How Much of an Ethnicity Does One Have to Be In Order to Be Able to Claim It?

[seoulsearch]

Hey Everyone,

This is a question that's really been on my mind, especially since I saw a story about a girl who outwardly appears white, took a DNA test, found out her ethnicity was something like (if I remember right,) 0.9% Jamaican, and is now presenting herself on social media with dark skin, cornrows, and posts saying that she is "proudly claiming her black heritage" -- and people are utterly slamming her for it.

This reminded me of a black friend I have and how it affected this person emotionally when they found out that one of their great great great grandparents had been white. No, this person did not try to claim to be white, but it definitely blurred the lines for them regarding certain white/black social issues.

With the popularity and easy accessibility of home DNA tests, I think most people will find that almost no one is 100% of any one particular ethnicity. I've grown up hearing people say (usually with a healthy amount of normal pride) that they are Italian, or Native American, or Irish, etc., even though one parent only who was, for example, half of that ethnicity.

Does a person have a right to claim a certain ethnicity as their own based on fractional bloodlines and/or cultural background?

I was fascinated by the story of Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who says she identifies as black, and even took prominent positions within the black community before she was outed by her own white parents:

I've always been in a unique place myself because although I am Asian, I grew up in all-white surroundings, and so traditional Asians don't see me as being Asian. But even though "white" is the closest I identify with both socially and culturally, I would never try to claim that I am a white person, though I do identify with the term "banana", which is given to many Asian adoptees in my situation (yellow on the outside, white on the inside.) This is just my own statement for myself -- I can't speak for anyone else's situation, including those who were raised in similar circumstances. I have met and read many stories about others in the same situation who identify with their biological heritage/culture and not the one they were raised in.

* In a society that tells us we can choose everything about our own identity, including gender, what rules are to be followed regarding ethnicity?

* For example, "how Italian" does one have to be in order to claim to be Italian? Is 10% enough? What about 49.99% Or if a person is 10% of 10 different ethnicities, does he or she have a right to claim all 10?

* In other words, exactly how much of an ethnicity "counts" enough in order for a person to be able to claim to be an active part of it?

I know this thread might seem like something more geared towards the Family Forum, but Singles is where I normally post, and ethnicity issues have always been a big part of my life.

I'm guessing it is for many others as well.

If you feel comfortable with sharing, what ethnicities do you personally identify with, and how much of them do you have in order to "justify to others" (as society will demand you to do) that you should be "allowed" to "qualify" what you claim to be?

I would love to hear your story, as well as your thoughts about all the things being discussed under the topic of this thread.

 

[JStates]

I think you need to be 1/4 Jewish to be able to apply for Israeli citizenship. One Jewish grandparent in other words. But honestly the whole thing gets very subjective very quickly.

I'm not confused. I come from French, British, and German immigrants to the USA. White, white, and white. So I'm kind of a mutt, but definitely white. I like the simplicity of it.

Don't get me started on "appropriation" though. If people want to tan and wear frizzy hair and they look better that way, go for it.

I notice a lot of people whining about cultural appropriation bleach or dye their hair blond. And I bet none of them are giving up foods from other ethic groups.

My philosophy is that I'll enjoy the good things from any culture I can. My brother wears Thai fisherman's pants as PJs, they're super comfortable he says. I eat any food that's tasty. I don't care if it's white, black, or anything in between. Etc.

Besides, I'm pretty sure my evil colonizer ancestors won wars against pretty much everyone else, so that gives me the right to enjoy the spoils, correct?

Teehee

 

[RichMan]

I took a dna test once and it came back -
You really don't want to know.

 

[Subhumanoidal]

I'm English and German and a third, as yet to be identified. I'm sure there may be some other things peppered in, but those are two of the biggest three. So it seems I'm pretty vanilla.

When it comes to my own race i never paid too much attention to it in any real serious manner. Curious about that missing 1/4 just because it's fun to know.

