[sunrico90]

Very interesting opinions;as I read/analyze the posts I can see how important your views are. I must ask; does anyone label individuals by the color of the skin? I know Hispanics that have red hair, white pale skins, blue eyes and they don't look hispanic at all. I had the opportunity to travel overseas (Europe, far east, Central/Sound America, and Canada to mention a few) and many times each country has their own definition of what Caucasian, Mongoloid, or Negroid are.

Back to our post: should the presentation of this article account for the true definition of the crime data maybe not by race? Or should we have a sub-category to define who fits the RACE. I honestly don't categorize every person that I talk to every day. I don't see colors at all, has to be mentioned by some else for me to look for a color.

See below for some definitions.

The Caucasian race, sometimes the Caucasoid race, is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "relating to a broad division of humankind covering peoples from Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and parts of South Asia" or "white-skinned; of European origin" or "relating to the region of the Caucasus in SE Europe". The concept's existence is based on the now disputed typological method of racial classification. In Europe, especially in Russia and nearby, Caucasian usually describes exclusively people who are from the Caucasus region or speak the Caucasian languages.

In the United States, Caucasian has been mainly a distinction, based on skin color, for a group commonly called White Americans, as defined by the government and Census Bureau. The Supreme Court in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) decided against including people of Indian origin in the term "Caucasian" for purposes of U.S. judiciary judgements in spite of some anthropologists' classification schemes including Indians in "Caucasoid". The court argued based on common usage of "Caucasian" meaning "white", ruling that "Congress never intended for Indians to be able to naturalize". The ruling was rendered obsolete with the Luce-Celler Act of 1946.


Ethnic group: relating to, or characteristic of a sizable group of people sharing a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic, or cultural heritage.

Being a member of a particular ethnic group, especially belonging to a national group by heritage or culture but residing outside its national boundaries


Race is a biological subspecies or variety of a species, consisting of a more or less distinct population with anatomical traits that distinguish it clearly from other races. This biologist's definition does not fit the reality of human genetic variation today. We are an extremely homogenous species genetically. As a matter of fact, all humans today are 99.9% genetically identical, and most of the variation that does occur is in the difference between males and females and our unique personal traits. This homogeneity is very unusual in the animal kingdom. Even our closest biological relatives, the chimpanzees have 2-3 times more genetic variation than people. Orangutans have 8-10 times more variation.

The notion of race is nearly as problematic from a scientific point of view as it is from a social one. European physical anthropologists of the 17th and 18th centuries proposed various systems of racial classifications based on such observable characteristics as skin color, hair type, body proportions, and skull measurements, essentially codifying the perceived differences among broad geographic populations of humans. The traditional terms for these populations—Caucasoid (or Caucasian), Mongoloid, Negroid, and in some systems Australoid—are now controversial in both technical and nontechnical usage, and in some cases they may well be considered offensive. (Caucasian does retain a certain currency in American English, but it is used almost exclusively to mean “white” or “European” rather than “belonging to the Caucasian race,” a group that includes a variety of peoples generally categorized as nonwhite.) The biological aspect of race is described today not in observable physical features but rather in such genetic characteristics as blood groups and metabolic processes, and the groupings indicated by these factors seldom coincide very neatly with those put forward by earlier physical anthropologists. Citing this and other points—such as the fact that a person who is considered black in one society might be nonblack in another—many cultural anthropologists now consider race to be more a social or mental construct than an objective biological fact.

[backtofla]

man, i read through some of these posts and i want my 5 minutes back!!! hahaha.

i dont know the answers to all these questions, but i do know two things:

in america, signs should be in english. i cringe when i see all these signs in spanish in orlando.

also, it is fact that blacks and hispanics are more likely to commit crimes than whites. come watch our news in orlando, or anywhere for that matter. not a racist comment, but this is pretty obvious

[UB50]

You talked about Brazilian Portuguese vs. Portuguese Portuguese, and it was an illustrative example of the difference. It's REALLY not my problem if you don't care, or just don't understand.

This is interesting to me. The people who decided that I was Hispanic (that happened here on City Data) never asked about my grandmother who was from the Azores.

My mother spoke fluent Portuguese but it did not translate easily to Spanish. A lot of the Spanish words for certain things are not the same to the Portuguese words for those same things -- and they aren't even close. ("Butterfly" or "Moth" is a good example.)

Anyway, despite my 1/2 Portuguese roots, I still think I'm white.

I think Indians from India are white too. I think Russians from the *stans countries are white too, even though some think they are Asians.

I always think back to those charts they showed us as children that showed the various races -- and there were only 4 -- black, white, Asian and Indian.

[compelled to reply]

Originally Posted by backtofla

also, it is fact that blacks and hispanics are more likely to commit crimes than whites. come watch our news in orlando, or anywhere for that matter. not a racist comment, but this is pretty obvious

Poor whites are as likely to commit crimes as poor blacks or Hispanics. Whites tend to be more affluent than Blacks or recent arrivals to our country. Middle class Hispanics and Blacks as likely to commit crimes as middle class whites. Absolutely no point made there.

I agree STORNGLY with the above about assimilation, but come on.

[UB50]

Originally Posted by backtofla

in america, signs should be in english. i cringe when i see all these signs in spanish in orlando.

Just wait until enough Asians move into your area and start planting signs in all Asian. You can't read them at all because they have no letters!

Here, in Los Angeles, when the signs became a court issue, the Asians said "but we are not advertising for Americans! Our businesses are aimed towards Asians!"

So, good luck to you. When all ethnicities are allowed to only post signage for their respective customers -- I hope you can read it!

[backtofla]

from "race, crime and violence in america:"


blacks are 4 to 8 times as likely to commit crime than whites

hispanics are 3 times as likely to commit crime than whites

[sunrico90]

Originally Posted by backtofla

man, i read through some of these posts and i want my 5 minutes back!!! hahaha.

i dont know the answers to all these questions, but i do know two things:

in america, signs should be in english. i cringe when i see all these signs in spanish in orlando.

also, it is fact that blacks and hispanics are more likely to commit crimes than whites. come watch our news in orlando, or anywhere for that matter. not a racist comment, but this is pretty obvious

In San Francisco signs are multi-language;






In Indiana the Little Italy festival is on Labor Day

Little Italy Festival - Clinton, Indiana (http://www.littleitalyfestival.org/2006-01.htm - broken link)


Oldest Polish Settlement in USA.
http://www.stjoenj.net/polishlinks.html

Crimes can be committed by anyone regardless of race or ethnic back ground. The larger the concentration of a group, the greater possibility of more crimes.

[compelled to reply]

Originally Posted by backtofla

from "race, crime and violence in america:"


blacks are 4 to 8 times as likely to commit crime than whites

hispanics are 3 times as likely to commit crime than whites

You basically just reiterated what you just said before...making no mention of economic conditions in the White community versus other communities...

[vpcats]

Terrific post Sunrico!

I want to be Orangutanian. :-))

[backtofla]

i am not going to make assumptions or general statements about crime based on how much income they make... basically b/c i dont have the data. but, yes, i am sure that whites who are poor and jobless and have a crack addiction are willing to commit crimes to get their drugs. just as any other race is... what i am going off of is an article on the 'net and stats from the fbi. and in each, it states that blacks and hispanics are more likely to commit crime. just b/c someone is poor, that doesnt give them an "out" to commit crime. i know that you are not suggesting this of course, but still, overall, regardless of economic situation, the stats are still there.