This is a confused list since Middle Easterners aren’t just Asian, see North Africa and they are also also “Caucasians” as the word is used. And while Micronesia does fit into Asia, I don’t quite see Polynesia making sense. Change it to this:
Asian (East Asian)
Asian (Indian subcontinent)
Middle Eastern
Pacific Islander
Black/Sub-Saharan African
Native American
White/European
Other or Prefer not to answer
Arguably Pacific Islander and Native American are categories that are almost certain to have only a few people answer positively and are pretty small in global demographic terms. Folding them under “Other” makes sense. My list:
I agree with either of those, though I prefer slashes over parens. “Sub-Saharan African (Black)” sounds like something that would not apply to folks from other places, like African Americans.
Asian Americans aren’t “Asian” either, I was going for consistency. Sub-Saharan African is pretty unwieldy, making it African (Black) would match the Asian designations in how specific it is and be much more elegant.
But the geographic meaning being primary does kind of cause problems. So slash is probably better.
I’d split “Other” and “Prefer not to answer” apart, and make the former a write-in answer (especially if you don’t list native Americans and Pacific Islanders separately). Also, I’d add “descent” immediately before the parentheses (e.g. “European descent (White)”) to address thomblake’s point. Apart from that, I think this is the best proposed version for this question I’ve seen so far.
Where exactly are you drawing the border between the Middle East and Europe? How does Turkey count? What about the Caucuses, and the Asian parts of the former USSR more generally?
There isn’t a clear line. Indeed looking at it from a population perspective there really shouldn’t be a line since genetically Europeans and Middle Easterners are the same cluster and anthropologically they are both Caucasoid. I mean sure there are distinct subtypes but if you focus on those you have to split up Europeans too if you want to be consistent.
I don’t expect people to be familiar with 20th century physical anthropology or recent genetic studies though. Due to various cultural and political issues I expect at least some Middle Easterners would object to picking white/caucasian and many Europeans or North Americans would be surprised to know they are in the same category.
Generally I expect Turks and people from the Caucasus to pick white. The Asian parts of the former USSR really depends on who the person in question is, I’d expect them to pick White, East Asian or Other (as in mixed), not so much Middle Eastern. I’d expect at least a few Libyans or Yemenites picking “white” if there wasn’t a Middle Eastern category, but quite a few would probably pick “other”.
We could make a category to include both European and Middle Eastern since the cultural differences between them are captured by the religious & national background.
This is a confused list since Middle Easterners aren’t just Asian, see North Africa and they are also also “Caucasians” as the word is used. And while Micronesia does fit into Asia, I don’t quite see Polynesia making sense. Change it to this:
Asian (East Asian)
Asian (Indian subcontinent)
Middle Eastern
Pacific Islander
Black/Sub-Saharan African
Native American
White/European
Other or Prefer not to answer
Arguably Pacific Islander and Native American are categories that are almost certain to have only a few people answer positively and are pretty small in global demographic terms. Folding them under “Other” makes sense. My list:
Asian (East Asia)
Asian (Indian subcontinent)
Middle Eastern
European (White)
Sub-Saharan African (Black)
Other or Prefer not to answer
I agree with either of those, though I prefer slashes over parens. “Sub-Saharan African (Black)” sounds like something that would not apply to folks from other places, like African Americans.
Asian Americans aren’t “Asian” either, I was going for consistency. Sub-Saharan African is pretty unwieldy, making it African (Black) would match the Asian designations in how specific it is and be much more elegant.
But the geographic meaning being primary does kind of cause problems. So slash is probably better.
I’d split “Other” and “Prefer not to answer” apart, and make the former a write-in answer (especially if you don’t list native Americans and Pacific Islanders separately). Also, I’d add “descent” immediately before the parentheses (e.g. “European descent (White)”) to address thomblake’s point. Apart from that, I think this is the best proposed version for this question I’ve seen so far.
Where exactly are you drawing the border between the Middle East and Europe? How does Turkey count? What about the Caucuses, and the Asian parts of the former USSR more generally?
There isn’t a clear line. Indeed looking at it from a population perspective there really shouldn’t be a line since genetically Europeans and Middle Easterners are the same cluster and anthropologically they are both Caucasoid. I mean sure there are distinct subtypes but if you focus on those you have to split up Europeans too if you want to be consistent.
I don’t expect people to be familiar with 20th century physical anthropology or recent genetic studies though. Due to various cultural and political issues I expect at least some Middle Easterners would object to picking white/caucasian and many Europeans or North Americans would be surprised to know they are in the same category.
Generally I expect Turks and people from the Caucasus to pick white. The Asian parts of the former USSR really depends on who the person in question is, I’d expect them to pick White, East Asian or Other (as in mixed), not so much Middle Eastern. I’d expect at least a few Libyans or Yemenites picking “white” if there wasn’t a Middle Eastern category, but quite a few would probably pick “other”.
We could make a category to include both European and Middle Eastern since the cultural differences between them are captured by the religious & national background.
Well, what about Siberia, for that matter? ;-)
Siberia is an Asian part of the former USSR.
Errr… Yeah.