{"id":131374,"date":"2016-08-27T21:29:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-27T21:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/27\/the-other-people.html"},"modified":"2016-08-27T21:29:21","modified_gmt":"2016-08-27T21:29:21","slug":"the-other-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/27\/the-other-people.html","title":{"rendered":"The "Other" People"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the one hand, race and ethnicity identifiers are largely nonsensical from an objective standpoint. "Race" is literally a human concept, not something that biologists can actually point at, consisting of a huge variety of traits from a zillion points of human origin and notation and cross-breeding over many thousands of years that usually boil down to people pointing at someone and deciding by consensus that he is "black" or "white" or some other color based on gross physiognomy.<\/p>\n

Things get even screwier with vague ethnicity \/ linguistic groups like "Hispanic" or "Latino," which imply some continuity and commonality of population from Tierra del Fuego to San Diego.<\/p>\n

The problem is, humans do<\/i> draw those identity distinctions, internal from themselves ("I am X") or, just as often, imposed from outside ("You are X"). This often leads to mistreatment and marginalization ("We don't want Xs moving next door. We don't want them electing politicians who promise expensive welfare programs to coddle the Xs. Xs don't vote for our party, so we need to suppress the X vote."). And the result is that tracking race and ethnicity helps both demonstrate that mistreatment and assists in programs and legal action to help mitigate it.<\/p>\n

So then things get even weirder when you start seeing people who consider themselves to have a heritage from more than one of these groups, or who don't think the categories described accurately identify them, and, in growing numbers, begin checking off the box for "Other".<\/p>\n

I mean, on the one and, it's kind of neat to think of an actual post-racial society — but I suspect that in certain quarters race will remain an oppressive measure, only it will be harder to detect from outside because of that categorization issue. (It's also likely that we'll discover that, once "race" stops being considered as important, we'll discover that a lot of it was a proxy for "class," which will be a whole new set of challenges.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, it's worth noting that not only do demographics change over time, but what things we even include in demographics change as well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nMore Americans Are Selecting “Some Other Race” on U.S. Census Forms – The Atlantic<\/a><\/span>
\nAn increasing number of respondents are checking “Some Other Race” on U.S. Census forms, forcing officials to rethink current racial categories.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the one hand, race and ethnicity identifiers are largely nonsensical from an objective standpoint. "Race" is literally a human concept, not something that biologists can actually point at, consisting of a huge variety of traits from a zillion points of human origin and notation and cross-breeding over many thousands of years that usually boil … Continue reading “The "Other" People”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-131374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":50004,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/06\/the-illusory-barriers-of-ethnicity-dance-dance-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":131374,"position":0},"title":"The Illusory Barriers of Ethnicity (Dance Dance Edition)","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Apr-15 12:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Or, how Irish Dance became acceptable for people who aren't Irish.It either gives one hope that the racial\/ethnic divisions of today will eventually give way through familiarity, or despair that they will only give way by some new group becoming the Them that all of Us smooth out our differences\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29034,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/07\/race-origin-and-other-census-labels.html","url_meta":{"origin":131374,"position":1},"title":"Race, Origin, and other census labels","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 7-Aug-12 11:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Census Bureau is in a tough position here:1. People often feel strongly about a particular racial \/ ethnic \/ \"origin\" identity, and resist or resent not being able to choose how they self-identify (and in just the terminology that they prefer).2. Race \/ ethnicity is objectively dodgy at best.3.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/images0-focus-opensocial.googleusercontent.com\/gadgets\/proxy?container=focus&gadget=a&resize_h=100&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pewsocialtrends.org%2Ffiles%2F2012%2F08%2FCensus2010HispanicRace2-252x300.png","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":133120,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/03\/22\/when-is-white-not-white.html","url_meta":{"origin":131374,"position":2},"title":"When is "white" not "white"?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 22-Mar-17 7:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"When it's useful for some purpose for it not to be.Looking at the racial classifications on the US Census over time simply confirms the suggestion that \"race\" is a social construct, consisting of lines that are not only fuzzy but ever-shifting. The article's discussion is about the proposals to break\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3478,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/11\/12\/dont_tread_on_m.html","url_meta":{"origin":131374,"position":3},"title":"Don’t tread on me","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 12-Nov-02 10:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"Folks in the US sometimes take the First Amendment for granted. But, I'll tell you folks, it's that sort of thing that makes it -- well, not impossible, but a...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128499,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/03\/the-future-face-of-america.html","url_meta":{"origin":131374,"position":4},"title":"The Future Face of America","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 3-Nov-15 10:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a year-plus old, but worth a look. It's photos from a National Geographic article looking at \"the face of America\" in 2050. Based on demographic trends in marriage, a large number of those faces are of mixed race \/ ethnicity.I suspect there are a lot of people not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49949,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/28\/inertia-and-the-american-currency.html","url_meta":{"origin":131374,"position":5},"title":"Inertia and the American Currency","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 28-Mar-15 1:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"There seem to be eleventy-zillion reasons not to change who's on any given denomination of money, and they all boil down to two:1. \"Person X currently on the $Z bill is a great American icon and it would be disrespecting him to boot him to the numismatic curb.\"2. \"Person Y\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}