legally middle easterners are considered white. why is that? on checking the option of race, there is a separate box for hispanic, but none for arabic. i’d think they are both just as close to being caucasian. so why is one considered white and the other have their own group?
trying to think of the phrasing for this question was kinda hard. if you don’t understand it, let me know and i’ll try again.
WAG: They’re more concerned with knowing the ratio of white:black:hispanic. Everything else is miscellaneous (because of the relatively small numbers). Again, this is a WAG
it’s not science; it’s politics and history.
Modern phsyical anthropologists no longer think that the notion of “race” has biological validity. The old theory of four races (negroid, caucasoid, mongoloid, and aboriginal) has been abandonned. Anthropologists now talk about “gene clines” to discuss human genetic diversity.
Modern DNA testing techniques have proven that many “black” people are closer genetically to some “white” people than they are to some other “black” people. That’s why the old racial theories have been abandonned.
Of course race is still socially and culturally important – it’s just no longer considered biologically important.
Why would you consider them to be a different race?
it’s not that i consider them a different race. most forms that have the option of indicating race have boxes for caucasians, african americans, hispanic, and asian/pacific islanders. there maybe a few others that i’m forgetting. but never have i seen something that indicates being of middle eastern decent.
it also has been a question that has been asked of me a lot. people always ask me why i check the caucasian box since i’m of middle eastern decent. the next closest thing for me to check is the “other” box.
it just seems that middle easterners are just as similar/different from caucasians as hispanics are.
And the forms I see, rarely as I do, don’t offer “hispanic” as a racial categorization; rather they offer “Hispanic-surnamed” as an ethnic choice.
Murky waters, indeed.
I always thought they were from the same Indo-European stock as Europeans and Indians (ie, Caucasian). A different culture, to be sure, but that’s not a question of race.
I believe there is a movement to define “Middle Eastern” as a Census category. But it is very problematic. For one thing, no one agrees which countries/groups belong to such a category and which do not.
Neither “Arab” nor “Hispanic” are racial groups, and are barely even ethnic groups in the strictest sense. They are broad terms for people who speak a common language. If all English speakers were categorized as an ethnic group (“Anglic”?) - that would be the equivalent. All three of these men are “100% Arab” by culture, but reflect rather different ‘racial’ stocks.
Oops, I meant this picture…
http://squat.net/koekoeroe/telewokwok/fotos/KAD4.JPG
All the men in the other photo were “Hispanic” but that’s another issue.