As far as what percentage qualifies you as a certain race, i suspect that largely depends on the race you're claiming. I imagine if claiming black, for most people you'd have to have a higher percentage (at least in the US). But some races are not caught up in their race. They may have pride in it, but aren't usually concerned about races, otherwise. Or who's trying to claim it.

Also i image how much you're trying to claim it. Such as both white women in the OP, trying not to claim that they are partially black, but trying to conform to stereotypes and claim more than they really possess.

But, another factor is what a person is able to do to represent that race. Obama is a prime example. He was half white, half black, yet the white side was ignored, both by himself, as well as black supporters. I guarantee you had his politics not been so race oriented and he was more neutral towards the black community he'd have been labeled white or mixed.

Of course it all comes down to the individual person to choose whether someones claim is valid or not, especially to the degree they're claiming it. It's a topic that requires lots of generalizations and even race itself may cause different views, among other factors.

It makes me think of a jail show where a white guy preferred being associated with the blacks, as jails are often self segregated by the inmates. The black people were fine with it, because he wasn't claiming to be black, but he grew up in a black neighborhood, so that was his comfort zone. Especially in light of the typically white power whites. His view as a white man likely differs from my view as his experience is vastly different.

 

[Pipp]

Is this wrong if I say it about myself ??

 

[Lynx]

Beats me how much is necessary. I have been told I'm 1/32nd (or is it 1/64th) native american. I'm not about to live in a teepee.

About people trying to appropriate cultures based on thin evidence, all I can do is roll my eyes and get on with my life. It doesn't cost me anything and it doesn't profit me anything.

I do sometimes get mildly curious why they would bother. It doesn't seem to profit them anything either. It looks like just a big pretense, an adult version of playing dress-up. I dunno, maybe they're in it for the attention. If so, bless their hearts.

 

[Lanolin]

I always tick 'other' in those silly ethnicity surveys because they never have mine.

I have a lot of friends whos parents are different so I guess they would be half and half. But I kind of think of them as BOTH not half this and half that.

If I have to fill out another of those silly surveys Im just gonna tick EVERY box lol

 

[GaryA]

I was told by my parents that I am part British, part German, part Irish, and part two different tribes of American Indian - one from my father's side and the other from my mother's side.

I have been told that the Indian parts are enough (%) to make me eligible for certain government programs - none of which I am interested in (whatever they are about, I do not know) - because I trust in God and not the government to take care of me.

So, I am basically "European White" with some "American Indian" / "Native American" thrown in...

And, all I can do is accept what-and-where God put me - appreciate it for what it is - and, do the best I can to glorify God and help others with it.

'White' is obvious. I don't try to claim anything else, really.

In the modern-day we-are-all-the-same melting-pot 'equality' mentality, anyone who "claims" an 'ethnicity' for profit is a hypocrite of the highest order.

Just be who you are...

 

[Mel85]

Thanks sis @seoulsearch for always bringing in topics that has to make my brain think lol appreciate you for that ❤️

My dad is Solomon Island (1/2), Samoan (1/3) and Chinese (1/3) - his village in Samoa have a lot of dark coloured people who some migrated from the Solomon Islands.

My mum is Samoan (1/2), Tokelauan (1/3), Scottish (1/3). If you are familiar with Samoan history, to sum it in short once upon a time we had European settlers come to Samoa and built families with the natives. My older cousin has done a extensive family tree which traces back to my mums Scottish side and found that my great x4 grandfather was a fisherman, we also have pictures of him and his sons and my grandmothers (if it isn’t confusing already).

Anyways, me and my siblings are brown skinned with light brown eyes. I don’t really go around and tell people I identify as a Scottish person cos that’s just silly lol I identify as a Samoan-New Zealander because that’s the culture and identity I’ve been brought up in my life. I do have Tokelauan family who live like hour from us but only my mum knows them. I haven’t meet any of my Chinese relatives (except for dad haha) but ironically my dads mum looks Chinese (fair and all) but my dad took after his dad and is typically looking Solomon Island people.

