, most threads in the “Molecular Anthropology” forum deal with genetic admixture while most in the “Issues for Biracial Americans” forum refer to ethno-political self-identity. But you will be warned by a moderator if your meaning is not clear. Finally, your posting privilege will be suspended if you do not clarify which meaning you intend or if you are deliberately ambiguous in this regard.
3.3.13 genocide — Killing people in order to exterminate an entire population. Note that this is not the definition used by the United Nations nor by most NGOs. Hence, the Nazi holocaust, the Hutu-on-Tutsi extermination in Rwanda, and Turkish massacre of Armenians were undoubtedly acts of genocide. The massacre at Wounded Knee and similar killings of Native Americans by the U.S. Army could also be argued to be genocidal. On the other hand, Argentina has no genetically discontinuous “black” population today because of intermarriage (virtually all Argentinians today have about 6.5 percent sub-Saharan genetic admixture). Such allowing of intermarriage is not considered genocide by this sites’s standard.
3.3.14 eugenics — Forced invountary sterilization of undesireables. Forced sterilizations committed in the United States during the Progressive era were the prime example of eugenics. The legalization of voluntary abortion is not considered eugenics by this sites’s standard.

Again, if you use nonstandard words for the above phenomena or if you use one of the standard words but with a nonstandard meaning, then you must explain precisely what you mean. Ambiguity, whether accidental or deliberate, is not tolerated

3.4 Use Proper Spelling and Syntax. — Some people feel that it is the reader’s responsibility to decipher garbled syntax, nonstandard usage, and misspellings. They refuse to re-word or rewrite phrases or to correct spelling errors. Claiming that “spelling is unimportant,” or “my compter’s spell-checker is broken,” or “it got garbled in the email” will not be accepted as excuses. Always use proper spelling and syntax.

3.5 Stay on Topic. — Personal announcements in moderation are okay, as are occasional tangential remarks that address U.S. racialism. But try to stick to whatever topic was presented by the first message in each thread. Do not change the subject. If a message inspires you to change the subject, just start a new thread. Moderators will split subject-changing messages into new threads whenever members fail to do so.

3.6 In a Factual Dispute, State Your Thesis. — The position that you take in a dispute is called your thesis. Both parties in a dispute are expected to define their theses clearly, consistently, and falsifiably. State your thesis succinctly the moment that you enter a dispute.

3.6.1 Do not enter a dispute until you are sure that your opponent understands your thesis. Failure to clarify your thesis in a dispute or deliberately making it hard to grasp are grounds for suspension. For more on this point, read item 2 of the thread Introduction to Science-As-Process.
3.6.2 Do not change your thesis once you enter a dispute. Of course, you may concede the dispute and start another with a new thesis.
3.6.3 Make sure that your thesis is falsifiable. It is courteous at the start of a dispute to explain what sort of evidence would persuade you to change your mind. You must explain what sort of evidence would persuade you to change your mind if anyone asks. Refusal is grounds for suspension. For more on this point, read item 3 of the thread Introduction to Science-As-Process.

3.7 Once a Dispute is Revealed to be a Semantic Difference, End It. — Many disputes turn out to be mere differences in word usage between the parties. Once this is apparent, you must end the dispute immediately.

3.8 Once a Dispute is Revealed to be Faith-Based, End It. — Many disputes turn out to be non-falsifiable on one party’s part. If either party says that no evidence could ever convince him/her to change his/her mind, you must end the dispute immediately.

4. Management

This site has five levels of membership. Level 1 comprises users who can read the forums but cannot post, nor can they access private messages. These are usually lurkers who lack membership accounts. Level 2 comprises members who can read the forums and access private messages, but can post only into the “Site Management” forum. These are usually members whose posting privilege has been temporarily suspended. Level 3 includes most users. They can can read the forums, access private messages, and post anywhere (except into a couple of private invitation-only forums). Level 4 are moderators. Moderators can read any forum, post into any forum, edit or delete member messages, split or move threads between forums, and temporarily suspend members’ posting privileges. Moderators are tasked with helping members to follow these rules. Finally, level 5 is site administration, who can appoint or remove moderators and expel members permanently. The following rules are not as concrete as those above. Their enforcement is at the discretion of moderators or administrators.

