I find this an utterly bizarre issue. Why does the government even need to know this? How do you deal with people of mixed ethnicity? Do you tick all the relevant boxes? Can't you just fill in "human"?
As far as I know, the Dutch government doesn't register any "race" for its citizens. It used to, and in WW2, the nazis used that to easily figure out who was Jewish, so a lot of people feel it's better not to register anything like that at all. Some political parties are in favour of removing gender registration as well.
I too found it a bit strange when I moved here. My understanding (gleaned over time) is America is heavily focused on race metrics to measure progress towards equality. My employer wanted all sorts of information for various reporting requirements they were under. Identifying as disabled was optional - I don't remember if race was.
America takes it to extreme, but in over places such as Canada a very public battle was fought over elimination of the long form census which asks questions on a number of personal topics such as religion. There the argument was public services couldn't properly be provided without such information.
In Northern Ireland they ask for one's religion in the context of a job application. Over there it's the Catholics that have traditionally been the targets of discrimination and the Protestants are the ruling caste. That's how the HR guy explained it.
It's understandable, the new "Middle Eastern" category. You do ask yourself how a person of Jewish extraction would answer the question, though. "Jew" isn't a race on the census right now, even though antisemitism was a thing in the US up until WW II.
I'd like to address this specific portion of the article: "Ignatiev quotes John Finch, an Englishman who travelled the US in 1843, saying: “It is a curious fact that … the poorer class of Irish immigrants in America, are greater enemies to the Negro population … than any portion of the population in the free States.”"
On the surface it might seem that one downtrodden group would instinctively support another one out of solidarity, but in reality a lot of racism has its origins in economic competition. The Irish and African Americans were competing for the same menial and manual jobs in many places, which lead to distrust, anger, fighting, and racism. You could see some of this happening when mining companies would bring in African Americans as scabs during strikes which lead to violent brawls. The Irish weren't fighting a WASP for a job, they were fighting other immigrants or ethnic groups.
This same reality continues to this day in many places. Ask someone who works in a field where an undocumented immigrant might compete with them for a job how they feel about it and compare that to someone working at Facebook or Google who isn't worried about the cleaner taking their job as DBA.
I heard about an experiment once where a number of test subjects were ranked from rich to poor, and everybody got some money that they had to give either to the person above them in the ranking, or to the person below them.
In most countries, people tend to give the money to the people below them, because they need it more. Only in the US, do people give the money to the person above them. The explanation was that they tend to see the person below them as competition.
It seems there's just something about the US that fucks up people's sense of fairness. Maybe the US plays different downtrodden groups off against each other so they fight each other instead of uniting and fighting the people treading down on them.
Oh please. How do you explain lower class voters voting in droves for Brexit? They did not like all the immigrants from the EU coming and taking plumber and cleaner and other manual labor type jobs. This is not just a US issue.
Are you suggesting England is becoming more like the US? Maybe you're right.
Though in a sense, this might be the case for all cases where racism is primarily supported by poorer classes: playing different lower class groups off against each other, so they won't rise up against the people keeping them down.
Like school grades, competitive sports, policemen, and war, race is an idea that only serves to divide us. I want to see humanity reach its true potential, and not be endlessly mucking about over rank and status (or ownership of resources).
I've struggled to stop identifying as white, and to not think "black" when I see a black person. But I was raised in the white supremacist society that is the united states, and the programming/brainwashing runs deep.
This article reminds me of the work we still need to do. And how close we are to presiding over another holocaust.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 33.8 ms ] threadAs far as I know, the Dutch government doesn't register any "race" for its citizens. It used to, and in WW2, the nazis used that to easily figure out who was Jewish, so a lot of people feel it's better not to register anything like that at all. Some political parties are in favour of removing gender registration as well.
America takes it to extreme, but in over places such as Canada a very public battle was fought over elimination of the long form census which asks questions on a number of personal topics such as religion. There the argument was public services couldn't properly be provided without such information.
It's understandable, the new "Middle Eastern" category. You do ask yourself how a person of Jewish extraction would answer the question, though. "Jew" isn't a race on the census right now, even though antisemitism was a thing in the US up until WW II.
On the surface it might seem that one downtrodden group would instinctively support another one out of solidarity, but in reality a lot of racism has its origins in economic competition. The Irish and African Americans were competing for the same menial and manual jobs in many places, which lead to distrust, anger, fighting, and racism. You could see some of this happening when mining companies would bring in African Americans as scabs during strikes which lead to violent brawls. The Irish weren't fighting a WASP for a job, they were fighting other immigrants or ethnic groups.
This same reality continues to this day in many places. Ask someone who works in a field where an undocumented immigrant might compete with them for a job how they feel about it and compare that to someone working at Facebook or Google who isn't worried about the cleaner taking their job as DBA.
In most countries, people tend to give the money to the people below them, because they need it more. Only in the US, do people give the money to the person above them. The explanation was that they tend to see the person below them as competition.
It seems there's just something about the US that fucks up people's sense of fairness. Maybe the US plays different downtrodden groups off against each other so they fight each other instead of uniting and fighting the people treading down on them.
Though in a sense, this might be the case for all cases where racism is primarily supported by poorer classes: playing different lower class groups off against each other, so they won't rise up against the people keeping them down.
I've struggled to stop identifying as white, and to not think "black" when I see a black person. But I was raised in the white supremacist society that is the united states, and the programming/brainwashing runs deep.
This article reminds me of the work we still need to do. And how close we are to presiding over another holocaust.
You may want to deny this, but nothing will make reality conform to your desires.
Sounds very "black and white" to me. Besides, I believe in magic.