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> Tracing their ancestry in part to the Spanish who conquered South and Central America, they regarded themselves as offshoots of white Europeans. "In part" be

> Tracing their ancestry in part to the Spanish who conquered South and Central America, they regarded themselves as offshoots of white Europeans. "In part" being the key words here. As https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Individual-level_human_population_structure2.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Individual-level_hum... shows, they do differ - they're genetically further from Europeans than Middle Easterners (who are still classified as white on the US census, itself a red herring). Yet the article contains no such graphs - how deluded must one be to think court cases, census categories, and obscure writings by sociology professors, are better determinants of ethnicity than genetically measurable kinship?

barry-cotter 5y ago
Serbs and Croats would like to have a word, or Ukrainians and Russians. It’s entirely possible to be kin and distinct, and to care deeply about the distinction.
- car_analogy 5y ago
  I chose my words carefully - better, not sole, determinant. But I notice you did not give an example of the opposite: a unified ethnic group composed of genetically distant sub-groups. More distant than different flavors of European melding into 'white' after crossing the Atlantic. Because that is what the article is selling. Such a group may well exist, but is the exception rather than the rule.
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    American is absolutely an ethnic group. It’s not high salience in the US but it’s very obvious if you go abroad. Black Americans hang out with White Americans, not Africans. If you’re in a place where there are relatively few English speakers they all hang out together and the first split will be North Americans versus British + Irish + Aussies + Kiwis + South Africans.
    - car_analogy 5y ago
      > American is absolutely an ethnic group. Keyword "unified". There was a series of recent protests complaining some groups were not treated as well as others - if they're all merely "Americans", what did they form groups based on? Edit: On further reflection, no, even if you drop "unified", I don't see how you could consider Americans being a single ethnic group. Ethnicity is not assigned based on hanging out together when abroad. By that criterion, ex-Yugoslavians would become a single ethnicity.
      - barry-cotter 5y ago
        Unified by whose criteria? It’s a rare Irish person who identifies in any emotional way with being of Gaelic, Viking, Anglo-Norman or English ancestry but they are not evenly distributed by class, profession or political loyalty. It’s been almost a thousand years since the Normans conquered the English and Norman surnames are still wildly over represented among the professions and British ruling class. > By that criterion, ex-Yugoslavians would become a single ethnicity. Yes. In China they’re a single ethnic group in Shanghai in my experience. The salience of different ethnic identities varies by context. That’s what social construction of identities is about. Shared ancestry is not the only determinant of ethnicity. Mormons are an ethnic group. There are old stock Mormons all over the American Wear. Mormonism is also a universalist religion. Things are complicated.
    - watwut 5y ago
      Imo, African American is ethnicity too. It is complicated in US. But, a lot of issues related to race in US was difficult to me to understand, until it clicked that if I think about African Americans as about ethnicity too, some stuff starts to make sense.
      - barry-cotter 5y ago
        Yes. Nigerian-Americans aren’t African-American. Somali-Americans aren’t African-American. The descendants of Southerners who were held as slaves are African-Americans and over time some people of predominantly sub-Saharan ancestry acculturate to that identity, most obviously and quickly West Indians, but they’re not African-American either.
  - watwut 5y ago
    > a unified ethnic group composed of genetically distant sub-groups African-Americans are such group. In Africa, they have many different ethnicities. Their descendants in America are all African-Americans, they dont differ at all between those who are from Nigeria 200 years ago and those who are from Angola. Within Africa, there are Nigelians and Angolans and they are distinct ethnicities. White people in America are such group. The descendants from Germans and French and Poland are all white Americans. In Europe, they are all different ethnicities.
watwut 5y ago
> how deluded must one be to think court cases, census categories, and obscure writings by sociology professors, are better determinants of ethnicity than genetically measurable kinship? Cause asimilation is a thing. And in fact you or your kids can become other ethnicity. German family who moved and became French. Czechs who moved and their kids became Hungarians. Hungarians who moved and became German. In all those case, no one knows or cares about origin. None of that is rare. Whole areas were assimilated into larger groups, their ethnicity changing over time (yes, pretty often it happened by force). The latter is literally what Putin is trying to achieve in Ukraine - make it Russia and suppress existence of that Ukrainian ethnicity. Ethnicity is not just or purely blood. That is why the sociology professors are better determinants if they actually studied that thing. Cause at least they know it is more complicated then just "genetical origin". When you go by genetic only, it is more of race then ethnicity.

