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Race and Ethnicity Issue V

And here's a response from Robert Young: "That you made a mess of things is not indicative of 'race' being the problem, but rather your editing. If you would simply quote reliable, outside sources, instead of making things up to suit your own personal whims, this wouldn't even be an issue." Neal (talk) 20:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC).

Might I suggest we read the Race page in Wikipedia. It seems straight forward that many people can be placed into a particular grouping (as denoted by Wikipedia) - but it does seem strange to me that there are no examples of "unknown" or "uncertain" entries. The solution is not to delete the column, but to endure its accuracy - from sources. Alan Davidson (talk) 08:03, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I've read it, including this: "Some argue that although "race" is a valid taxonomic concept in other species, it cannot be applied to humans. Many scientists have argued that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, have many exceptions, have many gradations, and that the numbers of races delineated vary according to the culture making the racial distinctions; thus they reject the notion that any definition of race pertaining to humans can have taxonomic rigour and validity." DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 09:45, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I should also mention we don't know the names of all the supercentenarians. Some of them are named "name withheld." This is the case where we get information from a country's government. They'll disclose their name, and only give out a date of birth, date of death if dead, gender, and such. But no name. And sometimes, correspondents like Belgium correspondent (user Bart Versieck) will disclose the names because such supercentenarians want to remain private. That it would be against their will to have fame. I could argue against Bart that disclosing their names is useless, since there's no harm on their side. But at the same time, I really don't care to know their names. Their age, date of birth, gender, and such, is all I really care about. Obviously if I wanted to make statistics that people who's first name begins with the letter M has a higher probability of becoming the oldest person in the world than someone who's name begins with the letter Y, then those names will be signigicant to me, but that isn't the case.

And then gender. Like names, there is an objective truth out there. Not many people are of mixed genders.

The interesting thing about race is, there is a non-determinant factor. A half Chinese half-White person can be 50% White and Asian. Infinite sig figs (as my understanding). They could still be 50.00000% White and Asian. But if such a person married into someone who was 50% Black and 50% Hispanic, then their children cannot be exactly 25% of each.

So from what I learned in biology, you are exactly 50.00000...% of both your parents. However, this does not mean you are exactly 25.000...% of all your grandparents. It is possible that you have more genes from 1 grandparent than the other. Which means someone of 4 equal races is not exact. So no doubt, there is very negligible confusion abotu races when all 4 of your grandparents are different races. But I still agree that the races (and ethnicities) should still be to the best of their accuracies.

As per having a race and ethnicity column, obviously, if we know the race of *1* person, and the other 99 are unknowns, then such a column could be meaningless. And removed. So basically it comes to where do we want to draw the line, so as long as we know more than 50% of the races/ethnicities of the supercentenarians? I would vote that so long as we know more than 50 or 75% of the supercentenarian races, we should have it. But I'd probably give an ethnicity column a less standard - since it could be there when we already know the ethnicity of the supercentenarian. Neal (talk) 18:01, 25 February 2008 (UTC).

What a quaint US-centric discussion. You do realize, I hope, that this discussion about someone being 25% white or whatever only goes on in the USA? The rest of us gave up on that long ago. Everybody is mixed. For example, essentially everyone whose ancestors have lived in British cities for several generations has some African ancestry, because the freed slaves settled and had children with British mothers. The black colour of the skin died out in a few generations. What is it about "they reject the notion that any definition of race pertaining to humans can have taxonomic rigour and validity." that you do not understand and why do you not address this point from DerbyCountyinNZ above? Also why should we trust GRC as a source when you are now asking Robert Young to change GRC to agree with Wikipedia? You do realize, I hope, that doing that completely destroys GRC as a valid reliable source?

