[ganeshkrishnan]

Neither is "White". An Australian is completely 180 opposite of Canadian in almost everything and there is almost nothing common except monarchy and English language.

Are Amish white? People from Turkey? Sicilians? Argentinians?

I find the whole concept of "race" perplexing and catering to the lowest common denominator.

[xyzzyz]

You could make the same point about the actual color “white”. You can point to various items of different colors and ask “is this thing actually white?”. You’ll have some people agreeing on most of these things, and disagree on some of these things. Would it make the whole concept of “color” meaningless and useless? Hardly.

[wruza]

You couldn’t, there’s no such contrast in any corner of colorspace to fit gp’s comment into.

[liontwist]

If two people were asked to identify the white or Asian people in a room, how likely do you think their answers would differ?

[Aunche]

You may be surprised to learn that "white" encompasses everyone from Persians to North Africans.

[cooper_ganglia]

You may be surprised to learn that it absolutely does not!

[gretch]

If you had some people that were from India, some from Japan, some Siberian Russia, then actually I could see the answers being significantly different

[ganeshkrishnan]

You are missing my point: Asians - vietnamese, chinese, japanese, naga indians, have very little in common from educational/ecnonomical/social point of view.

Same with "whites" (whatever the definition is and for the life of me I just dont understand). An Australian moving to Canada has a culture shock that is inversely similar to a Japanese going to Paris.

Americans are weirdly still clinging on to the race concept

[liontwist]

All that’s true, but you can still identify them trivially. There are common physical traits that form a family resemblance.

> Americans are clinging

Yeah, I’m not buying that race is a uniquely American construction. It’s probably the place where discussing race has the least social tolerance.

[wruza]

There are common physical traits that form a family resemblance.

There’s also skull shape and nose length. But what’s the point of binning by these traits? US usual racial division is nonsensical (and I’d say offensive if I was american) and no one dares to question it. You literally blow the question of genetical origin to 100x size compared to the rest of the world. And yet don’t even do it in a way that could make sense instead of being a phenomenon similar to racism but by ignorance and meaningless overgrouping. And then avoid talking about it cause it’s a taboo. It is uniquely American.

[ganeshkrishnan]

>It’s probably the place where discussing race has the least social tolerance.

No. the rest of the world doesnt discuss it because it makes the least sense. I gave you examples above. It doesnt make sense to put an Aussie and Canuck in same bracket, neither does it make sense to put a Thai and Japanese in same bracket for whatever data point you want.

Even within India a sikh has nothing in common with naga has nothing in common with Tamils.

Race is an absurd abstract. Why not hair color? or eye color? or eye shape?

[liontwist]

Hair color, eye shape, eye color, are all noticeable traits that contribute to the family resemblance of ethnic groups. What are you suggesting?

> It doesnt make sense to put an Aussie and Canuck in same bracket,

Of course it does? If you’re talking about their common ancestors groups.

[fuzztester]

Yes, indeed. Why not phrenology next, that absurd Victorian pseudo-science.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

[liontwist]

Notice that a charged label on a Wikipedia page is enough for you, a skeptical person, to make an absolute conclusion.

And that’s true for most people which is why editors fight so hard to control it.

If it’s so obviously false, can you share the landmark study or experiment that disproved it?

[fuzztester]

From the above Wikipedia page:

Phrenology is a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits.[1][2]

[fuzztester]

>All that’s true, but you can still identify them trivially. There are common physical traits that form a family resemblance.

That's exactly what I implied by my above comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42383753 ), which means the same as this part of yours: (i.e. you can still identify them trivially. There are common physical traits that form a family resemblance.).

But mine was referring to the differences between Indians on the one hand, and East Asians (and some others) on the other hand.

Here, the ”East Asians” includes Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and Koreans, among others, and the "some others" also includes Tibetans, Nepalese, Bhutanese and Sikkimese, and Burmese, and people of the North Eastern states of India, such as Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, and Tripura.

All of these above people can easily be distinguished from (the rest of) Indians by their narrow eyes.

I don't know what is so difficult to understand about this. Nor is it discriminatory. It is simply stating obvious facts, that anyone can visually ascertain for themselves.

It is the people who behave in a discriminatory way towards anyone, based on where they come from, or their ethnicity, who are the real racists, not those who talk in an innocuous way about distinguishing visual characteristics of various categories of people.

>Yeah, I’m not buying that race is a uniquely American construction. It’s probably the place where discussing race has the least social tolerance.

(

>American

Say the word right, dude. USian, not American. :)

)

Discussing race may have the least social tolerance in USA (or not), but when it comes to actual behaviour, i.e. racism?

See:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_the_United_States

What a huge amount of racism there is there, from the origin of the country until today. George Floyd, anyone (as just one example, as late as 2020)?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Floyd

And I do not mean to single out the USA. There is plenty of racism in Europe and Asia too. I have myself experienced it in both places, and have heard of plenty of anecdotes about it from people whom I trust.

[mutatio]

There's probably high genetic kinship (Britain) for Canada and Australia amongst 'white' people, the US too has a large body of genetic kinship with Britain, it's definitely not your 180.0.