Thursday 29 May 2008

I have no Ethnicity

I was reading an interesting paper on trying to define "family ethnicity" (yeah, yeah, yeah, so I have eccletic tastes), and realised that ethnicity was one of those many concepts that shouldn't be applied to children, and that I was going to ignore.

Richard Dawkins has often spoken about how children should not be labeled with the religion of their parents, "There is no such thing as a Christian child", just like "There is no such thing as a Secular Humanist child". Children haven't learn what those concepts really mean, and so are given their parents beliefs and we all accept that. (The point being: why should we?) One does not speak of a "Marxist child" or a "Conservative child", we don't ascribe political beliefs to children so why religious ones?

And following on from that, do children really know what it means to be Maori or Pasifika or Pakeha? Hell, I don't even know! (More on that in a moment.) In the paper there was this very telling line (p45) "This suggests that for couples where the ethnicity of both parents is considered, it may not matter so much if only the ethnicity of the parents, or children, is considered." Really? To me, this suggests that the child is simply ascribed the ethnicity of their parents, and belongs in the "doesn't understand" camp with religion and politics.

As for me, my religious views are pretty evident from this blog (hint: a-religious) and I've also mentioned my a-political views. As I say, I don't really know what being "Pakeha" means, or "New Zealander" (beyond being born and living in New Zealand, but that is a geographical objective property, not a subjective one about "culture"), so I'm giving up my ethnic identity now as well. From now on, when asked "what is your ethnicity?", my answer is "none".

[END]

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