In this discussion alone four editors have called for the removal of "race" from this article and only two have argued for retention. I need to find time to go back to the previous two (? three) discussions on race, but I recall there were similar ratios but with different people arguing for removal and an overlap between the editors there arguing for retention and those doing that here. There is no consensus to retain the column on race. Can we now delete that column? --Bduke (talk) 23:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Re:Also why should we trust GRC as a source when you are now asking Robert Young to change GRC to agree with Wikipedia? No, we set Mestizo to agree with GRG. I did *know* beforehand that Robert Young used Mestizo for his Hispanics. Just that, less people knew what Mestizo meant (as I only heard that word from the 1st time). As far as I know, it was Robert Young that set the Mestizo as a race in the Wikipedia article, and there have been attempts on changing it, which I changed back. So, no, I'm not asking Robert Young to change GRG for Wikipedia's sake. Re: What is it about "they reject the notion that any definition of race pertaining to humans can have taxonomic rigour and validity." that you do not understand... As per the race thing, so if you know British people are mixed Black and White, then you *do* know their races. You just don't know their exact percentage. But we don't need to know that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by NealIRC (talk • contribs) 03:33, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, you said above "I'll probably ask him to change that in his tables so sources can be consistent". So you have not asked him yet. This is still too confusing. You say "No, we set Mestizo to agree with GRG", but GRC uses Hipanic not Mestizo. As for "As per the race thing, so if you know British people are mixed Black and White, then you *do* know their races", I do not know this. I know that lots of people have at least mixed British and African ancestry over the last 200 years or so. I do not know what other ancestry they have had over that period and I know nothing about their ancestry before 200 years ago. More importantly this is what I know in general. I know nothing about any particular persons ancestry, including my own, and nor can anyone. "Exact percentage" is just a completely meaningless term. I am not prepared to categorize myself in the way this list does and I therefore do not ever categorize other people in this way. In fact I think it is offensive to do so. Even if you do not agree with this, categorizing people in the way this article does is simply unverifiable. Just because another web site does this, does not make it verifiable. --Bduke (talk) 08:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, GRG uses Hispanic. But Robert Young meant Mestizo for Hispanic. Just not everyone knows what the word Mestizo meant (like me). But when he wrote the article on Wikipedia, he used Mestizo Hispanic. That's been reverted a couple times, so I just reverted it back. And even if Robert Young changed it in his tables, he's not the webmaster of GRG.org. L. Stephen Coles is. As per the race - what more do you care to know that we do *not* need to label the percentage of supercentenarians if we don't know them? The fact that we know if they're mixed Black and White is enough. Even if we know someone was 25% Hispanic, we don't put 25% Hispanic (because it could mean 25.0000% Hispanic). We say they are 1/4th Hispanic. And if we don't know the particular fractions, we don't need to list them either. For example, in the Bruce Lee article, they decided not to say "Bruce Lee is 87.5% Asian and 12.5% German. They refused to say he was 7/8th Asian and 1/8th White. They simply stated that he had a great-grandfather that was all German, or a grandparent that was half. They said it was bad etiquette to use percents, decimals, or fractions. We could do just that too - if the race or ethnicity is known. Clear? Neal (talk) 21:06, 26 February 2008 (UTC).

So to summarize - if the race is not known (which so far isn't the case for anyone over 110 on the list) - we leave it blank, hyphen, or question mark. Same thing when we don't know their gender. And you can argue that GRG is our source or the government census is our source. The GRG uses the census. If we find the census is wrong, we can't change that on Wikipedia as that would be original research. We could only put it as a footnote. If we find that less than 50% of the race column is blank, then we should remove it. We only have 8 choices: White, Black, Asian, Mestizo, Indic, Pacific Islander, Native American, and Middle-Eastern. But we only have 4 of them on the table. 5 in the GRG. Too confusing? Neal (talk) 21:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC).

I really do not think you are reading what I and others are saying. The whole concept of race is meaningless. Percentages are even more meaningless, to the point of being absurd. However some specific questions:

Did I not say percentages are meaningless? I simply said that. Neal (talk) 00:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC).

Perhaps you did, but ratios like 1/4 are also meaningless as is any mention of race. --Bduke (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I used the disparity that saying 1/4 is better (and more precise) than saying 25%. As per saying someone's race is meaningless, that would be true if there was an objective truth to it. Is it meaningless to say Bruce Lee was 1/8th White? Or 1/8th German? Or that U.S. candidate Obama is 1/2 White? And so and so forth. Neal (talk) 17:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC).

• What census are you talking about? The US census? The census in many countries does not ask questions about race, because the answers to such questions is meaningless.

• Well, the U.S. census certainly only covers U.S. supercentenarians no doubt. That's how we know who the Blacks are (so we don't assume everyone is White). Neal (talk) 00:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC).

