# Can terms like "race" and "ethnicity" be used meaningfully? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 6, 2022, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000 "2022-02-06T15:31:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/61 "2022-02-07T18:33:25Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I generally have a difficulty with the idea that you have to defer to a proclaimed victim’s definition of certain actions. For example, sexual harassment. I in no way deny that sexual harassment exists, but I have a problem accepting that sexual harassment has occurred based solely on the claimed perception of the “victim.” Remember folks, it’s only sexual harassment when the harasser says it is. Not when the “victim” “claims” they are being harassed. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/62 "2022-02-07T18:44:05Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Is race entirely a social construct? I’ve read on several occasions that all humans are 99.9% genetically identical. That would make us one race, the Human Race. “Race” is usually associated with biology and linked with physical characteristics. "Ethnicity” is linked with cultural expression and identification. It appears that many people identify the latter as the former. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/63 "2022-02-07T19:53:24Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Remember folks, it’s only sexual harassment when the harasser says it is. Not when the “victim” “claims” they are being harassed. Right. That’s just what I said. 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/64 "2022-02-07T23:37:06Z")
In both contexts with varying degrees of accuracy or relevance. It’s a bit like male and female generalizations. Using aggregate characteristics for a particular individual is problematic. For general trends groupings based on all sorts of shared properties can have relevance. Where problems occur is when folks make damaging extrapolations that have no basis in reality. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/65 "2022-02-07T23:39:53Z")
I think the distribution for male/female would be a much more obvious bi-modal distribution than any racial classifications. Much, much more. But, that’s an discussion for another day. ---
**Author:** ![echoreply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/echoreply/32/3641_2.png) [@echoreply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/echoreply)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2022, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/66 "2022-02-07T23:56:31Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I’ve read on several occasions that all humans are 99.9% genetically identical. That would make us one race Yes, but look at all of the wonderful diversity encompassed by that 0.1%. It really is a question of scale. You’re more similar genetically to your immediate family than to your extended family than to people with similar ancestral backgrounds than to people with different ancestral background. So, we’re all Johnsons, Southern Asians, humans, primates, mammals, animals, eukaryotes, etc. It would be silly to put “Smiths” in a list of categories that included amphibians, reptiles, and bony fish. It would also be silly to put beetles on a list that includes Europeans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/67 "2022-02-08T01:04:11Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > - racism: deciding who can be oppressed based on a category of immutable attributes > - sexism: deciding who can be oppressed based on biological sex I don’t think this “pocket” definition is sufficient to distinguish racism from sexism, ageism, or even Montague/Capulet -style bad blood. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/68 "2022-02-08T01:31:51Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I don’t think this “pocket” definition is sufficient to distinguish racism from sexism, ageism, or even Montague/Capulet -style bad blood. Then you’re welcome to provide a better one. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/69 "2022-02-08T04:21:51Z")
It seems to me that you are holding “race” as an identity to some other standard than other ways we are identified. Identity requires some combination of what we call ourselves and others call us, usually some overlap. My fourth child happens to be adopted. She has no biological connection to my wife and me nor to her siblings. But she identifies as one of us, we identify her as one of us, the world identifies her as one of us. She is fully my child and I her father. Our family is a created and very real construct. Sometimes the overlap doesn’t match. How much of an agreement between self and others does there need to be? Depends on the impact. Someone “one drop” Black might not have identified themselves as Black but was subject to discrimination as Black. That discrimination was racism no matter what amount of African origin DNA that person had. Even if in fact it was none. Even if the person rejected that identity. Jews in Germany did not consider themselves as part of a Jewish race. Many labeled as members of the Jewish race by the Nazis did not consider themselves Jewish and were not considered as such by most other Jews. Nevertheless the Nazis identified them as such and treated them accordingly. That was racism. Caucasian Americans would classify a huge number of divergent populations as “Asian” but even within the one country of China there are racist attitudes differentiating Han from various minority groups and favoring lighter skin. Who is us and who is them varies by who us is. What gets called a different race and who gets placed in that group is completely a social construct. Differential treatment contingent upon those constructs applications is racism. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/70 "2022-02-08T15:43:29Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > If we take the definition of “racism” as the belief that: > > 1. There exist certain categories of humans > 2. Those categories determine how those people can be treated by other humans I think this is overly broad since, as Dinsdale pointed out, it then a encompasses all forms of bigotry. I think a third requirement would be that membership in this category is believed (by the racists) as being to be passed genetically from parents to children. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/71 "2022-02-08T15:51:17Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I think this is overly broad since, as Dinsdale pointed out, it then a encompasses all forms of bigotry. I think a third requirement would be that membership in this category is believed (by the racists) as being to be passed genetically from parents to children. This is a good point. Even with your third requirement, it looks to me like the caste system of India would qualify. Is that “racially” based? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/72 "2022-02-08T15:52:19Z")
