Some might prematurely write off “hippie ethnicity” due to misconceptions about ethnicity and race: ethnicity, they think, always involves race; without racial distinctiveness, there is no such thing as ethnicity. This, of course, isn’t true, but because so many seem misinformed about this--oftentimes, stubbornly so--let’s spend a bit of space clarifying the confusion. First, here’s what three prominent ethnographers have to say:

Richard T. Schaefer, author of the text Racial and Ethnic Groups, writes, "The designation of a racial group emphasizes physical differences as opposed to cultural distinctions" (8). Also, "Minority groups that are designated by their ethnicity are differentiated from the dominant group on the basis of cultural differences . . . " (emphasis added) (8).

" . . . ethnicity is not transmitted genetically from generation to generation . . . "--Rudolph J. Vecoli, editor of the Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America (xxi).

"In it's current usage a biological connotation sometimes adheres still to 'ethnic,' but not necessarily: some groupings are defined by . . . their language or religion or some other criterion," notes William Petersen in "Concepts of Ethnicity" (235). He adds that while ethnic derives from an "originally biological context, the meaning . . . has broadened to include cultural characteristics . . . ." (234).

Think of it this way: How we perceive and define race is culturally conditioned--"race is a socially constructed concept" (Schaefer, 12)--and at times in American history, we’ve had very different racial categories than the "rainbow" we now assume--Irish and Italians, among many others, were seen as separate races. Still, race, however it may be perceived, involves biology and DNA. It begins in the body. Ethnicity, on the other hand, begins in the brain. Now, thoughts may have objective manifestations; a German, for instance, may choose to dress in a certain way, to listen to certain music, etc. but her or his distinctive ethnic traits originate in the mind, not in the genes.

Another way of understanding the difference is this: race is dumb in the sense that our body inherits it, and--Michael Jackson jokes aside--we have no control over it. Ethnicity, on the other hand, is mutable and subject to choice and change (Waters). People can make decisions about their ethnicity precisely because it is lodged in the mind. Also, when we speak of ethnicity being "inherited," we shouldn’t assume this involves biological inheritance; as Vecoli noted, culture can be inherited apart from genes.

Well, if confusing race and ethnicity is wrong, why do so many do it? Two reasons:

First, we’ve been trained to blur the two by something very commonplace: affirmative-action forms. Every one I’ve seen for the last several decades has had the same strange section: “Ethnicity: Check one.” And then accompanying one of the boxes below is the word Caucasian or White. But Caucasian and White refer to race, not ethnicity. Ethnicity for American "Caucasians" would be something like Irish-American, Anglo-American, German-American, Swedish-American, Italian-American or so forth. I mean, if we were to ask someone what his or her cultural heritage was, and he or she said "white," that wouldn't make much sense, would it?

Second, sometimes race and ethnicity are the same. Consider that African tribe the "pygmies." Renown as smallish, they are biologically distinct. Yet, they are also culturally, ethnically, distinct. And the two things tend to correlate: when you meet a biological pygmy, you meet someone imbued with pygmy culture; when you meet someone imbued with pygmy culture, probably, that person is smallish--biologically pygmy. So, yes, sometimes race and ethnicity do overlap almost perfectly and so seem the same.

But more often than not, this isn’t the case. Consider the Amish. Ethnographers consider them an ethnic group (Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups). They are, after all, culturally distinct and possess the traits of an ethnicity. Yet, no one believes the Amish are a distinct race. In other words, a geneticist would be unable to distinguish an Amish person from a non-Amish person of northern- European descent.

Consider the case of Germans and French: each is a distinct nation; so, each is an ethnicity with territory. (Actually, both nations are comprised of ethnic minorities; still, each is also an ethnicity in itself.) So, if we gave some geneticists the DNA of 100 Germans and 100 French, could they tell which was which? Probably not. The geneticists would likely conclude that there were as many differences within the groups as between them. Thus, again, we have a simple example of ethnicity and race not matching.

So, ethnicity has a life beyond race. And often, ethnicity is more important to people than race. We can see this both within individuals and in the way society views race and ethnicity.

Consider the case of some Australian aborigines. Australia has laws protecting certain bird species. But since the hunting of certain birds is related to their culture, Australian law allows Aboriginal people to kill these otherwise-protected creatures. On occasion, this has resulted in curious court cases where racially white males have been busted for hunting the birds. Actually, these “white,” men are Aborigine. Apparently, when faced with a Caucasian racial gene, the Aboriginal gene is recessive, so sometimes we get ethically Aboriginal people who for all practical purposes are racially white. I mean, these guys look like they walked out of Scotland. Yet, they're committed to Aborigine culture, so much so, they‘re willing to risk arrest to maintain that identity.

Even when we look at historical incidents, such as the persecution of African-Americans in America, we start to see that, as often as not, the real issue isn’t as much as black racial characteristics as it is African-American ethnicity. For example, today, an African-American who speaks Standard English well is far less likely, in my opinion, to be discriminated against than one who doesn’t, one who speaks an African-derived dialect. So, as often as not, ethnicity trumps race.

Bottom line: saying, "Ethnicity necessarily means race" is sort of like saying, "Two plus two equals five." We wouldn’t say of those guilty of such bad arithmetic, "They have interesting opinions about integers." We’d say, "They can’t do basic math." In the same vein, those who believe ethnicity requires racial distinctiveness don’t have a different, equally valid opinion: they are simply wrong about a matter of fact.