But definitions of ethnicity and race are socially constructed. Just ran across an interesting proof of this:
This BBC News site is on the gender pay gap in the UK. But what interests me are the ethnic breakdowns (because the gap varies by ethnicity):
- White Irish
- White Other
- White British
- Black Caribbean
- Black African
- Indian
- Chinese
- Pakistan/Bangladeshi
What I predict will happen over the next 30 years is this: the definition of "white" will change so that it includes the majority of Americans, regardless of their heritage.
- In part this will reflect the confusion caused by intermarriage. In the Washington Post magazine an Indian-American woman writes: "But in 2017 America, my particular jambalaya of “features” frequently has me mistaken for Ethiopian. Trinidadian. Colombian. African American. It depends on which city I’m in, what I am wearing and, more often than not, who is doing the asking." That's an example.
- In part this will reflect the logic of discrimination--what is the purpose of a "minority"?It's to define the majority, meaning that a "majority-minority" nation loses the inestimable virtues of being discriminatory, of defining the "other". So the solution will be either to shift the definition of "white" so it includes the majority (you can see that in attempts to define Obama as not really black) or to bring to the fore another term which applies to most Americans. I can't think of one now, which is why my bet is on "white".
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