Comment by hotdogscout | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hotdogscout | Hacker News Reader

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The shift in labels and categories applies to all ethnicities, not just whites, even in the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

All of the definitions are contested and subject to localities, not just whiteness.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263722423_Not_black...

>is that "white" isn't an ethnic group with an actual cultural or racial lineage.

None of them are. There's more genetic diversity in sub Saharan Africa than in any other place on earth. People from Asia and people from Africa don't identify as black or asian as a consistent racial lineage.They're also a western ad hoc hodge podge just as much as whiteness is.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people

None of your explanations single out white people as an especially fake identity inconsistent with asian or black.

I'm confused - it seems like every example you give here supports the theoretical conclusion above.

"Black" as used in the editorial above is a very specific usage - replacing "African American" for the critical reasons outlined. The reason this group is unique as an ethnicity w.r.t. recategorization is because the structure and violence of slavery isolated them from historic ethnicities and forcefully regrouped them under a new one. This is why in that Habecker paper, peoples with dark skin and african heritage who were not part of that system try to separate themselves from that identity - that's why it exists!

I'd also argue that "Asian" probably _shouldn't_ be capitalized, and there are some theorists who agree. Really, asian only really exists as an ethnic category because Americans historically (and even now) couldn't really be assed to learn the basic geography of Asia and grouped it all.

It's easy to be confused when you keep changing your definitions when they're not consistent!

"is that "white" isn't an ethnic group with an actual cultural or racial lineage".

"The reason this group is unique as an ethnicity w.r.t. recategorization is because the structure and violence of slavery isolated them from historic ethnicities and forcefully regrouped them under a new one."

Conflicting statements.

According to you white people don't have historic ethnicities but black people also don't because of slavery and that is why they deserve capitalization?

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