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Although I think there are races, after a fashion, the fact we recognize someone is of a race is not that great of an argument.
I saw a woman from the Solomon Islands once and I might have deemed her "black", as in African American, if I did not know her story beforehand. We can see physical appearances and then classify those based on what we've been taught are "the races" but that might lead to misleading or false conclusions.
Still I think there probably are "races" in a sense because we've observed that certain genetic conditions are more common in some groups and certain allergies are more common in some groups. Granted deeming those matters "races" would cause us some confusion as we still tend to gravitate toward physical appearance. Going by their differences on genetic ailments the Amish, for example, could quite possibly be termed "a race." The Bushman are certainly a separate race from the Bantus going by this.
I see it as a bit like the seasons. Classification of seasons is a man-made idea, but we are classifying something that does exist in nature and is fairly obvious for people to see. Of course the seasons vary a little bit from place to place, and December 1st could be considered to be either winter or fall (for an example). Likewise with race, biracial people are often considered to be one race instead of the other even though it's not really accurate, and there is confusion about certain groups that live in between Europe and Asian, etc. Plenty of our ideas about race are just "socially constructed" (to use a buzz words that professors like), but race itself exists in reality.
Ok, A real Central Asian is in the building. I will explain why some central asians are white, and some are asian looking. Contrary to many peoples' opinion in this thread the "whiteness" did not come from Russians, or Ukranians(although there were interracial marriages in 70's and early 80's they subsided by the middle 80's as many central asians were starting to get more nationalistic.). The whiteness in Central Asia is much more ancient. See Central Asia was at first inhabited by Europoid people known as Scythians. Scythians lived in a vast land which included: Central Asia, Caucasus, and Southern Asia. At about 1st century A.D. Asiatic Turks started moving into the area and conquering the land, thus mixing with the native Europoid peoples(Sounds weird when the native is Europoid, and when colonizing force is Asiatic, heh?) So at first they looked like real 50/50 white and asian mixes, however things changed with Genghis Khan's conquest, first more Asiatic blood was mixed into the gene pool from Mongolians, and due to Genghis Khan opening the Silk Road more Middle Eastern blood flowed. So that's how it happened, as for me I living in NY I was always mistaken for a Hispanic, and I'll tell you that the majority of Central Asia looks hispanic( By hispanic I also mean like Central American Hispanic like Mexican, not like Cuban or DOminican because we have no african ancestry) as for regions in Kazakhstan I can even tell in which region Kazakhs look asian, white, or mixed etc.
They're considered "Caucasians", not white. White is a subgroup of Caucasians.
Caucasians are classified as such given similar skull shape. However, externally, there are vast differences between someone from Northern Africa, a northern Indian, and someone from Denmark. This is because there is extensive genetic difference, enough to make extensive phenotypic difference.
The U.S. census mistakenly uses "white" when they mean Caucasian. If you want to break down semite and Indo-Aryan caucasians, then they should have their separate designation. It is deceiving to claim them to be "white", when they aren't truly white, which designates a person originating from or descending from Europe in whole, or overwhelming majority.
I see it as a bit like the seasons. Classification of seasons is a man-made idea, but we are classifying something that does exist in nature and is fairly obvious for people to see. Of course the seasons vary a little bit from place to place, and December 1st could be considered to be either winter or fall (for an example). Likewise with race, biracial people are often considered to be one race instead of the other even though it's not really accurate, and there is confusion about certain groups that live in between Europe and Asian, etc. Plenty of our ideas about race are just "socially constructed" (to use a buzz words that professors like), but race itself exists in reality.
Race is a man-made method of classification, or a 'social construct', to use the contemporary buzzword. However, in my opinion, that does not diminish the usefulness of the distinction.
Take different breeds of dogs as an example. The concept of different breeds of dogs is a human creation. A group of dogs at a park do not decide that one dog is a German Shepherd, while a second dog is a Maltese, and a third dog is a Poodle, and so on. However, would it not be excessively PC to deny the usefulness of the concept to classify and describe different breeds of dogs? This simple example can be extended beyond dogs to all life on earth.
It should be noted that there are physical differences between races ranging from the obvious skin tone to amount of body hair, skeletal differences, and even levels of ear wax production. A forensic scientist can examine a 4,000 year old skeleton and identify the sex, age, and race of the individual. Does that not further imbue some utility to this method of classification known as race?
While I am not some racist I am also not very enamored with political correctness. I feel that many educational environments in the U.S. serve to indoctrinate students with a particular viewpoint rather than teach critical thinking. All in all I think race can be viewed as useful and not have any hateful connotation attached.
Central Asians (Uzbekistanis, Kazakhstanis, Tajikistanis, Turkmenistanis, Kyrgyzstanis) are considered White in the US Census?
I've always thought they counted as Asians.
I think the U.S. census needs a racial category to include Middle Easterners(In Asia), and Central/South Asians. Whiteness seems to be spanned to Far east and to far south into Africa. I think its foolish for the U.S. Census to lump all of these countries from various continents and label them all as white.
No.
Many of them are dark skin.
They're Asian, but Arabs are White.
Central Asians are Asian, because aren't they dark skinned? Arabs are white, because aren't they descended from some Europeans?
I am mostly Tatar and Korean by blood. Arabs are white, Central Asians are Asian, North Africans are white, and Middle Easterners are Middle Eastern.
I don't think this is important. Please excuse me though, I am, ethnically, Tatar and Korean. No, I'm not trying to sound like Stalin.
Didn't I say no?
Central ASIANS are Asian. Look at the map they are bordering China and India for God's sake! Western Kazakhstan I'd consider Caucasian. This is because Western Kazakhstan is the only exception; they are white and border Russia.
White: the original peoples of Europe and Arabs from the Middle East and North Africa and Kazakhs from Western Kazakhstan. The original peoples of North Africa are also white.
Asian: the original peoples of Central Asia [Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan; Kyrgyzstan], South Asia [India; Bangladesh; Armenia; Azerbaijan], and East Asia.
StarsAndStripesForever, I no think so! Please don't think I'm obsessed with this stupid subject, because now I'm not.
I am just saying what I know they are. Would you say petite means skinny? No! Petite means short. Not solely thin, because petite means SHORT, but if they're short, they have to be thin as well as small. You can't be fat and petite. Someone who is small and skinny is petite; someone who is small and fat is short and fat. Stocky means fat, no matter how tall they are.
If the Klan took the rule that 'one drop' of black blood makes a white person black, then do the Black Panthers think one drop of 'white' blood makes people whiteys?
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