If people ask me what I am, I just say I’m a “fruit salad” 😂

 

[JStates]

Is this wrong if I say it about myself ??

View attachment 237655

Aw man, I'm rolling over here!

 

[JStates]

Anyways I never did understand all the negativity around "interracial marriages." We all go back to Adam and Eve. And some of the more visually stunning people out there come from unusual "racial" mixes.

I get the impression that God likes variety. Maybe that's just me.

 

[azsheepdog]

Those DNA tests are about as accurate as a $2 watch. As for claiming ethnicity, who cares. Those of us who follow Jesus need to identify as His and forget about the rest. What real difference does it make?

 

[Dino246]

I identify as non-Bidenary.

Ethnicity is both overblown and under-appreciated. If you listen to the advocates of so-called "Critical Race Theory", your value as a human depends on your ethnicity (gee... there's already a word for that!). If you follow Scripture, there is one "race" only. There are many fascinating and wonderful aspects to ethnicity (mostly cultural rather than genetic) but, like one's preference in movie genres, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans in most contexts. My ethnicity never got me anything that hard work didn't... nor would I want it to.

 

[SimpleSheep]

I grew up in a border town right next to Mexico. But I was born in Texas. So my family is Mexican American because our ancestors came from Mexico. On my mom's side it was generations ago. On my dad's side I think it was more recent.

Anyways, growing up wasn't easy because I have light skin. My grandma used to say we had some Spanish blood and that is why we are lighter than most of our peers. I was made fun of for being a "white girl" even though I'm not white. I'm Mexican American. I know Spanish very well and grew up speaking Spanish before English actually.

Sometimes I feel out of place with both hispanics and white people. Most latinas have beautiful tans but I look pale when I'm in the sun. Years ago there were a few women talk about me in Spanish. They didn't know I'm hispanic I guess? lol. I had to learn not to call myself "Mexican" because I was born and raised in Texas. Mexicans born and raised in Mexico find it offensive for me to say that. So now I say I'm Mexican American.

When I'm around white people, I feel like I stick out because of my accent and the culture difference. I was raised with different customs and ways of thinking. It was isolating growing up, but now as an adult, I've learned how to better relate to others.

I don't know the answers to your questions, Seoul...but I find this discussion interesting.

 

[JimJimmers]

Great topic Seoulsearch! I have a few random pseudo-intellectual musings from a (as far as I know) completely white guy.

The first thing that comes to mind is what a Native American man told me about possessing songbird feathers. It is against federal law to possess feathers from a large swatch of the bird population. Turkey & quail feathers are okay, but even a single eagle feather that multiple witnesses see fall legitimately from a bird isn't allowed to be picked up. Now this man said he was legally exempted from the law due to treaty agreements. He carried a tribal citizenship card in his wallet that identified him as such. So it didn't matter if he was 1% or even 100% Native American, what mattered was that he had been legally declared. Obviously there is no legal exemption from social pressure, so that doesn't really affect the situation you mentioned with the girl who was part Jamaican. But I found it interesting and maybe someone else will also.

Native Americans are perhaps the most important example of your question, due to that and other legal rulings (owning casinos, smoking peyote, etc). Some tribes have made rulings about their own personal tribal membership requirements, some require a certain amount. As people descend from a bloodline, it almost becomes like the proverbial Ship of Theseus. Interestingly, certain tribes don't even require any actual bloodline. the Seminole Indians, if my memory serves me correctly, have a population of black folks who are official members of the tribe. Their ancestors escaped enslavement many years ago and fled to the swamps, where they were adopted as full-fledged members of the tribe.

Now I am thinking of Ruth telling Naomi she wants to become Jewish. I never heard it mentioned again in the bible either. No one wrote "Jesse is really only mostly Hebrew, he had a Moabite grandmother, y'know?" Her new people accepted her, and she was therefore culturally and religiously Jewish. Now she probably had some things she missed, maybe Moab had a harvest festival she yearned for, or some way of dressing she never lost her longing of.

