I agree it can create detrimental things for humanity but it's not silliness. It is not only meaningful but absolutely useful in countless situations. For whatever reason, people of the same race are more likely to have things in common than people from differing races*. Were this to change: were I more likely to have more things in common with another person of a different race than I was with another person of my same race, then you might be able to say it's silliness.

*assumption based on nothing, i'd assume this is true but if not true then i would give it more thought and .... probably 50/50 chance i would change my mind and say I agree with you

I believe you are confusing race and ethnicity

Substitute "ethnic background" for "race" and you are probably onto something.

Lol, both me and well named come out from under the fridge at the same time.

I am always with you, even unto the end of the age

I am? can you define some terms here? Or how am I mistaken / why do u think i am?

Hispanics come from Spain and Portugal.

A nappy nit - when you say someone is a Mexican that refers to a person who is recognized as an individual who belongs to and is under the protection of the modern nation state of Mexico. The variety (or ethnicity) of peoples that this includes is mainly divided (socially constructed if you like) by Mexican's themselves.

Reference Link: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/.../Ethnic-groups

From above link:


Ethnic groups

Mexico’s population is composed of many ethnic groups, including indigenous American Indians (Amerindians), who account for more than one-sixth of the total, and Mexicans of European heritage (“whites”), who are nearly as numerous. Generally speaking, the mixture of indigenous and European peoples has produced the largest segment of the population today—mestizos, who account for nearly two-thirds of the total—via a complex blending of ethnic traditions and perceived ancestry. Although myths of “racial biology” have been discredited by social scientists, “racial identity” remains a powerful social construct in Mexico, as in the United States and elsewhere, and many Mexicans have referred to their heritage and raza (“race”) with a measure of pride—particularly on October 12, the Día de la Raza (“Race Day”)—whether they conceive of themselves as indigenous, mestizo, or European. Their identities as members of ethnic groups may be additionally complicated, given that ethnicity is a function of cultural patterns and traditions as varied as a group’s sense of linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic history.
*************************************************

It is interesting that the Encyclopedia Britannica article missed the important fact that there is a small minority of former slaves that live in Mexico.

Wiki article:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro-Mexican

From above link:

Afro-Mexicans are an ethnic group which exists in certain parts of Mexico such as the Costa Chica of Oaxaca and Guerrero, Veracruz and in some cities in northern Mexico. The existence of blacks in Mexico is unknown, denied or diminished in both Mexico and abroad for a number of reasons: their small numbers, heavy intermarriage with other ethnic groups and Mexico’s tradition of defining itself as a “mestizaje” or mixing. Mexico did have an active slave trade since the early colonial period but from the beginning, intermarriage and mixed race offspring created an elaborate caste system. This system broke down in the very late colonial period and after Independence the legal notion of race was eliminated. The creation of a national Mexican identity, especially after the Mexican Revolution, emphasized Mexico’s indigenous and European past actively or passively eliminating its African one from popular consciousness. Though, Mexico had a significant number of African slaves during colonial times, most of the African-descended population got absorbed into the larger Mestizo (European/indigenous) population through Miscegenation. Less than 1% of Mexico's population has significant African ancestry, and a large number of Afro-Mexicans are actually naturalized black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. The moderate numbers of blacks in the Mexican American population, is the result of unions between African Americans and Mexican Americans.

__________________________________________________ _________________

I dont see how that makes what I said untrue... what am i missing here?

haha
read this randomly during a dull moment, while at a pub, made a note to comment when I got home.

If you can imagine multiple nipples on each breast, can you imagine having more than two breasts? Remember Total Recall?

I don't wish to imagine myself having more than two breasts. Call it a prejudice if you wish. Unfortunately, I do recall Total Recall. Three breasts is overkill on a woman. Better to have two women at the same time and the symmetry of two breasts per. Again, I have my prejudices.

The terms "race" and "ethnicity" are complicated and sometimes controversial, and also sometimes even used interchangeably, so bear that in mind.

Basically, we evaluate race in terms of what people look like. I could have written "phenotype" here but the entire point of this thread is that the cultural markers that distinguish race A from B don't actually reduce in any neat way to genetic difference, so the word phenotype might have a connotation that isn't really warranted. When we say "race is a social construct" what we mean at root is that people think a person belongs to race A because they look like race A, where "look like" is a judgement that's relative already to some social norms about what race is, rather than having some purely objective genetic meaning.

On the other hand, an ethnic group "is a socially-defined category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural, or national experience." (Wikipedia). This is why Brian mentions that there are Hispanics (a racial description) who are both Portuguese and Spanish, in terms of nationality. They don't necessarily identify with each other or share culture and history. A more stark example in the present might be an African-American person who has lived her entire life in a large US city as compared to a person from a small African village. They are both "black" by race if they were filling out a US census form, but the idea that their shared race indicates that they have many more things in common (over against what they each have in common with many people of other races) is unsupported, and prima facie untrue, especially remembering that, as was noted in the OP, their shared race does not reduce to any meaningful genetic difference from peoples of other races.

In other words, what certainly makes a difference (in terms of saying that people have things in common) is shared culture, religion, language, and etc., all of which is denoted by ethnicity, but none of which is captured by "race" in and of itself.

I wonder what percentage of contemporary census use race vs. nationality or both or something other like language. Does anybody know?

And the second question: what validity has it to try to objectively measure such a construct as race or ethnicity and just by measuring it actually politically constructing it? Seems somewhat stupid and more dangerous than not to me.