Talk about inter-racial relationships....

[Neto]

Kind of a pet peeve for me, so please excuse this response:
There is only one human race. (Inter-ethnic is a more accurate description.)

Oh. Sorry. Like I said, the humor must be extra weird today.

I was only responding to the common term in reference to humans. (Your joke was fine with me, although it wasn't what I expected when I opened the thread the first time.) I think that using the term 'race' to refer to different ethnic groups can tend to create a perception that there is something 'unnatural', or even sinful about marriages between different ethnic groups, and I disagree.

[Ken]

Kind of a pet peeve for me, so please excuse this response:
There is only one human race. (Inter-ethnic is a more accurate description.)

No, that isn't more accurate.

In the field of demographics, race is used to describe genetic differences that make people look different. Skin color, hair color, eye shape and color. We can distinguish between Asian, African, and Native Americans at a glance. We are all one species, but we are not all one race despite cute slogans to the contrary. But human populations are also not isolated and so the lines between races are very fuzzy (and always have been) and often more of a human construct.

Ethnicity refers to cultural differences. So for example, Hispanic or Latino are considered ethnicities that share a common culture, language, and heritage. There are Black, Asian, White, and Native Hispanics.

Cuba, for example has a large Black population descended from slaves, and a smaller White population descended from the Spanish aristocracy and Spanish immigrants. They are all Hispanic. Likewise, Guatemala and Mexico have both Whites descended from Europeans and Indigenous Mayan people but they are also all Hispanic. In Peru there is a large Asian population that produced president Fujimori but they are also Hispanic.

So on the US Census form you can select both race (White, African, Asian, etc.) and ethnicity (Hispanic or non-Hispanic) and you can be any combination of both.

In this sense, Mennonite is something of an ethnicity with the shared language, food, customs, dress, and heritage. But not a distinct race.

[Neto]

Kind of a pet peeve for me, so please excuse this response:
There is only one human race. (Inter-ethnic is a more accurate description.)

No, that isn't more accurate.

In the field of demographics, race is used to describe genetic differences that make people look different. Skin color, hair color, eye shape and color. We can distinguish between Asian, African, and Native Americans at a glance. We are all one species, but we are not all one race despite cute slogans to the contrary. But human populations are also not isolated and so the lines between races are very fuzzy (and always have been) and often more of a human construct.

Ethnicity refers to cultural differences. So for example, Hispanic or Latino are considered ethnicities that share a common culture, language, and heritage. There are Black, Asian, White, and Native Hispanics.

Cuba, for example has a large Black population descended from slaves, and a smaller White population descended from the Spanish aristocracy and Spanish immigrants. They are all Hispanic. Likewise, Guatemala and Mexico have both Whites descended from Europeans and Indigenous Mayan people but they are also all Hispanic. In Peru there is a large Asian population that produced president Fujimori but they are also Hispanic.

So on the US Census form you can select both race (White, African, Asian, etc.) and ethnicity (Hispanic or non-Hispanic) and you can be any combination of both.

In this sense, Mennonite is something of an ethnicity with the shared language, food, customs, dress, and heritage. But not a distinct race.

I never said 'Mennonite' is a different race. In fact, if I had said anything about 'Mennonite' I would have said the same thing - that it isn't a distinct 'race', because there is only one human race.

Yes, the word 'race' is USED for ethnic differences, but it is used incorrectly. Ethnicity and culture are not the same thing. My ethnicity is Plautdietsch, but some Plautdietsch people are culturally Russian, Brazilian, Argentinian, Ukrainian, North American, etc. These people may have any one of many different languages - English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and more. Common foods may be just as varied. Some are Russian Orthodox, others are of other Christian groups, or even atheists. Culture no longer holds us together as "a people', although we share a common heritage. If pressed, I could go farther back, and just say that I am of the Dutch ethnicity. Then, going way back, I am of the human RACE, like every other human being who has ever lived.

But I suspect I've just wasted my time writing this, and we will need to just realize that we will never agree on this question. But I will always insist that I am of the same race as African Americans, Chinese, the Banawa, (and even the Swiss .....). What is even the purpose of perpetrating the supposed differences between the different so-called 'races', when nearly all people on earth today are descended from multiple different 'races' (your use of the term, not mine).

Speaking of the Swiss, I'm guessing that is your own ethnicity. Some Swiss never were Mennonite, or Amish, or anything similar.

Wiki:

While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.[1][6][7] The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.

It goes on from there, to describe the ways in which it is used (in senses which 'have no inherent meaning'), but again, this usage was devised primarily for this purpose, probably in the 16th century. (See earlier in the Wiki article, where they mention phrenology. We studied that nonsense in Anthropology, and it is rejected by social science.)