• But other countries do not ask this question in their census, so the use of a census is not possible. Note, that these countries do not ask that question because they think any answer is meaningless and the question is objectionable. --Bduke (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• The use of a census is not possible in a country that does not have them. Neal (talk) 17:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC).

• "We only have 8 choices:". We do?? Do you have a source that says the human population on earth is divided into 8 races? Earlier, when I raised Melanesians, you said we did not need to worry about races we did not have examples for. Now you say we have 8 choices. References, please, and then add it to the article where the race abbreviations are defined and add the other four.

• Well, this could be based on filling official forms where they ask your race. Particularly on standardized tests, the police department, and so and so forth. Neal (talk) 00:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC).

• If we are going to use 8 races on this list, we have to have international consensus that there are 8 races. The official forms, like the census, that you talk of, are USA forms. In most if not all of Europe and in many other countries, forms do not "ask your race". So can we have an international source for the 8 categories of race? If not, stop talking about them. --Bduke (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Sure. If other countries do not ever ask your race, that's fine. Historically, they may not have a meaning to. A country that has 99% people of the same race, and a mixed 1% of any, such a country would historically have less or no need for it. But a country like the U.S. does. Neal (talk) 17:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC).

• What basis do you have for using "Pacific Islander", rather than splitting into "Melanesian", "Polynesian" and so on? --Bduke (talk) 22:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

• Traditionally, you would disagree with me when you have come up with a better claim. A claim is an assertion that something will come out one way and not another way. That very thing claimed can itself be a test. There is no such thing as a claim that cannot be tested. Neal (talk) 00:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC).

• You were making the claim. I want you to give sources. I disagree with you that any set of names for races makes any sense whatsoever. Race is meaningless. --Bduke (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Meaningless is 0. If something were a value of negative number, then I would vote to remove it. But anything that does not harm having it - I would not be for removing it. Neal (talk) 17:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC).

I think the above debate shows quite clearly that Neal is completely US-centric and believes that this list can be referenced and supported by material only from the USA. It is of course a world list and it needs support from concepts that are acceptable to people across the world and not just in the US. The only way to do that is to remove any reference to race from this list and the other international lists. There are two US lists of old people. I leave Neal to have his POV there, but he can not have it here. I've had enough with trying to discuss this with Neal. Please give you opinion in the section two below. --Bduke (talk) 01:13, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

What (I believe) User:NealIRC refers to as "Indic" would in the UK be called "Asian", while other Asian origins, (e.g. Arabs, Chinese, Korean, Thai) would be split seperately and not shown as "Asian". - fchd (talk) 07:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

This raises a wider issue. In any taxonomy, there is a split between "lumpers" and "splitters", with the first having few categories and the later having many. I do not accept the concept of race in any sense, but I much prefer the "splitters" view to the "lumpers". fchd gives a UK view which is more "splitters" than "lumpers". Lumping "Melanesian" and "Polynesian" into "Pacific Islanders" is not helpfull. A scheme that does not have "Australian Aboriginals" as separate is useless, although sadly they are not going to be included in this list any time soon. There is a clear difference between sub-Saharan Africans and North Africans. Thus we have no consensus on what races to list. GRC uses one way, but that is just one POV. --Bduke (talk) 00:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

This point is relevent to Neal's question about Obama. Is he 1/2 white and 1/2 black? We just do not know. What I know is that he has one American parent and one Kenyan parent. The American parent may have black or native american or chinese or whatever ancestors. His Kenyan parent may have sub-Saharan ancestors and north African ancestors. Indeed it is probable coming from Kenya. Again, I do not think we know. --Bduke (talk) 00:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

And we don't have to know. I don't think it matters if he's not exactly 50.00000% Black and 50.00000% White. And so and so forth. That's not something (we as humans) care to know, exactly. Neither should Wikipedia. So we work on precision/accuracy. On the other hand - I weigh in the loss of not having race versus the happiness of having the race column. I personally have a happiness gain of seeing the race column, and a +0 loss of not seeing the race column. This is why I'd keep it. If people were more unhappy of seeing the race than happy to not see the race - then they should vote to delete the race column. Neal (talk) 03:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC).

