Human Race(s?)

[ihct]

Please correct me if I am wrong but isn't the word "race" something strongly associated with biology? So by using the word "race" isn't there an implication that we are talking about a biological classification here?

The literal translation also has found its way into the German translation, where the literal translation of the word is used (Rasse) which might leave an even more bitter taste thanks to history.

Would terms like ethnic group or ethnicity work as replacements?

Now what about skin color and other observable characteristics which are often used by others to make such a classification? Well, there is already "personal appearance". I guess e.g. "inherent physical traits" could be added here as well but not sure it is needed, because I hope it should be rather obvious that "personal appearance" does not just refer to one's hairstyle or wardrobe…

(BTW, not accepting such implied biological classifications should not mean that one turns a blind eye to other people basing their world-views on these and the negative effects this has on people perceived to be in particular groups.)

[statgeek]

Old standard is Race statcan.gc.ca/eng/concepts/d…

New standard is ethnicity www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recense…

UN defaults to Ethnicity but notes that race and other terms are used. Also notes that usage definition should be clear https://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/sconcerns/popchar/popcharmethods.htm

I think replacing race with ethnicity makes sense.

[ihct]

There was quite some discussion I missed but somehow it seems to have gone now or am I imagining things? I was quite busy and I wanted to reply in detail especially to the points of one person who seemed to dominate it. I don't remember all their points but I want to reply to the ones I remember.

No other account activity

I am sorry to hear that you because of bad experience with trolls you have to be always on the lookout for them and you feel you also have to scan auxiliary things such as the account activity of people posting here. I want to be clear, this here isn't my main account, I want to keep it separate from anything considered political or controversial and my employers can see. In a perfect world this wouldn't be a issue and maybe I should stop being such a chickenpoop and stand up for my views but I am not there (yet). If I remember correctly I am not the only person here doing so and maybe I should have mentioned that this isn't my main account in my first post.

No references supporting my suggestion

Very fair point. I really should have taken the time and do so, I didn't, I used this venue to put down my thoughts I was pondering about. But then I was looking more for a discussion than really making my point, see my very first sentence ("please correct me if I am wrong"), I am genuinely interested why in North America people are so different in this regard. Why they are, in my view, using language which goes more in the direction of biological essentialism (in this regard, not to be mixed up with it in other areas), which seems to be even the case in circles interested in social justice topics (reference needed, I know), while the from what I've seen the rest of the world moved away from it.

The US plays a big role, therefore terms considered problematic especially because of US history are (rightly) shunned not just in the US but around the world (e.g. I am thinking of the story where a British celebrity accidentally said coloured people instead of people of color), but it should also go the other way. Not to mention that racial classification using pseudo-biological justifications is also part of the dark parts of US history. Please don't get me wrong this shouldn't be about the US (or rather NA) vs. the world, or the English-speaking world vs. the rest, it's just some fascinating effect I think I'm seeing.

You posted a link to a US census office and while how possible authorities define things might be worth noting it shouldn't be the sole basis for an argument IMHO: http://www.robot-hugs.com/definition/ Besides, shouldn't the definition from everyday people could more? I wonder to what extend they think of "races" as biological. Maybe I should have looked for statistics on this, I am sorry I didn't.

Addendum

Anyway, still thanks for your input and also thanks to @statgeek for yours.

BTW, I mainly concentrated on the English version (which is the only one I changed in my PR) but it might also be a possibility to only change the word in languages where the word has an especially bad connotation or might be even be considered archaic at this point (such as in German).

(All in all, I posted here now a huge block of text replying to a person whose comments apparently got deleted and I still didn't offer any references, only a link to web comic. Those with the power, please feel free to delete this post here if you feel that it does not add anything of value.)

[egircys]

@ihct thank you for addressing this issue. Would maybe ethnic origin be more suitable than ethnicity? As commented in https://github.com/symfony/symfony-docs/pull/9394#discussion_r172696659

[CoralineAda]

This is really helpful reading: https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethnicity_vs_Race

I think that there may be a difference in the way that the words race and ethnicity are used in the US vs other countries. The US has for centuries struggled with issues of race-based violence and discrimination. Race is the word used to frame that conflict.

Ethnicities, I feel, are more about cultural origins. I'm an ethnic German, but my race is "white". I don't enjoy privilege because of my ethnicity, but I do have privilege as a result of my racial identification.

My feeling is that, at the risk of being US-centric, the inclusion of both words is important, because in practice they don't mean the same thing.

[retrosight]

@CoralineAda I believe your reply immediately above would be a good candidate for the FAQ, to explain the difference. Happy to create a pull request to add -- if that would be appropriate.

[CoralineAda]

Please do! That's a great idea.

[tikabass]

Adding 'race', 'ethnicity', 'cultural origin', are all attempts to classify people. As is 'political views', 'language', 'social group'. This makes pretty much all of the CoC discriminatory by design... As to the 'enforcement' provisions, I thought we had gotten rid of that way of thinking at the end of WWII.

[Uzlopak]

In the German constitution we have in article 3: "no one shall be discriminated because of his [...]race[...]". When the constitution was written in 1949 no one thought about it being wrong and like everything it got interpreted correctly as "no one shall be discriminated based on racist views.

[seschu01]

@CoralineAda "The US has for centuries struggled with issues of race-based violence and discrimination. Race is the word used to frame that conflict."

Really? No other country has ever had this issue? It is isolated to the US? Please, if you are going to run this thing try to abstain from generalities.

[SaschaMann]

Sorry to revive this seemingly stale discussion but I was pointed to this repo because Exercism's CoC is based on this code of conduct and that this should be changed "upstream" first.

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About the FAQ addition mentioned above:

Race is the grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society and usually resulting from genetic ancestry.

This feeds into the idea that different human races exist which has long been disproven. The FAQ should be updated to underline that any such grouping is inherently unwelcome and archaic.

I understand that, in particular in the US, there are different understandings of the term that try to revive this idea and categorisation system, but given that this CoC is used in rather international contexts, the more general understanding should outweigh this.

(As a side note, this appears to be a 1:1 quote and the source should be stated in the FAQ in case it is indeed one)

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I think there's a reason the term is "racism" and not "ethnicitism" which points to race being the correct word.

Racism is the creation of such groupings into "races" (and as a consequence, discrimination based on them). The CoC implies that such "races" exist since otherwise one could not discriminate against someone based on a "race". However it is obviously possible to first create such nonsensical groupings and then discriminate based on them. This distinction should be highlighted by the code of conduct.

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I would support removal or replacement of the term "race" since as it is the code of conduct itself implies that there are different human races in its current form. However, that does not seem like a popular amendment based on this issue, so updating the FAQ would be a welcome first step.

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In the German constitution we have in article 3: "no one shall be discriminated because of his [...]race[...]". When the constitution was written in 1949 no one thought about it being wrong and like everything it got interpreted correctly as "no one shall be discriminated based on racist views.

There is a lot of discussion about fixing this historic mistake. Today the (likely) future government parties have announced to fix it and remove the term entirely from the constitution.

[Uzlopak]

@SaschaMann Exactly. I would prefer something like article 14 ehrc where it says

sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.

Obviously it contains the word race and allows differing "opinions", which btw differing political opinions are not allowed by the convention. Even chinese, who were second born children and were highly discriminated by the Chinese government were subsumed as a distinct group of social origin.

You could always subsume race under color and/or social origin, if you are somebody who thinks race is a social construct.