[Niamh]

As an Irish female, I sometimes wonder why the world insists on dividing people into the categories of black, white, Latino, etc. I am Irish and that is the end of it. If I want to ally myself with somebody else it will always be for a reason more important than color. Do others agree? Being “white” is the same as being called, say, “Mary.” It gives you a very weak common bond. The bond of my Irish history and ancestry is more important than the color of my skin, isn’t it?

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Name : Niamh, Age : 18, City : dublin, State : NA, Country : Ireland, 

[Original Poster]

Yes, I agree. Except that, in America, if I told you I was Chinese, most Americans with Irish roots would not care, or even bother to remember. They just know me as ‘oriental.’ I do not like to be labeled by a characteristic either. You also have to understand that in America, you have many types of Americans from different ethnic backgrounds, so you have to develop a way to keep track of the diversity — so ‘Irish-American’ might be good. One problem though: it appears that in the U.S., most of the Caucasian population likes to call themselves ‘Americans’ and all other non-whites by their ethnic backgrounds only. The issues are just not so simple.

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Name : Original Poster, Gender : M, Race : Asian-American, Age : 26, City : Chicago, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : Law Clerk, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Dan27284]

Since you live in Ireland, everyone who meets you can safely assume you are Irish, born and bred. But to use America as an example… the melting pot concept has taken great effect. Most white folks have 30 different nationalities in them, and even tribal or African roots way back in the past. Distinctly ethnic names were ‘Americanized’ once families passed through Ellis Island. The term ‘white’ seems to be the only thing that can establish the mixed up gene pool of fair skinned, light eyed and haired people. Also, the term ‘white’ was created in the heyday of white supremacy/colonialism to seperate European peoples from everyone else. Racism is only a 500 year old concept; before that it was nationalism. Back in the Roman Empire, a man from north central Africa with full Roman citizenship would be considered far superior over a red-haired tribesman from Briton or an Italian slave.

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Name : Dan27284, Gender : M, Race : Hispanic/Latino (may be any race), Religion : Pentecostal Christian, Age : 21, City : L.A. area, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : student/dishwasher, Social class : Lower middle class, 

[Robert]

It is my personal belief that we categorize people as white or black or latino because we are lazy and do not care enough about other people to want to truly know their ancestry. Instead, we just want to be able to categorize them so we think we know how to deal with that person. For example, if I categorize someone as white, I can expect certain behaviors. If I categorize someone as Irish, I don’t know what behaviors to expect, because I do not know about Irish culture or history.

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Name : Robert, Gender : M, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Christian, Age : 24, City : Grain Valley, State : MO, Country : United States, Occupation : Nursing Student, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Middle class, 

[Anonymous23713]

I could not agree more, sometimes, I ask myself why people divide others depending on race, I couldn’t have said it better, race is truly a weak common bond. I have always identified myself as a korean female, not asian female. If I classify myself according to race, I am classifying myself according to the way I look, nothing more, but when one classifies themselves according to nationality, not only are you classifying yourself as far as physical appearances go, but there’s also tradition, beliefs, customs, history, and ancestry, one’s nationality is so much more meaningful than one’s race. I have also noticed that a lot of the Europeans tend to classify themselves according to their ethnicity, whereas the majority of Caucasian Americans and Canadians classify themselves according to their race. Part of the reason why this is the case is probably because Caucasian Americans and Canadians don’t necessarily have a true ethnicity, most of them are a combination of about a dozen things due to intermarrying, such as a combination of German blood, a little bit of Scottish blood, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, whereas most of the europeans tend to have a clearly defined ethnicity, they’re either Austrian, or English, or French, etc. A lot of the Canadians and Americans have in a sense, lost their ethnicity, but a lot of them still maintain their race, that is all they’re left with, so that’s all they’ll use.

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Name : Anonymous23713, Gender : F, Race : Asian, Religion : Christian, City : Vancouver, State : NA, Country : Canada, 

[Ashley]

Of course when people say ‘white’ they mean European and they share cultural similarities more often than those of other farther away ones

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Name : Ashley, Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : White/Caucasian, City : Pasco, State : WA, Country : United States, Social class : Upper middle class, 

[N.A.]

Niamh, I agree with you 100%, and I’m surprised that no one else has brought up the facts you did. Honestly I’ve always thought all the racial categorizations one finds on forms/applications/surveys are absurd. Like the separating of ‘white Latinos’ from ‘non-white Latinos’–is one any worse or any better than the other? Well, it seems that way when they make those categorizations. Perhaps I’m being ignorant, but when you’re Latino, you’re Latino, and that’s that. Then that proves ‘Latino’ shouldn’t even be considered a race (because it’s not). Anyway, in our case, ‘white’ can mean a huge number of things as you know–Italian isn’t the same as Polish, now is it? And that goes for any of the other ‘racial’ categories society attempts to group people into: black, Pacific Islander, Asian, Arab…All of this is a load of crap, and once I’m involved in politics I’ll make it a goal of mine to get rid of all this nonsense. ‘The bond of my Irish history and ancestry is more important than the color of my skin’–you said it all.

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Name : N.A., Gender : F, Sexual Orientation : Straight, Race : Caucasian, Religion : Catholic, Age : 19, City : Macomb, State : IL, Country : United States, Occupation : student, Education level : High School Diploma, Social class : Upper middle class, 

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