4.1 Inform Moderators of Rules Violations. — Notify either a moderator or administrator of any rules violation that you have personally observed. Do this by reporting: (1) the ID-number of rule violated (from this list) and (2) the message number. To get the message number, hover your mouse on the “quote” button. The message number appears in the URL flashed at the bottom of the screen after the characters “&p=”.

4.2 Inform Moderators of Porn or Spam. — Notify either a moderator or administrator if you see any porn or spam on the site. Again, report the message number.

4.3 Do Not Attack the Existence of the Discussion Group Itself. — Some people feel that the study of racialism discussion group has no redeeming social value. They sign up and join the group merely to express their belief that the group should not exist. Such behavior will trigger immediate permanent expulsion by an administrator without warning.

4.4 Do Not Attack the Existence of any Particular Thread. — If you feel that some topics should not be discussed in public, keep it to yourself (unless it is porn or spam, of course). The fact that a thread on the topic is active means that other members find it valuable.

4.5 Do Not Antagonize Other Members. — Be nice. The moderators have the discretionary authority to suspend your posting privilege if you habitually antagonize or insult other members, even if you stay within the letter of these rules. For example, if you often get into flame wars, or habitually express yourself in ways that others find objectionable, or deliberately goad others into overreacting, the forum moderator can suspend your posting privilege even if you have broken no specific rule. This rule (be nice) is enforced at the moderator’s discretion because overly sensitive people often complain for trivial reasons that they were antagonized, insulted, or goaded.

4.6 Do not copy text or images from private forums into public forums without permission. — Some forums are private for members only and invisible to the general public. If you want to copy text or image from a thread in a private forum over to a public forum, you must first get permission from the private forum moderator. Normally, the moderator will grant permission only if every participant of the private thread agrees to make the text or image public.

4.7 Never, Ever Defy A Moderator. — Do not defy the moderator when you are warned for a rules violation. Moderating is a thankless unpaid volunteer task with no reward other than the satisfaction of furthering the site’s mission (to inform and to become informed). A dislike of being publicly warned is understandable, but the moderator’s job is to show you how to preserve your posting privilege. Take his or her advice and warnings seriously. If you defy a moderator, a site administrator may expel you permanently rather than letting the moderator merely suspend your privileges for a week.

5. Suspension

There are lots of rules up there, and if you violate even one of them your privilege will be suspended. So learn them. The following rules are the ones that usually get newbies suspended. Be especially aware of them until you gain experience. In descending order, they are:

Making unsubstantiated claims. (rule 1.2)
Discussing another member’s ethnicity or “race” without their permission. (rule 2.5.1)
“Racially” or ethnically labeling another member against their wishes. (rule 2.5.2)
Saying how things should be rather than how things are outside of the political advocacy forums. (rule 1.3)
Becoming offended by substantiated facts. (rule 1.4)
Retaliating. (rule 2.1)
Deliberate ambiguity. (rule 3.2)
Ignorance. (rule 3.1)

Regardless of which rule you violate, the process of suspension is the same. A moderator will warn you and try to help you comply. If you persist in violation or defy a moderator your membership level will be dropped to level 2 (no posting privileges except private messages and site management) for a time period that increments by powers of two. In other words, your first suspension will be for for one week, the second for two weeks, the next for one month, then two months, then four months, etc.

There are three things that you should do when your posting privilege is suspended.

5.1 Wait. — Your posting privilege is suspended only for a predetermined time period. During that time, you still have all other membership privileges, including those of uploading and downloading files, searching, browsing, and reading messages, posting into the “Site Management” forum, and accessing private messages. Your posting privilege will be restored at the end of that period.

5.2 Think. — Think about why your posting privilege was suspended. Whatever rule you violated, you want to avoid it happening again for two reasons. First, once your posting privilege has been suspended and restored, the moderators, quite naturally, are going to be inspecting what you write very closely. They will be less tolerant next time. Second, each time it happens, you will be suspended for twice as long.

5.3 Do not Threaten Cyber Attack. — Some people react to suspension of their posting privilege by threatening to attack or harm the study of racialism group, its reputation, its hardware, its software, or its moderators. This is pointless. Almost always, the threat is empty because our systems are well protected. Such threats only give the impression that the suspended member is immature. Of course, if any attack should ever actually cause service interruption (whether through denial of service or slander), it would be reported to the authorities.