On the morality of slavery and the effects of technology on civil rights.

[K. A. Pital]

Calling every inhabitant of China “Chinese” is certainly wrong, and wrong regardless of whether this is a self-defined term invented by Han Chinese or not.

Calling people originally living in Eurasia “Eurasians” is a bit strange because it is a very high level of territorial partitioning, but how is it racist?

[ray245]

Calling every inhabitant of China “Chinese” is certainly wrong, and wrong regardless of whether this is a self-defined term invented by Han Chinese or not.

Calling everyone in China is an issue, but using it to describe people who do identify as Chinese is not an issue. There's a difference between this and native Americans.

Calling people originally living in Eurasia “Eurasians” is a bit strange because it is a very high level of territorial partitioning, but how is it racist?

There's a high level of territorial portioning, but this also applies to the various groups in North and South America. On what basis do they form a cohesive cultural group that allows them to be lumped together? I have similar issues with the term "Asia" and "Asians".

[K. A. Pital]

I see it as a geographic reference (just as “Asians” refers to people from Asia, which is neither ethnically nor culturally homogeneous). What about “European”? There is no homogeneous culture there either, if we are being honest.

What else do you suggest? Do you always exclude minor groups that demonstrate a different cultural trait from the greater whole?

I admitted this is not an in-depth view of the myriad differences between individual tribal cultures. Just as when you talk about North Africa and, say, Arab states, you would not be going into detail over the individual differences of certain tribes in the Maghreb, or would you? In this case even saying “African Americans” is racist as well, because it does not account for the differences between various groups...

[Elheru Aran]

Maybe it's stating the obvious but I'm not really seeing anything about technology and civil rights so far in this thread.

Perhaps that should be a separate thread as this one seems to be focusing on the slavery issue?

Re African-Americans and naming convention: while slaves of African origin certainly came from a wide variety of African tribes and thus labeling them as 'African-American' is a bit overly broad, a.) the slaves were hardly 'American', at least in the sense that they were not legally citizens until after the Civil War (and arguably perhaps not until the Civil Rights movement helped them out), and b.) their descendants are far enough distant from their tribal ancestors that it's a bit silly to try and identify them as such IMO.

[ray245]

I see it as a geographic reference (just as “Asians” refers to people from Asia, which is neither ethnically nor culturally homogeneous). What about “European”? There is no homogeneous culture there either, if we are being honest.

Geographic reference is so often lumped together with cultural references that they are used together to sustain tropes or ideas about "Asians", or "Asians" in comparison to an "European". Europe is not homogenous, but it is a concept (the modern concept, not the one invented by the ancient Greeks) developed within Europe and had been used in the past to justify colonial efforts over the rest of the world.

Europe had been used as a unifying concept in the past to justify imperialism by a number of European states, whereas terms like Asia or African were very rarely used in the same manner. (Imperial Japan did use Asia to justify imperialism). They are historical reasons why we cannot think of them in the same way.

What else do you suggest? Do you always exclude minor groups that demonstrate a different cultural trait from the greater whole?

Yes. Because how we categorise broad non-European groups is strongly influenced by the historical process behind it. If we attempt to look at cultures from a regional perspective, it completely ignores how drastically different cultures can be within the "region" that you have created.

Take South-East Asia for example. The concept of SE Asia as a region did not exist until the mid 20th century. Trying to talk about southeast Asia as a region presuppose there is sufficient commonality within this region to be studied collectively together. How the various communities conceive of themselves end up being ignored, or it becomes a political project by the various political elite to create a sense of regional identity ( which is in turn a product of colonial mindset).

Broad categorisation of communities from a regional POV are not useful and can be harmful unless such ideas are internally generated. Externally imposed categorisation is problematic.

I admitted this is not an in-depth view of the myriad differences between individual tribal cultures. Just as when you talk about North Africa and, say, Arab states, you would not be going into detail over the individual differences of certain tribes in the Maghreb, or would you? In this case even saying “African Americans” is racist as well, because it does not account for the differences between various groups...

We can talk about the Arab states because they had been a long historical process of internal self-identifications. The idea of who is Arab and who isn't had been a contested issue within the Islamic world even at its height. It was an internally created category as opposed to an externally created category like "Asians".

There were tensions, disagreements and conflicts arising over who can be identified as an "Arab". As far as I know, there was never an internal development over who gets to be identified as an "native Americans". The "native Americans" communities never fought over or impose rules to define "native Americans" as a distinct identity in absence of US's actions. There was never a sense of "native Americans" regional identity the way Arabs did.

[K. A. Pital]

If you want to argue semantics, ray, then make a separate thread.

[ray245]

If you want to argue semantics, ray, then make a separate thread.

Sure.