Another response to Neal. Many countries that do not ask about race in their census do not do so because the country is uniform. They do so because the country is far from uniform and asking about race is contentious and divisive. The USA should learn from them if it wants to get away from the obsession it has about race (an obsession, BTW, that Americans claim they do not have, but is blindingly obvious to everybody else - exactly like the English obsession with class.). --Bduke (talk) 00:54, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Is this implying that those such countries do not keep statistics of what percentage of each race is in their country? If you had a loss of knowing what percentage a race made up in your country, well then you would be against it. But if the information exists, how does it hurt to know it? You would just have a +0 happiness. How is it bad to not be divisive? You want the U.S.A. to stop tracking down the citizen's races so we could not know how much of the population a race makes up? Neal (talk) 03:46, 28 February 2008 (UTC).

You are getting there, but not quite. In Australia we do not ask about race because, as I said, it is contentious and divisive. So, yes, we do not know what percentage a race makes up in our country. We do not think it is knowable or if it was, worth knowing. We do keep statistics of where new migrants have come from. We also keep statistics of the people who identify as aboriginal, but not of what percentage aboriginal they are. We grew out of that nonsense years ago. We do not obsess about race in the way you and other Americans do. You ask "if the information exists, how does it hurt to know it?". I would answer that the information you talk about is meaningless so you do not actually know anything. That is why "it hurts". And yes, I do want the USA to stop trying to track down race. I want them to treat people as individuals. Have you not learnt from the civil rights battles? This however is a personal view not a WP opinion. --Bduke (talk) 06:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Likewise, you might not agree that we should include the race and ethnicity of every individual biography article. When I look at Ray Croc's article, the founder of McDonalds, it gives out what ethnicity he is. Similarly, we even have categories for ethnicities, like Jewish, such that, every such Jewish biography, mentions they are Jewish or born from Jewish parents. Wikipedia also has lists of Eurasians and other mixed ethicities. Each such article mentions what race/ethnicity they are. So is it a problem we mention what race/ethnicity they are in a table of column? If you are against that, surely you must be against including the race and ethnicity of each individual in their own article. But you can't exactly fight to get rid of that for all Wikipedia biographies - it's much easier to abolish the race column in a particular article. Similarly, since Wikipedia biography articles mentions the race and ethnicity of every celebrity and sports player, I certainly don't care to have it removed in a table. As per this Australia fact, should I say you're an Australian adjusted to Australian traditions, and would like Wikipedia to adjust to Australian traditions too? Neal (talk) 02:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC).

I am really finding it very difficult to understand what you are saying here. Let me make just a few brief points. "Race" and "Ethnicity" are related but they are not the same, and in any event are much more complex that the use of race here. Take a look at Ethnic group#Ethnicity and race. Now to biographies mentioning the "race and ethnicity of every celebrity and sports player". I checked just two. First, the great American sports player, Babe Ruth. It says his parents were German-American and he is in that category. That is not "race". It does not say he is "White" as this list would. It says how he identified his ethnicity - his cultural background etc. Second, the great Australian, Don Bradman. It says he is Australian and nothing else at a quick look. No ethnic categories, No race. Just his nationality. I think you are just wrong. Anyway, remember that Wikipedia:OTHERCRAPEXISTS is not a good reason to defend something. I would be against saying in every biography that the subject was "White", "Black", "Asian" or "Hispanic", but it does not happen. I am not against a nuanced description of someone's ethnicity and background. BTW, I am not an Australian by birth, only by nationality, but I also have British nationality. Everything is more complex than this list uses. --Bduke (talk) 04:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you're against having race in a Wikipedia biography, but you're *for* having ethnicity? Yes - Wikipedia biographies mention either race or ethnicity or both. But my question is - how could you be for having race/ethnicity in a biography, but not in a table? Somewhat contradicting, no? Or is it Wikipedia:OtherCrapExists your reasoning that is's acceptable to mention race and ethnicity in articles, but not in tables? Neal (talk) 18:04, 29 February 2008 (UTC).

