On Friday, July 23, 2021 at 12:23:41 AM UTC+10, J. Clarke wrote:
> On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 04:05:04 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> >On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 12:25:13 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
> >
> >> OK, put up a photo with a diagram of the characteristics which lead
> >> you to believe that it is apparent.
> >
> >There are several photographs of her in this news article:
> >
> >https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9588299/Johnny-Cashs-wife-black-great-grandmother-freed-slave.html
> >
> >You can form your own opinion.
> >
> >ObSF: In the novel "White Pills", after a pill is developed to
> >turn people's skin white, a few black people were enabled to
> >pass who didn't have obvious traits in their physiognomy
> >that made them look black.
> >
> >A racist group circulated a complicated diagram purporting
> >to help people identify black people; simplified versions
> >involved drawing an X based on a person's nose and seeing
> >if it hit the pupils of their eyes.
> I have long since formed my own opinion. She in fact looks very much
> like another Italian woman of whom I was once enamored.
>
> I am asking you to defend your assertion.

FWIW, in the first photo in that Daily Mail article, if I had been asked - with no prior knowledge of who she was - to identify her ancestry, "a large percentage of African mixed with other stuff" would have been my first response.

-Moriarty

On Thursday, 22 July 2021 at 12:05:07 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 12:25:13 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
>
> > OK, put up a photo with a diagram of the characteristics which lead
> > you to believe that it is apparent.
> There are several photographs of her in this news article:
>
> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9588299/Johnny-Cashs-wife-black-great-grandmother-freed-slave.html
>
> You can form your own opinion.
>
> ObSF: In the novel "White Pills", after a pill is developed to
> turn people's skin white, a few black people were enabled to
> pass who didn't have obvious traits in their physiognomy
> that made them look black.
>
> A racist group circulated a complicated diagram purporting
> to help people identify black people; simplified versions
> involved drawing an X based on a person's nose and seeing
> if it hit the pupils of their eyes.

The Nazis took a scientific interest in racial measurements;
so did others, I think Carl Sagan's look at historic practice in
his "Broca's Brain" essay mentioned it. This seems to be a
debased version of it, if that's meaningful.

It sounds like the story itself assumes that it works, but it
wouldn't on photographs, it would depend on where the
subject is looking, and surely they aren't seizing folks and
going at their face with a marker pen?

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 1:43:04 PM UTC-6, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:

> Anyway, the racial stereotypes aren't Quaddy's invention.

Ironically, his reply illustrates the point I was making by
citing that particular work.

Johnny Cash's first wife certainly did look like she had
significant black ancestry to me. But to describe in detail
the criteria by which I reached that conclusion would be
an exercise that likely would be nothing more than dragging
out offensive racial stereotypes, which is why I resist J. Clarke's
request that I 'defend' my claim.

John Savard

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 4:17:30 PM UTC-6, Robert Carnegie wrote:

> It sounds like the story itself assumes that it works, but it
> wouldn't on photographs, it would depend on where the
> subject is looking, and surely they aren't seizing folks and
> going at their face with a marker pen?

Salvador Dali and the Mona Lisa.

Me and Julio down by the schoolyard.

ObSF: Darmok and Jelaad at Telagra.

John Savard

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 4:35:59 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 1:43:04 PM UTC-6, Lawrence Watt-Evans wrote:
>
> > Anyway, the racial stereotypes aren't Quaddy's invention.
> Ironically, his reply illustrates the point I was making by
> citing that particular work.
>
> Johnny Cash's first wife certainly did look like she had
> significant black ancestry to me. But to describe in detail
> the criteria by which I reached that conclusion would be
> an exercise that likely would be nothing more than dragging
> out offensive racial stereotypes, which is why I resist J. Clarke's
> request that I 'defend' my claim.

Since he said that she resembled an Italian woman of his
acquaintance, though, I thought perhaps I might find some
famous black women who resembled her.

Hazel Scott, and maybe even Billie Holliday, came close
in my mind.

But then I came across this image of Aretha Franklin in
her youth:

https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/29/stanford-musicologist-reflects-multimusical-aretha-franklin/

You could put that one next to a picture of Barbra Streisand with the
caption "Separated at Birth?"!

So that's an example that would tend to make one think that the differences
don't go as far beyond color as one might think.

Thus, for example, except for her nose, there's nothing particularly
African about Etta James' face.

John Savard

On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 11:17:30 PM UTC+1, Robert Carnegie wrote:
> On Thursday, 22 July 2021 at 12:05:07 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> > On Thursday, July 22, 2021 at 12:25:13 AM UTC-6, J. Clarke wrote:
> >
> > > OK, put up a photo with a diagram of the characteristics which lead
> > > you to believe that it is apparent.
> > There are several photographs of her in this news article:
> >
> > https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9588299/Johnny-Cashs-wife-black-great-grandmother-freed-slave.html
> >
> > You can form your own opinion.
> >
> > ObSF: In the novel "White Pills", after a pill is developed to
> > turn people's skin white, a few black people were enabled to
> > pass who didn't have obvious traits in their physiognomy
> > that made them look black.
> >
> > A racist group circulated a complicated diagram purporting
> > to help people identify black people; simplified versions
> > involved drawing an X based on a person's nose and seeing
> > if it hit the pupils of their eyes.
> The Nazis took a scientific interest in racial measurements;
> so did others, I think Carl Sagan's look at historic practice in
> his "Broca's Brain" essay mentioned it. This seems to be a
> debased version of it, if that's meaningful.
>
> It sounds like the story itself assumes that it works, but it
> wouldn't on photographs, it would depend on where the
> subject is looking, and surely they aren't seizing folks and
> going at their face with a marker pen?

I have an interesting statistical text, "Graphical Exploratory Data Analysis", quite properly published in their "Texts in Statistics" series by Springer-Verlag. It is about plotting pictures by computer that might allow you to see patterns in data. It is _not_ about whether those patterns are real or not. It does not attempt to assign the "p-values" which are (now contraversially) often used to see if it is likely that some effect could be produced just by chance from data which isn't really saying anything at all. I reread it recently and didn't find anything that even modern sensibilities could reasonably object to, but the example data is typically measurements of people divided up in various ways, often by occupation or field of study, but sometimes by race or socio-economic group, and "The origin of this book can be traced to a series of lectures on graphical data presented in 1983 to researchers at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) in the Republic of South Africa)".