Declaring Ethnicity

[Smellincoffee]

^White and black mean a lot more when you're not white.

I come from a town that was center stage in the Civil Rights movement, where every local election is a race war. Believe me, I know what they mean as contrasts. It's like Jerusalem around here, but with fewer bombs. But blackness by itself, outside the confines of America's race history, doesn't mean anything. African-Americans are nothing like blacks in Africa, aside from physical appearance. Rural blacks and whites have more in common with one another than rural whites and urban whites. Local cultures matter more than skin tone.

 

[thestrangequark]

^Did you read the post I wrote in response to RJ on the last page? Because I kinda covered this. You can't just remove "the confines of America's race history" so easily when you're not white, that's the point.

 

[Smellincoffee]

^Did you read the post I wrote in response to RJ on the last page? B

Well, I have now, and it's a fine point. But when one's aim is mocking statisticians' and bureaucrats' attempts to nicely organize people, as mine was, not much is changed.

 

[thestrangequark]

Mockery of bureaucrats is always acceptable. But not all statisticians are evil.

 

[Amaris]

Mockery of bureaucrats is always acceptable. But not all statisticians are evil.

You can't spell statistician without statist, or ician, but that would make no sense at all, and why would you do that?

 

[thestrangequark]

I've been trying to find this clip for ages because every time people pull out the "One Human Race" I think of this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw4AfcO6YF8&t=5m35s

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

always quote what I'm responding to, so the person can't go back and totally change it. Bye-bye, Nick.

That last sentence would make a great action-movie one-liner, BTW.

Mockery of bureaucrats is always acceptable. But not all statisticians are evil.

You can't spell statistician without statist, or ician, but that would make no sense at all, and why would you do that?

Who was it that said...there are lies, damned lies, and statistics?

 

[thestrangequark]

^I believe that quotation is attributed to Mark Twain.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

The modern version would be "lies, damned lies, and online polls."

Also, I basically agree with everything tsq has said in this thread (not that she needs my endorsement.)

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Mockery of bureaucrats is always acceptable. But not all statisticians are evil.

Despite the popular perception, not all bureaucrats are evil (or lazy), either.

 

[thestrangequark]

^Yeah, but they are all bureaucrats.

 

[Melakon]

My traceable ancestors came to the United States from England about 130 years before it was the United States, around 1640. So I always mark 'White' on those types of questions, since there's usually no option for English ethnic background. I don't celebrate traditional English holidays, or have John Bull images or Union Jacks on the walls or anything, though a lot of that stuff came about after 1640.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Late reply...

We're all pinkskins to the Andorians anyway

Speak for yourself. This 'brown-skin' is very happy with who he is, especially in a society that views 'pink-skins' as the epitome of beauty. (The same people who gave Andorians the racist and partial idea that humans are only of one look). It's like some outside the US who see 'Americans' as white individuals and non-white folks as separate; I had to correct someone on that when I was in Singapore, IIRC.

I wonder if the Andorians were created by non-white folk if humans would be seen as 'brown-skins' instead?

Did it ever occur to you that maybe instead of it being racism on the part of the makers of the show that they were intending to show that Shran was in fact racist and shortsighted himself because he assumed that all humans would look like the first (and only for some time) two humans he encountered, Archer and Trip? I mean, he goes on calling them by a racial slur throughout the rest of the series even after coming to respect them, so it's not as if they were concealing the fact that he was supposed to be portrayed as kind of racist dick.

Actually, it did occur to me. However, from a writing and direction standpoint, it was presented a bit poorly. Meaning, as an audience member I shouldn't have to do the homework for said writers and directors to try to figure out what their characters are trying to say. (It actually would have been an interesting character moment for Hoshi or Travis to call him out on it).

I'm sure the director of The Andorian Incident, Roxann Dawson, is well aware that humans aren't all "pinkskins" and probably would have said something if she thought the intent was to seriously suggest that they were. Showing a racist character doesn't necessarily mean you support or agree with their racism. Also, if Shran had started calling Hoshi or Travis racist epithets based on their skin color it could be racially insensitive in a real world sense in a way calling a white character would not, don't you think?

Indeed. As aforementioned above, a good character moment for Hoshi and/or Travis lost.

ETA: Also, mari wasn't "speaking for herself" or expressing her own beliefs, she was simply quoting the show, jokingly.

That's understandable. However, since this board has many different shades of people with different backgrounds...especially in regards to a show that has viewers with many different, well, 'views' this is one aspect I felt strongly about and - again, as aforementioned - felt the writers and directors were a bit lazy in handling.

 

[DimesDan]

My traceable ancestors came to the United States from England about 130 years before it was the United States, around 1640. So I always mark 'White' on those types of questions, since there's usually no option for English ethnic background. I don't celebrate traditional English holidays, or have John Bull images or Union Jacks on the walls or anything, though a lot of that stuff came about after 1640.

So let me get this straight, you were born in America, your parents, grand parents, great grand parents and every generation since then and all ancestors you know about have been in what is North America for the better part of four centuries and yet you identify ethnically with the English even though in that better part of four hundred years, your genes have been populated with any number of different ethnicities.

 

[Melakon]

. . .yet you identify ethnically with the English even though in that better part of four hundred years, your genes have been populated with any number of different ethnicities.

I have at least 5 ethnic groups to choose from actually-- English, Scots, Scots-Irish, Welsh, and Dutch. I don't know how they all fit into the scheme of things, especially how the Dutch guy squeezed in there. But since that one ancestor departed from Devon, I chose English. One of my ancestors had a military commission and fought against the British during the Rebellion of the Colonies in the 1770s. Otherwise, with different ethnic celebrations each year with their respective parades, and threads like this promoting ethnicity, there's not much grandeur in being an American mutt.

 

[Nick086]

My traceable ancestors came to the United States from England about 130 years before it was the United States, around 1640. So I always mark 'White' on those types of questions, since there's usually no option for English ethnic background. I don't celebrate traditional English holidays, or have John Bull images or Union Jacks on the walls or anything, though a lot of that stuff came about after 1640.

So let me get this straight, you were born in America, your parents, grand parents, great grand parents and every generation since then and all ancestors you know about have been in what is North America for the better part of four centuries and yet you identify ethnically with the English even though in that better part of four hundred years, your genes have been populated with any number of different ethnicities.

I find that hard to believe since majority of the colonist would have married other Europeans if they weren't do that they were having children with the Native Americans or African slaves or former African slaves.

 

[DimesDan]

. . .yet you identify ethnically with the English even though in that better part of four hundred years, your genes have been populated with any number of different ethnicities.

I have at least 5 ethnic groups to choose from actually-- English, Scots, Scots-Irish, Welsh, and Dutch. I don't know how they all fit into the scheme of things, especially how the Dutch guy squeezed in there. But since that one ancestor departed from Devon, I chose English. One of my ancestors had a commission and fought against the British during the Rebellion of the Colonies in the 1770s. Otherwise, with different ethnic celebrations each year with their respective parades, and threads like this promoting ethnicity, there's not much grandeur in being an American mutt.

Or you're American.

 

[Melakon]

I'm not sure being American is much of anything to take pride in these days.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm not sure being American is much of anything to take pride in these days.

But taking pride in your colonizing ancestors makes sense?

 

[Melakon]

But taking pride in your colonizing ancestors makes sense?

Well, when you put it that way, there's nothing to take pride in at all. Some aunts traced the family tree so that they could join the Daughters of the American Revolution, but I never saw a certificate or anything.