Your Ethnicity

[tshadowchaser]

interesting thread

My ancestors mostly came from northern Europe while the other part was native to this land. If I stay in the sun a long time my skin takes on a different color and my facial features are recognizable as native American but if I stay out of the sun my European features seem to dominate.
When I lived in southern Calif. my skin and accent made me a foreigner to many and I was looked upon with suspicion in some areas, while in other areas I was looked upon as "belonging" there

 

[exile]

I have friends who are Serbian, and I've talked to one of them, who did her Ph.D. in our department, a good deal about her perception of ethnicity in what used to be Yugoslavia. From what I can gather, Serbs, Croats and Bosnians regard each other as three fundamentally different ethnicities. Same basic genetic stock, same language (some low-profile sub-dialect level differences)—but Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Muslim, respectively, and boy, does that religious difference make a difference! And I've heard the same from Northern Irish from two different sides of the Protestant /Catholic divide.

In Brazil, however, religion doesn't seem to play much of a role in definitions of ethnicities—but money does. Long ago I read a very disturbing little book by the anthropologist Marvin Harris (Patterns of Race in the Americas), in which he pointed out that two people from the same family in Brazil will be assigned to completely different `racial' categories depending on their relative prosperity. `Black' and `White' are the polar opposites on this scale, but skin color is almost irrelevant. Professional and financial status seem to be what's actually involved, and there is a palette of ethnic descriptors which, though they seem to be about skin color, actually, in practice, denote wealth and status. And people belonging to the groups so described see themselves as ethnically different.

I've come to think that ethnicities are constructed by people on the basis of the `fault lines' in their particular society. Where the principal fault line is religion, as in the first two cases I mentioned, religion will have pride of place in the formation of ethnic identity. Where religion isn't a factor but economic differences are vast and significant, wealth will play the same role. Virtually anything which divides us can be made the basis of ethnic categorization.

I wonder what that says about us.... ?

 

[Steel Tiger]

I have friends who are Serbian, and I've talked to one of them, who did her Ph.D. in our department, a good deal about her perception of ethnicity in what used to be Yugoslavia. From what I can gather, Serbs, Croats and Bosnians regard each other as three fundamentally different ethnicities. Same basic genetic stock, same language (some low-profile sub-dialect level differences)—but Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Muslim, respectively, and boy, does that religious difference make a difference! And I've heard the same from Northern Irish from two different sides of the Protestant /Catholic divide.

In Brazil, however, religion doesn't seem to play much of a role in definitions of ethnicities—but money does. Long ago I read a very disturbing little book by the anthropologist Marvin Harris (Patterns of Race in the Americas), in which he pointed out that two people from the same family in Brazil will be assigned to completely different `racial' categories depending on their relative prosperity. `Black' and `White' are the polar opposites on this scale, but skin color is almost irrelevant. Professional and financial status seem to be what's actually involved, and there is a palette of ethnic descriptors which, though they seem to be about skin color, actually, in practice, denote wealth and status. And people belonging to the groups so described see themselves as ethnically different.

I've come to think that ethnicities are constructed by people on the basis of the `fault lines' in their particular society. Where the principal fault line is religion, as in the first two cases I mentioned, religion will have pride of place in the formation of ethnic identity. Where religion isn't a factor but economic differences are vast and significant, wealth will play the same role. Virtually anything which divides us can be made the basis of ethnic categorization.

I wonder what that says about us.... ?

That is a very disturbing social construct at work in Brazil. I can see that it speaks to some very fundamental aspects of our nature and society though.

There seems to be, in European-descended cultures anyway, a need to categorise everything. I believe that this stems from the foundations of our philosophy and science which are grounded in separating and analysing. It is simply the way we go about understanding something.

On the other hand, in our psychology there is a very real need to be better than others. This may be an ancient hangover from dominance and mating rituals, but it is still a powerful driving force in our lives.

Now we see a blending of these two things to produce this need to categorise people so that one can judge as to whether they are better or worse than oneself. It is about self-esteem, regardless as to whether the subject of our categorisation is better or worse, simply knowing the relationship makes us feel better.

 

[donald]

Would'nt one's cultural/ethnic heritage be through one's parental lineage? Then enforced through their enviroment?

1stJohn1:9

 

[Grendel]

Sukerkin

Being English from the midlands I think you will find that you are about 70% Engel (not Angle the latinised form) and the rest a mix of viking and celt with a very small drop of norman, they did not bring many over, it was not colonisation. I am from the south and my family name comes from Glous and Oxon meaning I would be mainly Saxon.

 

[Sukerkin]

One thing to bear in mind when discussion the dissemination of genes, is that it doesn't take all that many of a given phenotype in any given line to significantly alter the proportions.

Of course, my knowledge of this line (no pun intended) of research all comes via other peoples research (and most especially from documentaries ) so I can not effectively argue any corner on this topic but merely parrot what I've heard.

 

[Shaderon]

I very much doubt that the genes which created us are still in the exact same format anyway, even with so called "pure" lines. From breeding rodents, which I used to do in my spare time, I found and read that a lot of the genetic variations are from very tiny but fast mutations that occur natually and are accepted or rejected by not only a survival of the species type selection but also through a selection which involves level of attractiveness to the opposite sex.

It's highly possible that no one is as pure bred as they think, just living in another country changes your genes. If I give the wild Exmoor pony as an example, if not bred in it's native Exmoor it very quickly changes to suit it's environment and won't be branded as pure exmoor. They get too tall, the colour variation is wrong, the head size varies too much, the temprement changes... all in ONE generation.


So anyone who thinks they are genetically pure had better think again, in modern society we're all mutants from that era.

 

[tellner]

That is a very disturbing social construct at work in Brazil. I can see that it speaks to some very fundamental aspects of our nature and society though.

There seems to be, in European-descended cultures anyway, a need to categorise everything. I believe that this stems from the foundations of our philosophy and science which are grounded in separating and analysing. It is simply the way we go about understanding something.

It's not just European. It's universal. In a way, I think the Brazilian version is less evil than the American one. Here if you've got "one drop" you're Black. And if you're Black, then there's a whole bunch of things you really can't escape. In Brazil there's always the possibility that you can change what you do and your conditions and move into a better social state.

I'm thinking of an old college friend who is now a contractor, the contractor who works on our house when we have money. He got a Watson fellowship to go to Brazil and study Capoeira for a year. He stayed eight or nine years and was a street Capoerista most of that time. He's paler than I am - which is quite an accomplishment. But but because of the way he dressed, spoke Portugese, acted, lived and who he hung out with he was Black. Eventually, he says "I got tired of being Black and wanted a family and some money." So he changed his location, diction and all the rest and became White again.

A lot of it is also due to Brazil's extremely varied genetics. Everyone has some odd chromosomes in the back pocket of his or her genes. And the country as a whole is proud of it. The human need to sort and pigeonhole gets expressed in other ways.