Is it racist? I think it is.
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This is my ethnicity:
But I consider my race to be White -- not German, English, or Scottish.
I assume it's because I've grown up in the U.S. and have learned to base my race off of that.
But yes, I do realize that other parts of the world identify more so off of nationality and ethnicity than by race.
I think that it's important to clarify that what you identify as and race are not the same things.
I can identify by nationality, ethnicity, or race. They are not same things.
You may identify by your ethnicity (Scottish for example), but your race may be White. (as an example, I don't know you)
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@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
No, no semi-competent technical person could ever use geo blocking for that reason.
So what is the website in question here? I want to know who is being a racist.
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
I don't know you personally, but I'd assume that I would say you are one of the 7-ish major races. None of which are Swiss, Dutch, or Scottish.
I agree that most people see a few racial top level categories. I don't agree that racism doens't exist between those categories. If you try to do that you dismiss the idea, for example, that Arabs could be anti-Jewish or that Jews could be anti-Arab at a racial level since they are the same "race" both top level and sub level group. Yet clearly, the world sees them as racially different.
The world has always seen Europe alone as having about seven major races... Celtic, German, Slavic, Hellenic, Latin, Iberian, and Magyar plus the tiny race that is in Finland, Estonia and the Basque country.
When we were kids the world was like "four major races". But who is in which one keeps changing and everyone has different opinions. But essentially everyone considered like Irish and Polish to be two different races (and they are in every meaningful way) and groups that have recently all been labeled as white have had millennia of racism between them.
You can't just wash away the responsibility that companies or people have for being racist by attempting to wipe away the human concepts of racism. You and I can have nice, logical discussions as to whether races are real, imaginary, useful, etc. BUt what matters for racism to exist is for people to perceive and detect a race to which they belong and races of other people. Race is a perception. So for most people, "other people" are another race even if they are genetically the same. Meaning, the average American knows no more about the average Canadian or the average Afghani or the average Somali and may easily equally see all as "not American" because they have racism from afar.
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
No, no semi-competent technical person could ever use geo blocking for that reason.
So what is the website in question here? I want to know who is being a racist.
How does that change the issue. The website doesn't matter. It's only an example.
I agree with Scott.
None of the reasons you listed would be for legal reasons and certainly not for Best Practices. None of them justify GeoBlocking.
Sure you can say it's a policy. But what is that policy based on?
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
But I consider my race to be White -- not German, English, or Scottish.
I assume it's because I've grown up in the U.S. and have learned to base my race off of that.
Right. You grew up in a German dominated country and are mostly German (Scottish is celtic, all the rest are Germans) that reclassified German as white about 80 years ago and has tried to make a point of making their white population unified (mostly, we suspect, as a means of banding together to retain a majority of more closely associated races as other races are more racial "distant.") That's a standard cultural trend over time.
If you lived in those individual countries, you'd see things probably a bit differently. But I also grew up in America and my background is shockingly close. however, I grew up one generation outside of a Swiss enclave and my family definitely didn't see ourselves as any closer to British as to Hispanic. Both were "other races". Not in a negative way, just "not Swiss". I grew up as Swiss German (not Swiss French as many are) with some Dutch and Scottish as "seasoning."
Both approaches exist commonly in the US. You get loads of people who see themselves as "American." But my wife's family is Italian and they'd never say American, they are absolutely Italian in every sense. Even though some of her family has been here since the Mayflower.
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
I think that it's important to clarify that what you identify as and race are not the same things.
I can identify by nationality, ethnicity, or race. They are not same things.
You may identify by your ethnicity (Scottish for example), but your race may be White. (as an example, I don't know you)
Nationality is wholly different.
My nationality is American. That's clear cut. Your passport tells you this. It says nothing about you as a person. It's a legal thing.
Race is based on your DNA. It's who you are that no one can control. My race is predominantly, by no small margin, Swiss German. You can identify that by DNA. The chart you showed from 23 & Me or Ancenstry or whatever, is your racial information and nothing but racial. It can't determine anything else.
