The pseudonym "Philo Vaihinger" has been abandoned. All posts have been and are written by me, Joseph Auclair.

Friday, January 12, 2018

As to ethnicity

The US government use of "ethnicity" refers to an affair entirely of language, culture, religion, history, and in part shared, mutual, and reciprocated acceptance of and in a common identity.

Hence the Census Bureau is quite clear to use "Hispanic" as an ethnicity in just that sense of the word, in such wise that persons of any race may be Hispanic.

But the word is also commonly used in a manner that includes not only all of the above but also community of blood, descent on both sides from the same long-standing and genetically relatively isolated breeding population, as definitive of being of the same ethnicity, in such wise that persons of the same ethnicity are necessarily of the same race, though persons of the same race may be of different ethnicities.

It is in this latter sense that news reports have lately noted that Norway's people are eighty-some percent ethnic Norwegian and hence (rather the point, actually) white.

And it is in this latter sense that immigrants to Norway from Africa or the Middle East are not, nor will their descendants - at least their near descendants - be, ethnic Norwegians.

But what about in the former sense?

Certainly their children or their children's children will be Norwegian, as those of Nicolas Sarkozy and Manuel Valls will be French.

Or they would be, were there not a doubt raised by a single point, that on some and perhaps most understandings persons can be of the same ethnicity only if there is among them reciprocated acceptance of and in the relevant shared identity.

How is that likely to go?

PS, the blood and genes interpretation of ethnicity gets a big boost from the popularity of such sites and services as Ancestry.com.

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