If this clip weren't from Fox & Friends, I would think this was totally unbelievable. After his co-host reported on a study from Finland that shows married people have a lower risk of Alzheimer's Disease, host Brian Kilmeade enlightens us:
We keep marrying other species and other ethnics and -- The problem is the Swedes have pure genes because they marry other Swedes because that's the rule. Finland -- Finns marry other Finns so they have a pure society. In America, we marry everybody. We marry Italians and Irish. It does not apply to us.
And you thought he was going to say that's why no gay civilizations have survived. But seriously. WTF. And you know that he thinks he didn't really say something racist, because Swedes, Finns, Italians, and the Irish are all White. I mean, it's not like he's saying that White people are better than Black people, so it's all good, right? No. He just reiterated this idea that there's a pure race, and that the pure race has blonde hair and blue eyes, two characteristics that have been widely associated with Swedes and Finns. I'm afraid of what this guy thinks about Black people.
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Other species?
First men want to marry other men. Then men want to marry horses.
I remember reading an article about a guy who tried to marry his Playstation. I'd love to see what their kids look like.
That struck me as supremely ridiculous until I remembered that a PS controller can kind of vibrate.
And to think, my parents think Fox has journalistic value. HA. (Though, to be fair, most TV news networks really aren't worth watching these days).
I almost had a stroke when I saw this.
I was astonished that the other two knew something was wrong.
In America, we marry everybody. We marry Italians and Irish.....
Well there goes the neighborhood, lads !
I love how even the Fox News anchors know that what he's saying is bonkers.
I'm appalled by. the "us vs. them" language running through this clip. He continually uses the word "we," which clearly means white people. He is assuming that his audience (and the other two people on the set) are full-blooded Anglo-Saxon white people. He's clearly not talking to me--a half-Italian American. I'm a genetic abomination.
I'll get back to my relationship with a Vietnamese man now.
I think it's pretty clear that Kilmeades have been marrying other Kilmeades for quite a while.
Hey now, as an Arkansan with my ma and pa who are also brother and sister and myself engaged to my cousin, who's also my uncle, I take offense!!
Inbreeding just keeps the good genes in, ya'll.
:P
And you know that he thinks he didn't really say something racist, because Swedes, Finns, Italians, and the Irish are all White.
...Your point? They may all be white, but they are not of the same ethnicity. If being racist to whites was considered a real thing (I still don't understand why it can't be called out without getting laughed at / having people roll their eyes), that would be an incredibly racist thing to say. Swedes are different from Italians, and they're both different from the Irish.
The fact Swedish and Finnish genetics tend to have lighter complexions has nothing to do with the point he made. He was stating that they marry within their same ethnicity, making the genetics of the Swedish and Finnish are pure. Yes, he phrased it as 'society,' but he's referring to the genetics within the society.
Of course the US has a mash up of millions of genetic backgrounds.
http://hnn.us/articles/23824.html
They're all 'white skinned' (actually, many Jews are not white; they're middle eastern), but that is not their ethnicity, just like Asians aren't 'yellows' and Middle Easterns aren't 'brown.' Actually, many Persians have fair skin and could be considered 'white.'
I know that, as a white person in a Western country, I have privilege. Got it. I live in an area where I don't see it as often, but I understand.
However, the poster lumps people of distinctly different backgrounds IN Europe, not European-American mutts into the same category. The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are not the same. The Persians, Pakistanis, and Arabs are not the same.
White people are not all the same.
I don't think he's being racist. He should have chosen his words more carefully, but he's not being racist.
Italians technically arent white. Theyre Mediterranean. Along with Greeks and Spanish. They are all Western Europeans, but I dont know if you'd call them white. They can be both. Meditereanians people, like many Middle Eastern people (Jews, Iranians) can be both white or brown as well. I dont really think its fair that Western Europe seems to be represented by a blond hair, blue eyed archetype.
Actually, look up Italian political party "Northern League" It is a racist political party (it's part of the ruling government and gets 20% of the vote (all northerners)). They express racism in two ways. 1. Anti-immigration - specifically Roma and Albanians. 2. Southerners. The Northern League believes that Northern Italy is better than Southern Italy and the two should become independent countries. They describe southerners with all the standard racist stereotypes: they're lazy (unemployment in the south is much higher) they're stupid (they believe northerners are inherently more intelligent) they're criminals (they point to the Sicilian Mafia, but ignore other organized groups) People can find racism between two groups that are geographyically and historicallty connected.
