7 ms·

"Middle Eastern" is not a race though. I'm Turkish and we are very Caucasian. :)

by enraged_camel 10y ago

TomSawyer 10y ago
It should fit in nicely with "hispanic" which runs the gamut from white to black.
- iambateman 10y ago
  Seems like a minor nitpick, but Hispanic is considered an ethnicity, not a race. You can be black and Hispanic. And my favorite...according to the federal government, it is entirely possible to be "Hispanic - White and Black." At which point we can all agree that discussions of race are almost always more confusing than helpful. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Source: worked on some USDA reports.
  - jdavis703 10y ago
    If the cops put out an alert for a Hispanic, or a black person I'm pretty sure you'd be able to identify them. Is it genetically scientific? Of course not! But other people will also categorise that person the same way, thus allowing their "racial" group to be targeted. Race might be a bullshit term, but we clearly assign people to such groups so it's just as valid as any other construction we've come up with (like the difference between a Canadian and an American).
thequickeninger 10y ago
no you're not.
fallingfrog 10y ago
Well, of course there's really no such thing as race to begin with, it's a big bag of various cultural and historical prejudices with all kinds of different people thrown together into arbitrary "races". Racism had to be invented to justify slavery and colonialism.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  I'm with you on the prejudice part. But pedantically, its not so easy to dismiss 'race'. We see strong genetic pooling around the world. We can make up a new word for that, or use the one we have. Unfortunately the current word has been muddied by history.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    There certainly are genetic differences around the world, but they line up only vaguely with race. If race were about genetics, then there would be a ton of different races in Africa, and we'd probably lump all other people under one "non-African" race. My favorite way to illustrate the arbitrary nature of race is to ask what the race is of our current (alas, soon to be former) president. Typically the answer is "black." Yet his mother was "white." If it were genetic, we'd say he was mixed, but we're still operating under the influence of old arbitrary rules where having just a small amount of black ancestry makes you "black."
    - omonra 10y ago
      The answer to your question is 'black' because of political correctness. This is a great example of why it's pernicious - as it robs us of ability to describe the world. There is actually a more appropriate term - 'mulatto' which was specifically created to describe people born to black / white parents. Today it's considered 'dated and offensive', so we don't have a 'polite' and 'correct' way to describe the ethnicity of our (current) President. Would you deny the existence of dog breeds because there exist labradoodles or any other mixes?
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Wow, blaming political correctness for the idea that black ancestry makes someone black. You might find this to be enlightening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodescent#Hypo.2Fhyperdescent_in_Colonial_Era_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodescent#Hypo.2Fhyperdescen... The idea that a mixed-race person is considered to be a member of only one of their parents' races long predates people's unwillingness to use "mulatto." And the idea that people must call him "black" because they're not allowed to say "mulatto" is absurd. "Mixed" would describe it without causing any offense, as would "half white, half black." I remain amazed at how insistent some people are that the lingering consequences of centuries of racial injustice in this country are somehow caused by "political correctness" in the past few decades.
chimeracoder 10y ago
> "Middle Eastern" is not a race though. I'm Turkish and we are very Caucasian. :) "Race" is kind of a silly thing to begin with. For example, "Caucasian" doesn't actually mean "white", even though people use it colloquially as if it were.

"Middle Eastern" is not a race though. I'm Turkish and we are very Caucasian. :)

TomSawyer 10y ago

It should fit in nicely with "hispanic" which runs the gamut from white to black.

iambateman 10y ago
Seems like a minor nitpick, but Hispanic is considered an ethnicity, not a race. You can be black and Hispanic. And my favorite...according to the federal government, it is entirely possible to be "Hispanic - White and Black." At which point we can all agree that discussions of race are almost always more confusing than helpful. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Source: worked on some USDA reports.
- jdavis703 10y ago
  If the cops put out an alert for a Hispanic, or a black person I'm pretty sure you'd be able to identify them. Is it genetically scientific? Of course not! But other people will also categorise that person the same way, thus allowing their "racial" group to be targeted. Race might be a bullshit term, but we clearly assign people to such groups so it's just as valid as any other construction we've come up with (like the difference between a Canadian and an American).

thequickeninger 10y ago

no you're not.

fallingfrog 10y ago

Well, of course there's really no such thing as race to begin with, it's a big bag of various cultural and historical prejudices with all kinds of different people thrown together into arbitrary "races". Racism had to be invented to justify slavery and colonialism.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
I'm with you on the prejudice part. But pedantically, its not so easy to dismiss 'race'. We see strong genetic pooling around the world. We can make up a new word for that, or use the one we have. Unfortunately the current word has been muddied by history.
- mikeash 10y ago
  There certainly are genetic differences around the world, but they line up only vaguely with race. If race were about genetics, then there would be a ton of different races in Africa, and we'd probably lump all other people under one "non-African" race. My favorite way to illustrate the arbitrary nature of race is to ask what the race is of our current (alas, soon to be former) president. Typically the answer is "black." Yet his mother was "white." If it were genetic, we'd say he was mixed, but we're still operating under the influence of old arbitrary rules where having just a small amount of black ancestry makes you "black."
  - omonra 10y ago
    The answer to your question is 'black' because of political correctness. This is a great example of why it's pernicious - as it robs us of ability to describe the world. There is actually a more appropriate term - 'mulatto' which was specifically created to describe people born to black / white parents. Today it's considered 'dated and offensive', so we don't have a 'polite' and 'correct' way to describe the ethnicity of our (current) President. Would you deny the existence of dog breeds because there exist labradoodles or any other mixes?
    - mikeash 10y ago
      Wow, blaming political correctness for the idea that black ancestry makes someone black. You might find this to be enlightening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodescent#Hypo.2Fhyperdescent_in_Colonial_Era_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodescent#Hypo.2Fhyperdescen... The idea that a mixed-race person is considered to be a member of only one of their parents' races long predates people's unwillingness to use "mulatto." And the idea that people must call him "black" because they're not allowed to say "mulatto" is absurd. "Mixed" would describe it without causing any offense, as would "half white, half black." I remain amazed at how insistent some people are that the lingering consequences of centuries of racial injustice in this country are somehow caused by "political correctness" in the past few decades.

chimeracoder 10y ago

> "Middle Eastern" is not a race though. I'm Turkish and we are very Caucasian. :) "Race" is kind of a silly thing to begin with. For example, "Caucasian" doesn't actually mean "white", even though people use it colloquially as if it were.