Brief points. Ethnicity is included if the person concerned clearly has indicated that they self-identify in that way. Race is supposed to be genetic, not self identity. I do not see articles that say a person is "White" or "Black" (Black-American, yes, but that is ethnicity). Can you give examples of articles that give the race of the person in the same simple minded way that this table does? Interesting comments below, but I do not want to comment. --Bduke (talk) 01:22, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

That's apparently the case with many of the individual supercentenarians the GRG correspondents have met with in person. As far as I know, ethnicity is a subcomponent of race. Like White could be further divided to French, German, or Italian. Usually, when you give the ethnicity, you don't need to give the race. People tend to know that Chinese, Japanese, and such are Asian. And for some races, like Blacks, we rarely see ethnicities. Not like we know whether individual Blacks are Algerian or Zimbabwean or so. Or from the Zulu tribe. So I don't see a point in giving out the race if we know their ethnicity. Neal (talk) 17:49, 1 March 2008 (UTC).

Ethnicity is not a subcomponent of race. See Ethnic group#Ethnicity and race that I mention above. Then you go on to confuse ethnicity with nationality. Many French are black skinned. Many Zimbabweans are white skinned, but still claim Zimbabwean ethnicity. Ethnicity is complex and nuanced. Race as set out for this list is crude and simplified. That is a reason for not having it. --Bduke (talk) 23:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, when I meant French, I didn't mean that as a nationality. No doubt, a Black person living in France would be Black, but French as a nationality (but not French as an ethnicity). This is like confusing the term 'Jewish' with religion and ethnicity. Someone could be of non-Jewish ethnicity but still be Jewish (of Judaism religion). Finding some cases of equivocation? Yes, we know words can have more than 1 meaning. Here's an example: The sign said "fine for parking here", and since it was fine, I parked there. And got a fine. Neal (talk) 19:15, 2 March 2008 (UTC).

I actually like some of your views on why countries like Australia don't care about this race crap. For example, in the United States, if a Black person applies to a job (where he has to give out his race), there's something called "affirmative action" which is some thing that allows a Black person easily to get hired for the job that a White person can't get. Whereas a place like Australia does not have this problem. And quite frankly, the reason we have stuff like this, is because we're so corrupt. That is, the United States and it's government. Take the U.S. Patriot Act which gave federal agents and such rights to spy on us due to potential terrorist attacks. Now, I can't exactly compare the corruptness of the U.S. versus the non-corruptness of other countries, but I could compare the corruptness of the U.S. and how it was less corrupt going back the years. Today, for example, if I ever apply for a job, I need to give out my social security number and go through a background check (well the 2nd could be a good thing), and provide official I.D.s. Well, having a social security number originated in the 1930s, so obviously, the process of getting a job in the U.S. around 1910 or so - was totaly different. And probably much easier. But no doubt, when our crime can get more corrupt, and increased terrorists attacks, such a government also has to become more corrupt. This is the difference between - we start a country and make the minimum amount of rules, and make new rules accordingly, then to make the maximum amount of rules, and remove them if we see no need to enforce them. Now obviously, stuff like this is somewhat irreversible. The fact that 911 attacks increased airport security - it's unlikely we'll ever reduce back to airport security before 2001. The United States may be among the 1st to have to be more corrupt due to our crime adding to it's body of knowledge. I'm sure your country will become more like us in a hundred years. Same with the planet. Anyways, I didn't have a point to any of this post, just opinions. Regards. Neal (talk) 23:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC).

I've just extracted the "ethnicity" groups as used in the UK by our Office of National Statitics (for England & Wales anyway). A) White - broken down into British, Irish and Other. B) Mixed - broken down into White & Black Caribbean, White & Black African, White & Asian, and Other. C) Asian or Asian British - broken down into Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Other. D) Black or Black British - broken down into Black Caribbean, Black African and Other. E) Chinese or other ethnic group - broken down into Chinese and Other. I believe the ethnicity question was asked in the last census 2001, but there is a body of opinion that it may be excluded from the 2011 census. A number of official forms have a seperate page that asks for this information (and age, sex etc.) but on receipt is immediately split from the rest of the form so the information can only be used in summary form, never matched to an individual. - fchd (talk) 07:27, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorting revisited

The sorting function fails. This issue seems to have been ignored. Any visitor coming to the page will put the page into a mess and regard this as substandard. The comment that it is fixed if columns are merged will only work if someone merges the columns. I believe we should remove the function. So unless there is decent, I will do so in the near future - but I certainly invite discussion for those who think otherwise. Alan Davidson (talk) 08:12, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I encountered the same issue and have removed the sorting option, it was useless the way it was implemented. --Reinoutr (talk) 20:45, 11 March 2008 (UTC)