[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Nations classification again

[Steve Hodge <shodge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 08, 2000 at 12:36:15AM +0100, SamBC wrote:
> > > 6.
> > > Every real nation is in exactly one of classes :
> > > white, yellow, black, indian.
> >
> > And I think some people *might* offended by these classifications - why not:
> >
> > caucasion, african (incl. West Indies et al), oriental, asian (different to
> > asia below I guess), aboriginal (bracket including maori, amerindians (I

I think indigenous would be preferable to aboriginal (which is most
often associated specifically with the Australian indigenous people).
It's actually not certain that the Maori where the first race to
colonize New Zealand, but we'd get away with it I think.

> > don't like that term either, personally), &so on &so forth), arab (middle
> > east nations etc).
> 
> At least four problems :
> - visual grepping (asia asian, africa african etc.)
> - most people wouldn't guess what race caucasians are supposed to be

Caucasian is the term used to refer to white people, at least in
Australia and New Zealand by the police. I guess it's considered less
offensive/more PC.

> - arabs are ethnically and visually white
> - some `asian' and `african' people aren't black / yellow,
>   so this will only confuse people
> 
> Also I think most people aren't offended by calling their race by color.
> Of course if there are some offended people who play freeciv, they
> should complain here.

There are certainly many parts of the world where those color based
terms are generally considered offensive. Considering the number of
people who are unhappy including even the concept of fascism I think you
can count on offending someone. Probably better off not making any
attempt to categorize nations by racial origins.

Regards,
Steve Hodge