The actual “races” are arbitrary made-up bullshit, as in my example where you can split the population into a race of tall people and a race of short people, or a race of people of whom more than 30% have mutation X, and another which do not. Likewise, I do not imagine for a second that Nazis care who is really really really a Jew or Roma, it’s off to the gas chambers for all of them. (Temporary allies are honorary Aryans, of course.) ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/73 "2022-02-08T16:20:36Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I don’t think this “pocket” definition is sufficient to distinguish racism from sexism, ageism, or even Montague/Capulet -style bad blood. > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I think this is overly broad since, as Dinsdale pointed out, it then a encompasses all forms of bigotry > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > This is a good point. I’ll be quite frank here, I’ve never seen white guys approve of a definition of racism that they didn’t author themselves (and they tend not to be terribly forthcoming in that regard, apart from providing the only MLK quote that they know). So, no surprises here. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/74 "2022-02-08T16:34:04Z")
Wow, that seems a bit of harsh of a response for offering a slight tweak to help to focus your otherwise good definition, particularly in light of this post. > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Then you’re welcome to provide a better one. So what examples of racism are you thinking of that don’t involve the belief that membership in the discriminated group doesn’t pass from parents to children? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/75 "2022-02-08T16:34:27Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I’ll be quite frank here, I’ve never seen white guys approve of a definition of racism that they didn’t author themselves (and they tend not to be terribly forthcoming in that regard, apart from providing the only MLK quote that they know). So, no surprises here. So, we point out that the conditions of your definition are too broad, and would include categories that I think hardly anybody (or any race or skin color) would call “racism,” and your response is “You’re just saying that because you’re white”? ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/76 "2022-02-08T16:45:25Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Goldberg was being too provincial and tone-deaf when she claimed that what the Nazis were doing was somehow different than what racists in America do – she saw it at white-on-white racism, but it was really Aryan on Jewish racism. I saw her on Colbert, and she was tiptoeing around the issue very gingerly, but she mostly seemed to be saying that you can only be a racist if you’re racist against Black people. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/77 "2022-02-08T17:30:30Z")
Which, as we’ve shown here, is ridiculous. It’s not even true in the US – there’s racism against Native Americans and against Asians today, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/78 "2022-02-08T19:44:10Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I’ve never seen white guys approve of a definition of racism that they didn’t author themselves Some “white” people are also targets of racism. Like Asian-Americans and Hispanics. I pass for white with a tan when I stay out of the sun. I’m young - at the boundary of millenials and Gen Y. My dad had to use the colored only pools and my aunts/uncles had to cross state lines to escape miscegenation laws. I don’t think Mom faced any _racism_ in her lifetime, but she did have to put up with antisemitism. (I distinguish between antisemitism and racial antisemitism - not many people speak of a Jewish race in my experience, except when referring to the Hebrews of old, and neo-Nazis.) The only difficulty with defining racism is defining race. Your pocket definition shares the same pitfalls as my dictionary of choice (_American Heritage_). To avoid confusion over whether racism exists despite race not being meaningful within the context of science, _I_ take the approach given by a few other posters here: racism is discrimination based on race; race is _perceived_ membership in a group of people with some level of shared physical traits, culture, and ancestry. Some people will disagree with the ancestry component but I really think it’s necessary, even the critical element. You look at the history of racism and it’s intertwined with lineages and bloodlines and _purity_ of these lineages, almost like a horse or dog breeder speaks about the pedigrees of their stock. If you reduce it to the physical traits it’s for the most part just colorism - discrimination on the basis of skin color, which is only in modern times conflated with discrimination on the basis of race. I don’t know if we have a term for discrimination on the basis of culture alone - like hating redneck culture and discriminating against people who are a part of it. IMHO, as always. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2022, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/79 "2022-02-08T20:11:14Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Which, as we’ve shown here, is ridiculous. It’s not even true in the US – there’s racism against Native Americans and against Asians today, for example. Absolutely. Whoopi looked really lame. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000/80 "2022-02-10T20:09:14Z")
Most modern racists like to use terms like “cultural pathology”. Black people aren’t _intrinsically_ inferior, they just act like that because of the single parents and the rap music and wearing their pants too low. They just need to learn to act properly, like white people, and then everything will be fine. I think this sort of racism is more prevalent these days than the kind that holds minorities to be intrinsically genetically inferior. But this discussion runs the risk of giving racists undeserved credit for having some intellectually coherent belief system. In real life, they’ll smoothly switch between contradictory paradigms depending on the situation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-terms-like-race-and-ethnicity-be-used-meaningfully/959000.md?page=3)