when in doubt, ask the internets!

[kaigou]

ETA3: the comments are where it's really happening in this post -- the more comments there are, the less the above post really applies, since it's the discussion that's helping me clarify and articulate better ways to approach the goal I've got in mind.

Without getting into why I'd be asking such a bizarre question, I could really use extra eyeballs. My predominant exposure to the whole "what race are you" question is via the random HR-says-the-govt-wants-this stuff for diversity hiring, and in the US census, the latter of which is admittedly US-centric (well, duh, being the national census). But if you had a "identify your race" question AND the potential respondents are from all over the globe, well, then, centric is not so good.

So I have this list, which is a bit more than the usual in terms of what races are listed, but it seems a bit fairer to me:

Americas-Native
Arab/Middle-Eastern
Black/African
Hispanic/Latino
Northeast Asian
Oceanian
Pacific Islander
Southeast Asian
European/Caucasian

Can anyone think of an option I'm missing, or maybe can see where two should be combined? That is, if the distinction here is one that would be unfamiliar and thus even more confusing than trying to be fair.

Not to mention things like this always make me think: what if you're a member of the indigenous population -- is "americas/native" really the only option, so if you're, say, an Aborigine, then you pick "Oceanian" and hope that this isn't code for "click this if you live here, even if you're descended from white people who got sent here because some judge thought manual labor was good for the soul". I mean, if it's not obvious to everyone reading the list that the intention is (if not in so many words) to get an idea of what you LOOK like -- not WHERE you ended up -- then, okay.

But still, it just seems that indigenous populations are, in a way, their own kind of sub-set of race, and the local/domestic environment usually makes a very clear distinction between the native peoples and the main population, and to put them all together ignores the impact of this racial/sub-racial conflict. Frex, the fact that Sami and Swedish look very similar to me, but apparently most Swedes can spot, and discriminate against, a Sami at ten yards, easy -- just because as an outsider I think "gee, all you north europeans look alike!" doesn't mean that there aren't racial tensions, and doesn't mean that the former isn't a very much marginalized group, with all the difficulties that entails, who don't deserve the indignity of being lumped in with the majority population just to make it easier on some person with a list of checkboxes.

ETA: look! picture! maybe this'd work better... except this does require/expect you to have some idea of "where you came from" if you're not native to your region. I've met a fair number of black Americans whose family history only goes back so far... and before that, to know where in Africa their families came from? short of DNA testing, it's a big mystery -- so naming a region, especially on a map, might feel like you're being mocked for not-knowing, as though you're "supposed" to know. And that's not fair to anyone, and I sure wouldn't want to make someone feel like that.

So that said, maybe at least the map can be a starting place:



...but we're still sitting in the spot of conflating "ethnicity", "citizenship", and "race" -- when the three aren't always the same or even all that related. The first is your culture (at the most base level), the second is what name's on your passport, and the third is the color of your skin and what your eyes look like. To be really blunt.

Oww, I'm making my own head hurt.

---

I mean, in the US, our concept of race is really rather simplistic -- black, white, yellow, red, to be crude -- but there's a lot more to it than that. I just lack a good template for how to go about incorporating the "more than that" part.

Thoughts?

ETA2: as part of my attempt to get out from under simplified-US understanding... is it true that the Welsh are considered an indigenous population, or at least treated as (somewhat?) racially distinct from Anglo-Saxon, by most Brits? Just curious.

Comments

[kaigou]

I don't think it's really so much an issue of race -- which risks digressing us into the whole "but is it science!?" issue -- it's more that there isn't a handier term than that for what really boils down to: do you, or do you not, get judged in your country by a negative standard based on your appearance?

I can see how "Latino" might be US-centric on its face, but I'd argue it's more a New World thing than only the US -- from what I can tell, it's not like the tensions were born here. They run through the Latino-New-World. A'course, you can name almost any region and there will be some distinction that does make it different from its neighbors: I've met Navajo who'd want you to know, in no uncertain terms, that the Hopi are interlopers and johnny-come-latelys...