Ethnicity is your upbringing and culture. So for example, I was raised in a heavily Dutch influences, Swiss household. So my ethnicity is more heavily skewed towards Dutch than my DNA would suggest. But my ethnicity is also Swiss and Dutch.
Your race can never be changed. Your ethnicity is influenced by your life. So if I had been adopted by a family in Bogota and I was raised there as a local. My ethnicity would be Colombian. but my race would always be Swiss.
My kids are Swiss Italian by race. But heavily hispanic by ethnicity. Not fully, but partially whereas I am not.
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You may identify by your ethnicity (Scottish for example), but your race may be White.
Most people identify by their race, not their ethnicity. Or some combination. For example by race my wife is Italian and Irish. But by ethnicity she is just Italian.
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A great example of intra-racial racism is in common slurs. For example...
In Quebec, to be someone stupid is to be a newfie. Newfie is a racial slur against the slightly different racial group from Newfoundland. But it's been a slur so long, many people don't realize that that is what they are saying.
Or you might use the term vandal or vandalize. A racial slur against some Germans. But it is mostly used by other Germans. It's used by northern Germans as a slur against ones from the south. But as racial groups, they are separated by many thousands of years.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
Arabs could be anti-Jewish
That would be religious / cultural (ethno-religious?) discrimination or prejudice.
@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
Jews could be anti-Arab
That would be language / cultural discrimination or prejudice.
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Race is a categorization based on shared physical traits. (black, white, asian, indigenous)
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Which of those you use to identify with is your choice. But are all different things.
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Which of those you use to identify with is your choice. But are all different things.
So what race is someone who is mixed?
They get to choose... How does that even work?
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@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Which of those you use to identify with is your choice. But are all different things.
So what race is someone who is mixed?
They get to choose... How does that even work?
Example?
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Which of those you use to identify with is your choice. But are all different things.
So what race is someone who is mixed?
They get to choose... How does that even work?
Example?
Someone who is white and black. They almost always choose black. Why? How do they even have a choice?
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
That would be religious / cultural (ethno-religious?) discrimination or prejudice.
It's also a race. MANY Jews are not culturally or religiously homogenous.
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
Jews could be anti-ArabThat would be language / cultural discrimination or prejudice.
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Race is a categorization based on shared physical traits. (black, white, asian, indigenous)
Exactly. Jew and Arab differ only on DNA, not on anything else. I think you are thinking of Judaism and Islam. Those are not traits of the DNA.
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@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Which of those you use to identify with is your choice. But are all different things.
Yes, but I'm only using DNA.
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@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Which of those you use to identify with is your choice. But are all different things.
So what race is someone who is mixed?
They get to choose... How does that even work?
Example?
Someone who is white and black. They almost always choose black. Why? How do they even have a choice?
They don't, when you "choose" you are choosing your ethnicity.
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@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@CCWTech said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Which of those you use to identify with is your choice. But are all different things.
So what race is someone who is mixed?
They get to choose... How does that even work?
Example?
Someone who is white and black. They almost always choose black. Why? How do they even have a choice?
I don't know how to explain it well without sounding racist myself, but they are all just objective truths, so take it how you want. It's more-so about the physical appearance than anything.
For example, if someone is White and Asian, then of course they will likely have the physical appearances of both White and Asian. They might say White, they might say Asian. They might say they are White & Asian. Depending on the country this person is in or from, they may say they are Asian-American.
Same with your example regarding White and Black.
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@scottalanmiller said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
@Obsolesce said in Is it racist? I think it is.:
You are mistaking ancestry, ethnicity, culture, religion, nationality, and linguistic group with race.
Which of those you use to identify with is your choice. But are all different things.
Yes, but I'm only using DNA.
Ancestry is what DNA most closely matches.
Race is more rooted in societal perceptions and classifications rather than strict genetic distinctions.
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There is one example.
