To respond to a question on my previous post,
One reason that I believe that I only got a few right is that the people profiled in the pictures used very distant relative (such as their Great-great-grandfather was Native American), which would make the results somewhat biased. The only problem in a quiz such as this that I can find is this: there has been so much interbreeding of many "races""race" (I will use the term "ethnicity" to use a more comfortable term), making many people of mixed origins (half Caucasian half African, etc.). So I will say that this test does exactly what it was designed to do: it teaches you that people are of many origins and their ethnicity cannot always be determined accurately.
To conclude, it is not always proper to try to predict one's ethnicity as you may be off and it may make the other person... uncomfortable. Therefore, if I have to try to learn one's ethnicity, I will not predict but I will ask instead
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Good day! Hither will ye find the research of Samuel Alexander Weise, apprentice of the celebrated Mrs. Ann Lawson. Read on to expand your knowledge on history lest ye be doomed to follow old mistakes.
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Sam I like the note on which you conclude because it highlights the idea that we should relate to people as individuals -- that ultimately, we can only think usefully about a human being that we know, not as a member of a group. But, to add to what you wrote earlier, I want to make sure that you keep in mind the larger point. As you write, it almost sounds as if sorting ethnicity is diffiult becuase of so much mixing, or so many interethnic people. But the point is, that the reason it is difficult is not because the categories have been so mixed up that categorizing isn't possible. Rather, it's that there's no scientific basis for the existence of these categories in the first place, despite the fact that people have come to really believe in their existence. If the quiz makers knew that you were convinced it's not a worthwhile or noble activity to sort people based on apparent ethnicity, they would be pleased. But if they knew that you also understood that race is not grounded in genetics, or some kind of categorical differences in human raw material, they would be even more pleased :)
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