So? This doesnt mean that theyre still not, not white? Theyre racist against southern Italians. Its their own race! Theyve obviously been influenced by whiter racisms. About 80% of American Italians come from Southern Italy. My family external coloring ranges from pasty white (me-my fathers side is from N Italy, and my aunt) to dark brown (and I dont mean simply tan). Just becaus eyou have one racist organization WITHIN a race doesnt change the physical realities. Italians are mediterranean, and like all mediterraneans can be both.
How does your post prove me wrong? If anything it just reiterated what I said: they can be BOTH in the same race, even in the same locale. I'm sure there are instances of the same thing going on in all cultures with one group of the same race being racist against people of their own ethnicity. Doesnt change reality. Nor is it a requisite that in order to be white you have to be a racist. I sort of took that from your post.
Umberto Bossi the leader of Lega Nord seems like a self-hating Italian. He's certainly no Nord looking guy.
I have a follow-up question for you.
If race is a socially constructed phenomenon (as it is commonly considered in Anthropology), then culture effects the interpretation of race. If the Northerners and Southerners consider each other of different ethnic and racial value in their own culture, how is it that you can say they're not?
He's not being racist?
When I hear a guy talking about "pure races" - especially if he's talking about ethnically pure Nordic blondes - I totally think "it's Adolf Hitler time!"
He sounds like a flat out Aryan racialist to me!
I think the average american's understanding of ethnicity is woefully underdeveloped. The way that the terms white, black, hispanic, and asian get bandied about is ridiculous and offensive.
Ethnic cleansing has occurred on a massive scale on every continent in the past century. No race is free of criticism. It's an absolute disgrace.
Because of this, we should be careful in the way that ethnicity is pointed out and used. It can be very problematic and can be horrifically misused.
That said, it can also be a source of strength and pride. It's a fine line.
I agree completely with you.
Well, in an American context, White, Black, Hispanic and Asian ARE ethnic groups!
American Blacks are certainly a distinct ethnic group on our own - and there is a distinct White ethnic group too - especially if you go to the South, where Whites don't define themselves as Irish or Italian but as Americans.
It's not as though one day a separate Adam and Eve for every European country was created, and they've been inbreeding since while the US Adam and Eve have been babymaking with anyone they can get their hands on. We all share the same origins, and we've all been migrating and travelling and breeding with each other for thousands of years. So... what do we mean by "purity" and why is it so important? At least where I live, pure/impure doesn't just mean apart/together or unmixed/mixed. The word "pure" carries connotations of superiority and righteousness, and the word "impure" connotates sinfulness and contamination. So saying that Swedish people are "purer" than Americans implies that the Italians and Irish (and presumably all the erased POC) are *contaminants* in the American gene pool, which is pretty damn racist.
Thats how I took it to. I think it also overlooks how many cultures stay within their own race simply for cultural reasons, ie, handing down traditions from family to family who share the same culture.
Indeed. We've been inbreeding for millions of years, and some people claim they're "pure" on account of little inbreeding for mere hundreds of years.
One can be pure Homo sapiens, but that's just about it in terms of purity.
If you read the rest of what I said, you'd realize that that was exactly my point.
Oh my god. I can't believe this guy was given a platform from which to say ANYTHING. at least the female cohost gave some "is this guy really saying this? looks and suggested he may be suffering from symptoms of dementia.
also: species? what exactly does he think he's saying?
Yeah, I didn't understand the "species" comment
Hahaha....it would be funny if it weren't sad and bizarre. Did you hear the rimshot sound they played after he said that? Ba-dum-CHIK
How in the world would marrying someone of a different ethnicity negate the reduction of dementia? I mean, if a relationship in general reduces the risk for dementia, then having a cat probably reduces the risk as well. The companionship and interactions in general probably keep one more aware.
Protection from dementia is Nature's reward for avoiding miscegenation.
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Someone needs to give the guy a dictionary to look up the words race*, ethnicity and specie, and then beat him with it.
*To make things clear, I don't condone violence, and anthropologists don't even believe that race can really be defined scientifically.
His word choice is horrendous and demonstrates his racism, no question.
However, the scientific point he may be awkwardly and idiotically trying to make could be valid. There's a reason they do so many studies on Icelanders - if there's a genetic component of a disease, it is carried differently in different races. You would need to control for that in a study - its easier to control for it in a study in a place like Sweden, where the racial diversity is lower. However, if you were to cross apply the results to the US, the genetic component of getting a certain disease based on your family background could be orders of magnitude more statisically significant that being married vs. non-married.
