What makes a person a particular race?

[Ed Anger]

Marty is a Tartar.

[swallow]

Looks like you've got your covering letter sorted out and sound like you're ideally suited to what you've chosen to do.  Very best of luck and maybe sometime, we'll see you preparing some of those objective assessments.
Description?  Partially Mexicanised American

[Neil]

Marty is a Tartar.

Russian.  He's a straight-up Russian.

[garbon]

I think it's kinda funny that for all the talk about the melting pot and American dream, so many Americans seem to be obsessed about their ethnic heritage.

I thought the melting pot metaphor had been given up for the mixed salad? After all, it is pretty clear that we didn't just meld into one culture/race. Subcultures abound.

[PDH]

To have had a real melting pot the temperatures would have had to have been much higher.

[The Brain]

To have had a real melting pot the temperatures would have had to have been much higher.

[Eddie Teach]

I think some of you don't know what a "subset" is.

[katmai]

So wait meri is planning on apply to school as white hispanic?

So I guess I should start calling her mrs. Dorsey4heisman.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

sad... this is why America isn't as Great as it used to be.

Well we have never not done this so why were we great before?

sorry forgot the [neil] [/neil] enclosures in that post... was  trolling. :p

[derspiess]

So wait meri is planning on apply to school as white hispanic?

So I guess I should start calling her mrs. Dorsey4heisman.

No shit.  I might as well start claiming hispandex, since I can speak (and read) Spanish, have spent time in Argentina & Mexico, and hang out with many hispanohablantes.

[grumbler]

No shit.  I might as well start claiming hispandex, since I can speak (and read) Spanish, have spent time in Argentina & Mexico, and hang out with many hispanohablantes.

Might as well.  You making that claim is no more absurd than Martim Silva's claim that "races" differ on a molecular level! 

I must admit, I was enjoying this vast display of "knowledge" about "race" far too much to get involved until it looked like it was over.

To answer Meri's question, one's "race" is created by a mixture of what one believes about one's self, and what others believe about one.  It's kinda like "what make a nation a nation?" - it is an identity-construct, which has both internal and external dimensions.  "Race" is important because racism is important.  If we can get rid of racism, we will no longer need the concept of "race" (because, ultimately, all racism is is a belief that "races" exist within the human race).

[The Brain]

Good old grumbler. So reliable.

[Ideologue]

So wait meri is planning on apply to school as white hispanic?

So I guess I should start calling her mrs. Dorsey4heisman.

I'm Hispanic, from Hispania.

[derspiess]

So wait meri is planning on apply to school as white hispanic?

So I guess I should start calling her mrs. Dorsey4heisman.

So Meri = wannabeaner? 

[grumbler]

Good old grumbler. So reliable.

Da Truth is always reliable.