What is race?

[flashpig]

So what is a race (as in racism)? Is it social or biological? Is it racist for an English person to say they hate Welsh people, despite a Welsh people being utterly indistinguishable from English? Is there the Welsh race? And religion or physical characteristics? Has the word 'racism' extended to cover those things? Is it one of these things which is hard to define, like 'literature'?

[tartanwiz]

Race and nationality are not the same thing, of course. Americans, for example, are not one single biological race, but several. However, the Race Relations Act and the Race Discrimination Act apply to mistreatment of a person because of their nationality or ethnic identity, not just biological race. The only difference between, say, a Scotsman and an Englishman is accent, but if the Scotsman went to London and was refused a job because he's Scottish, that would be classed as racial discrimination.

[Gef]

I don't disagree with tartan but wonder what would happen if say, a Geordie, went to London and was refused a job because of his accent. Would that be legal?

[IndieSinger]

It apparently happened to my English Literature teacher of yesteryear. He was a Geordie and went for a job down South for the money and couldn't get one; the staff said his broad accent was too much of a problem. So he said to them, "Ah diven'ah wat yaz gaan an aboot, like." No I made that bit up. But in the end he practised a southern accent, which he has "grown into" now and he was able to get a job down south. As I say, this was a long time ago, and if it wasn't illegal then, it may be now. But maybe not if the English Department could prove that his accent really would be a detriment to his teaching. It would be a form of discrimination, and people may well refer to it as racial discrimination in haste because the term - like his Geordie accent - is bit broad. Mind you, this is the same English Literature teacher who didn't know who wrote The Diary of Anne Frank.

[JohnPPotts]

I would say race is almost entirely a social construct. It has been shown that the genetic difference between the average Chinaman and the average Inuit (or eskimo, as we're not supposed to call them these days) is less than the variance within groups. Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda (or Serbs and Croats in what was Yugoslavia) are gentically very similar, but that didn't stop them killing each other over differences that (to outsiders) were almost entirely invisible.

[andy hughes]

Gef - Tartan's reasoning is not contradicted by your point. If someone is refused a job purely on the basis of his origin, that is racial discrimination. Refusing someone a job on the basis that their accent makes them unsuitable is a valid point, and not legally discriminatory. Refusing a woman a job fitting bras because she is black is discriminating, refusing a man the job because he is man, is not. I hope my reasoning is clear.

[Gef]

Andy - I agree entirely but I wonder what might happen if, say, someone from the Indian subcontinent was refused a job because of his accent. I hope I have phrased that correctly because I am in no way racist.

[andy hughes]

That's a real toughie Gef! You could applyu logical reasoning that his accent is the reason for the refusal, getting him, and possible the Race Relations people to believe that was the only reason would be a real problem!