mh67511

I'm confused about the difference between race and ethnicity. We were talking about it today in class.

For example I am white and my ancestors came from Sweden and Norway. So my ethnicity is Scandanavian or is my ethnicity Swedish and Norwegian? And what is my race? White? Or is my race Swedish and Norwegian or Scandanavian or what?

Is American a race or ethnicity?

If someone says they are Asian-American is that their race, ethnicity, or the equivalent of a white person saying that they are European-American.

The second thing I need clarification on is prejudice, discrimination, and racism.

Prejudice would be someone thinking that, for example, Asians are smarter in math than everyone else.

Discrimination would be only looking at Asian candidates for a math position, because you believe that Asians are smarter in match.

Racism would be believing that Asians are smarter in math because they are better than other races.

Is that correct?

Quarterley

You forgot Stereotype. Ahem...just kidding.

Some definitions I found:

Prejudice --an attitude about another person or group of people based on stereotypes
Discrimination --an action or behavior based on prejudice
Racism --prejudice or discrimination based on race/ethnicity

So yeah, I guess you are on the right track.

As for American, it's kinda tricky cuz people usually refer to American as a nationality whereas they would think Spanish/French/Dutch more like an ethnicity. So an Asian-American would be someone who has Asian ethnicity like Chinese/Japanese/Korean but is from America. A race would be a group of people with the same ethnicity. So someone who is Japanese and is an American citizen would be an Asian-American whose ethnicity is Japanese. Japanese in general is a race. Does that make sense?

Galaxia21

Your race is white, but your ethnicity is what your background is made up of, anthor word for it is heritage.

If someone says they are an Asian- American as per your example, that means that their race is in fact Asian but they were raised in America. Which is actually seperate from race and ethnicity and is a whole other subject. That starts to come into play when you combine your race with were you live, your culture, etc.


For me my race is white, and I consider my ethnicity to be white too, but my heritage is Cherokee Indian, Swedish, Irish, French, etc.. Ethnicity and hertiage are debatable as to whether you consider one word different from the other...


I haven't been in school for a long time, but yeah that's what I know..

CrabbyCancer69

Your ethnicity is your cultural heritage or the particular group you're from, such as Native American, Asian, Black Hispanic..etc etc.