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Jandila comments on 2011 Survey Results - Less Wrong
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When asking for race/ethnicity, you should really drop the standard American classification into White - Hispanic - Black - Indian - Asian - Other. From a non-American perspective this looks weird, especially the "White Hispanic" category. A Spaniard is White Hispanic, or just White? If only White, how does the race change when one moves to another continent? And if White Hispanic, why not have also "Italic" or "Scandinavic" or "Arabic" or whatever other peninsula-ic races?
Since I believe the question was intended to determine the cultural background of LW readers, I am surprised that there was no question about country of origin, which would be more informative. There is certainly greater cultural difference between e.g. Turks (White, non-Hispanic I suppose) and White non-Hispanic Americans than between the latter and their Hispanic compatriots.
Also, making a statistic based on nationalities could help people determine whether there is a chance for a meetup in their country. And it would be nice to know whether LW has regular readers in Liechtenstein, of course.
I was also...well, not surprised per se, but certainly annoyed to see that "Native American" in any form wasn't even an option. One could construe that as revealing, I suppose.
I don't know how relevant the question actually is, but if we want to track ancestry and racial, ethnic or cultural group affiliation, the folowing scheme is pretty hard to mess up:
Country of origin: <drop-down list of countries>
Country of residence: <drop-down list with "same as origin" as the first option>
Primary Language: <Form Field>
Native Language (if different): <Form Field>
Heritage language (if different): <Form Field>
Note: A heritage language is one spoken by your family or identity group.
Heritage group:
Diaspora: Means your primary heritage and identity group moved to the country you live in within historical or living memory, as colonists, slaves, workers or settlers.
<radio buttons>
European diaspora ("white" North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc)
African diaspora ("black" in the US, West Indian, more recent African emigrant groups; also North African diaspora)
Asian diaspora (includes, Turkic, Arab, Persian, Central and South Asian, Siberian native)
Indigenous: Means your primary heritage and identity group was resident to the following location prior to 1400, OR prior to the arrival of the majority culture in antiquity (for example: Ainu, Basque, Taiwanese native, etc):
<radio buttons>
-Africa
-Asia
-Europe
-North America (between Panama and Canada, also includes Greenland and the Carribean)
-Oceania (including Australia)
-South America
Mixed: Select two or more:
<check boxes>
European Diaspora
African Diaspora
Asian Diaspora
African Indigenous
American Indigenous
Asian Indigenous
European Indigenous
Oceania Indigenous
What the US census calls "Non-white Hispanic" would be marked as "Mixed" > "European Diaspora" + "American Indigenous" with Spanish as either a Native or Heritage language. Someone who identifies as (say) Mexican-derived but doesn't speak Spanish at all would be impossible to tell from someone who was Euro-American and Cherokee who doesn't speak Cherokee, but no system is perfect...
Put two spaces after a line if you want a linebreak.