{"id":784,"date":"2009-08-08T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-08T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=784"},"modified":"2009-10-31T16:57:47","modified_gmt":"2009-10-31T16:57:47","slug":"who-goes-to-glasgow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/?p=784","title":{"rendered":"Who Goes to Glasgow?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=Indent>As it has for awhile now, the Glasgow University website amazes us.  Every time D. has to go onto the site to register for the new year, he&#8217;s presented with the following list of ethnicities, from which to choose:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/wishiwerebaking\/2648488341\/\" title=\"Tortilla Strips\" target=_blank><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2244\/2648488341_b9461be3e4.jpg\" title=\"Tortilla Strips\" alt=\"Tortilla Strips\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" hspace=10 align=right \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>WHITE &#8211; BRITISH<\/li>\n<li>WHITE &#8211; IRISH<\/li>\n<li>WHITE &#8211; SCOTTISH<\/li>\n<li>IRISH TRAVELLER<\/li>\n<li>OTHER WHITE BACKGROUND<\/li>\n<li>BLACK-CARIBBEAN<\/li>\n<li>BLACK-AFRICAN<\/li>\n<li>OTHER BLACK BACKGROUND<\/li>\n<li>INDIAN<\/li>\n<li>PAKISTANI<\/li>\n<li>BANGLADESHI<\/li>\n<li>CHINESE<\/li>\n<li>OTHER ASIAN<\/li>\n<li>WHITE &amp; BLACK CARRIBEAN<\/li>\n<li>WHITE &amp; BLACK AFRICAN<\/li>\n<li>WHITE &amp; ASIAN<\/li>\n<li>OTHER MIXED BACKGROUND<\/li>\n<li>OTHER<\/li>\n<li>NOT KNOWN<\/li>\n<li>INFORMATION REFUSED<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/wishiwerebaking\/3798263303\/\" title=\"Charing Cross 363 HDR\" target=_blank><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3451\/3798263303_3d1af92f6a.jpg\" title=\"Charing Cross 363 HDR\" alt=\"Charing Cross 363 HDR\" width=\"330\" height=\"500\" hspace=10 align=right \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=Indent>We&#8217;re always amused and amazed that &#8220;other,&#8221; over here seems to comprise such a great many ethnicities, while dismissing an entire continent, at least!  True, we&#8217;ve only ever met two people of Mexican ancestry here, and can&#8217;t actually think of having met a single other soul from Latin America (and, as this tortilla chips package reminds us, Mexican\/Latin American culture here is more clich\u00e9 than understood). But, the &#8220;other&#8221; also misses Aboriginal peoples and Native Americans as well, although once again, it&#8217;s not like there are droves of Innuit students here either. But, the list still makes us wonder. Maybe it just reflects the fact that these are the <i>only<\/i> ethnicities which attend universities in Scotland?  Or maybe these are the only ethnicities which matter, for some tracking purpose?<\/p>\n<p class=Indent>In trying to find out <i>why<\/i> this list exists in this form, D. pulled up the census information for Scotland.  It was&#8230; unsurprising in some ways, and absolutely gobsmacking in some others. In spite of the many ethnicities of people we see near the university, this country is largely <b>white<\/b>! No, don&#8217;t laugh, or say &#8220;duh;&#8221; theoretically, the United States, which comes from similar rootstock, could have been the same, but for a few nasty quirks in history, it&#8217;s&#8230; not.<\/p>\n<p class=Indent> On the census website, if you scroll down a ways in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk\/en\/reference\/2001_data.html\">Scotland&#8217;s Census FAQ&#8217;s<\/a> you&#8217;ll see that Scotland has a grand total of 2% non-white people.  By way of comparison: California is 74% white, 26% non-white.  Another point on the Scottish Census is that 7 of 8 people in Scotland were <b>born in Scotland<\/b>.  <a href=\"http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/lpylru\" target=_blank>For Californians<\/a>, 27% were born outside of the U.S., 19% were born in a different state, and 1% were born in Puerto Rico or abroad, to American parents.  Thus, <b>47%<\/b> of Californians are transplants from elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p class=Indent>There are certain political groups within the city who often picket and\/or hand out flyers and\/or scrawl their sentiments around the city, that people should &#8220;go back&#8221; to where they&#8217;re from, and that &#8220;Pakis&#8221; are taking all of the jobs, etc. ad nauseum, ad <i>racist<\/i>itum. And yet&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=Indent>Facts. So often confusing to those who prefer not to know them.<\/p>\n<p class=Indent>Through the looking glass, the world is a truly strange place.<\/p>\n<p class=Indent><i>&#8211; D &#038; T<\/i><\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/\"><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Creative Commons License\" style=\"border-width:0\" src=\"http:\/\/i.creativecommons.org\/l\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/80x15.png\" \/><br \/>\n<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>This work is licensed under a<br \/>\n<a rel=\"license\" href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/3.0\/\">Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As it has for awhile now, the Glasgow University website amazes us. Every time D. has to go onto the site to register for the new year, he&#8217;s presented with the following list of ethnicities, from which to choose: WHITE &#8211; BRITISH WHITE &#8211; IRISH WHITE &#8211; SCOTTISH IRISH TRAVELLER OTHER WHITE BACKGROUND BLACK-CARIBBEAN BLACK-AFRICAN [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hobbitsabroad.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}