> If I told you that the U.S. was “93.3% American”, would you conclude that the U.S. is a homogeneous country? Because that’s exactly what everyone who cites the “98% Japanese” statistic is doing for Japan.
I find this mentality to be quite common when talking to U.S.A.-men, the conception that “U.S.A.” is not an “ethnicity” but all other countries are.
I remember a thread on 4chan a while back that asked for the user's ethnicity that had two kinds of replies: A) a country other than U.S.A.; B) a so-called “race”.
That was not the only part that piqued my interest; the other part was there were a great deal of replies that, seemingly correctly assumed that all the replies that listed a race must be from the U.S.A., inciting such vintage 4chan responses as “Race is not an ethnicity, burgerfag. Just say you're from the U.S.A..”.
I have definitely noticed this specific quirk of U.S.A.-men, an assumption that other countries are races, and that when I for instance say that I am “Dutch", that comes with the assumption that I am also “white”.
> Yep, you read that right. Japan’s government doesn’t go around asking people what race they are. A curious behavior for a country that’s supposedly obsessed with racial purity, no?
Such census too seem to be an U.S.A. idiosyncrasy.
Most countries do not track this, as far as I know. There are no Dutch statistics on the matter either because it's pure self-report. There are statistics on how much of the Dutch population is a first generation immigrant, and second generation immigrant, which is more objective, but that's it.
I have been acquainted with the knowledge that when applying for, say, a university position or even a vocational one, that in the U.S.A. one is frequently asked for one's “race”. This would seem highly suspicious in my milieu.
I find this mentality to be quite common when talking to U.S.A.-men, the conception that “U.S.A.” is not an “ethnicity” but all other countries are.
I remember a thread on 4chan a while back that asked for the user's ethnicity that had two kinds of replies: A) a country other than U.S.A.; B) a so-called “race”.
That was not the only part that piqued my interest; the other part was there were a great deal of replies that, seemingly correctly assumed that all the replies that listed a race must be from the U.S.A., inciting such vintage 4chan responses as “Race is not an ethnicity, burgerfag. Just say you're from the U.S.A..”.
I have definitely noticed this specific quirk of U.S.A.-men, an assumption that other countries are races, and that when I for instance say that I am “Dutch", that comes with the assumption that I am also “white”.
> Yep, you read that right. Japan’s government doesn’t go around asking people what race they are. A curious behavior for a country that’s supposedly obsessed with racial purity, no?
Such census too seem to be an U.S.A. idiosyncrasy.
Most countries do not track this, as far as I know. There are no Dutch statistics on the matter either because it's pure self-report. There are statistics on how much of the Dutch population is a first generation immigrant, and second generation immigrant, which is more objective, but that's it.
I have been acquainted with the knowledge that when applying for, say, a university position or even a vocational one, that in the U.S.A. one is frequently asked for one's “race”. This would seem highly suspicious in my milieu.