<p>akahmed:</p>
<p>The answer is you're Asian American.</p>
<p>The larger answer is that if you've been influenced by this rich background, and can sum it up well (maybe you already have), you've got yourself a hell of an essay.</p>
<p>By the way, have you ever read "A Bend in the River" by VS Naipaul? I highly recommend it.</p>
<p>Oh, and sorry I was a smarta** before. ;)</p>
<p>Thats what my essay is about. I definitely will apply as Asian, but I will let them know I have been influence by African culture. Why/ diversity. Our language is a hybrid between the original and swahili, our food is different and has more African in it, there is a lot of stuff. I wrote my essay on how eyeopening going to Africa was and how I felt for those in poverty.</p>
<p>The main character in the Bend in the River has somewhat similar roots.</p>
<p>How to solve problem: what is the color of your skin?
A) White
B) Colored
C) Black</p>
<p>Although many people would start to get tans, I think it will eliminate any ambiguities.</p>
<p>Race/ethnicity should not even be taken into consideration. Your friend should put African-American; it just shows how ridiculous the whole thing is.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Dammit, NOT EVERY BLACK PERSON WANTS TO "write her freshman English essays about her experiences with the challenges of being an African American in modern America"<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Ernie, you are missing the point. It's not that every black person wants to, or should want to, write such an essay. It's that a white south African masquerading as an "African American" would be <em>incapable</em> of legitimately writing such an essay and thus would be exposed as the fraud that they are.</p>
<p>"How to solve problem: what is the color of your skin?
A) White
B) Colored
C) Black</p>
<p>Although many people would start to get tans, I think it will eliminate any ambiguities."</p>
<p>The mongoloid-african-caucasian trichotomy -- the exact pseudoscience I was talking about. </p>
<p>Please, get your pseudoscientific trash out of here, especially when these classifications carry NO scientific or genetic rigour whatsoever.</p>
<p>I can't stand race bigots.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I love this. I love the simplicity of this. Let's undo all the effort -- either misplaced or not, I am not one to judge -- that went into finally getting folks to move away from the use of "Black" to using "African American." I love the lack of historical perspective and lack of political correctness that this answer implies. Brilliant.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't understand why we would want to use imprecise labels simply because some people are squeamish about colour - white is white, black is black. Caucasian as in race (as opposed to people from the Caucasus) was ironically first primarily used by white supremacists in the 19th century, and even then, its definition included certain peoples from North Africa and the Indian subcontinent. African-American is such a vague term that it has multiple meanings and can be gamed (as evinced in this topic).</p>
<p>I'm sort of neutral-to-against affirmative action, but if we're going to discriminate on the basis of race, let's be precise. Everyone knows who is white and who is black - these are perfectly valid, if slightly imprecise, terms we can use to refer to race.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Myself, I don't really have a dog in that fight. I don't really care one way or another. I don't see, personally, a particular problem with black or white as labels as they are imprecise to begin with: I am sort of a wan peach color who turns red when I try to tan for instance. Though I am blindingly white in the bright sun, but that's a contrast thing. There are a lot of different shades of black -- or brown rather -- and greater variation. I don't think these are scientific designations to begin with, so calling it a pseudoscientific designation I think misses the point. It's not about hard scientific integrity.</p>
<p>I use African American as a term because it's no skin off my nose to do so and I want to make everyone as comfortable as I can and won't have sacrificed my principles if I do this. </p>
<p>As far as affirmative action goes, I am really for it overall. I think what it does is blend meritocracy and accounts for inherent unfairnesses at the same time. It opens people's minds -- they become surrounded by more diversity. And it enfranchises people who nonetheless have to work for their positions. As with anything it can be abused and overdone. But in a completely different context, what's not abusive about the fact that many CEOs get huge payouts when their companies fail or they fail? Some people will argue that's the cost of our form of capitalism. I'd say the same thing about affirmative action. Overall the country is made much better to have economic and social participation at all levels encompass diversity.</p>
<p>I can see arguments for affirmative action as a whole being "sunseted" for sure. And I support a shift from affirmative action that takes full account of race to one that considers challenges overcome no matter what the race. A very well-to-do African American from PG county in Maryland (I think that's the right county that has a great number) doesn't need a leg up. Based on what I saw on post 22, colleges are hip to that.</p>
<p>Now having said all that, I'll say it again: I thought that the facile dismissal of "African American" was devoid of historical knowledge or at least concern. I just thought it was funny. Nothing more. It's like coming up to a quarterback who's slogged through 3 and a half hard quarters and whose team is down by 10 points because he threw two interceptions (the first two of his season) and his friend comes up and says, "I figured it out: you need to avoid throwing interceptions!" As if it was an epiphany. Maybe it's a bad analogy, but that's how I took it: doh, if only it were so simple. People may think it should be, but that's simplistic.</p>
<p>I</p>
