a race-classification question

[dragonlady7]

in the car this morning dave and i were talking about something and i corrected him when he referred to a race of people as Oriental. I was taught that people are Asian, and only rugs are Oriental, and never to confuse the two. He was indignant and insisted that Oriental referred to Asians of the Far East, and Asian was a general term.
I insisted-- I know you don't call Asians Orientals and that's that. But, I wasn't able to answer his question as to how you should differentiate among Asians without offending anyone.
I don't know the answer.
I'm of the Politically Correct school of thought that insists that you use the correct word for everything, in that I mean one ought to use the word that best describes whatever it is, and one should not needlessly give offense. I don't think we need to neuter language, I just think we need to be careful using it-- there are an awful lot of humans in a small space and we shouldn't offend each other when we don't mean to. Anyhow...
So, here's his question:
"And I'm not totally satisfied with the result of our last conversation,
but I really want to clear this up before I start discussing race with
any Asiatic peoples and they run me out of town. I believe that a race
was a group of people classified primarily by appearance, and usually
referred to by the location where that race is predominant [although
citizenship in that area is not necessary to be classified in that race
.... Sure, Dave Matthews was born and raised in South Africa and later
emigrated to the United States, but that doesn't exactly make him
African-American any more than my packing up and moving to Tokyo would
make me Asian]. But now I'm very confused about the various Asian
races, and how to distinguish them by name in a conversation where such
distinguishment is important.

The race in contention has almond-shaped eyes and yellowish skin, and
is centered around the Far East: Mongolia, China, Japan, North and
South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, &c.

Another race has reddish-brown skin and is centered around the Indian
subcontinent: Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan.

A third has yellowish skin, but not almond-shaped eyes. They are
predominant in the Middle East [with whose member countries we are all
now familiar] and extend to North Africa.

There is a large number of pale-skinned people centered around the
former USSR east of the Ural mountains [Siberia, Kazakhstan,
Uzbekistan, &c.], and extending into Europe.


Each group would be surprised to be lumped in with the others, in any
discussion about them. So what does each group prefer to be called?"

About the only thing I'm sure of is that despite Darius' insistence otherwise, Chinese people don't really actually want to be called "chinks" and one should get out of the habit inspired by him of doing so. (Since he is half-Chinese, he can get away with it. I, however, cannot, and thus must desist.)

So... any suggestions?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"But, I wasn't able to answer his question as to how you should differentiate among Asians without offending anyone."

No big deal. All look same.

-darius

Considering the source

[(Anonymous)]

This, from a Chink who looks like a Messican. (-:

- Z

[eggplantia5.livejournal.com]

you're always going to offend someone no matter how politically correct you try to be. if you want, i'll direct people from asam to answer your question, or you can browse the community- i am sure that question has been brought up before. i don't really keep tabs on it, so i don't know for sure.

i don't really care what i'm called, although it does bug me when people just make assumptions. i like it when people ask rather than just label me something. and, it is weird when someone is a particular race but was born in a different country. it really does depend on the group, i have never met any two people who agreed on any classification.

[catntonic.livejournal.com]

If you want to be politically correct, then use classifications that are objective, not subjective. Breaking down the groups based on skin color and physical attributes is a great way to offend giant lumps. Are italians only italian if they sport a roman nose? Are hairy greeks more real than hairless ones? Are people only of a race if they fit the stereotypes?

Refer to people as they refer to themselves. If in doubt, use a map.

So yes, Dave Matthews is South African because he's from South Africa.

A practical flaw in that argument.

[(Anonymous)]

Consider the statement: 'Black people are at a higher for sickle-cell anemia than the norm.' This is a statement of fact, and it's useful. We don't know why it's true, but it is, verifiably, true. It says that, if you are black, whether you're American, Caribbean, African, European, Australian, &c., you are at a much higher risk for sickle-cell anemia than other people. A person, knowing his lineage, can say with certainty, 'I am at a higher risk for sickle-cell anemia,' and take appropriate action.

