The "black pill" PUA community has a good way to solve this: "Chads are their own ethnicity". Or in other words, the genetic essences of fitness (intelligence, neuroticism, empathy, height, obesity, strength) transcends beyond, or are orthogonal to, ethnic phenotypes. https://youtu.be/gK1w1cAKS7o?t=694
Also two things that needs to be addressed about ethnicity and genetics: (a) that subcontinental difference are stronger than national difference due to migration or lack thereof, and globalization is likely to disrupt selective pressure in the short term. (b) genetic essence are a materialist construct, which is coupled to "ability of ceasing the means of production" or "strength of human capital", and not a purely cultural/social constructed one.
My understanding had been that ethnicity is cultural (how you were raised), while race is genetic (who your biological parents were). So an adopted person could easily have a different ethnicity than their race.
You could define it that way. But in the US, "race" usually refers to being black, white or Hispanic (or Asian, Native American, Aleutian islander etc). Also, if you have African ancestry, dark skin and tightly curled hair, but are raised by adoptive white parents, are you of white or black ethnicity? I think most people in the US will probably treat you as a black person, and you will quite likely identify as black as well.
Hispanic is the only legally recognized ethnicity by the US government (I guess "not Hispanic" could be considered the other).
African Americans are mostly known as a racial group, who had laws discriminating against them on the basis of race. They can be distinguished as an ethnicity from immigrants of African descent, who have a different history and culture (but would still be visibly black). An African American adopted by white parents would then be unlikely to pick up on an African American dialect, traditional cooking, or attend a black church. There are pretty big differences between American-born descendants of slaves and African immigrants, so as the latter grow in number in the US it will be increasingly useful to distinguish them on an ethnic basis even if they look similar.
I don't think legal recognition is the issue. Pretty sure social scientists would think of white, black and Hispanic as ethnic groups. They may make common cause politically; they can be the subject of prejudice and stereotyping; people identify as members; they may share cultural traits; and so on. I know that in US common parlance "ethnic" means like Italian American and such, but I don't think that the distinction holds much water.
The US government is kind of dumb with its groupings (South Asians being lumped together with East Asians), but them recognizing that the Hispanic ethnicity can go along with being black or white was an example of them being sensible. The Spanish colonized a lot of the New World and imparted a culture on those places for settlers, natives & imported slaves. African Americans are not typically thought of as a separate "ethnic" rather than racial group because they were under the influence of the majority Anglo culture and adopted its language. "White" is not an ethnic group, because there is no "white" culture. A white immigrant from a non-English speaking country is going to be ethnically distinct from most whites here, just as African immigrants are from African-Americans. The common US parlance of referring to immigrant "ethnic" whites was based on the reality that they were distinct cultural groups (though assimilation followed immigration).
So I understand your point that ethnicity correlates with ancestry. But there's a difference between what something correlates with, and what something is. Consider income. We know that genes correlate with (and indeed cause) income, right? But income is not fundamentally genetic. To measure your income, the bank will look at your payslips, not your DNA. It's a fact about someone's socio-economic position, not biology. I claim ethnicity is the same. What it means to be (e.g.) Welsh, is that other people treat you that way. I probably have Welsh ancestry and "Welsh" DNA, and I occasionally support their rugby team; but I'm English.
The "black pill" PUA community has a good way to solve this: "Chads are their own ethnicity". Or in other words, the genetic essences of fitness (intelligence, neuroticism, empathy, height, obesity, strength) transcends beyond, or are orthogonal to, ethnic phenotypes. https://youtu.be/gK1w1cAKS7o?t=694
Also two things that needs to be addressed about ethnicity and genetics: (a) that subcontinental difference are stronger than national difference due to migration or lack thereof, and globalization is likely to disrupt selective pressure in the short term. (b) genetic essence are a materialist construct, which is coupled to "ability of ceasing the means of production" or "strength of human capital", and not a purely cultural/social constructed one.
My understanding had been that ethnicity is cultural (how you were raised), while race is genetic (who your biological parents were). So an adopted person could easily have a different ethnicity than their race.
You could define it that way. But in the US, "race" usually refers to being black, white or Hispanic (or Asian, Native American, Aleutian islander etc). Also, if you have African ancestry, dark skin and tightly curled hair, but are raised by adoptive white parents, are you of white or black ethnicity? I think most people in the US will probably treat you as a black person, and you will quite likely identify as black as well.
Hispanic is the only legally recognized ethnicity by the US government (I guess "not Hispanic" could be considered the other).
African Americans are mostly known as a racial group, who had laws discriminating against them on the basis of race. They can be distinguished as an ethnicity from immigrants of African descent, who have a different history and culture (but would still be visibly black). An African American adopted by white parents would then be unlikely to pick up on an African American dialect, traditional cooking, or attend a black church. There are pretty big differences between American-born descendants of slaves and African immigrants, so as the latter grow in number in the US it will be increasingly useful to distinguish them on an ethnic basis even if they look similar.
I don't think legal recognition is the issue. Pretty sure social scientists would think of white, black and Hispanic as ethnic groups. They may make common cause politically; they can be the subject of prejudice and stereotyping; people identify as members; they may share cultural traits; and so on. I know that in US common parlance "ethnic" means like Italian American and such, but I don't think that the distinction holds much water.
The US government is kind of dumb with its groupings (South Asians being lumped together with East Asians), but them recognizing that the Hispanic ethnicity can go along with being black or white was an example of them being sensible. The Spanish colonized a lot of the New World and imparted a culture on those places for settlers, natives & imported slaves. African Americans are not typically thought of as a separate "ethnic" rather than racial group because they were under the influence of the majority Anglo culture and adopted its language. "White" is not an ethnic group, because there is no "white" culture. A white immigrant from a non-English speaking country is going to be ethnically distinct from most whites here, just as African immigrants are from African-Americans. The common US parlance of referring to immigrant "ethnic" whites was based on the reality that they were distinct cultural groups (though assimilation followed immigration).
So I understand your point that ethnicity correlates with ancestry. But there's a difference between what something correlates with, and what something is. Consider income. We know that genes correlate with (and indeed cause) income, right? But income is not fundamentally genetic. To measure your income, the bank will look at your payslips, not your DNA. It's a fact about someone's socio-economic position, not biology. I claim ethnicity is the same. What it means to be (e.g.) Welsh, is that other people treat you that way. I probably have Welsh ancestry and "Welsh" DNA, and I occasionally support their rugby team; but I'm English.