Replies

“...Latino neighborhood and a long-standing, Latin-only Catholic Church...”

Wouldn’t ‘Latinos’ feel right at home in a Latin-only Catholic Church?

On another note, this use of words to describe races and groups has bothered me for a while. ‘Black’ doesn’t really mean black. A person from India might well have blacker skin, but they aren’t ‘black’.

A person whose parents immigrated from Egypt, isn’t an ‘African-American’. ‘Latino’ does not describe an Italian, even though Latin comes from Italy. I don’t think Portuguese or Brazilians count as ‘Latinos’ either even though Portuguese comes from Latin. How about Romanians or the French? Aren’t they Latino as well?

Blacks from the Dominican Republic don’t count as blacks when counting the numbers of blacks on a baseball team.

Lord knows we can’t just refer to people as people. How could we be divided.

Now you stepped in it.

By definition, any European (White) that is Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, French, Romanisch Swiss, Romanian, and Moldovan could be defined as “LATIN”. Or Latino.

I always call out Latin American Mestizos who claim they are “Latino”. No they’re not. When you start calling Mezo-Americans and Incans “Latin”, you start to dive into the BS rabbit hole.

Simplest way to define it is this: If you’re talking about race, only Europeans from the above nations qualify as Latino/Latin. If you are referring to people from Central/South America, call them Hispanic - although that too is historically & politically incorrect.
The difference is that they’ll accept it.

Your discussion is one reason why affirmative action is such a bad joke.

The “favored groups” keep getting sliced and diced in different ways, and of course anyone with mixed blood of any kind can easily game the system.

Democrats are racists, and that means they arbitrarily define “races” and discriminate in favor of some people and against others based on that arbitrary distinction.

We need to make a chart of about 200 designated numbers to match the color of skin..

Only problem is, you would change numbers with the seasons >.<

On another note, this use of words to describe races and groups has bothered me for a while. ‘Black’ doesn’t really mean black. A person from India might well have blacker skin, but they aren’t ‘black’.
...
Lord knows we can’t just refer to people as people. How could we be divided.

The term "Hispanic" refers to anyone from countries/areas that were colonized by Spain, Spain itself, or their descendants. Which is the majority of Mexico and south, as well as large parts of the Caribbean. Basically, native Spanish-speakers. So that excludes places like Brasil (Portugal), Guyana (Britain), Suriname (Netherlands), French Guiana (still owned by France today), Belize (Britain), and much of the Caribbean, yet does include many from these US. Technically, everything west of the Mississippi, Florida, and southern Alabama/Miss were all under Spanish control at some point, so many people from those areas could be "Hispanic".

To add to that, "Latino" refers to anyone from Latin America, basically anything south of these US. There are various definitions for this one, some of which include any countries whose language is in the Latin/Romance branch. But the more widely used one here, and how the US Census defines it, is basically anyone south of the border.

To add in even more stuff, people recently started using the term "Chicano", which is specifically Mexicans that live in these US. I don't know if that term includes dual citizens, or is only Mexican citizens living here. Or if it includes their descendants or just first generation immigrants.

For more, the term "Mestizo" is anyone of mixed European and tribal American blood. While most people only think of Mayan/Aztec heritage in the Mexican/Central American area, it does technically include Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Inca, Seminole, Nazca, Blackfoot, etc etc etc heritage as well. Most people in these US probably fall under this category by now. Really, likely almost everyone in N/S America.

And of course, "African-American". Ever ask a black guy what part of Africa he's from? The huge majority of American blacks have never been to Africa, much less come from there. They might have African-American heritage, but they themselves are only American. This is one of the dumbest colloquial terms in my opinion. Is a black guy from England an "African-American"? Why not? Isn't he black? I've met two people at work, one's pretty white, the other mostly is. Both are Afrikaaners, so from South Africa, before they moved here. They are, actual, real-life, African Americans. But they aren't black?

And then to get into the actual 'races' within humanity. While our race is really just "human", you can break us more into subspecies. Similar to how all dogs are one species, or 'race', but are broken into the various breeds/subspecies. Likewise, humans can be broken into several breeds within our race, which are then referred to as 'races'. Scientifically, there's not a full consensus on exactly which ones are/aren't, but it's usually 3-5 options. Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid are the main ones, then some will add a fourth, Australoid (ususally included in Negroid), and others occasionally use Esquimaux (Mongoloid), Capoid (Negroid), Polynesian/Pacific (Mongoloid), American Tribes (Mongoloid), and some other minor ones.

Most of these classifications is base on skull shape, and other physical definitions, not really skin color. (There's light-skinned Negroids, and dark-skinned Caucasoids. Mongoloids tend to be more middling-light, but some of them can get pretty dark.) But, there's a bunch of scientists nowadays that don't even use these race classifications, and say there's just no such thing as race. They like the term "ethnicity" better, and conveniently break it up into 5,000+ different groups, instead of three or four.

For most US government documents, the "race" column is completely arbitrary, confusing, and not well designed. Useless, really. I always check "other" and write-in "human". There was actually potential legislation ten or twenty years back about amending the definition of Hispanic to include Portugal/Portuguese countries. It failed.