Re: OT Academia (was Re: Dr. Gunn)

J Y S Czhang wrote:
>     BTW I am skeptical of racial categories like "White" and "Caucasian"...
> these classifications have always been rather conveniently flexible
I don't see how it's any less valid (or more valid for that matter) than
"Black" or "African-American" or "Asian" or any other racial category.
Racial categories are, by their very nature, arbitrary, and describe,
not biology, but culture.  If a group sees themselves as a single racial
group, then they are a single racial group.  As far as I can tell, there
are only 3 semi-objective racial categories on Earth, Native American,
Afro-Eurasian, and Australian, those being the three major land masses
which have historically been mostly isolated from each other, but with
interbreeding inside themselves.

ObConculture: The Kassi have no concept of race in our sense of the
word.  They focus on cultural attributes.  Of course, in their part of
the world there is little "racial" variation.  Their entire "known
world" is around the size of Australia, and relatively recently (circa
10,000 years ago) settled.  After the rise of the Kassi Empire, the term
"Kassi" became broader, referring to any citizen of the Kassi Empire
(and later, of any of the breakaway nations or the descendants of
citizens living in portions conquered by other nations and who resisted
assimilation)  The "Kassi" category was divided into three
subcategories: Old Kassi (those in the original homeland), New Kassi
(those in the provinces outside the old homeland, a hybrid of the old
culture and that of the conquered), Penninsular Kassi (those in the
eastern half of the Empire, in territory conquered from the Sanle Empire
consisting of the North Penninsula and the South Penninsula around the
Great Bay; often considered "honorary Kassi" as they remained culturally
and linguistically distinct from the rest of the Kassi).  Ironically,
after tiNikan's War and the secessions that followed, only the New Kassi
were left in the Kassi Empire.

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