Ok, so I've thought this a VERY important topic for a while, particularly, because I have a hunch, namely, that our community is a bit on the homogenous side. That is, how much of our community is POC (people of color), and how many of us are given 'white privilege'? This is key info, because I think that, no matter how unscientific this sort of survey is, if we DO turn out to have an over-representation of those with white privilege over people of color, then we need to start to question why that might be.
More below on the specific terms I'm using.
Ok, so this took quite a bit of time to construct, and PLEASE, if you feel that these categories are inappropriate, need reworking, are offensive, misguided, ill conceived, etc - PLEASE let me know, and why.
My guiding concern, however, was to keep in mind just how much race, ethnicity, and privilege are historically and socially constructed and highly specific to place and time. So, my interest is primarilly to see to what extent Kossacks feel they recieve race/ethnic privilege in todays messed up society, even if they feel that these terms are bogus, limiting, etc. That said, I did try to make the terms as specific as possible, just in case some interesting data shows up in unexpected ways. Still, this is reeeeeallly hard to put together in a manner which doesn't reproduce some of the conceptual violence inherent to these very terms. But I feel that unless we know something about the makeup of this community, we limit our ability to ask ourselves if we are being in some unconscious ways a self-selecting group. So, its with these issues in mind that I present this poll.
A few words on categories. There are no capital letters (excepf for the words US), because I think its important that these terms are not seen as Eternal Concepts, but rather, local determinations which need to be changed, displaced, and frequently reworked. Secondly, my concern is with the US PERCEPTION of these issues, because I'm interested tracking issues of social power - not because I believe these distinctions exist in reality. Reality is obviously far trickier. This led to some very odd categorical distinctions, however.
Firstly, if you are of african-descent but only 1-2 generations in the United States, then you most likely do not feel as strong a cultural connection to the unique African-American culture which developed in this country due to the horrors of slavery (with its unique burdens and benefits), as much as a connection to a different home culture. Secondly, you'll notice that sometimes I indicate 'descent', other times 'heritage', other times 'identify as,' other times still 'recieve privilege as'. That is because I believe that some people are given the opportunity to claim a certain racial/ethnic label, while others have it forced upon them, even as these labels mix linguistic, morphological, geographical, religious, and many other non-identical notions under the artifical groupings of 'race/ethnicity'. So, I tried to maintain attention to the various ways in which these issues relate to those of identification, choice, attribution, etc. You'll also notice I separated ashkenazi and sephardic jewish, which is a very important cultural distinction, one with ramifications inside the US as well. I've also clearly marked 'white' as an issue of the privilege one recieves, and have separated that into two categories, as they have historically played out in this country ('white ethnic' is a term often employed by scholars to refer to groups like the Irish who 'became' white after the second wave of european immigration). There's also perhaps over-frequent use of the word 'heritage', as this is used here to indicate a mixture of cultural and biological inheritance, particularly how these two are often combined by those in power to determine social privilege (and in this country specifically). While cultural and biological inheritance vary widely, this is often not the case in regard to the ways in which perception of difference affects social diesmpowerment in the US. But by using the word 'heritage', I was able to get around the notion that someone IS something or other, in favor of the notion that someone is attached, via a narrative of cultural belonging, to a particular line of biological and cultural filiation.
Ok, I know that's a lot, but this is such a difficult issue, but also one which needs to be investigated in our community. So, I hope I've done this well enough, but either way, my reasons and intentions are listed above, and if ANYONE has insight to give, this is how we learn and grow, so, I look forward to suggestions and insights.
Once I get findings, I'll see what sort of interesting patterns and figures I can pull out of this, and I'll put this in an upcoming diary.
UPDATE: Ok, so, I seem to have messed up a bit, in that I had a more thought through set of poll choices, as you can see allusions to in the body of the diary, but I must've somehow left the older ones in when I hit post, but when I went back to edit the poll, I guess I don't know how to edit poll choices, so, well, there we are. But I think there most certainly needs to be a space here for South Asians, I'm not sure if East Asian and Pacific Islander should really be lumped together, and as someone suggested, I need to include Native American (what was I thinking!?). So, I'm going to repost this poll tomorrow, with mostly the same body, but updated poll choices. It seems to have a low response overall, maybe this has to do with posting time, etc. I'll also include some updates on the choices. It hits me as important to indicate that I'm lumping ashkenazi jewish heritage with 'white ethnic', but sephardic jews with 'middle eastern' (for reasons see above, and remember, this has to do with US persceptions more than anything else). Also, I think its important to separate African-American 1-2 generations from 3 or more (due to the particular questions of assmilation and transculturation within the African-Diaspora in this country). I also think its important to write in the poll heading, 'What do you (and/or others around you) most often consider your race/ethnicity/heritage?'. And in line with this, I think its important to include the word 'heritage' after most of the descriptors in the poll, for reasons stated above. So, I'm gonna consider this a trial run, and work on getting a 'redux' up for tomorrow. If you voted in this one, please also vote in the next one, but just indicate you voted both times in the comments section. Ok, thanks!