even offensive to feel like you're being put on the spot because you just don't know which part of goddamn Africa or Asia or whatever that you should be clicking on
I admit, I tend to -- well, not forget about this, but seeing how the legacy of colonialism is a whole other world to me (yes, even though it impacts all of the globe) I think first of the people who live (roughly) where their ancestors lived, and then I remember the issues of in/voluntary migration. Which is a longwinded way to say: point taken! But I do feel like there is simply no way for this questionnaire to exist in a single form globally; you can't ask people in the US anything more specific than the broadest definitions of race as they already exist in official ticky-lists, and at the same time - like you said - you can't apply US definitions to anywhere else either. I can't imagine people throughout Africa being pleased with having only one box while Asia gets several, etc.
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Date: 14 May 2010 10:02 pm (UTC)I admit, I tend to -- well, not forget about this, but seeing how the legacy of colonialism is a whole other world to me (yes, even though it impacts all of the globe) I think first of the people who live (roughly) where their ancestors lived, and then I remember the issues of in/voluntary migration. Which is a longwinded way to say: point taken!
But I do feel like there is simply no way for this questionnaire to exist in a single form globally; you can't ask people in the US anything more specific than the broadest definitions of race as they already exist in official ticky-lists, and at the same time - like you said - you can't apply US definitions to anywhere else either. I can't imagine people throughout Africa being pleased with having only one box while Asia gets several, etc.