Is skin colour the only factor which influences and affects a person's ethnicity?

 

My point is that skin color has little to do with ethnicity, but other people don't see it that way.

 

Well, learn something new every day. I've never bothered to look up the definition of ethnicity before, I always assumed that it was the proper term for race, which would be the slang form. I suppose that sort of speaks volumes about the way it's normally used if I could get this far in life thinking the words were synonyms, when they have nothing to do with each other. I suppose that leads into a question I have now, which is, is there another word for race (that isn't breed), or is that actually the proper term? It just seems like a concept that should have a word all of it's own, and the closest I can think of are breed (which implies a human hand in it's creation, and will also get you lynched if you use it that way), and stock, which also has multiple meanings. If not, seems like English should be getting out there and stealing someone else's word for it.

 

I think the concept of race was started with a perversion of Darwinist ideas, that some populations of humanity had further evolved than others ("civilized" vs "savages", "Caucasoid" vs "Mongoloid", European vs everything else). Race primarily recognizes physical differences, like skin color.

Ethnicity encompasses smaller groups and is a social construct, for instance Irish vs English.

http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethnicity_vs_Race

For understandable reasons.

Not really. I don't feel the need to be diverse from anyone else. I'm happy with who I was born as. I see no point in trying to cling to some roots that I might pull out of the bag now and again. People like this are two-a-penny yet hardly any that I know with their own backgrounds (italian and irish heritage) ever go visit their motherlands or celebrate it in any way with the exception of St Paddies day in which everyone in the world does except me.

 

For understandable reasons.

Not really. I don't feel the need to be diverse from anyone else [...]

Strangely enough, people don't actually define themselves under two nationalities just to annoy people like you. For the exceptional few, which there will always be, but should not be confused as representative in any way, they're idiots.

 

However, we're not really talking about pub banter designed to make us seem more quirky and interesting, are we? If we are, then why does it bother you so much in the first place--it's insignificant. We're talking babies born in Britain to Indian mothers whose extended family live half away around the world. If you're going to deny that baby the right to choose to call itself (at least partly) Indian when it grows up, you're a cretin and you haven't got your head in the real world.

 

It's a total farce to insist that baby accepts the same nationalist identity as a kid born in suburban Cheshire to two white, middle-class English parents, unless they've chosen to do so.

 

For understandable reasons.

Not really. I don't feel the need to be diverse from anyone else. I'm happy with who I was born as. I see no point in trying to cling to some roots that I might pull out of the bag now and again. People like this are two-a-penny yet hardly any that I know with their own backgrounds (italian and irish heritage) ever go visit their motherlands or celebrate it in any way with the exception of St Paddies day in which everyone in the world does except me.

 

That's all fine and dandy for you, but I like to cling to my roots. I don't like all of my history, but I love learning about my ancestors from Africa to the United States. Does that make me a bad person?

Not to mention that many people do actually practice their culture regularly

 

 

For understandable reasons.

Not really. I don't feel the need to be diverse from anyone else [...]

Strangely enough, people don't actually define themselves under two nationalities just to annoy people like you. For the exceptional few, which there will always be, but should not be confused as representative in any way, they're idiots.

 

However, we're not really talking about pub banter designed to make us seem more quirky and interesting, are we? If we are, then why does it bother you so much in the first place--it's insignificant. We're talking babies born in Britain to Indian mothers whose extended family live half away around the world. If you're going to deny that baby the right to choose to call itself (at least partly) Indian when it grows up, you're a cretin and you haven't got your head in the real world.

 

It's a total farce to insist that baby accepts the same nationalist identity as a kid born in suburban Cheshire to two white, middle-class English parents, unless they've chosen to do so.

 

Interesting as the people I’ve found most likely to actually celebrate their origins and actually visit their motherland tend to be Indian and Chinese in my experience. They don’t tend to shout about it, as per these forums or as part of general conversations, they just get on with it.

 

I have not denied it is anyone’s right to do so, nor have I said ‘That really gets on my nerves’. I’m making observations based on personal experience. Being somewhat older gives me a lot of life experience as well as my job where I meet a lot of people. I think having a lot of life experience and meeting people kinda trumps your daft accusations that I’m denying people some sort of multi-identity. I think that's more real world than you can accuse me of.

 

The fact is that for many people I meet it claiming to be ‘multi-national’ means very little to them except to throw into the conversation at the right time. It’s just something that some people pay lip-service to with no clue about their history, no involvement with the culture etc. It's about people making themselves out to be things that they really aren't. I appreciate you don't like it but I'm just giving my own opinion. I would however resist on the name calling as you'd think I touched a raw nerve with my viewpoint.

 

 

 

 

 

That's all fine and dandy for you, but I like to cling to my roots. I don't like all of my history, but I love learning about my ancestors from Africa to the United States. Does that make me a bad person?

 

Does it make you a good person?

It felt like you were attacking those who choose to define themselves as African-American, or anything of the sort. That's what bothered me, which seemed a bit unfair. But having read above you were just talking about those who mention being African-American or whatever without any care to their past. That was my only issue.

:wall: What the hell is wrong with people?

Sums this and a lot of things up.