In tone with Meg, I generally agree with what you say but take issue with some points:

1. The fact that only America was referenced here – multi-culturalism exists in many other places, such as the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Likewise, racism, discrimination and misrepresentation happen in these places as well. While this America-centristic approach is common to Feminspire (and, indeed, much of the internet), it is rather annoying to see an article on race and colour (yay! finally!) completely alienate anyone who is not American (me, for example).

I go to an incredibly ethnically diverse school and many people from Asia go there, including myself. Being able to collectively call ourselves “Asian” and “yellow” (which IS used but generally somewhat ironically or in a joking tone) gives us common ground. In fact there are MANY things that Asians, particularly Central-East and South-East Asians, have in common – an obsession for K-pop and k-dramas, a love of anime and manga, crazy driving in our home countries (too many people, too little space), stuff from night markets and eating rice for lunch. We all share these things, whether we are Filipino (the majority at my school), Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai, of mixed heritage (me!) or what-have-you. We share these things even if the only language we share is English and even if we don’t belong to the same ethnicity. There’s nothing derogatory about being called “Asian” – there are some problems with terms like “yellow” (for one thing, not all Asians have a golden tinge and I can’t think of a single person I know who is yellow) but, like most slang, when used responsibly, “yellow” is just another adjective to identify with.

3. While the idea of people being ‘racially’ different is absurd (you can’t base someone on how they look to determine their race – some people just don’t look like the ethnic group they belong to, among other iffy reasons), people ARE CULTURALLY different and will have different ideas in regards to social behaviour – British and Western table manners can be very different from Asian table manners, as can parenting methods, religious practices (even if it’s the SAME religion) and what is appropriate to talk about (Chinese people, for example, are generally more open about their toilet habits than the British, for example). Ethnicity is one thing and culture is another. Identifying by your cultural group – South-East Asian, Asian, yellow, African, African-American or black – allows you to share your culture with others, even without having to be of the same ethnicity.

Uh, I may have gone off into a tangent there. I hope my comment still addressed the article and still related to what was discussed there.

This race band wagon and grouping people together…??? Do we even need to do that in this day and age? I have two children that if you want to categorize them by race and get technical I will give you a challenge. OK, here goes: They are African American, German, English,Irish, Italian, Cherokee, Blackfoot, and possibly Polynesian. So…you mean to tell me it’s necessary to “lump” my children into some classification? If you looked at my children without them saying a word to them and had to guess their nationality, you would put them in the Hispanic lump. They don’t have a drop of Hispanic blood in them that I know of. So you cannot just look at someone and judge what their nationality is, even of Asian descent. Sorry…there are quite a few Hispanic people with those pretty slant to their eyes. Are people aware that Filipino People speak Spanish? Ahhhh….Very Asian persuasion!!! Stop all this judgemental “lumping” terminology. If you are in Rome…do as the Romans do. This is The United States of America. I emphasize UNITED. Everyone here is a part of the “Human Race”.

For Black people, however, I feel that race cannot be eradicated. Since our history was washed out via the Transatlantic slave trade, we have nothing else to “culturally” tie use together but our Blackness. We do not have the privilege of being about to denote where we come from, because for many no such records exisit. Yes, race is a very filthy way of grouping and identify people; however, we have to remember that it is a social construction and is not perfect.

Wonderful article

more like, why it’s okay to be a woman of color so long as you are thin and beautiful