barry-cotter 5y ago

Serbs and Croats would like to have a word, or Ukrainians and Russians. It’s entirely possible to be kin and distinct, and to care deeply about the distinction.

car_analogy 5y ago
I chose my words carefully - better, not sole, determinant. But I notice you did not give an example of the opposite: a unified ethnic group composed of genetically distant sub-groups. More distant than different flavors of European melding into 'white' after crossing the Atlantic. Because that is what the article is selling. Such a group may well exist, but is the exception rather than the rule.
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  American is absolutely an ethnic group. It’s not high salience in the US but it’s very obvious if you go abroad. Black Americans hang out with White Americans, not Africans. If you’re in a place where there are relatively few English speakers they all hang out together and the first split will be North Americans versus British + Irish + Aussies + Kiwis + South Africans.
  - car_analogy 5y ago
    > American is absolutely an ethnic group. Keyword "unified". There was a series of recent protests complaining some groups were not treated as well as others - if they're all merely "Americans", what did they form groups based on? Edit: On further reflection, no, even if you drop "unified", I don't see how you could consider Americans being a single ethnic group. Ethnicity is not assigned based on hanging out together when abroad. By that criterion, ex-Yugoslavians would become a single ethnicity.
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      Unified by whose criteria? It’s a rare Irish person who identifies in any emotional way with being of Gaelic, Viking, Anglo-Norman or English ancestry but they are not evenly distributed by class, profession or political loyalty. It’s been almost a thousand years since the Normans conquered the English and Norman surnames are still wildly over represented among the professions and British ruling class. > By that criterion, ex-Yugoslavians would become a single ethnicity. Yes. In China they’re a single ethnic group in Shanghai in my experience. The salience of different ethnic identities varies by context. That’s what social construction of identities is about. Shared ancestry is not the only determinant of ethnicity. Mormons are an ethnic group. There are old stock Mormons all over the American Wear. Mormonism is also a universalist religion. Things are complicated.
  - watwut 5y ago
    Imo, African American is ethnicity too. It is complicated in US. But, a lot of issues related to race in US was difficult to me to understand, until it clicked that if I think about African Americans as about ethnicity too, some stuff starts to make sense.
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      Yes. Nigerian-Americans aren’t African-American. Somali-Americans aren’t African-American. The descendants of Southerners who were held as slaves are African-Americans and over time some people of predominantly sub-Saharan ancestry acculturate to that identity, most obviously and quickly West Indians, but they’re not African-American either.
- watwut 5y ago
  > a unified ethnic group composed of genetically distant sub-groups African-Americans are such group. In Africa, they have many different ethnicities. Their descendants in America are all African-Americans, they dont differ at all between those who are from Nigeria 200 years ago and those who are from Angola. Within Africa, there are Nigelians and Angolans and they are distinct ethnicities. White people in America are such group. The descendants from Germans and French and Poland are all white Americans. In Europe, they are all different ethnicities.

watwut 5y ago

> how deluded must one be to think court cases, census categories, and obscure writings by sociology professors, are better determinants of ethnicity than genetically measurable kinship? Cause asimilation is a thing. And in fact you or your kids can become other ethnicity. German family who moved and became French. Czechs who moved and their kids became Hungarians. Hungarians who moved and became German. In all those case, no one knows or cares about origin. None of that is rare. Whole areas were assimilated into larger groups, their ethnicity changing over time (yes, pretty often it happened by force). The latter is literally what Putin is trying to achieve in Ukraine - make it Russia and suppress existence of that Ukrainian ethnicity. Ethnicity is not just or purely blood. That is why the sociology professors are better determinants if they actually studied that thing. Cause at least they know it is more complicated then just "genetical origin". When you go by genetic only, it is more of race then ethnicity.