Replies

My guess is that the author started to type "like" then changed it to "such as" and failed to delete the "like".

But imo race and ethnicity mean nothing. They are an arbitrary nomenclature superimposed on stereotypical physical traits, rather than meaningful correlations between relevant information like language, nationality and family heritage.

While you can label some people as "black", it is essentially a pointless classification, no different than say labeling people who have pointy noses. The term "Hispanic" is meaningful because it is about language. "African American" blurs the line because this would really apply to people who were born in Africa and later became Americans (which might not mean they are black either).

I suppose one could make a case that being "black" might be meaningful in the context of a study on skin cancer, but this would just muddy the water. There are many people from India who are darker than many so-called black people. If someone referred to an Indian as "black", they would probably be corrected (even if this is a correct observation).