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> Race is a social construct with a tenuous connection to underlying biology. Yes, the connection is so tenous that exactly 100% of Japanese people can guess I

• jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  What I mean by that statement is that the visual traits used to anchor race are a very small number of relatively trivial genes. But more importantly, an accurate historical reading of racial categorization as practiced particularly in the 19th and 20th century in the US reveals that the definition of race isn't even contingent on visible differences. If you go read the writing of our founding fathers you'll find ample examples of how "white" was only applied to Anglo, Norman, Saxon, and similar ethnic groups. Germans, Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans... All of these groups were initially considered not white in US history, only to later be assimilated as white in proximate rapid reactions to immigration waves and resulting xenophobia, or similar political/social winds. A similar assimilation is currently emerging with latino Americans. The point is, yes, Japanese folk recognize you as other readily, but that other is based on what are superficial and trivial biological variations in appearance. Japan is pretty infamous for its xenophobia so I'm not quite sure why you'd bring that up as rebuttal of what I'm saying fundamentally, which remains that race is a social construct with a tenuous connection to biology.