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.

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.

I'm the only white person in my house right now AIFG!

Me too!

Catching up after a long day--msbelle, I am so sorry for the hassles. I hope you can get something worked out, and soon.

I'm the only white person in my house right now AIFG!

I guess I am too.

Well, once we have a ruling on that whole Hispanic thing.

I soak in white privilege every day.

And I was part of the minority in my high school (which was mostly Pacific Islander and black). To this day, I am uncomfortable in any homogeneous setting. It's one of the reasons I moved to Oakland, actually, from the Peninsula. I don't just notice colors, I want them all around me! I crave all kinds of peeps, from all walks of life and all ancestry because I am a selfish bitch who knows they make my life richer for being in it.

To this day, I am uncomfortable in any homogeneous setting.

Java is me. Going to college in the midwest after growing up in DC was a huge culture shock. I'd never been around so many white people in my life. (And even weirder was being around so many white Christians. The only mostly-monochrome situation I was ever in as a kid was synagogue, so I was pretty much completely unprepared for Middle America Suburbia.)