EDIT (one more quote from the Wiki article):

Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable,[15][16][17][18][19][20] scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways.[21] While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive[10] or simplistic.[22] Still others argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance because all living humans belong to the same subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.[23][24]

Since the second half of the 20th century, race has been associated with discredited theories of scientific racism, and has become increasingly seen as a largely pseudoscientific system of classification. Although still used in general contexts, race has often been replaced by less ambiguous and/or loaded terms: populations, people(s), ethnic groups, or communities, depending on context.[25][26] Its use in genetics was formally renounced by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2023.[27]

[Ken]

Kind of a pet peeve for me, so please excuse this response:
There is only one human race. (Inter-ethnic is a more accurate description.)

No, that isn't more accurate.

In the field of demographics, race is used to describe genetic differences that make people look different. Skin color, hair color, eye shape and color. We can distinguish between Asian, African, and Native Americans at a glance. We are all one species, but we are not all one race despite cute slogans to the contrary. But human populations are also not isolated and so the lines between races are very fuzzy (and always have been) and often more of a human construct.

Ethnicity refers to cultural differences. So for example, Hispanic or Latino are considered ethnicities that share a common culture, language, and heritage. There are Black, Asian, White, and Native Hispanics.

Cuba, for example has a large Black population descended from slaves, and a smaller White population descended from the Spanish aristocracy and Spanish immigrants. They are all Hispanic. Likewise, Guatemala and Mexico have both Whites descended from Europeans and Indigenous Mayan people but they are also all Hispanic. In Peru there is a large Asian population that produced president Fujimori but they are also Hispanic.

So on the US Census form you can select both race (White, African, Asian, etc.) and ethnicity (Hispanic or non-Hispanic) and you can be any combination of both.

In this sense, Mennonite is something of an ethnicity with the shared language, food, customs, dress, and heritage. But not a distinct race.

I never said 'Mennonite' is a different race. In fact, if I had said anything about 'Mennonite' I would have said the same thing - that it isn't a distinct 'race', because there is only one human race.

Yes, the word 'race' is USED for ethnic differences, but it is used incorrectly. Ethnicity and culture are not the same thing. My ethnicity is Plautdietsch, but some Plautdietsch people are culturally Russian, Brazilian, Argentinian, Ukrainian, North American, etc. These people may have any one of many different languages - English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and more. Common foods may be just as varied. Some are Russian Orthodox, others are of other Christian groups, or even atheists. Culture no longer holds us together as "a people', although we share a common heritage. If pressed, I could go farther back, and just say that I am of the Dutch ethnicity. Then, going way back, I am of the human RACE, like every other human being who has ever lived.

But I suspect I've just wasted my time writing this, and we will need to just realize that we will never agree on this question. But I will always insist that I am of the same race as African Americans, Chinese, the Banawa, (and even the Swiss .....). What is even the purpose of perpetrating the supposed differences between the different so-called 'races', when nearly all people on earth today are descended from multiple different 'races' (your use of the term, not mine).

Speaking of the Swiss, I'm guessing that is your own ethnicity. Some Swiss never were Mennonite, or Amish, or anything similar.

Wiki:

While partly based on physical similarities within groups, race does not have an inherent physical or biological meaning.[1][6][7] The concept of race is foundational to racism, the belief that humans can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another.

It goes on from there, to describe the ways in which it is used (in senses which 'have no inherent meaning'), but again, this usage was devised primarily for this purpose, probably in the 16th century. (See earlier in the Wiki article, where they mention phrenology. We studied that nonsense in Anthropology, and it is rejected by social science.)

EDIT (one more quote from the Wiki article):

Even though there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable,[15][16][17][18][19][20] scientists around the world continue to conceptualize race in widely differing ways.[21] While some researchers continue to use the concept of race to make distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits or observable differences in behavior, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is inherently naive[10] or simplistic.[22] Still others argue that, among humans, race has no taxonomic significance because all living humans belong to the same subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.[23][24]

Since the second half of the 20th century, race has been associated with discredited theories of scientific racism, and has become increasingly seen as a largely pseudoscientific system of classification. Although still used in general contexts, race has often been replaced by less ambiguous and/or loaded terms: populations, people(s), ethnic groups, or communities, depending on context.[25][26] Its use in genetics was formally renounced by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2023.[27]

I'm not actually disagreeing with you in principle.

I'm just pointing out that in the field of demographics there is actually a distinction drawn between race and ethnicity. No matter how fuzzily the actual definitions of those terms are.