That's a completely valid point, which I was going to make myself, but I think it will fall on deaf ears here. I'm fairly certain that's what he was trying to say, but he should know his own limitations, and not even attempt to make the point until he learns how to word it in such a way that doesn't make him appear to be a totally racist, ignorant fool.
BTW, I really don't think he's racist. Ignorant? Yes. Foolish? Yep. Racist? Meh. I don't think so.
I agree. I think he may very well have been trying to comment on a lack of genetic diversity as a factor causing low disease rates, and he said it in a pretty obtuse way.
I'm on board with both you and becca on his intentions with his words. It just came out all racist and eugenics-y.
Then Finland is not the place to look for ethnic purity. There are several ethnic groups in Finland - mind, they're all white, but genetically they are NOT the same.
If this study has truly shown that genetically pure ethnicities are safer from genetic diseases, how come it only works that way in humans? In all animal species I know of, the purebreeds are the ones that are prone to genetic issues like hip problems, skin conditions, heart problems, respiratory problems, procreative problems etc etc. I find it very hard to believe that humans are any different.
The Finns may all be white, but genetically they are not a pure ethnicity. Neither is the rest of Europe, with the possible exemption of Iceland and Greenland. here has been so much migration across Europe. The original Danes are the ones currently populating Sweden, hence the Swedes, also named as 'pure', but that happened after a migration South through what is now Germany, East through what is now Poland and Belarus, North through the Baltic countries and Russia, West and South through Finland and Sweden. Explain to me how an ethnicity that has migrated through so many areas can possibly be 'pure'.
*shakes head*
The idea is ridiculous. If it's a study done with genetics, then it's not enough that they're all white, they must actually be the same genetic ethnicity, and white is not an ethnicity genetically.
An afterthought. The name Kilmeade is obviously Irish, I wonder if the jerk knows this...
It's true that the Swedes' genetic homogeneity may be allowing this association to be seen, and so it may not apply to Americans. But the reason it may not apply to Americans isn't that we marry all the Irish and Italians, or even that we're more genetically diverse, but just that we're not Sweden. I don't know, I'm just not buying that this guy has enough knowledge of epidemiology to be trying to make an intelligent scientific point in an bungled and racist way.
Well, you can't apply the results of any study to anyone outside of the population from which the test sample came. Generalizing the results to Americans would be unwise anyway. But Kilmeade is assuming that people from Sweden and Finland are inherently less susceptible to Alzheimer's because of their lack of genetic diversity (or, as he might call, interspecies breeding). For all we know, they could be more genetically susceptible to Alzheimer's. But we can't make that assumption from the results of this study, since genetic factors were controlled for.
Well that's just ignorant. I mean, everyone knows Sweden hasn't been *pure* since the dirty Visigoths, Danes, and Ostrogoths started interbreeding *in Sweden*. And don't get me started with those Scythian dogs.
And Finland? Well, who in their right mind could call Finland *pure*? I mean, the filthy Kvens and Karelians have sent the whole place to pot.
On a serious note, I watch *all* the stations, and Fox is no better or no worse than any of the others. Have you heard Lawrence O'Donnell or Contessa Brewer lately? Keith Olbermann is a total buffoon and meshuggeneh who will probably die of an aneurysm within the next few months. Wolf Blitzer is an absolute moron, and Andrea Mitchell can't even go a single day without saying something offensive. In the morning, I prefer Morning Joe, Fox with Megyn Kelly in the late morning, MSNBC with Tamron Hall in the late afternoon, and a mixture of Fox and MSNBC at night.
All the networks are equally wrought with offensive, ignorant fools. All the networks have valid journalists working for them, too.
Yes, as a Finnish-American married to a guy from Helsinki, I will tell you that the Finnish people are far from pure (or universally blonde). The Finnish people originally come from central Europe, and moved to northern Europe in ancient times, where they then got mixed up with the native people who lived there (the Sami people) and later the Swedes who ruled over their country for centuries. So basically they may be pretty homogenous now but that only after centuries of the sort of "scary mixing" this dude is afraid of.
None of this is to distract from the utter stupidity of this guy.
