White Person Born in South Africa as "African-American"?

Applying to College
101

<p>I say that person IS African-American. If you take that "lol her ancestors r fr0m eur0p3" stuff back far enough then we are ALL BLACK!!! Since we all came from Ethiopia, so thus shouldn't we all check African under our boxes? Her decision is justified, she was born in Africa so she has ethnic varieties from there which counts as being African-American</p>

<p>And, as galoisien wisely pointed out, that would mean Turks and Indians and all of em are really cauciasians, not Asians or whatever. I don't think they would agree with that as so.</p>

102

<p>Since race is pseudoscience, it shouldn't be a question on college apps. However, for some reason, it is. Idealism won't fix that. I was merely brainstorming a way as to which situations like the one originally presented could be avoided. I'm not going to defend myself against ad hominem remarks; however, I invite you to join in with some other solution to this situation.</p>

103

<p>^^^i'm pretty sure that i read something where some dumb kid did that, needless to say he was rejected outright. </p>

<p>^^ If you don't think it should be a question on apps, then don't write anything and it won't affect you. nobody is forcing you to answer it.</p>

<p>And i think that what determines a disadvantaged ethnicity in America (on the whole) is that they have to be correlated to disadvantage IN AMERICA.</p>

<p>If you're poor, your disadvantaged you get help, because being poor correlates to many unfortunate statistics as a result of the nature of our system</p>

<p>If you're black/hispanic/native american/filipino, thats a disadvantaged minority, as being of those ethnicities currently correlates to many unfortunate statistics as a result of the nature of our system</p>

<p>to say otherwise would mean stating that these groups are in this situation by there own doing. (which is absolutely stupid)</p>

<p>The entire problem is really in the public education system (segregation/racial profiling forced already poor minorities into poorer areas where property taxes are lower and thus schools are of a lower quality). And this system isn't going to change anytime soon because people who don't have kids don't want to pay taxes for schools in the first place, and they definitely don't want to pay for inner city kids to have as good schools as they do. So the K-12 education system is virtually unfixable until adults attitudes change.</p>

<p>Affirmative action and the like seek to make progress while that changes. </p>

<p>Now relating this to the main point, is this south african girl affected in anyway by this cultural bias? Do people expect less or stereotype her any differently because she is african as they do to actually black people? (which is just as true among upper income minorities who are often in situation when they are one of few like them and are even more affected by these burdens). </p>

<p>If not then in what way would she possibly be justified, and not just attempting to exploit people?</p>

104

<p>Tyler09:
1.</p>

<p>
[quote]
If you're black/hispanic/native american/filipino, thats a disadvantaged minority, as being of those ethnicities currently correlates to many unfortunate statistics as a result of the nature of our system

[/quote]
</p>

<p>God, you people just ramble without thinking. Haven't all the posters here been arguing about whether it is right or not that "our system" benefits those groups?</p>

<ol>
<li>
[quote]
which is just as true among upper income minorities who are often in situation when they are one of few like them and are even more affected by these burdens

[/quote]
</li>
</ol>

<p>huh? this makes no sense. Then why don't Asians qualify for affirmative actions? How about a white person from an inner city ghetto?</p>

105

<p>Let me ask y'all this:</p>

<p>Is a guy who immigrated from Egypt an "African-American"? Egypt is in Africa, after all.</p>

<p>Now, take a guy who immigrated from Saudi Arabia, just a short distance east from Egypt. Is that guy an "Asian-American"? After all, Saudi Arabia is in Asia.</p>

106

<p>
[quote]
How about a white person from an inner city ghetto?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Or how about a white person from rural Appalachia, one of the longest enduring pockets of severe white poverty in American history.</p>

107

<p>@ jocan</p>

<p>Related to my previously defined family history</p>

<p>I informed colleges in my apps about my unique minority status, and my disgust in having to choose between two big generalizations, asian and african american. Will this help?</p>

108

<p>That's why the poor receive benefits too. They are all victims of an unfair educational system.</p>

