Post AwOShUJvIx41kvqB5k by mikejackmin@liberdon.com
 (DIR) More posts by mikejackmin@liberdon.com
 (DIR) Post #AwNQRVQR2C2HU2B5Zg by DaddyO@noauthority.social
       2025-07-22T01:59:17Z
       
       1 likes, 0 repeats
       
       Why is it that on every form I ever fill out, "Ethnicity" is only for Hispanics or Non-Hispanics.  Don't other races count as being "ethnic"?
       
 (DIR) Post #AwOQgztUEI15Tw75MG by mikejackmin@liberdon.com
       2025-07-22T13:36:46Z
       
       0 likes, 0 repeats
       
       @DaddyO This is actually pretty interesting:https://www.discoursemagazine.com/p/racial-classification-in-america
       
 (DIR) Post #AwOSAveKfsjcxYrT60 by DaddyO@noauthority.social
       2025-07-22T13:53:25Z
       
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       @mikejackmin Hmmmm . . . It seems like a lot of the complexity goes away if the idea of "redressing past harms" gets thrown out the window.
       
 (DIR) Post #AwOShUJvIx41kvqB5k by mikejackmin@liberdon.com
       2025-07-22T13:59:16Z
       
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       @DaddyO Broadly speaking, all categories are arbitrary; they exist to serve a purpose. You can organize your record collection by edge color, or smell, or by the average height of the band, but it won't assist the purpose of finding the album you want when you want it.We can invent as many races as we want, or as few. Decide the purpose first, and the rest follows.
       
 (DIR) Post #AwOSxVhJx2nqf3QNvM by DaddyO@noauthority.social
       2025-07-22T14:02:11Z
       
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       @mikejackmin Some categories are arbitrary, yes.  But there's clearly observable, biological, heritable, genetically confirmable differences in races.  Even among general groupings like "Asians."  My whole point was that the binary of all races being funneled into "Hispanic / non-Hispanic" seemed absurdly arbitrary, and the article you send pointed to the fact that it's all due to legal requirements because of the "challenge" of redressing past wrongs. Which is perhaps arbitrary squared.
       
 (DIR) Post #AwOTu58qKVILNtE8Qq by mikejackmin@liberdon.com
       2025-07-22T14:12:45Z
       
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       @DaddyO The empirical differences are there, what's arbitrary is the significance.Hair color is mostly heritable - blondes and redheads can be different races, if you want. We could group people by genetic similarly, or by similar appearance, or by similar ancestry, it's just a matter of what we'd hope to accomplish by grouping them that way.