What is an 'ethnic Ameeican'?

Apparently the assumption is that white people have no ethnicity. Thus ethinicity is some sort of weird hereditary disease that makes people's skin look funny and causes them to dress and talk in odd ways.

Even worse is "ethnic" as an everyday adjective, as in, "Wow, that haircut is so ethnic."

what is this ameeican and where can i buyone? is it like a pecan? or a toucan?

No Geoff, it's like a Mekon.

"Ethnicity" = new way of saying what we used to mean by "Race" now that great Science has proved that there is only one genetic human race, with different breeds sort of like cattle or dogs.

Just realised that that could be miscontrued as a "racist" - sorry, "ethnicisist" statement. For a start, I think cows and dogs are much nicer than humans, so comparison is a compliment... for a second, whites are *not* non-"ethnic". If you think about it scientifically, with our freaky albino skin and our pigmentless hair (blond? that's a lack of colour! creepy!) and our silly grey colourless eyes, you know *we're* the freaky mutants, the human equivalent of those weird dogs with no hair that are only 12cm long and have wrinkles all over them. Ugh!

Acccording to sociology class:

"Race" = Biologial/physical differences.
"Ethnicity" = Culture

Not that I think this means anything.

I think that is the difference between the two terms as I understand them, Graham, though I'd be unlikely to use either.

I have heard the phrase "the more ethnic folkies" used to refer to those who resisted the fusion of folk and rock in the 60s (i.e. wanted to immunise it from outside influences).

I'm all for Americans of European descent learning more about their ethnicity, and I agree that the term is problematic. It's particularly noxious when applied exclusively to brown-skinned people. The problem is that you have white Americans who don't know some or most of their ethnic lineage, while you have others who are first or second generation who are much closer to their European past. Those more recent arrivals don't necessarily identify with the more "mixed" European Americans, so you can't exactly say they have the same "ethnicity". I don't use the term "ethnic" to refer to brown- skinned people - I think it's offensive, but I have used the term "white ethnic" to refer to those who live in a more immediate post- immigrant culture.

And you can't call "American" an ethnicity because many descendants of all continents would object to that. The notion of "American-ness" is a very tricky issue, since many non- ethnically identified people tend to use the adjective "American" in an assimilationist sense: prescribing a specific set of values as "American".

That said, the New York Times, of all newspapers, should know better. Sheesh.

Yesterday in history we had to decide what traits made people American. (Daft exercise or good for thought? I don't know. It was hard.) Besides living here or having lived here, all we could really come up with was "if you think you're American you probably are."

one of our more wise and ethical persons is Gary Zukav, readthis, a good thing for us to remember. I am so emotionally drained from being around this racist shit all week. I found this page helpful, maybe you will too.