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Comment by BrandoElFollito | Hacker News Reader

The difference is that in Europe being part of a "race" had no legal impact. This is a (dumb) classification, that's all.

We do not have positive discrimination that gives privileges to style reeves in the US. And since your race is apparently declarative, I wonder, as a white blue eyed guy, of I could identify as an Afro-American and make use of them?

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> And since your race is apparently declarative, I wonder, as a white blue eyed guy, of I could identify as an Afro-American and make use of them?

I mean, race is a social as well as political construct so... you can try.

I am not sure if "race (human categorization)" [1] is a thing in Europe. At least it's not really a concept for me. I only know "race (biology)" [2], so if you talk about human races, my first reaction will be to say that "there are no human races".

Actually, if a European talks about human races, to me it quickly sounds racist (coming from older people it will just sound colonialist/old school, and a little bit racist, I guess). Whereas it seems like it is a common concept in the US, and not necessarily negative.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization) [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(biology)

It's not declarative. In Hawaii it's decided by a committee, if they decide you're the wrong race your ("homeland") land lease will be rejected. I'm unsure of how it works for property ownership in American Samoa, but it is probably similar. (In Hawaii racism only determines a fraction of the land however, in American Samoa I believe it is most the land).

> style reeves

What does this mean?

Sorry - that was the autocorrect. I do not remember what I wrote but I meant that in Europe we do not have a race classification that allows for formal privileges because you are classified (or self-assessed) as a specific one - something like extra points when getting to a school or something like that

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