4 ms·

Your numbers are way off: * The US is still 70+% white: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rac

Your numbers are way off: * The US is still 70+% white: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_ethnicity_in_the_Unit... * The number of undocumented immigrants is much lower than that: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/us/illegal-immigrants-population-study.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/us/illegal-immigrants-pop...

maire 7y ago
I believe the previous poster was talking about ethnicity and you are talking about race. Race=biology and ethnicity=culture. The census mixes the concepts of race and ethnicity. That is why if you total the census percentages in your wikipedia article they come out to 110%. Some people are double counted in two different groups in the census.
- zenhack 7y ago
  Perhaps -- it would be easier to scruitinize if the OP cited where their numbers came from. And given that the undocumented immigrants number is still off by more than a factor of 2, to me it reads more like it's just reactionary nonsense heresay rather than having any actual basis in reality. I'm open to being wrong though. Also: * I don't see any reason to believe nobody has more than one "cultural identity." * Race is really more about culture than biology too. Maybe less so, but if for some reason you were motivated to come up with some categorization of people based on their biological ancestry, the races that we talk about wouldn't make a ton of sense. When you hear people saying that race is "socially constructed," this is what they're talking about. The Irish weren't considered white a century ago, and it's not like the change came about due to some scientific breakthrough.
  - maire 7y ago
    Yep. I was also pondering this point. I have always found the whole Hispanic / Latino question in the census confusing. What are people trying to do with this information? Why not call out other ethnic groups? The history of the Irish is a good example of how ethnic groups change and assimilate over time.
- acjohnson55 7y ago
  Race is not really biology. At least, not in a way that isn't arbitrary. It's kind of like the concept of "music". There's no good way to put tight bounds around it, because it's ultimately a social concept.

maire 7y ago

I believe the previous poster was talking about ethnicity and you are talking about race. Race=biology and ethnicity=culture. The census mixes the concepts of race and ethnicity. That is why if you total the census percentages in your wikipedia article they come out to 110%. Some people are double counted in two different groups in the census.

zenhack 7y ago
Perhaps -- it would be easier to scruitinize if the OP cited where their numbers came from. And given that the undocumented immigrants number is still off by more than a factor of 2, to me it reads more like it's just reactionary nonsense heresay rather than having any actual basis in reality. I'm open to being wrong though. Also: * I don't see any reason to believe nobody has more than one "cultural identity." * Race is really more about culture than biology too. Maybe less so, but if for some reason you were motivated to come up with some categorization of people based on their biological ancestry, the races that we talk about wouldn't make a ton of sense. When you hear people saying that race is "socially constructed," this is what they're talking about. The Irish weren't considered white a century ago, and it's not like the change came about due to some scientific breakthrough.
- maire 7y ago
  Yep. I was also pondering this point. I have always found the whole Hispanic / Latino question in the census confusing. What are people trying to do with this information? Why not call out other ethnic groups? The history of the Irish is a good example of how ethnic groups change and assimilate over time.
acjohnson55 7y ago
Race is not really biology. At least, not in a way that isn't arbitrary. It's kind of like the concept of "music". There's no good way to put tight bounds around it, because it's ultimately a social concept.