Watershed
01-25-2008, 06:14 PM
Now, I'm a huge fan of anthropology, and I'm a huge believer that all men are created equal. However, the study of races and racial classification, a big part of anthropology, is to me just so fascinating, a celebration of the genetic diversity of humanity.
In my for-fun study of anthropology I've become quite a purist about racial classification, though, and I just hate the way that the US census is done.
However, I have to provide some context, though, before I get into this. First off, theories of racial classification tend to differe based off whether or not you follow a creationary theory or evolutionary theory. I am a creationist, but I find the evolutionary theories generally much more reasonable than the biblical one, though of course I disagree with those evolutionary theories on the origin.
Anyway, most evolutionary anthropologists that are well read on genetics and such will tell you that there are four races:
Austroloids (Austrailian Aborigines and other folk of that ilk from Oceana and parts of India subcontinent)
Negroids (black Africans)
Mongoloids (East-Asians, Pacific Islanders that aren't
Austroloid, and Amerindians)
Caucasoids (Europeans, Some North Africans, Middle-Easterners, and parts of Indian continent and surounding area)
Now, there are people that will break up the negroids, and I would personally break up the mongoloids, due both to my rejection of the Bering Straight theory of Amerindian migration and that the Amerindians most certainly have many sub-categories within themselves and look quite distinctive from other Asians. I'd even go as far as to say Pacific Islanders like Fillipinos and Hawaiians would probably constitute their own race, themselves also looking very distinctive from both Asians and Austroloids of the same region. The amount of sub-races per race has a lot to do with the study done to that race, so caucasoids seem the most diverse (when clearly it is the current definition of Mongoloids) due to the amount of careful classifying which has done by traditionally white anthropologists.
Anyway, the US census is a mess. There is a lack of categories, including Amerindians from Latin-American countries, and Oceanic Austroloids are either listed as white or other, or they are grouped in with Polynesians, when they are clearly two totally different races. One thing however that gets to me is the classification of Indians with Asians. India is primarily made up of Caucasoids or whites (the lighter skinned Nordinid sub-category and the darker skinned Dravidian subcategory, which is also Bengalis and Sri Lankens), with sizable populations of Austroloids (such as Veddoids and Negritos) in the south and Mongoloids near the border regions towards East-Asian countries.
So, clearly, if South-Asia and India are going to be one thing, it definitely should not be the "Asian" race, which is traditionally thought of as Mongoloid. Ideally, we should have categories for both white Indians, Austroloid Indians, and East-Asian-like Indians, but I doubt we'll get an Australoid category, so I believe that we should follow precedent. The Australoid Australian Aborigines are classified as white due to the fact that Australia is a predominantly white nation. The same should then be done for Indians and the other nations of their type. South-Asians should be considered whites in the US census.
Here is the website where I got much of the information. It contains a lot of ridiculous evolutionary assumptions at least in my book, but it has amazingly accurate categorization and extremely interesting genetic data.
http://www.racialcompact.com/racesofhumanity.html
In my for-fun study of anthropology I've become quite a purist about racial classification, though, and I just hate the way that the US census is done.
However, I have to provide some context, though, before I get into this. First off, theories of racial classification tend to differe based off whether or not you follow a creationary theory or evolutionary theory. I am a creationist, but I find the evolutionary theories generally much more reasonable than the biblical one, though of course I disagree with those evolutionary theories on the origin.
Anyway, most evolutionary anthropologists that are well read on genetics and such will tell you that there are four races:
Austroloids (Austrailian Aborigines and other folk of that ilk from Oceana and parts of India subcontinent)
Negroids (black Africans)
Mongoloids (East-Asians, Pacific Islanders that aren't
Austroloid, and Amerindians)
Caucasoids (Europeans, Some North Africans, Middle-Easterners, and parts of Indian continent and surounding area)
Now, there are people that will break up the negroids, and I would personally break up the mongoloids, due both to my rejection of the Bering Straight theory of Amerindian migration and that the Amerindians most certainly have many sub-categories within themselves and look quite distinctive from other Asians. I'd even go as far as to say Pacific Islanders like Fillipinos and Hawaiians would probably constitute their own race, themselves also looking very distinctive from both Asians and Austroloids of the same region. The amount of sub-races per race has a lot to do with the study done to that race, so caucasoids seem the most diverse (when clearly it is the current definition of Mongoloids) due to the amount of careful classifying which has done by traditionally white anthropologists.
Anyway, the US census is a mess. There is a lack of categories, including Amerindians from Latin-American countries, and Oceanic Austroloids are either listed as white or other, or they are grouped in with Polynesians, when they are clearly two totally different races. One thing however that gets to me is the classification of Indians with Asians. India is primarily made up of Caucasoids or whites (the lighter skinned Nordinid sub-category and the darker skinned Dravidian subcategory, which is also Bengalis and Sri Lankens), with sizable populations of Austroloids (such as Veddoids and Negritos) in the south and Mongoloids near the border regions towards East-Asian countries.
So, clearly, if South-Asia and India are going to be one thing, it definitely should not be the "Asian" race, which is traditionally thought of as Mongoloid. Ideally, we should have categories for both white Indians, Austroloid Indians, and East-Asian-like Indians, but I doubt we'll get an Australoid category, so I believe that we should follow precedent. The Australoid Australian Aborigines are classified as white due to the fact that Australia is a predominantly white nation. The same should then be done for Indians and the other nations of their type. South-Asians should be considered whites in the US census.
Here is the website where I got much of the information. It contains a lot of ridiculous evolutionary assumptions at least in my book, but it has amazingly accurate categorization and extremely interesting genetic data.
http://www.racialcompact.com/racesofhumanity.html