It depends on how much they’ve thought about it. For instance, consider the “white race”. A neo-Nazi on Stormfront would likely say that “white” refers only to people of 100% European ancestry, excluding Jews. On the other extreme, some people use it interchangeably with “Caucasian”, which, according to its dictionary definition, refers to people of European, North African, Middle Eastern, or Indian ancestry.
Maybe the problem is with terminology. Let’s taboo “race” and talk about “gene pools” or “genetic clusters”. Will you still say that these are not useful concepts?
I never said race wasn’t a useful concept. I specifically said in my earlier post:
.
I’m not saying that “heap” and “race” are not useful terms. They do correlate with actual differences,
I think my initial post that started this discussion may have been a source of misunderstanding. When I called race a social construct, I wasn’t trying to say that race is a useless concept, but instead indicate that it could be useful as a cultural/identity concept. Initially when I talked about “mixed race” and “Hispanic” not technically being races, I was defining race according to the mainstream definition that treats race as a genetically distinct group of people, since that is my default. However, during the part where I talked about how Hispanics are often treated as if they were a race, I was undergoing a shift toward thinking about race as a cultural identity regardless of genetics, which then led me to the statement that race is a social construct. I meant it in a similar way to what people mean when they say that gender is a social construct. When people say that, they’re not implying that gender is a useless concept, but that it is a personal subjective choice of identity. Significantly, I then spent the rest of my post talking about race as a personal choice of identity.
The idea that gender is a social construct is a pretty uncontroversial one, as far as I can tell. People seem to be somewhat less likely to say the same thing about race though, probably because “race” as a cultural term doesn’t have a satisfactory parallel term to refer to biology the way “gender” has “sex”. It didn’t matter for me in practice though. I thought of race as a social construct regardless of whether it was approached from a biological or cultural perspective, which is why I didn’t feel a need to distinguish between the two in my statement. However, subsequent comments drawing attention to its biological validity (e.g. would doctors agree?) pushed me to address my point underlying my passive implication that the biological aspect is also a social construct, which then skews the discussion in a way that buries much of my original meaning. The social construction of race as a biological concept is not itself adequate to explain why I would support including non-genetic race answers to a race question, but the social construction of race as a subjective personal identity is.
Earlier I was wondering why my comments were getting downvoted. What could possibly be so controversial about the idea that human genetic variation is a continuum, or that linguistic terms are socially constructed? Now I can see that if these are interpreted as if they are supposed to be arguments in support of including non-genetic answers to a race question or a lack of average differences between races, they might seem like bad arguments, but I wasn’t intending them to support those premises, and I didn’t think that people would think I was intending them to.
However, during the part where I talked about how Hispanics are often treated as if they were a race, I was undergoing a shift toward thinking about race as a cultural identity regardless of genetics, which then led me to the statement that race is a social construct.
Part of the reason is that if you restrict to the population of the United States they are (more-or-less) a separate genetic cluster. (Yes, that cluster doen’t perfectly correspond to the official definition of Hispanic but a better term doesn’t exist).
The idea that gender is a social construct is a pretty uncontroversial one, as far as I can tell.
Only because anyone who dares to point out the obvious truth that it isn’t gets called a “sexist transphobe” and unfit for polite society.
Part of the reason is that if you restrict to the population of the United States they are (more-or-less) a separate genetic cluster
Well, I wasn’t restricting to the population of the United States. Anyway, race is still a socially constructed identity. This is apparent with mixed-race people who often identify with one race more than another based on how they were raised, how they look, how other people identify them, and whether they act more like a stereotypical member of one of their races than another. The race they identify most with might not be the one that makes up the largest proportion in their ancestry.
Only because anyone who dares to point out the obvious truth that it isn’t gets called a “sexist transphobe” and unfit for polite society.
My understanding is that gender is specifically used to refer to the socially constructed identities. Biological sex differences get lumped under sex rather than gender, which is why people can believe in the social construct of gender while also believing that biology contributes in some degree to stereotypical gender roles. I’m not an expert on gender though, so I should probably leave it to someone else to debate you on this point.
Part of the reason is that if you restrict to the population of the United States they are (more-or-less) a separate genetic cluster
Well, I wasn’t restricting to the population of the United States.
Is the term “Hispanic” even used outside the US and places imitating the US?
My understanding is that gender is specifically used to refer to the socially constructed identities.
That’s the claim made by “gender theorists”. In practice it’s used to refer to any sex differences they can claim to be socially constructed without seeming completely ridiculous. Nearly all of said differences are almost certainly largely biological.
Is the term “Hispanic” even used outside the US and places imitating the US?
