I don’t understand how ethnicity is so often misconstrued with race.. and even nationality. It is actually pretty harmful.
Ethnicity refers to people who share a common ancestry, history, culture and language.
Romani is an ethnicity. Sorbian is an ethnicity. Bavarian is an ethnicity. Jewish is an ethnicity (albeit also ethno-religious), African American is an ethnicity.
Race refers to the categorization of people based on common appearance and skin color. It is a social construct and has no basis in biology whatsoever.
Black is a race, Asian is a race, White is a race, etc.. Sometimes Indigenous is considered a race as well.
Nationality is the nation in which you live.
American is a nationality, German is a nationality, Irish is a nationality, Kenyan is a nationality, Chinese …show more content…
Someone can be racially Black, ethnically Jewish and nationally Irish all at the same time.
Some ethnic groups defy racial constructs because we don’t quite “fit” neatly into any one racial category. The Roma are actually a great example of this because our ethnicity, by definition, involves being mixed race.
I feel as though this is more of a misunderstanding in America, where we tend to cling to former national identities and not ethnic ones. This is especially true for White Americans, and it likely has to do with the assimmilation of various ethnic groups that shared common national (and often also linguistic) backgrounds.
So, in the United States, Italian American, German American, or Polish American have become ethnic categories even though the ancestors of these people were of different ethnic backgrounds.
But, the rest of the world does not operate that way. Conflating nationality with ethnicity is really only something Americans seem to do and it is kind of a problem. It homogenizes and erases people. China has 55 ethnic groups, India has over two thousand, South Sudan has about 80, and Russia has just under
Ethnicity refers to people who share a common ancestry, history, culture and language.
Romani is an ethnicity. Sorbian is an ethnicity. Bavarian is an ethnicity. Jewish is an ethnicity (albeit also ethno-religious), African American is an ethnicity.
Race refers to the categorization of people based on common appearance and skin color. It is a social construct and has no basis in biology whatsoever.
Black is a race, Asian is a race, White is a race, etc.. Sometimes Indigenous is considered a race as well.
Nationality is the nation in which you live.
American is a nationality, German is a nationality, Irish is a nationality, Kenyan is a nationality, Chinese …show more content…
Someone can be racially Black, ethnically Jewish and nationally Irish all at the same time.
Some ethnic groups defy racial constructs because we don’t quite “fit” neatly into any one racial category. The Roma are actually a great example of this because our ethnicity, by definition, involves being mixed race.
I feel as though this is more of a misunderstanding in America, where we tend to cling to former national identities and not ethnic ones. This is especially true for White Americans, and it likely has to do with the assimmilation of various ethnic groups that shared common national (and often also linguistic) backgrounds.
So, in the United States, Italian American, German American, or Polish American have become ethnic categories even though the ancestors of these people were of different ethnic backgrounds.
But, the rest of the world does not operate that way. Conflating nationality with ethnicity is really only something Americans seem to do and it is kind of a problem. It homogenizes and erases people. China has 55 ethnic groups, India has over two thousand, South Sudan has about 80, and Russia has just under