<p>nonetheless this thread is about the justification of her saying that she's black when she's not and experiences no impact of being so.</p>

<p>Believe me, i think we all wish we could have an institutionally "color-blind" system, but i also wish we could have a "socioeconomics-blind" system. Niether of those are plausible now. </p>

<p>Its like saying that financial aid should be only merit base and not take need into account at all. As long as socioeconomic diversity does not happen on its own in colleges we should take into account socioeconomic status, as long as ethnic diversity doesn't occur on its own we should take it into account. </p>

<p>my point is that while ethnicity may be "pseudoscience", its an American cultural reality, especially when a randomly selected black or hispanic person is far more likely to be poor, lack health care, be raised by a single parent, or be in prison then any other "ethnicity". </p>

<p>I highly doubt this is true of white south africans where white households are making six times that of the black africans in the country.</p>

109

<p>"i think the question is meant to refer to ethnicity, not origin. </p>

<p>but hey. her risk of getting offers rescinded/rejected/etc."</p>

<ol>
<li><p>African American is not an ethnicity, black or african is the most politically correct, realistically speaking, because African American's Ancestors of African descent.</p></li>
<li><p>Yeah, they do mean black, which i think is stupid because then what do you do If you are a black, african, living with an American Visa...Since they wouldnt have citizenship, then they would not be african-american...</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Anyway, yeah check the box. Hopefully, one day stupid, "politically correct" America will learn that the "politically correct" system is completely flawed.</p>

110

<p>Okay okay okay.</p>

<p>I come into this discussion and see absolutely no discussion of genes in this thread.</p>

<p>What is race? Race is simply common ancestry through (a) your maternal line and (b) through your paternal line. </p>

<p>Anyways, the federally defined categories are extremely ambiguous. But with the era of widespread genetic testing soon on the horizon, we'll be able to trace people by their Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Is a guy who immigrated from Egypt an "African-American"? Egypt is in Africa, after all.</p>

<p>Now, take a guy who immigrated from Saudi Arabia, just a short distance east from Egypt. Is that guy an "Asian-American"? After all, Saudi Arabia is in Asia.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>By census designations, the person from Egypt is African-American, even though technically, his line of ancestors comes from a group that is genetically distinct (that is, the common ancestor of all Egyptians is more recent than the common ancestor of all Egyptians + sub-Saharan Africans) from those of those in sub-Saharan Africans.</p>

<p>And actually, sub-Saharan Africans have probably the greatest genetic diversity of any human group. Bantu peoples are quite genetically distinct from Pygmy peoples, who in turn, are quite genetically distinct from Xhosa peoples. </p>

<p>That being said though, it's not easy to identify such ancestry (until genetic testing becomes prevalent - and this may bring about moral issues). </p>

<p>As a side note, people of particular races are more likely to possess some characteristics than others are (this makes statistics collecting far easier - as we can identify groups that are, say, more likely to be disadvantaged due to factor X in ENVIRONMENT Z than other groups) [African-Americans in America are likely to encounter different barriers to success as compared to, say, African-Americans in another country]. However, with every group categorization we make, we will inevitably run into the trouble of oversimplifying the diversity WITHIN every group (this leads to issues like the above-mentioned one). The legitimacy of racial categorizations, of course, comes from the fact that the extreme cases are sufficiently small enough not to warrant additional subdivisions or an elimination of such categorizations altogether in a particular environment - say - the United States. However, in a different country (say, Zimbabwe), it may be more important to subdivide Africans into different ethnic groups (if possible) in order to identify trends that are more likely to afflict one group as compared to another. </p>

<p>as a case in point, in America, most African Americans are sub-Saharan Africans, not north Africans. Clearly, the circumstances with respect to North Africans are different from those of Sub-Saharan Africans (there is less discrimination against lighter-skinned Africans). But if the number of north Africans was comparable to that of sub-Saharan Africans, then there would be substantial incentive for the census to subdivide Africans into sub-Saharan and north Africans. </p>

