Actually I was just kidding about Tasmanians, they’re OK, I had a friend once who knew one.

Regarding this Jailed-Japanese story, I half agree with both.

I think it was racist policy. I do think that the Japanese are a distinct race… at least according to the way I use “race”.

I do not think it was racially bigoted. There was an assumption that people of Japanese race would be more sympathetic to Japan… but I think that assumption was based on logic & reality, not bigotry.

But having said that, I think it was bad policy. While the generalisation may have been true… I don’t believe an innocent person should ever be arrested on suspicion of what they might do.

I suspect he meant, to be one person in spite of having two heads

My point exactly. In fact there are innumerable different definitions, most of them subjective. Which makes calling America racist for interning Japanese in WW2 meaningless because nobody knows what it means. If the Japanese in America perceived themselves to be a distinct race but the Americans who interned them merely perceived them as having potential loyalties to Japan, who decides whether it’s racist?

The only solution is an objective division like the three races I nominated. That’s how they do it in the US except they refer to Europeans as Caucasian. But don’t tell Sukrit or he’ll say that confirms it can’t be right.

And some of my best friends are Tasmanian. As I perceive them to be.

Up here we have always considered them to be one.

So somehow you manage to squeeze Indians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Aboriginals and Arabs into those groupings, David? I’d like to see how you slice that cake…

Actually if you look at genetic clusters there are roughly 7 biological/ genetic races.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29#How_much_are_genes_shared.3F_Clustering_analyses_and_what_they_tell_us

But much like dog breeds it’s far more complicated than that, too.

The Japanese internment wasn’t about nationality (as defined by citizenship) but about race. Not biological race, but social race. Race, defined socially, is a group of individuals that sees themselves as a distinct grouping of people, where that grouping is commonly recognised by others around the world.

Tasmanians aren’t commonly recognised as a separate race, nor do they determine themselves to be one (except in joke). Tasmanians are “Australian”, Australians are a distinct race in some people’s judgements, “mixed British” in other people’s. I classify myself as “Australian”- other Australians are proud of their heritage and list their race as “English”, “Irish” or whatever. Most French see themselves as French, most Japanese see themselves as Japanese, not as Asian. Even someone who has never been to France will note themselves as French if they have French blood.

Yes, there’s no one concrete definition of race. But discrimination on the basis of perceived race is still racism. By its very definition.