I guess that means ultimately your true race or ethnicity is the one that accepts you, huh? So the foolish girl who discovered she is vaguely Jamaican has (to me) zero claim to it. To put it in non-racial terms, if my parents and siblings discovered tomorrow that I was switched at birth with the real Jim Jimmers, and I had merely been raised from day one as their family, I have 100000% confidence I am still their son & brother. I am sure they would still want to meet the real Jim Jimmers (As would I!) But they are not going to turn away from me due to DNA.

Race is broken down much further than color of course, each people group is a different race according to the classical definition of the word (e.g. Lumbee Indians are a difference race than Cherokee Indians) And some folks even get into neighborhood snobbery. "You're a white sandy-haired blue-eyed Irish Catholic from Queens? I'm a white sandy-haired blue-eyed Irish Catholic from MANHATTAN! So get out you foreigner!"

I do feel empathy towards people who don't know who accepts them. Like the question of being ethnically Asian but culturally white. All I know is Jesus accepts Seoulsearch, and I do too.

 

[Runningman]

Hey Everyone,

This is a question that's really been on my mind, especially since I saw a story about a girl who outwardly appears white, took a DNA test, found out her ethnicity was something like (if I remember right,) 0.9% Jamaican, and is now presenting herself on social media with dark skin, cornrows, and posts saying that she is "proudly claiming her black heritage" -- and people are utterly slamming her for it.

This reminded me of a black friend I have and how it affected this person emotionally when they found out that one of their great great great grandparents had been white. No, this person did not try to claim to be white, but it definitely blurred the lines for them regarding certain white/black social issues.

With the popularity and easy accessibility of home DNA tests, I think most people will find that almost no one is 100% of any one particular ethnicity. I've grown up hearing people say (usually with a healthy amount of normal pride) that they are Italian, or Native American, or Irish, etc., even though one parent only who was, for example, half of that ethnicity.

Does a person have a right to claim a certain ethnicity as their own based on fractional bloodlines and/or cultural background?

I was fascinated by the story of Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who says she identifies as black, and even took prominent positions within the black community before she was outed by her own white parents:

I've always been in a unique place myself because although I am Asian, I grew up in all-white surroundings, and so traditional Asians don't see me as being Asian. But even though "white" is the closest I identify with both socially and culturally, I would never try to claim that I am a white person, though I do identify with the term "banana", which is given to many Asian adoptees in my situation (yellow on the outside, white on the inside.) This is just my own statement for myself -- I can't speak for anyone else's situation, including those who were raised in similar circumstances. I have met and read many stories about others in the same situation who identify with their biological heritage/culture and not the one they were raised in.

* In a society that tells us we can choose everything about our own identity, including gender, what rules are to be followed regarding ethnicity?

* For example, "how Italian" does one have to be in order to claim to be Italian? Is 10% enough? What about 49.99% Or if a person is 10% of 10 different ethnicities, does he or she have a right to claim all 10?

* In other words, exactly how much of an ethnicity "counts" enough in order for a person to be able to claim to be an active part of it?

I know this thread might seem like something more geared towards the Family Forum, but Singles is where I normally post, and ethnicity issues have always been a big part of my life.

I'm guessing it is for many others as well.

If you feel comfortable with sharing, what ethnicities do you personally identify with, and how much of them do you have in order to "justify to others" (as society will demand you to do) that you should be "allowed" to "qualify" what you claim to be?

I would love to hear your story, as well as your thoughts about all the things being discussed under the topic of this thread.

When people are racially mixed they often claim whichever race presents them with the most advantages.

The example you gave landed a woman who is mostly White a lucrative role as president of the NAACP; she wasn't Black enough so when people figured that out she was virtually tarred, feathered, and ran out of town.

Barrack Obama was half Black yet he will go down in history as the first Black president of the USA which is not completely accurate. No one has successfully challenged that so if you're at least 50% of any race, or at least visually fit the claim, then people accept that.