<p>For more information: </p>

<p>Luigi</a> Luca Cavalli-Sforza - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Human</a> Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Human</a> mitochondrial DNA haplogroup - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
<a href="https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

111

<p>Also.</p>

<p>Hair color is controlled by one locus on the chromosome. (I think the same applies for skin color,not quite sure). So if your mother is heterozygous blonde/black, your father is heterozygous blonde/black, then there's a 25% chance that you are blond, even though both of your parents are black (blonde is a recessive trait, and the dominance is complete in the phenotype). </p>

<p>This is why you can't totally rely on skin color or hair color. Actually, there hasn't been much racial admixture until now - this fact alone makes racial categorizations in the past more accurate than they would be in a society with more racial admixture.</p>

<p>Gene</a> Expression: Mixed-race but homogeneous appearance?
Gene</a> Expression: Blonde Australian Aboriginals</p>

<p>right now, of course, "extreme" cases haven't been common. But since the census is self-correcting (and most records are self-correcting like that), if extreme cases become more common, then they'll be accounted for. As for the person in question, of course, he must be Caucasian as his genetic ancestors were all Caucasian. But then what of, say, someone who has one black grandparent, one white grandparent, one asian grandparent, and one hispanic grandparent? hmm? haha...</p>

112

<p>IMO, "political correctness" has nothing to do with ethnicity. You either are a certain race, or are not. Once again, race/ethnicity is solely referring to, in essence, one's skin color. Even though I think ethnicity based on what one feels to be their cultural identity (instead of actual race), that is not the case. </p>

<p>A person who is born in Africa is African by origin/birth. He/she can be labeled "African," and a Caucasian of African origin. I don't believe that it would be entirely wrong to mark both African-American and Caucasian (even though African American is meant to refer to people of African/Black ancestry). But if you are truly, fully Caucasian (white) and mark that you are something else (any other race), THEN that you are completely dishonest, disengenuous, etc. </p>

<p>If you have to choose only one option, and you still feel that you identify strongly with a different race (aside from Caucasian), mark the "other" box, and put down "Caucasian of African origin" for the explanation. That would be honest, and would still reveal to the adcoms that you do have some sort of African background. Having some-sort of African background still does not give you the right to list that you are only "African American/Black/African" in ethnicity.</p>

113

<p>I'm South African and marked white and 'other' and filled in 'South African' because I didn't want to be misleading/dishonest.
I wrote my essay about how I define myself through cultural identity rather than skin color. Call it cliche', but it got published. :)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
That's why the poor receive benefits too.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Huh? What benefits? The common app doesn't even ask for financial info...</p>

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<p>Most colleges consider low income status or coming from a low income area to be a plus because they want socioeconomic diversity.</p>

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<p>How do the colleges know an applicant's socioeconomic status, if applications ask no such thing? Tyler09, that is exactly what "need blind" admission is all about!</p>

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<p>Huh? What benefits? The common app doesn't even ask for financial info...</p>

<p>^^im not sure if poor people get many benefits but on the common app does ask if your parents went to college and what they do for a living and if your brother and sisters went/go to college....which all should be a good indication of your socioeconomic status</p>

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<p>and poor area/high school</p>

119

<p>tell her to do what she wants to do. as long as she's not completely lying. but if her last name is something like "walters" or "smith" then adcoms might raise an eyebrow.</p>

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<p>


</p>

<p>That is not true: According to the U.S. Census definition (which you obviously did not consult):</p>

<p>"White. A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "White" or report entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish.</p>

<p>Black or African American. A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. It includes people who indicate their race as "Black, African Am., or Negro," or provide written entries such as African American, Afro American, Kenyan, Nigerian, or Haitian."</p>

<p>Black</a> or African American persons, percent, 2000</p>

<p>Unless the person from Egypt is a Black person with a sub-Saharan background (most Egyptians are of Arab decent), he or she would be considered white according to the U.S. Census.</p>