Actually, what's probably more useful than the post, at this point, are the comments, because it's there that I've gotten a lot of help thrashing out how to ask the question such that I can get the answers I actually want, which have less to do with "are you a minority in terms of US-perception" and more simply "are you a minority in your culture of residence and if so, are you also a member of an indigenous population and have to deal with institutionalized racism against native peoples?" ... those two concepts tell me more about a person's practical understanding of their daily existence (on top of or alongside the overwhelming global domination in media/economy of US/EU influence). Okay, doesn't tell me everything but still tells me a lot more than just "hey, if you were in the US, would you be a minority?" which obviously would be worthless question for the vast rest of the planet that doesn't live in Kansas.

[hl]

But 'latino' doesn't tell you if they're a minority in their country of origin. Who would answer 'latino'? We don't answer race questions in census around here--so most people would just be baffled (not mentioning that it couldn't be a category here). Who are the people you want to choose 'latino'? What's their colour? From which countries do they come from and in which country are they living? Because I'm mainly baffled.

If I were living in the USA, what would I be? I'm white--very white. I also tan, a lot, when I actually am in the sunlight. Would that matter? Would my accent? How I am supposed to guess how my whiteness in my own country would map into the USA?

[kaigou]

How I am supposed to guess how my whiteness in my own country would map into the USA?

My point is that I'm trying very hard NOT TO ask that.

It's not making it any easier to feel like I'm getting attacked here, even if that's not your intention. I know I have a US-centric experience and that colors things. I'm attempting to get around that and find a way to assess things in terms of variables that would apply to each culture, and I'm asking for help to do that. I get that if I'm doing it wrong, I'm doing it wrong, but just saying I'm doing it wrong is no help -- I'd much rather hear, then, how to do it right instead of just more repetitions of why I'm doing it wrong.

Getting frustrated, obviously.

ETA: didn't mean to jump on you, and could be just the unintentional result of too many comments at once causing a bad reaction in me, but that's not your problem, it's just a kneejerk when it feels like a lot to get thrown at me at once. Instead of editing this out, I'll just let my grrrrr moment stand, but I think the difficulty here is that you're expressing (even when justified if in right context) a perfectly reasonable wish to have the specifics observed and respected, but that when the audience is potentially international, you'd end up with a nightmarish series of questions if you try to allow for every possible permutation in any possible culture that might answer the questions. It'd become unbearable to write, and certainly unbearable to try and comprehend as a respondent. So there's got to be a simpler way to take the specifics of what's being said -- "this words means this to us even if it means that to you and elsewhere just don't even" -- and translate that into something that each person -- regardless of the specific labels used locally versus globally -- could then determine whether it applies to hir situation: "in my own culture, I have/lack the top-most privilege".

Basically: the labels a culture uses within its own culture do not translate. So there's got to be something that does, to capture the state of being human as it relates to a culture's standards of visual/appearance-based privilege.

[hl]

Er, seriously? For the record, I wasn't angry or anything like that--just posing the questions I thought you needed to answer before choosing a label.

I do find the idea that you're attached to 'latino' very frustrating, because it's a label that wouldn't work for anyone here. Historically, we're like the USA: countries that were conquered by europeans. The only difference (or the difference that was taught here in school) is 1)who are the europeans, and 2) since the conquest, there was more intermarriage (a cute way of saying more rapes, in general). Almost every other label used in USA but latino would work perfectly well for us, except that probably people would've to choose more options (though I'm not sure they would). And you would still get if people are privileged or not (at least in Argentina): white people privileged, people descendant of native people or of African origin not. (The binary is of course very restrictive--it's mainly a matter of degrees and different skin tones and features, but I don't think a poll would be able to be more subtle than that.)

(Also: Hispanic doesn't really apply to the same people than latino (not all latinoamerican people have hispanic origin). I'm not sure if latinoamerican people living in the USA feel identified with it, but I'm pretty sure no one out of the USA would.)

