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Would this be mixed race or ethnicity? I'm trying to understand the nuance difference (thelemmy.club)

submitted 1 week ago by may_be@thelemmy.club to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Not that it matters, mostly, but I do want to get the words right. So we are reading a book on someone who is mixed Native American Ojibwe and white.

Some people in my class, let’s say, are Indian (from India) and white. We agreed that would be mixed, but for example, someone who is English and Swedish would not be because they are just white.

Would they not be mixed race, mixed ethnicity, or be neither?

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[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Your question assumes race is a real thing and not just something made up by people.

Cultures and communities are real. There's Native American culture, Indian culture, Swedish culture and English culture. There is no "white" culture. It's the clash of cultures than normally causes the problems we see in the world that we mislabel as "race".

[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Not fully accurate. Race is a system of categorization that was invented. The systems of categorization that is used around the world under the term "race" today are all derived from a single system of categorization that traces its roots back to 14th century Portugal and a single author, Gomes de Zurara.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't see how that helps the validity of race as a concept.

[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago

I should have specified what was wrong with the comment:

It's the clash of cultures than normally causes the problems we see in the world that we mislabel as "race".

This is not accurate race is not a mislabeling of the problems caused by a clash of cultures.

Race is a deliberately designed system of categorization used for the purposes of dehumanizing humans to solve the cognitive dissonance humans feel when they commit atrocities against other humans. de Zurara's writing was at the request of Prime Henry, who was kidnapping people from Africa, torturing them, and selling them into chattel slavery. De Zurara invented categories for people that attempted to make this behavior rational and justified.

It's not an ambient phenomenon like "culture clash". It's a specific project of European slavery and colonization.