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Comment by xhkkffbf | Hacker News Reader

A friend from the Philippines just happened to have a grandfather with a spanish surname leftover from the spanish occupation. Voila. The friend checked the "hispanic american" box. Checking the "asian" box would almost certainly been less successful.

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Why doesn't everyone just fill in African American? Everyone can trace their roots back to Africa.

I'm only half joking, how would it ever be possible to verify such a claim?

They could look at a picture of you.

Well, maybe. I can think of a couple of families in my neighborhood with offspring who could legitimately claim to be of African descent, but who could if they cared to pass as white or Asian (i.e. like Dad rather than Mom).

Many people who call themselves native American are almost fully European and with anglo names, might be harder to distinguish there.

I only mean for African-American, but it would be reasonable for all visually European people to be treated as fully European.

How does that help anything? That's not objective at all. There are white Africans (Elon Musk) and Europeans who can pass for northern Africans. You can also find siblings of which one could pass as black and the other as white.

The idea you can easily divide people in different race groups is literally the definition of racism. It doesn't work and we shouldn't be doing it.

That isn’t the definition of racism at all, and it does work, you can identify race from appearance. Give it a try.

You can also find siblings of which one could pass as black and the other as white. Sometimes even parents and children. Would they then be of a different race?

What are the different human races you can identify from appearance if I may ask?

So you might identify somebody 90% European as 100%, and your point is what exactly?

My point is that race is a very loose definition which quickly falls apart in practice, and thus it's just plain stupid to use it to decide whether people should be admitted to college or not.

In calling it a loose definition, you’re disputing your own premise behind your comment about two siblings being able to “pass” as different races.

AFAIK admissions departments don't have pictures of their applicants.

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