[kaigou]

I'm not actually attached to 'latino' at all, except as awareness that within the english language it's a political term to differentiate (as I mentioned to Majo) those who are from 'latin america' versus 'hispanic' being those who are from 'spain'. The entire reason for even raising the latino/hispanic issue is because, within the US, people of hispanic/latin/chicano are lumped in with white/caucasian in most official uses, which seemed to me to be quite peculiar, because ethnically, culturally, and visually there are some strong distinctions.

But then again, neither does the US -- on official levels, at least, in terms of tracking population -- have much fine-tuning for northern Middle Easterners, who are also counted as simply "white/caucasian".

I mean, honestly, the entire notion of labeling people based on a single axis -- skin color -- is just absolutely crazy. I knew that already, but when you try to classify and figure out how to make it clear what's a consistent meaning so everyone can pick the proper 'boxes', it really underlines that there's no consistency in what you're measuring in the first place, which makes then trying to categorize it just as inconsistent.

[hl]

But I really don't have any problem with being lumped with caucasian/european, since I descend from them. I haven't been to the USA, but I doubt I would be discriminated against for the colour of my skin (perhaps it would be different once they heard my accent). I mean... if there are not 'ethnic' differences between Spanish/Italian and English made in the poll--why would there be between its descendants? I agree that there are political differences: i.e. latinoamerican countries are less powerful than the USA--but I don't think it translates to race based discrimination for its white inhabitants?

(But yeah, I agree it's not really a good classification, skin colour.)

[kaigou]

Except that one you mention immigration, then you add a whole new facet to the experience, of the usual discrimination anyone goes through as a result of being "not from around here" -- and you can feel that, sometimes, just moving from one part of the same country to another. (Enough that for someone who'd never experienced much at all prior, even such a potentially minor bump can be a pretty harsh wakeup, and when combined with culture shock can make for a sense that "not from around here" attitude is just as bad as institutionalized, which it's definitely not, but it sure sucks to go through it all the same.)

But, for my purposes, it's not a matter of asking whether someone would feel discriminated against, were they to move (anywhere), because that measures a what-if, and says nothing about the current. So while immigration is an interesting academic digression to the main topic, it's a distraction that shouldn't overwhelm the real point: do you and your family look enough like the dominant majority of your fellow countrypeople such that you don't suffer institutionalized discrimination based on your appearance?

...unless, of course, we get into countries like, oh, South Africa under apartheid, where the "majority" was black, and the minority of white definitely were the standard to measure against -- which would render a black South African saying "yes, I look like most people in my country" to then get measured as if s/he were not regularly (and horrifically!) discriminated against...

*bangs head on desk*

[hl]

Well, the majority here is clearly various shades of brown, and still, the people with most money and most privileged definitively tend to be white-er and blond-er, so idk.

[kaigou]

Okay, NOT helping!

heh.

working on follow-up based on discussion in this post.

[majoline]

This is me too. I've never understood who the US census forms mean by latino, because we're Mexican? Hispanic (my family still has relations in Spain), but I'm white and I tan really well, but my face shape and hair and body shape make it obvious that I'm not from England for example.

I mean, I'm white, and I don't have the problems that the Indian/Mexicans or the Black/Mexicans have. So the problem with the US census forms is that not all white people are Anglo or Scandinavian and I'm not discriminated against in either America or Mexico.

[kaigou]

I've never understood who the US census forms mean by latino, because we're Mexican?

I believe the "latino" is a politically-loaded term to indicate "latin america", where "hispanic" indicates "spain" -- it differentiates whether you're new world or old world. "Mexican," in this case, would be your nationality, not your ethnicity, just like my nationality is US but my ethnicity is Scots-Irish.

So the problem with the US census forms is that not all white people are Anglo or Scandinavian and I'm not discriminated against in either America or Mexico.

And that's really the crux, isn't it: is one discriminated against based, on having an appearance != the majority of your nation? -- and how to put it so it's not that awkward!