<p>Akahmed: I hope that in your essay you have included that list describing your heritage. That's amazing! And, no, it doesn't make you African-American, imo, but wow -- really interesting.</p>
<p>I guess a more "PC" way to handle this would be to ask the country of prehistoric descent. Where, if you traced your lineage, would your family come from. This way, the majority if not all whites would be considered "European." The majority of blacks would be considered "African." I'm sure there would still be some major groupings for Asia like "Near-East Asian" and "Far-East Asian" and others. For Native Americans, a grouping like "North American." "South African" and "Central American/Mexican" could also be used. That covers the largest bases. </p>
<p>Such information combined with one's citizenship would essentially clear up anything questionable about the situation. For the originally presented case, an answer to the proposed "lineage" question would be "European," and the answer to country of citizenship would be "South American." From those two pieces of information, we can deduce that this person is a white citizen of South Africa.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Where, if you traced your lineage, would your family come from.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hi, I'm an African.</p>
<p>I'm an American(based on my citizenship) and am of European descent(based on family lineage). It's nice to meet you.</p>
<p>Remember that every college applicant has the right to keep information about his or her background or ethnicity ** completely private **. No person or institution, not even the United States Government, requires you to declare that information on a college admission application, but colleges are compelled to ask anyway. </p>
<p>I am afraid that much of the discussion on this website and others about race, ethnic origin, diversity, and how it affects admission to college is often based on jealousy, fear, and ignorance. Ignorance especially of the condition of other people and the experiences of their lives. People are so quick to categorize other people because it gives them supposed control over and a false, less rigorous "understanding" of something they can't experience. This is what leads to stereotype. I honestly think that half of the students on College Confidential view people of different extractions than themselves as a threat, because they *assume * that colleges view them in a certain way that is somehow different or more advantageous than the way they think they will be viewed, and they think this without knowing the facts that frankly they can never truly know. Yet, they * assume * to do so once again. </p>
<p>Maybe we should all stop, and think. Recall the golden rule and remember that you wouldn't want others to attribute your life and your achievements to your supposed race. Lying on a college application about your background degrades what little appreciation we have of each other, and continues to perpetuate the idea that minorities have a clear "advantage" purely because of their heritage. </p>
<p>Like other members in this thread, I am simply disgusted by the racial-bigotry that lurks in these forums.</p>
<p>most of that is probably a product of the large percentage of people on this forum who attend private or elite public highschools, a situation where they only interact with maybe a handful of people of a different culture than them on a daily basis, if that, simply because their aren't that many around.</p>
<p>Thus, all Indian people of brahmin caste (including the poor brahmins) are actually Indo-European Caucasians. Sorry, you're white guys, according to Handyandy.</p>
<p>This sort of "prehistoric" view which neglects that ethnicity can be created through fusions and divergences in culture reflects the same "pure race" bigotry that prevented racial intermarriage. I mean gee, many people in France aren't of Frankish origin, but can be traced to some pre-Indo-European people before the Romans, with black hair and so forth, so technically they aren't even Caucasians either.</p>
<p>The racial bigot Handyandy forgets the fact that 1) race is pseudoscience 2) ethnicities often mix and melange such that it would be rather unfair to call upon one person of that culture to specify his ultimate ethnicity when he fact feels part of all the other ethnicities mixed into his culture.</p>
<p>Maybe Handyandy ought to take an actual anthropology course or actually get real knowledge on human migrations, or familiarise himself with the data from mitochrondrial DNA. Before any bigot tries to give some "easy, it's so simple!" clear-cut definitions of race instead, may I remind him or her to present SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE of this first.</p>
<p>Tyler, thats often true, but that's hardly an excuse, not in today's society, for some of the things I have read from members on these forums. After all, I went to a private boarding school, and I met all kinds of people from around the US and throughout the world.</p>
<p>What a pointless discussion. How about the girl calls the college and asks for clarification on the question?</p>
<p>Better yet, not participate in this race nonsense at all. Opt out, opt out.</p>
<p>I want to see the day when the majority of students simply do not list "their race" (noting the fact that no one can really have a race because it's all junk pseudoscience) on their application in protest of colleges' bigotry.</p>
<p>Refuse to be blanket-labelled -- don't put a race down.</p>
<p>
[quote]
dont think its a quesiton of skin color here, i think its a question of disadvantaged students / ethnicity.
[/quote]
Why do ppl assume all AAs are disadvantaged? What about the "minority" of asians, etc.? A lot are disadvantaged too.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Refuse to be blanket-labelled -- don't put a race down.
[/quote]
I agree, don't put it down if you don't want to.</p>
<p>I think the whole purpose of top schools looking at ethnicity is because they want diversity. They are certainly not looking forward to rejecting the 2400 asian to accept the 1800 AA, but sometimes standards might be set lower towards a group of ppl merely cuz they're "not as good in general" (no offense).</p>