Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!psuvax1!psuvm!auvm!TURING!MIKE From: mike@TURING.CS.UNM.EDU (Michael I. Bushnell) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gaynet Subject: homosexual Message-ID: <9002090554.AA10282@turing.cs.unm.edu> Date: 9 Feb 90 05:54:13 GMT Sender: Gaynet Distribution List Reply-To: mike@UNMVAX.CS.UNM.EDU Lines: 29 Approved: NETNEWS@AUVM Gateway Comments: W: Field "Resent-Reply-To:/Reply-To:" duplicated. Last occurence was retained. X-To: gaynet@ATHENA.MIT.EDU In-Reply-To: "Rodney John Greer McCoy, Jr."'s message of Thu, 8 Feb 90 22:35 EST <9002090513.AA05125@ATHENA.MIT.EDU> There was a very good article in Communications of the ACM a while back in which the author explained that he always checked "Other" and filled in "mongrel" when asked to identify his race. Having backgrounds (as virtually *all* of us do) in Northern Europe, Africa, Native America, Southern Europe, Asia, etc., he felt it was irresponsible to call only *one* of those his "race". He also pointed out that the entire idea of race "classification" is now meaningless, at least in this country. Any system of classifying by race will be inherently flawed, because none of us fit neatly into any of the categories, and be designed more to acheive particular goals than to acheive accurate measurement. A good example is racial classification in the "old" southern US. Blacks were people with *any* amount of African descent; Whites came for purely European stock. This is, of course, patently ridiculous. Another example is in the Southwest. The major ethnic groups in New Mexico are usually listed as "anglo", "native american", and "hispanic". Problem 1: Many, many times, blacks are to be classified as "anglo", truly a unique usage here. Problem 2: Hispanics in New Mexico are really of two rather distinct varieties. "Spanish" were descendents from Spanish settlers, with little of the Indian blood characterizing Mexicans. They have a quite distinct culture from that of hispanics found in the south of the state, which is quite conmingled with Indian culture. -mib