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Race classifications
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
The race thread in Relationships made me think about this because I didn't know how to class my own race in terms it would be understood in here... is the classification supposed to be by colour of skin, or nationality of origin, or blood heritage, or cultural upbringing, etc?
There are so many different classifications and mixed races now-a-days that I think it gets pointless after a while anyway, don't you think?
There are so many different classifications and mixed races now-a-days that I think it gets pointless after a while anyway, don't you think?
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No. If this were true, we wouldn't know where to direct our hate.
If you want to describe your ethnic group that's another story.
Sadly a lot of people do not and use it to bully others.
If you have parents of different 'race' then you're considered to be 'mixed race' apparently, which is a broad term. However, I'm white, so I can be flippant about my own 'race' (or self-flagellating) as we haven't experienced years of slavery and racism.
I'd have to disagree. It's more than possible to tell apart with a relatively high degree of accuracy which country (or at least, region) a Western European is from by their physical features, nevermind telling apart a Western European and a Middle Eastern.
Side point to this; anyone noticed how in TV/movies these days, when describing someone their skin colour is completely left out? Even in some police shows where something like black skin colour would be the deciding factor in the recognition of someone in a mostly white society.
A petty gripe, but it's still pretty annoying.
nyuk nyuk.
And when girls used to say "You're a neanderthal!". True racism if ever I heard it.
Never heard that in the playground .. who'd you go to school with ?? Fred Flintstone?
But defining your ethnic group, that's a bit different I think :chin:
...that's getting into completely irrelevant and unnecessary semantics.
it was just her opinion
no wonder people are scared to post here
And Gob forbid people debating their opinions in this of all forums.
I'm sorry. It didn't seem like an open invitation for her to debate with you. Just appeared as if you were being rude unnecessarily.
It's OK.
Race is a concept that the differences between people are biological. That the characteristics of different societies are inate in the people who form them.
An ethnic group is a particular culture or perception of heretige.
Lol, you're a prick.
I know
nope. Good luck trying to find a large enough biological difference between people from two different ethnic groups to figure out which is which.
For example, in trying to define my own race on these boards I couldn't find a suitable term that would reflect in a trustworthy way to the readers what I roughly look like. Concretely, I hesitated between 'white' and 'hispanic', the latter which is used more in the USA and which makes me want to go like this :banghead: , since it really doesn't define anything at all. Is it supposed to mean people who descend from Spanish origin but are not currently Spaniards? (Because if they were they would be classed as 'white' or 'European', wouldn't they?) And then why would someone who descends from a Spanish origin have to be any different than the race of the spanish? The term assumes they would be different, which is not always the case for Latin-Americans - roughly the people who are being targeted with the 'Hispanic' label. Is Hispanic supposed to be the territories that were colonised by Spain? If so, that would be quite absurd, since there is more than one race in those territories. In addition to that, there are Latin Americans who don't descend from Spaniards but from other Europeans nations... why would they have to labeled as 'Hispanic' when they have nothing from Spain? Simply because they live in this territory? So, yeah, I think that term is quite misleading and so dismissed it.
I did think of using the term 'latin' or 'latina' (latino refers to males) since Latin America is my region of origin, but then, I'm pretty sure that the prototype of Latin that springs to mind in most Europeans is different from what I look like. On the other hand, the term 'white' is usually reserved for Europeans or the inhabitants of USA and Canada, and other anglosaxon colonies. Therefore, I don't know if labelling myself 'white' (even though my skin is white) would really be "acceptable" according to common classifications (since these classifications aren't solely based on physical appearance and are often intercrossed with regions, thus excluding from their frame of mind the possibility of white Latin Americans for example).
Anyway sorry for this long-winding confusing post, it just derives from the fact that ever since I have lived in a multinational environment I am currently quite sick to death of having to explain that I am actually Chilean, even if I don't *look* like it (as if other people knew better what we looked like :rolleyes: ), and also from becoming aware of all this 'racial competition' I see around me at the moment. I guess I have just realised that race does really matter to much more people than I thought.
Yes, but they have the same basic facial features and construct in a way that black and asian people don't. You could paint a middle eastern man white, and he'd pass as Northern European, whereas you couldn't do the same to an African or South-East Asian. So like I said, the only difference is skin colour, and possible hair colour, whereas with the big three groups, there is a lot more that seperates them.
But anyway, there's more biological differences within any given racial "group" than their is between one group and another, so it's all bollocks really.
It's wierd in America. Everyone is never just American, the always seem to have to add a European country in there. I think in Britain, most people might say where their parents are from, but wouldn't describe themselves as anything other than British (or English/Welsh, etc) most the time. I couldn't really identify myself as being a nationality of a country I've never been to, but in the American spirit, I'm Polish.