That is an excellent point. The original Greek text uses the word ἔθνεσιν. According to my dictionary the English word “ethnic” is a descendent of the same root word, ἔθνος. I’m not very good with Greek, maybe someone else can provide an independent translation? The passage reads,
A better modern English reading of ἔθνεσιν would be tribe, or people, or even the ambiguous nation, rather than race. The translation of “race” relies on the same older usage that gave us such concepts as “the Irish race” or the “German race”.
The Greek word closer to our modern usage of race would be γένος although there’s considerable overlap in usage and meaning between the two concepts.
Race, as a modern concept, means to me more of skin color, and is rooted in European colonization/slavery. We can enslave these people because they are of a different race. and that Race is beneath our race.
While I appreciate the Ancient Greek lessons, and that race has meant anything from a tribe/to a nationality. I don’t think that is the modern usage.
I might quibble with that. Taking up a musical instrument doesn’t confer ethnicity. I’m sure kswiss’s brother is a great guy and it’s wonderful that he’s interested in his heritage but I would say that being ethnically Scottish requires something more than putting on a kilt and marching around with bagpipes (an activity that approximately 99.99% of Scots will never do). Obviously there’s an ancestry factor here as well but I would tentatively say that if the ancestry by itself isn’t close enough to confer ethnicity, putting on a costume won’t make up the difference.
Again I would say that Brits have a different concept of ethnicity than Americans do. I haven’t heard any Czechs insisting Czech Americans aren’t ethnically Czech. Or any other ethnic /nationality group.
I think I’d quibble with that idea too. It’s a fluid border area between declaring an identity and actually belonging in it. Seems to me it has to include some element of being brought up in, or some extensive lived experience of, the bulk of a culture rather than just adopting the more obvious external symbols (granted, learning the bagpipes is a fairly effortful commitment!).
What complicates it is the extent to which expatriates and their descendants have been assimilated into the culture of the society they’re actually living in - and the extent to which others in that society accept them as such, or on the other hand, “other” them by one or another supposed or actual characteristic.
I’d agree that my brother-in-law is not Scottish, in the sense of his nationality. And the average actual Scottish person leads a different culture and day to day life from my brother-in-law, an American. Maybe they find my brother-in-law kinda of a annoying American tourist walking around in a kilt when nobody really does that. Nor do Scottish people walk around playing bagpipes all day.
I am saying, he connects to his ethnic heritage that way. And that is what I am asking in this thread.
Or perhaps another way of putting it is to ask to what extent it actually matters, either to the person concerned or to anyone else, what [insert label here] they are, as distinct from any other personal characteristics. I get the impression it matters more, or at least we hear more about it, in the US, though I’m not overlooking how often people not obviously white or speaking with an obviously UK accent get asked “Where are you from”.
If your grandmother was Lebanese, and she told how great Lebanon was, cooked great Lebanese food, had certain Lebanese holiday traditions you loved you might like to maintain that in your family… If your family British, and has always been British beyond 1066, I can understand why this might seem odd to you.
In the UK having another ethnic background makes you different, whereas in the US it’s pretty much a shared experience that everyone can relate to, even though there’s a big variety of backgrounds. That’s probably why it’s heard about a lot more over there.
As for other ethnic/nationality groups, t’s not hard to find, for example, Irish people who don’t regard Irish-Americans as Irish.
But this gets into the question of how ethnicity is conferred. If for example, 95% of Scots wouldn’t regard an American with one Scottish grandparent and a pipe band membership as Scottish, but the American is sure he is, who’s right? I think it’s fair that people can make a claim to ethnicity but that claim has to be accepted by some proportion of others making the same claim before it means anything.
I can’t find it now but in one of the old Independence Referendum threads there was a linked articled by a black writer who recounted that while he was initially treated as very much an outsider when he moved to his small Scottish village he’s now more accepted than white English newcomers because he’s got all the idioms, cultural references, shared experience etc. that makes him Scottish in his neighbours’ eyes while the people who look like the rest of the locals don’t. I think it’s this agglomeration of deep knowledge and visible behaviours that confers membership of an ethnicity more than simple ancestry.
This contradicts what I have been told, all citizens of the United Kingdom consider themselves to be be “British”. Yet your post identified “Black” “Scottish” and “English” people.
My grandmother was Irish, and she told me how great Ireland was, cooked the great food, told me the tales, read me the poets, sang me the songs… I’ve got a deeper understanding and appreciation of Irish culture than I otherwise would, and I treasure those memories, but I don’t consider myself Irish and neither would anyone from Ireland.
I’m an American. That is my nationality. I have always lived in the States.
My ethnicity is African American. I am descended from American-born slaves and raised in the American subculture practiced by other descendants of American-born slaves.
My race is black, since I have recent subsaharan African ancestry and where I live (the US), that is sufficient to be categorized as black.
It’s not a contradiction. Being British doesn’t exclude or overwrite other identities. One can be British and English,or British and Scottish, all at the same time - and indeed, British and Scottish and black, or British and English and Asian. Remember that Britain does not in fact go back to 1066 - Great Britain is made up of England, Wales and Scotland - pre-existing entities that came together to make up a larger one. (It’s certainly an exaggeration to say that everyone with UK citizenship regards themselves as British - there are certainly citizens in Northern Ireland who don’t, and you can find quite a few Scots and Welsh who will say the same).
I thought your argument was that ethnicity was a matter of having a relative who passed on stories and recipes and traditions, and then choosing to carry those into your own life?
Race is forever. It’s genetic. Ethnicity can be lost over time as people become more and more integrated into the main stream of society.
My Italian ancestors are an excellent example. For the first half of the 20th century, Italians had their own sub-culture. Now, unless you just moved here from Italy, that is not the case. I am a full-blooded Italian on both sides. My ancestors came into the country via Ellis Island, settled in Brooklyn, and had their own culture, but I’m just a mainstream American by comparison.
I want to visit my land of origin, but I’ll just be another tourist who needs a translator.
Race is not forever. Back in the days of my parents’ youth, the idea that you could identify yourself racially however you want to was completely ludicrous. But that notion isn’t ludicrous today. And race isn’t genetic…unless you think people are classified based on DNA results. I have nieces who are 30% west African ancestry and 70% northern European. Are they black? Or are they white? Can you infer what they look like based on this information?
Only white Americans are allowed to let go of their ethnic label and just be “American.” When people of color cease to be interogated about their origins and are no longer told to “go back to where you come from”, maybe that will happen for them too. But at this point in time, it makes sense for them to hold onto an ethnic label. When you are perceived to be “ethnic” by others, then you will naturally perceive yourself to belong to an ethnic group. This happens regardless of how assimilated you are to mainstream society.
If your family British, and has always been British beyond 1066, I can understand why this might seem odd to you.<<
It doesn’t seem at all odd to me, any more than it would with the British expatriates who hang on to various British customs and traditions. What seems odd about it is to insist on making a public label of it as though it should matter to everyone else.
In both our countries, people can have dual or multiple such identities; what seems to me to be the difference is that people in America seem more keen on trying to define and categorise themselves in such terms, in a way that we don’t (outside the particular socio-political tensions in Northern Ireland).