Ask HN: Can you identify as "raceless" while living in the US?

If you're talking about a form that asks for your race, yes, you can. Usually, you'll check "other", and then write in "raceless".

Or you can just decline to answer. The form is there to keep general tabs on overall racial statistics. It doesn't affect you in particular, and it's always optional.

Nobody else is likely to ask your race. It just doesn't come up.

HOWEVER -- others may assign you to a race. It doesn't matter how you identify. If they think you look black, or Hispanic, or Asian, they'll treat you that way. It won't do you any good to say, "No no, I'm raceless". It wouldn't even do you any good to say, "No, I'm not Arab, I'm from Bangladesh".

That's the reason some forms inquire about race. They want to see if there are any patterns of racism, so that they can look for ways to manage it. They ask you for your self-identification, which is usually close enough to what other people assign to you, at least for statistical purposes.

If you write in "raceless" you're just opting out of that record keeping. Or at least, you're going into that "other" category, and they'll keep an eye out on trends in that dimension.

But you won't find people ostracizing you for how you identify. They might ostracize you for what you look like, rather than how you see yourself.

If you don't want people to know and don't want to make a weird scene out of it, just say something like "it's complicated" or "I'd rather not talk about it". Or if they ask where you're from, you can always answer with some other place you've lived that wasn't your birthplace. Most polite people wouldn't ask you anyway and hopefully those who do will get the hint and not prod any further.

If you say "raceless", it'll probably either get a "uh, ok then" kind of response from people who don't really care (bureaucrats who just need to fill out a form they have no control over), or you might invite a discussion like "what's that? what do you mean? where were you born?" Do you want to have that convo? It's probably not going to go anywhere useful outside of controlled contexts like academia or a group of friends.

Race is a pretty taboo topic here in polite contexts between strangers.

On the other hand, if you really want people's unfiltered thoughts on your race or lack thereof... plenty of places online where you can spend a lifetime arguing over it. Not necessarily a good use of time, mind you, but people will definitely have opinions...

I suppose you can describe yourself in any way you please, but I doubt that many people would understand what you were talking about. It is not a term I have ever heard anyone use before.

Millions of Americans identify as "mixed" and leave it at that.

People don't discuss or act on race very often here, at least not overtly. You may be reading too much reddit or Twitter.

It'd depend strongly on context, but humans always love to sort other humans into their own preconceived pigeonholes.

Are you trying to identify as raceless to make political statement? Or is it more a case of "mom was half Native American and half Chinese; dad was half Afro-American and half Danish"?

Of course you can identify as "raceless". There are some who identify as "genderless", so to be inclusive and a good ally we should support "raceless" people too.

If you make up special categories for yourself, people will probably avoid you for being weird. Liz Warren got flack for pretending to be Native American and Rachel Dolezal got fired and relentlessly mocked, so probably not worth it.

In what context are you imagining it would even come up?

I just put American.