It’s used on the Survey (which is how this discussion ever sprang up in the first place) even though non-Americans also take it. (What will Spaniards pick? I’m gonna go check what they did last year… EDIT: three picked “White (non-Hispanic)”, one picked “White (Hispanic)” and one picked “Other”, so they mostly went by the de facto definition rather than the official one.)
(IIRC I once classified myself as “Latin” on some kind of survey because I assumed it referred to anyone with Romance-speaking ancestry.)
So, let me repeat. Are you sure doctors (of the medical kind) agree?
It depends on how much they’ve thought about it. For instance, consider the “white race”. A neo-Nazi on Stormfront would likely say that “white” refers only to people of 100% European ancestry, excluding Jews. On the other extreme, some people use it interchangeably with “Caucasian”, which, according to its dictionary definition, refers to people of European, North African, Middle Eastern, or Indian ancestry.
Maybe the problem is with terminology. Let’s taboo “race” and talk about “gene pools” or “genetic clusters”. Will you still say that these are not useful concepts?
I never said race wasn’t a useful concept. I specifically said in my earlier post: .
I think my initial post that started this discussion may have been a source of misunderstanding. When I called race a social construct, I wasn’t trying to say that race is a useless concept, but instead indicate that it could be useful as a cultural/identity concept. Initially when I talked about “mixed race” and “Hispanic” not technically being races, I was defining race according to the mainstream definition that treats race as a genetically distinct group of people, since that is my default. However, during the part where I talked about how Hispanics are often treated as if they were a race, I was undergoing a shift toward thinking about race as a cultural identity regardless of genetics, which then led me to the statement that race is a social construct. I meant it in a similar way to what people mean when they say that gender is a social construct. When people say that, they’re not implying that gender is a useless concept, but that it is a personal subjective choice of identity. Significantly, I then spent the rest of my post talking about race as a personal choice of identity.
The idea that gender is a social construct is a pretty uncontroversial one, as far as I can tell. People seem to be somewhat less likely to say the same thing about race though, probably because “race” as a cultural term doesn’t have a satisfactory parallel term to refer to biology the way “gender” has “sex”. It didn’t matter for me in practice though. I thought of race as a social construct regardless of whether it was approached from a biological or cultural perspective, which is why I didn’t feel a need to distinguish between the two in my statement. However, subsequent comments drawing attention to its biological validity (e.g. would doctors agree?) pushed me to address my point underlying my passive implication that the biological aspect is also a social construct, which then skews the discussion in a way that buries much of my original meaning. The social construction of race as a biological concept is not itself adequate to explain why I would support including non-genetic race answers to a race question, but the social construction of race as a subjective personal identity is.
Earlier I was wondering why my comments were getting downvoted. What could possibly be so controversial about the idea that human genetic variation is a continuum, or that linguistic terms are socially constructed? Now I can see that if these are interpreted as if they are supposed to be arguments in support of including non-genetic answers to a race question or a lack of average differences between races, they might seem like bad arguments, but I wasn’t intending them to support those premises, and I didn’t think that people would think I was intending them to.
Part of the reason is that if you restrict to the population of the United States they are (more-or-less) a separate genetic cluster. (Yes, that cluster doen’t perfectly correspond to the official definition of Hispanic but a better term doesn’t exist).
Only because anyone who dares to point out the obvious truth that it isn’t gets called a “sexist transphobe” and unfit for polite society.
Well, I wasn’t restricting to the population of the United States. Anyway, race is still a socially constructed identity. This is apparent with mixed-race people who often identify with one race more than another based on how they were raised, how they look, how other people identify them, and whether they act more like a stereotypical member of one of their races than another. The race they identify most with might not be the one that makes up the largest proportion in their ancestry.
My understanding is that gender is specifically used to refer to the socially constructed identities. Biological sex differences get lumped under sex rather than gender, which is why people can believe in the social construct of gender while also believing that biology contributes in some degree to stereotypical gender roles. I’m not an expert on gender though, so I should probably leave it to someone else to debate you on this point.
Is the term “Hispanic” even used outside the US and places imitating the US?
That’s the claim made by “gender theorists”. In practice it’s used to refer to any sex differences they can claim to be socially constructed without seeming completely ridiculous. Nearly all of said differences are almost certainly largely biological.
It’s used on the Survey (which is how this discussion ever sprang up in the first place) even though non-Americans also take it. (What will Spaniards pick? I’m gonna go check what they did last year… EDIT: three picked “White (non-Hispanic)”, one picked “White (Hispanic)” and one picked “Other”, so they mostly went by the de facto definition rather than the official one.)
(IIRC I once classified myself as “Latin” on some kind of survey because I assumed it referred to anyone with Romance-speaking ancestry.)
Because Yvain is imitating US usage.
I know. But people outside the US also take the survey, so your “if you restrict to the population of the United States” upthread doesn’t apply.