How would you describe your hair color?

I dislike this question. I think it's useless to lable people like this because where do you draw the line? Is one drop enough? You have to be 1/8th to get scoloarships... I dislike it entirely. I never answer it on government stuff, I put "other", so you can use that one.

In a better world, "racial" descriptions would be no more meaningful than something like that. While people joke about blondes being dumber or redheads being fiery, when it comes to things like hair color, no one really makes a character judgement. They simply use a term to delineate hair pigment and help in identification.

Similarly, I think it makes sense to say someone has dark skin or light skin or whatever word works best (most words we use today are probably too loaded to fit the perfect, theoretical society), because we still need something. It only makes sense to describe skin tone or facial features etc to help in picking people out in a crowd, etc, so I don't think it's wholly appropriate to deny race or anything like that, unless you also deny hair color, eye color, gender, and everything else that makes you different physically from anyone else.


I've been waiting for someone to refuse to state their "race" for a while now in conversation, as the well-meaning silliness of it came to mind after hearing one of my professors repeatably say that he gets upset when people call him White. He's a South African of British descent and did a 180 when he came to America to study. Said he actually hated "white people" for a while because of the racializing policies of colonials, etc.

While nobel, and theoretically a good idea to not want to recognize race, it is inpractical. Genetically, there's no difference between "races," but there are phenotypic differences that make us look different. People of certain bloodlines have different hair, skin tones, lip structure, facial bone structure, etc etc etc. To refuse to recognize it is to take political correctness to a dangerous level in an attempt to neutralize terms which could be used for discrimination.

Should we cease using the terms man and woman? Male and female? While there have been issues raised recently regarding gender in regards to homosexuality, few would argue that the disposal of such terms is logical, even though women have long been discriminated against, and in other ways, men are as well.

And when it comes to something like Gena's survey, your race is relevant, because in this day and age where people feel inclined to try to ignore race (and in doing so, reduce its power as a concept) or designate themself as "other," what your race is can suggest a lot about your upbringing, your attitudes towards social systems, and your attitudes towards the existance of racial boundaries. If you're a "white" person living in a sympathetic postmodern society, you are more likely to want to eliminate the meaning of a racial designation, in order to try to move towards a better world, while perhaps someone of a "non-white" background may see race as important, as a part of their history and day-to-day life, as something which shows how your attempts to de-white yourself do not change the social barrier that still exists between the two of you. Are you still "other" if everyone else would recognize you as something else?

Also, since Gena's likely using it to categorize her subjects, it helps to at least approximate a designation.


In other words, next time someone asks what race you are, think longer about telling them, as it is still a defining characteristic, even if it has nothing else to do with who you are (which will likely never be the case).

If your "race" isn't obvious, or is questionable, go with the one that you think you identify with most.

If your answer is still "other," that pretty much means you're "white", anyhow. But if "other's" still more fitting to you, that's what it's there for.

I only say don't choose "other" because you don't like racial categorization, because like it or not, certain people look different from other people. Everything else is culture.


Arok Manok - Ex-admin Extraordinaire
Future Post-Apocalypse Warlord



I'd rather be throwing a frisbee right now

This message last edited by Arok Manok on 4/19/2004 at 3:41:00 AM.

• Edit 1: 4/19/2004 3:41:00 AM