when in doubt, ask the internets!
14 May 2010 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouETA3: 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 15 May 2010 03:33 pm (UTC)That's actually the sort of thing I'm trying to avoid, because I've been taught to be sensitive to the fact that when we're discussing ethnicity/race, then the answer really is "our ethnicity is from England" along with family and ancestry -- because otherwise, to say "I'm a native" is to effectively be claiming that one is indigenous. And since the majority of my parent-culture is not Iroquois nor Cherokee but a strongly-originally-UK-influenced one... ugh. I'm explaining this badly, but I just woke up and I need tea.
In the US, you'll often hear people joke, "oh, everyone here is from somewhere else" -- meaning we're a nation of immigrants. I had an Ojibwa friend who pointed out, rather dryly, that no, in fact, her family had been there all along. Even in our jokes and the ways we describe ourselves, white/immigrant US culture erases the people who were here already, so to say one is now fully "native" to the area carries a political meaning that makes me cringe, because it's claiming something I'm not (indigenous status) -- in some ways, on that political level, white america must permanently remain a newcomer, especially if it's to make any amends for its history.
Which is also, I think, part of the reason I find myself trying to pick my way through how to differentiate 'going somewhere empty' versus 'someone was already there' -- err, but with the problem that unless you're the people who were already there, nowhere is really empty when immigrants arrive. But that doesn't stop an awful lot of children of colonialization from insisting the land wasn't owned, or was empty, or was free for the taking -- Australia doesn't even have treaties, for that reason. And plenty of Americans and Europeans will try to argue the same.
...okay I should stop there because now I'm distracting/digressing myself! need tea...
no subject
Date: 16 May 2010 07:15 am (UTC)My country was the last country to be settled by people (about 800 years ago, with a possible settlement in the first century CE that died out), not to mention having had no mammals without wings or flippers up until people got here, so there's a strong sense that *land mammals* (let alone humans) are newcomers here.
The local mythology places pretty heavy emphasis on the canoes that the original settlers arrived in and their voyage from Hawaiiki. This must also be different from somewhere like Africa or Australia, where the local indigenous people may have lived there for tens of thousands of years and their histories don't focus on the original human migrations but instead suggest that the people have been there forever.
(Please note that I'm not trying to suggest that 'different' = 'less bad to have land stolen'. Different histories doesn't alter or in any way reduce the fact that the Maori had a lot of their land flat-out stolen in the hundred years after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. However, at least we have a general understanding that the Maori *owned* the place, sold some outright, had some rentals and leases misinterpreted as sales, had some stolen, gave some away (our first national park), and still own some. The Waitangi Tribunal is slowly working its way through the stolen land and organising reparations and so on, and it probably will be for the rest of my life at least. We don't have to deal so much with complete denial of the idea that the indigenous people of an area might have had a right to it.)
no subject
Date: 16 May 2010 08:02 am (UTC)I thought this might be the case, which is why I thought warning you of how 'Pacific Islander' is sometimes interpreted could help.