Elizabeth Warren took a DNA test and turned out to be remarkably White, over 99% White, and something like 0.8% Native American. She road the coattails of her claims to racial privilege as a Native American throughout her adult life until Trump challenged her to a DNA test and exposed her. As a result she drew widespread condemnation from the Native American community and lost political credibility.

 

[cinder]

Well I believe both Germany under the N's and the antebellum south in the US had laws defining just how much of a certain ethnicity you could have and still be in the minority group. So at times there have been attempts to define it legally, but I much prefer the share the things you love about your culture with everyone and learn from those who do some aspect better than you do approach.

Only other thing I'll say is if you look at the near uniformity of skin tone among subsaharan Africans and the incredible variety of skin tone among black americans...... you can only conclude that there are a lot of black americans whose ancestors are not all african or all former slaves. Does it matter? Only as a data point to say that race is not as binary as some people would like it to be. But it's pretty ridiculous to have a world where you can't determine someone's gender based on their genetics and then think you have any right to determine their racial identity based on if they have enough of the right kinds of genes.

 

[TheIndianGirl]

I never bothered checking my ethnicity because I expect no surprises.

I think people who have mixed ethnicity basically get to choose how they want to be identified. For example, Barack Obama identifies as black (even though he is half white); he also married a black woman and has mostly-black children. Tiger Woods, at least based on an early interview from years ago, did not like to be identified as African-American. He has basically only dated white women. I think it is mixture of how they personally identify and also their bloodline, rather than bloodline alone.

 

[Lanolin]

I dont get it
so the person you MARRY is your identity? interesting...

I have a lot of children at school identify as Maori, although some do not speak the langauge, they identify culturally.
My principal does speak Maori and shes married to a Maori though her ancestry is Scots.

I think its easier to say you are both if your parents are different because culture can be quite fluid.
Also you can be adopted into a culture. So you might not look it but you live in that culture.

sometimes fusion works but sometimes it doesnt. For example, I know what authentic chinese food is like. But when european people try to cook it, they dont get it right, and. the fusion restaurants dont get it either (plus they dont serve it right) its just more expensive plus all the decor lol
good try though...! But at least they call it fusion so I suppose its good as fusion.

There are also regional differences. But sometimes a fusion can surprise you, like malay/chinese becomes peranankan and that is a distinctive culture in its own right.

Ive never had anyone call me a banana or ever thought of myself as a banana. Im a native nzer i.e born in the country, and I also identify with my town/ region. Ive dated men of many races. It has not occured to me that I need to worry what other ppl think if they are racist its on them.

some interesting memoirs of mixed heritage - Trevor Noah Born a Crime
The Meaning of Mariah Carey
as for Barack Obama Songs of my Father
he does mention his mixed heritage, so if people have an issue that hes not 'fully Black' thats really on them. He identifies with both, but obviously, being in the minority, life is ALWAYS going to be harder than being in the majority.

of course you going to stick out like a sore thumb...but you can think if it as standing out rather than sticking out. I think all cultures have something special about them but its what you take from them really.

for a time we used to have a lot of black cats. Black cats have often been unfairly maligned. But black cats really have great personalities. For somes strange reason we never had white cats. I looked after one white cat and its often that white cats are deaf or have odd eyes. They also get skin cancers easily. So I would say they are a bit more sensitive. Ive had a Black and white cat. Now they are real show offs lol. And grey cats..huh! Grey cats are neat too. And tabbys are sweet, as are ginger cats.

If you want to judge only on appearances, you really have no business discriminating as you'll find something special about every breed! in the end they were all cats so...?! If God was to teach me anything its that we're of all kinds and Hes creative and there is infinite variety in His creatures.

 

[Lanolin]

I recall when I was in primary school I wanted to join the maori culture group and I was told I wasnt allowed cos I wasnt maori. I was like ?! So you are not allowed even allowed to learn?!

But now, everyone is learning Maori. So funny.