That is why the census, for example, distinguishes between racial categories and ethnicity.

I just tossed out Mennonites as an example of a category that would fall into the ethnicity category, at least roughly. We identify Mennonites and Mennonite communities based on culture not genetics.

[Neto]

....
I'm just pointing out that in the field of demographics there is actually a distinction drawn between race and ethnicity. No matter how fuzzily the actual definitions of those terms are.

That is why the census, for example, distinguishes between racial categories and ethnicity.

I just tossed out Mennonites as an example of a category that would fall into the ethnicity category, at least roughly. We identify Mennonites and Mennonite communities based on culture not genetics.

I do agree that there is a distinction between 'race' and 'ethnicity' - the difference is apparently just more stark for me than for you.

I am not included in your "we" statement. I am not "culturally Mennonite". I am both culturally AND ethnically Plautdietsch. The pattern of my faith, my religious convictions and attitudes, is "Mennonite" (or more specifically, Mennonite Brethren, in the sense of traditional MB).

Some here have remarked that I seem to feel "more responsible, or affected" by those of my ethnicity - recognized by their surnames - who do not follow our traditional faith & practice than is the average person of Swiss Brethren heritage. (This 1st person plural possessive is not intended to be inclusive. English doesn't have two forms for inclusive and exclusive. That is, I am not making any presumptions about you personally, or anyone else reading this, unless there is another Plautdietsch person on this discussion board.)

Perhaps this word, "heritage" is a useful one to clarify how I see the basic issue here. I have a Plautdietsch ethnic AND cultural heritage. My adopted cousin is not ethnically Plautdietsch, but she shares the same Plautdietsch cultural heritage. That is, being Plautdietsch has several factors or parameters, if you will. There is the ethnic - by blood - element, then also the cultural element that does not require genetic descent. Thirdly, there is the linguistic element, which is an expression of the Plautdietsch world view. To some extent, I may lack this element of "Plautdietschness", because I do not speak the language. In that regard, I do not participate fully in the Plautdietsch world view, because of the interrelatedness of culture and language. (I feel this keenly. This is a subject of discussion in theoretical linguistic-ethnology as to which shapes the other. Does language shape the world view, because a given world view can only be completely described in that language; or did the world view shape the language, to make it possible to give expression to the cultural 'soul'? My own opinion is that they shape each other, but that the world view is the dominant 'player'. A changing world view will create changes in the language. Some words take on new meanings. Others fall out of use to the extent that in an oral culture, the word and it's meaning would be lost. On the other hand, in a large language group like American English, a subset of the culture can introduce new ideas which create linguistic changes that may only very gradually affect the world view of the entire group.)

Getting back to the first sentence in the above paragraph, this "dissonance" I feel between what some members of my ethnicity and my 'religious expression' is due to the interrelatedness of faith and culture, each one influencing the other in various ways. Perhaps more importantly because the Plautdietsch ethnicity developed out of a group of people brought together by their faith-shaped world view. The world view developed at the same time as those of that persuasion were being increasingly spurned by the larger society, and forced into greater and greater isolation, gradually become a separate "people group", or ethnicity.

From what I know of the Swiss Brethren culture and world view, the same happened to them, to your people. There does, however, appear to be a difference, and I do not know what caused it. Perhaps the greater isolation my people experienced brought it about. Or possibly some difference in cultural attitudes that goes back to a difference between the Dutch and the Swiss. This difference is that people who had no inkling that they are of Plautdietsch descent until they took DNA tests are seeking knowledge of not only their extended relatives, but also asking lots of questions about the culture itself - probing the traditional Plautdietsch world view. Unless this is also happening with long lost Swiss "PA Germans" - I do not know what to call them - and I just do not know about it. Is it? Are there people contacting you all and saying that you are 8th or 9th cousins how ever many times removed, or even more distant? People with whom you have no mutual acquaintances at all? (It is also possible that those who came to be the Swiss Brethren were more "mono-cultural from the start.)

[People ask questions like "Why did the "Mennonites" keep moving from place to place? Why did they leave their homes in Holland, then in Prussia, and later in Russia? Not having any prior knowledge of "Mennonites", 'anabaptism', any of that, it makes no sense to them. My observation is that this lack of background information is more markedly seen in those who are descendants of Mennonites who stayed in Russia after the rise of the Soviet Union, and whose ancestors suffered the faith-deadening effects of Communism. The faith was largely lost within two generations. It was against the law to "indoctrinate" your own children, punishable by death. Also, they were simultaneously thrust into such poverty that most people cannot even imagine such a poor human condition. They were slaves to the communist system, the common laborers in the cooperatives.]