Yes! Just what I was thinking! And the (alleged "pure") Finnish genes come from further afield, too, don't they? Whether through the Sami's roaming connections or however it's happened, there's even supposedly a certain amount of East Asian genetic material goin' on up in Finland too. I would believe it - in northern Finland I taught a couple of local kids who had Mongoloid bone structure, single eyelids, and white blonde hair and blue/green eyes.
And then there are the Finnish people who are small and white/pale green with enormous snouts and live in blue stove-like houses in Moominvalley... Honestly, this Kilmeade needs to do his research.
I saw this the other day. Shit's ridiculous.
I'm a very mediterranean looking Italian married to a very blond and blue eyed German, with three lovely kids who are considered blond by half the family and brunettes by the other half... this guy doesn't know what fun he's missing (aside from being an idiotic, racist asshole of course).
The only thing I can think to say to this, because I'm a bit flabbergasted, is Eugenics much?
A couple of months ago I sat in on a doctorate level presentation regarding race, racism, and how they both affect education. To summarize what was discussed (which was very eye-opening for me):
1. Race is poorly defined in academic circles, and is largely socially constructed.
2. The genetic differences within a race can be greater than genetic differences between races.
This second point is pretty important, not to mention absolutely damning to Kilmeades argument. Two Swedes could have greater variation in their genetics than one Swede and one Italian, for example. While some genetic traits are more common amongst certain populations, they do not often match up neatly along lines of race (however you would define it).
Take the sickle-cell allele for example. I used to think that particular piece of DNA was unique to Africans. In reality, it is common to any population in the malaria belt, so there are many white people/mediterraneans in places such as southern Italy or islands in the mediterranean who have the same or a similar gene.
As to whether or not this guy is a racist? In my humble and only semi-informed opinion (this thread really could use some input from actual sociologists/anthropologists) he most certainly is, unless he is just an absolute idiot... or he could be both.
If there are sociologists/anthropologists who have already posted, I wasn't meaning to take a cut at you. Rather, I was hoping you could more fully explain (or correct) my previous comment.
Anthropologist here, but far from the voice of all anthropologists so there may be others with dissenting views. There is a pretty good statement about the current anthropological understanding of race as a social construct at the American Anthropological Association site.
Anthropological statement on race: http://www.aaanet.org/issues/policy-advocacy/AAA-Statement-on-Race.cfm
Excerpt: "In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species."
Also the RACE project: http://www.aaanet.org/resources/A-Public-Education-Program.cfm
Sorry - hit submit before I put the quote in from the RACE project. Here you go:
"RACE Are We So Different? looks at race in the United States through the eyes of history, science and lived experience. The program explains how human variation differs from race, when and why the idea of race was invented, and how race and racism affects everyday life. The program conveys three overall messages:
* Race is a recent human invention
* Race is about culture, not biology
* Race and racism are embedded in institutions and everyday life."
I see what you're saying with your point #2. But also, with regard to, say, disease resistance, wouldn't less racially/ethnically diverse, or more "pure," populations be at a vast disadvantage? I'm thinking of the devastation smallpox wrought on Native Americans, and all the other incidences of lack of resistance to a certain non-native disease in the early (and even later) days of colonialism. It just seems like the more different resistances a human couple could pass on to their offspring, the better. Some - though surely not all - disease resistance is genetic, is it not?
Just musings.
you are generally right, though some exceptions exist. i guess it depends on what kind of disease you are talking about and how exactly one inherits resistance for the disease (if they can inherit disease resistance at all).
for example, blacks with sickle cell disease (as a result of inheriting two recessive alleles) have an inherent protection against malaria. so in this case, if the goal is to pass on genes that help protect against malaria, it would be beneficial for blacks to reproduce with other blacks (as black people will have the highest frequency of the recessive allele in their gene pool compared to whites, or indians, or asians, etc).
the obvious downside to that is that now there are more blacks with sickle cell disease, which can be fatal/debilitating in its own way. if the goal is to reduce the incidence of sickle cell anemia, then our black population needs to make the frequency of that recessive allele smaller by reproducing with different populations (who are less likely to have that allele).
it would probably be more important to prevent sickle cell than malaria, since we have developed great medicines for malaria but we as yet cannot "cure" sickle cell. now, if only we can deliver those anti-malarial meds to endemic areas....but that is a topic of an entirely new post....
many lethal human genetic diseases are recessive (like sickle cell, tay sachs, cystic fibrosis...etc) and this is where increasing genetic variability/mixing of populations helps to reduce the incidence of the disease.
most people become resistant to many infectious diseases because of prior exposure (previous infection or vaccination) and this may not have much to do with their genes (like the common cold, or influenza, or measles, or smallpox...).
and finally, no matter what your genes are, you can help to protect yourself against many other conditions by maintaining a healthy lifestyle. this cannot be emphasized enough!
ps - it is true as someone noted above that non black people can have the allele for sickle cell, though i'm not sure if they would have it at the same frequencies? do you know? i have yet to meet a non-black patient with sickle cell disease, but then again, i have never worked in the mediterranian :)
"The problem is the Swedes have pure genes because they marry other Swedes because that's the rule."
