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How to deal with ethnic monitoring Lie and cheat. It is empty bureaucracy, and the people asking the questions do not care either:
[A]lthough I was born in Rawalpindi, in Pakistan, I used to say my ethnicity was Irish because I resented the question.
– Rear-Admiral Amjad Hussain, Royal Navy logistics chief, quoted in The Guardian
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I always put ‘English’. If there’s one thing the Public Sector hate worse than white people, it’s white English people.
I have a cousin who puts “Scotch”. “And soda”.
Whilst I completely agree that such questions are wholly unnecessary, is a better protest not to tick the “I do not wish to tell you my ethnicity” box?
The Hussains have a long history in Cork.
– Josh
Although I was born in London, my father came from Wales, and my grandparents from Lithuania, so I generally put Welsh-Lithuanian, but do sometimes write “human being” if I’m feeling especially bloody-minded.
I usually put Human or, if required and given no other choice, I select Asian.
After all, being of French-Dutch-English ascent I think I can fairly claim this.
After all, Europe is part of Asia, peninsular chauvinism notwithstanding. France and the Netherlands are both part of Europe and therefore Asian.
And if Japan is part of Asia then, damit, so is England.
I am Australian, of Anglo background way back. In Australia I choose Pacific Islander, Oz being an island in the Pacific, and in the UK I choose Asian, Oz being in the Austroasian region.
These will be valid choices up until those who are obsessed by these classifications introduce a racial registration act.
When asked for my race, I generally put ‘master’.
It’s the little things that make it all worthwhile.
J
I have always enjoyed being inventive and try to refuse a different way each time. I make it a test of moral stamina to increase the verbosity and rigour of my refusal to respond in direct proportion to the importance of the application. On occassions and following a glass or two of wine this has involved the inclusion of footnotes or an extra page. When I’m feeling lazy I’ll only offer, “Mostly part of the general mish-mash.”
I freely admit to being genuinely confused by the question. Looking closely at the skin of my arm – some white bits, some pink bits, some brown bits, some blue bits … Do they want the orgins of my mother’s mitochondria?
I always tick ‘other’, as there is no ‘British’- only ‘White British’.
Next time, if I’m ask to specify, I might just put ‘Mongoloid’.
Well I’m with the rear Admiral,
up to a point.
The point being, if people ask me fatuous questions,
I lie to them.
On the other hand if they ask me questions that are appropriate to what I wish to do, I tell the truth.
If anybody rings me up doing a survey into anything at all , I triple or half my income, uplay or downplay my properties worth and generally fuck around with the reality of my situation . Ha In the sad hope that it will mess with their statistics! Some hope.
See the bottom line is they can collait all they can carry,
But they are never going to process any of it.
When I started filling out forms which asked such questions, back in the ’60s, the phrase “human race” was commonly used, so I of course listed my race as “human”. More recently there is only a checklist of choices. I choose “other” whenever it is offered. I have never been questioned about this.
In the US one is sometimes questioned as to “church preference”, particularly by hospital admissions. My sister’s standard answer is “red brick”.
I’ve always refused to answer these questions, and left it blank on the 2001 census, from which I heard nothing. One employer tried to apply pressure to get me to complete the form, and I offered to quit; this would have comprehensively screwed their project, so they accepted my “strongly held views”. This does mean I can honestly claim never to have lied on an official form, although I haven’t told the truth.
Under the list there is usually the option – OTHER.
I put caucasian.
Many years ago the company I worked for put this ethnic origin religious affiliation nonsense in place and asked all employess to fill out the forms. An entire building turned out to be staffed by Zen Buddhists. Fancy that.
A while back my mum took a course at the local adult education center. It took her a few months to persuade them that this kind of thing was nonsensical. Her line of reasoning was, “we are in the building every day on a Thursday – if you want to see who we are, come along to the class and talk to us”.
Hopefully, when I leave this dump and go to America, this kind of thing will drop off slightly. Maybe they’ll be interested in my qualifications and experience (ie. the things I’ve actually done for myself) rather than the accident of the racial identity of my parents. Funny, I thought the whole project of the progressive movement was to try and make those things irrelevant…
Some more options for the race question:
sprint
relay
marathon
Re ethnicity, I like Viking. Or Canaanite. Or Neanderthal. Or some extinct group.
I worked at a school where one of the students was an extremely white redheaded young man who grew up in Botswana. On his applications for admission to American colleges, he checked African-American. After all, he had dual citizenship.
Tom Morris,
In my experience, this sort of ethnic monitoring is more common in the US. I got into a nasty little argument with my employer (in the US) who was insisting I fill out a form with my race, name and address on the same sheet. It was sent via our office administrator who was instructed by the HR people to “correct” the forms.
I am white Anglo-Saxon. My wife is Afro-Caribbean. My children are half and half. I’ve decided we’re all English, so that’s what I put. But I found the 2001 census form so offensive that it went in the bin, and luckily nobody ever came back to ask for it. If I am forced to fill in the next census form it will be full of lies.
Ethnic Monitoring;
What about us English. The people who’s home and heart is in England?
Every training course I attend I am asked to complete it. I always select OTHER – English.
I was born British in the 1960’s but ‘British’ is different now. ‘Briton’ is different, that to me means who’s blood is of these islands.
I was not like this once, but our Govt has made me this way.
Andrew Adamson
… who’s blood is of these islands …
What on earth does that mean?