Now take the statement 'Asians have a high probability of a low tolerance for alcohol.' This is also a statement of fact, and it is also useful. Once again, we don't know why it's true, but it is. Unfortunately, the term 'Asian' is too broad for the statement to be as useful as it could be. Asians of the Indian subcontinent do not have a lower tolerance for alcohol, and neither do Arabs. However, to say something like 'The following ethnic groups have a have a high probability of a low tolerance for alcohol: Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese' is also less useful than it could be, because it leaves out Laotians, Mongols, Thai, and Cambodians. A person, knowing his lineage, can not deduce with certainty from either of these two statements, whether he or she has an elevated probability of a low tolerance for alcohol. The first statement includes too many people, and the second includes too few.

Perhaps you may say a low tolerance for alcohol is not an important enough issue to make such statements about it. But replace 'low tolerance for alcohol' with 'SARS,' and it's a whole different story. While the SARS epidemic was still rampant and it was disproportionately affecting Asians of Far Eastern lineage [regardless of whether they actually lived in the Far East or, say, Toronto], it could very well have been because of a genetic disposition, and with something as deadly and time-critical as SARS, it's important to say so, so that the people who are at a higher risk know about it and can take appropriate action.


So my question remains: in cases where it's important to differentiate, how do I do so?


- Z

Re: A practical flaw in that argument.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

The problem, of course, with classifying humans is that with classification comes all the ugly things that make me so uncomfortable discussing it in the first place. Genetically-predisposed ailments are just about the only reason to bother classifying by races, but they're so closely linked to other genetically-based uglinesses that it makes the issue very prickly. It's only a small step after all between saying "black people are more predisposed towards sickle-cell anemia" and saying "black people are more predisposed towards teen pregnancy." The differences between those two statements are glaringly obvious to anyone thoughtful and intelligent-- one is medical fact, the other is probably not even true and is based in social factors, not medical ones. But many people are neither thoughtful nor intelligent.
So, any form of taxonomy inevitably gives rise to abuses. Differentiating between males and females is important-- they serve wildly different reproductive roles, and have very different reactions to certain medical and physical procedures. But it's also a very small step between "Women tend not to be as strong as men" and "women tend not to be as smart as men"-- and an even smaller step between "women tend not to be as good at mathematical thinking as men" and "women tend not to be as good at thinking as men"... There are vast differences between each statement in those sets, but the differences are not readily apparent to those unused to thinking that way. Most people don't have the time, energy, or experience in critical thinking to note the differences between those statements and assess WHY they're so different. So, sliding from one to the other is very easy and even intelligent people do it.
So, it's very difficult to amicably discuss differences among large numbers of people. Difference is a difficult concept, and I've taken many seminars on it, and remain unable to address it satisfactorily in many situations. The differences among us as humans make us interesting, but they also make us fight, and make us hurt each other, and thus discussion of them is never easy.
 
It's important to differentiate among ourselves for many reasons. But to draw the lines in actually meaningful places is far too difficult a task for the critical facilities of the average person, in an average situation. For example, you'd assume that if you wanted a big strong person to move heavy things, you'd probably be better off with a man. Well... Not necessarily so. I'm a far better furniture mover than my boyfriend. Why? I'm heavier. I can move things by brute force when necessary.
My boyfriend is stronger than I am, undoubtedly-- his handstrength is far superior and his leverage is better. But, I simply outweigh him by a good fifty pounds. If there's a couch to shove up a flight of stairs, and I can get my body under the short end of the couch, we're much better off if I'm underneath the couch heaving, and he's merely guiding it from the upper end. I know this from experience.
But, if you have a situation, a problem you need to solve, and a limited time to solve it in (and limited attention to give to it), you're far more likely to scan those present and say "you, male, I need you to move a heavy thing" than to give it logical thought and say "she looks stronger than him, and I bet she's good at this"-- and the same applies to many situations. We all make snap judgements like that-- He looks scary so I won't sit next to him on the bus, and you don't think why he looks scary. Perhaps it's just that his clothing is too ragged, or perhaps it's because he's black. You don't have time to think about your prejudices.
 
So. A color-blind world would be much easier if we were all that uniform shade of tan that we're headed towards. It would indeed be refreshing not to have to think about it. But, you know if that day comes there will be other distinctions to make. We *have* to distinguish among each other as we distinguish among everything else in our world. Discrimination is necessary for survival. But to do so properly is prohibitively difficult.