Can Ethnicity can be a choice? Can race?

[SMOGZINN]

anybody can change culture. race, no, unless there's some cosmetic surgery/DNA engineering only the OP knows of and nobody else does.

There is no such thing as race. It is a cultural designation. Different societies apply differing criteria regarding who is classified as what race, and these social constructs have also changed over time. At one time the Irish were not considered white since they were not anglo-saxon but instead celtic.

 

[SlitheryDee]

There is no such thing as race. It is a cultural designation. Different societies apply differing criteria regarding who is classified as what race, and these social constructs have also changed over time. At one time the Irish were not considered white since they were not anglo-saxon but instead celtic.

Whether it's real in a scientific or biological sense or not, racial designations are useful because they generally describe a set of identifiable physical characteristics. If the police are looking for a human male, they have a lot of people to go through. Specify human ASIAN male, and you may have narrowed the search immensely depending on the area you are searching in. Or if I'm simply pointing out someone to another person, it may be helpful to say "the black guy on the right" to instantly and clearly communicate exactly who I'm talking about. Perhaps more standardization of what we mean by black, white, asian, etc is in order, but something that useful can't simply be discarded. It is a real thing that can net real increases in efficiency in many areas when used appropriately.

 

[Murloc]

you can't standardize what you mean by black or white in any rational way.

You can say when someone clearly is black or clearly is white but there are many cases in the middle.

France is color blind and even bans racial polls and they do just fine. So talking about race is useless.

Talking about African Americans, meaning the subgroup of American citizens who are descendants of freed slaves, can be useful. But that's an ethnicity (or almost one) with varying skin tones.

Saying in a police identikit that someone has east asian traits is vastly different in its consequences from saying "this guy is black so let's hire him to increase diversity", which is, well, literally racist (I don't think these companies and universities take into account whether they have an african american or the child of carribean or ghanian immigrants in front of them).

 

[mammador]

There is no such thing as race. It is a cultural designation. Different societies apply differing criteria regarding who is classified as what race, and these social constructs have also changed over time. At one time the Irish were not considered white since they were not anglo-saxon but instead celtic.

Whites don't have different skin colour to blacks, or hair texture?

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Whites don't have different skin colour to blacks, or hair texture?

They do; but calling these particular distinctions "race" is just as valid (or more aptly, invalid) as choosing eye color or shoe size as real physical descriptors that define "race".