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Comment by mindover | Hacker News Reader

I know I am not in a position to complain (I am a “white” European) but I would be furious if I was so often grouped into a completely arbitrary race/ethnicity/skin color/country of birth based group and made assumptions about.

I have never met a single European who would differentiate between a Portuguese and a German based on their skin color. But if that Portuguese person moves to the US they are suddenly a PoC and a victim of white oppression.

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Portuguese don’t count a PoC. Unless their ancestors moved to Brazil—then they count.

Don’t count where? If a person looks like they are from a warmer region and speaks Portuguese - unless they object - they will be classified as a PoC by most people in the US. Maybe the government disagrees but that is relevant only in very few specific situations.

Also, if their parents moved to Brazil in the 1960s they somehow became a PoC? Does the actual ancestry matter or are we just assuming that everyone who is not from Europe is a PoC?

Americans don't consider Portuguese from Portugal to be non-white. Nobody calls Devin Nunes a POC, for example. They consider Brazilians to be people of color even if they are pureblood Portuguese, which is absurd. But that's how it works.

>Does the actual ancestry matter or are we just assuming that everyone who is not from Europe is a PoC?

Somehow the people who successfully colonized latin america get grouped in as marginalized because its too hard to do a color shade test or a blood quantum test.

Race isn't scientific. Even less so when you collapse the whole world into two races. White and not-white.

Amen

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