But really, the end of that sentence is "I can't imagine...living outside of my white privilege." And that imagining is something I need to do.

nods like a bobblehead

Along these lines, I'm a bit nervous to work on the GCS "Goths of color" article. Readers have sent me very cool, helpful advice and suggestions, and I'm still worried that my inherent suburban white girl cluelessness will screw things up. I don't want to do that!

There are black Hispanic people.

Typing on phone--re censusy stuff, and why Hispanics wouldn't just be white.

It can sometimes be hard to swallow, but I prefer to be called on my insensitivity. Just because I don't want to be an insensitive jerkwad doesn't mean I'm not one.

If i've just met somebody, of course i notice color/race, etc. But I have to say I have forgotten color/race, until something comes up. I had a co-worker that was questioned about her right to vote, her ability to speak English , etc. And i had forgotten --really. So i was Astonished, and my response was more along the lines of - Wow that was rude and did you call in a complaint. I am not color blind, but sometimes I do forget

The last time I remember having to fill out forms that identified race was standardized tests, and the options were "White, non-Hispanic," "Black, non-Hispanic," "Hispanic/Latino," and then Asian and Native American and Pacific Islander, but I don't remember exactly how those were worded.

The last time I remember having to fill out forms that identified race was standardized tests

The questions come up all the time on job applications for equal opportunity employment and they're definitely separate there. I seem to recall them being separate on the census but I have no citation there. Given that there are black and white Latinos, I can't see why there would be a conflation, but stupider things have happened.

As somebody who has processed paperwork with racial and ethnic tickyboxes, I will note that the groupings have been fluid over time based on....well, basically advocacy groups that want to be tickyboxed.

You know there's no checkbox usually for Arab/American or Arabic ethnicity. They're just white. And, of course, people from India are lumped in with people from China and Korea. They're all Asian.

And usually Hispanic/Black, and Hispanic/White are separate categories. And nowadays there's usually a multi-racial category, or you can check two boxes.

But for firms that want Federal contracts, they have to meet certain standards for diversity.

And people that want to file class action bias suits need to have some recording of what the trends were in racial hiring and firing to make their case.

I guess what I'm saying is that (a) the groupings are weird historical conglomerations that tend to reveal the constructed nature of race; and (b) there's a tension between people that don't want to be defined by their race and legitimate reasons to track it (like...having a diversity committee that wants to see what the attrition rate is by race and figuring out why the firm doesn't have more black partners, etc.)

Which reminds me of something that confused/irritated me about comments about Gaiman's Anansi Boys--the fact that only the white characters were noted as such was supposed to indicate that the main character was black, I guess because black people don't identify same.

I just unconsciously assumed that the main characters were black because Anansi is an african legend. I don't remember consciously thinking it or noticing the way that white people were described in the book.

When I was in Law School, I was picking up someone from the airport for my best friend. She described her friend to me (brown hair, 5'6"), and described me to her. So, I'm waiting for the friend, finally notice someone who seems to be looking for someone and I ask her if she's Susan. She says yes. As we head out, she says "you know, if would have been helpful if L had told me that you were black".

I don't remember consciously thinking it or noticing the way that white people were described in the book.

Me neither. I decided they were Caribbean, probably Jamaican, but that's as far as I took it. To me Anansi is West Indian and although that carries a statistical chance of being black, I don't always assume it.

Every time Stephen Colbert starts on his, "I don't see color. I know I'm white because people say I am... but I just have to believe them" I come could hurt myself laughing.

I did once have the kinda cool experience after a few years of living in NYC of one day noticing I was the only white person in the subway car. And I reflected on the whitey-white suburban town I'd grown up in and had this, "you've come a long way, baby" feeling. And I chuckled at the thought of various people I'd grown up with who CERTAINLY would have noticed RIGHT AWAY and been QUITE ALARMED (of course, these are people who likely would never have been on a subway car regardless)if they'd been the only white person anywhere.