Well crap, my Swedish Dad married a non-swede, a dark eastern-european for that matter. He didn't get in any trouble for breaking the rules. I should let him know....
Yeah someone might want to inform my Swedish friend and her Indonesian brother of this rule, just in case they start to get frisky with a "non-Swede."
This guy clearly has never even been to Sweden, or else he'd (hopefully, but doubtfully) realize the crap he's spewing. It's a more diverse country than people realize.
This tripe is a horrendous example of the 1930's eugenics idea of pure = healthier, and it's also completely inaccurate.
It's a major insult to Scandinavians to stereotype them as "pure." (When I have kids, their grandparents will be Swedish, German, and American.) Not only have the borders of the Scandinavian nations been moving around as recently as WWII, not only did the Irish red hair come from the Vikings, not only is there a "Swede-Finn" group confounding these silly notions of purity, but while they may have a shorter history of immigration, they in many ways have a more liberal open door policy than the U.S. does today. I've met Swedes who are black, Asian and of Arab origin, all of whom were told that they "couldn't be Swedish" when they were traveling abroad.
Concepts of race and ethnicity get pretty f***ed the more you travel around the world, and rightly so.
LOL. Totally unsurprised. I eat breakfast at McDonald's occasionally and the older crowd there is always watching _Fox & Friends_. There are three hosts, I think - Kilmeade, the obligatory wide-eyed blonde, and another guy - and the show's basically like a mini-O'Reilly. They stir up outrage over some dumbass issue like taxes or health care for illegal immigrants and invite two people to debate, one on each "side" of some issue, then proceed to constantly cut one of them off and even outright tell them they're "wrong."
You'd think Fox could at least take a break for a couple hours in the morning from their exhausting schedule of bullshit-spewing and propaganda, but apparently not.
this guy has no idea what he's talking about. he's stating that the results of the alzheimer's study performed in Finland, which concludes a lower rate of the disease among married people, is not applicable to Americans because Americans have higher rates of interrracial/interethnic marriages than in Europe and therefore have "less pure" genes, whatever that means. Aside from the fact that he clearly knows not a shred of anything about genetics, the study had NOTHING TO DO with genetic determinants of alzheimers. In fact - quite the opposite - it was looking at the SOCIAL determinants of dementia.
The guy on fox news does not even deserve another comment.
but aside from that, the actual study is quite interesting. people who are single for their entire adult life showed a twicefold increased risk of developing alzheimers - and people who were divorced in mid-life and remained single had THREE times the risk. it would be interesting to see if marriage is the only relationship that confers a protective advantage against alzheimers - what about friendship? divorced than remarried? unhappy versus happy marriage? life-partners? living in retirement communities? pets? living with children?
opens the door for funding for a lot of potentially informative and interesting studies. kudos to the original investigators, and a huge thumbs down (as usual) to fox news and their cronies.
" the study had NOTHING TO DO with genetic determinants of alzheimers. In fact - quite the opposite - it was looking at the SOCIAL determinants of dementia."
I agree. This is why I think his original intent WAS racist.
Huh. I'm Swedish. "Pure", as they call it. Yet my family consists to 75% of dark-haired and dark-eyed people. Blonde and blue-eyed Scandinavians is a myth, most of us have mousy brown hair and grey eyes. :D
And, um, we actually have a rather high rate of immigration from Africa and the Middle East. I'd be hardpressed to find a family that is just Swedish, straight through.
And besides, the Sami, who was the ones that lived here first were actually treated much like the Native Americans were in the U.S. way back.
This is so stupid that I can't even get over it.
Wow, the only thing I thought of when I heard that was that he was essentially saying "Eugenics FTW!!"
Fucktard.
this guy reeks of some proponent of a master race.
the issue of marriage being beneficial to health is mostly about the benefits of human contact and companionship as opposed to isolation, as far as i've read in other studies.