User:Theredproject/Timeline of Race and Ethnicity CFDs

This is a timeline of the various discussions about categorizing biographical articles by race and/or ethnicity. In their current form, these guidelines live at Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. I was able to find traces of these conversations starting in 2004. In 2005 several CfD discussions deleted some categories, and kept others. That year a group of editors began discussing if and how to create a set of guidelines for categorizing by gender, race, and sexuality.

In January 2006, after six months of discussion, with moments of significant dissensus, they reached consensus on a set of guidelines. These guidelines stated that "General categorization by race or sexuality is permitted, with the following considerations: [...] Terminology must be neutral. [...] Subcategories by country are permitted, although terminology must be appropriate to the person's cultural context. [...] Inclusion should be justifiable by external references." They also emphasized that categorization should take place only when it is relevant to the subject's notability.

In the following years several clarifications took place. After the repeated deletion of the categories Category:White people, Category:Black people, and Category:Multiracial people several discussions achieved consensus to shift the categorization to from race to ethnicity. Two sticking points were vigorous disagreements about whether to categorize people of more than one race/ethnicity, and the use of nuanced terms for trans-national diasporas that differed from nation to nation. These conversations emphasized the importance of upholding the article subject's own self-identification.

With established practice for categorizing based on ethnicity, and not based off of race, most recent discussions have addressed continental vs national origins and their relationship to race and ethnicity. These include a discussion of nationality vs ethnicity, and whether these are proxy for race, as well as the containerization of American people by continental origin, to prevent the generalized categorization of someone by continent of origin. Several discussions have further articulated the reason for not categorizing by majority groups, including a third deletion of the Category:White people.

Dec 2004-Jan 2005, Majority votes to keep Category:Jews
An editor proposed renaming the category Category:Jewish people.

April 2005, systematizing "by country" categories
In April 2005, an editor attempted to summarize the collect decisions at CfD regarding "discussions and precedents involve the question of formatting for country- or culture-specific categories." For example "April 1, 2005: category:Northern Ireland people deleted and contents merged into Category:People from Northern Ireland. See discussion."

June 2005, proposal to delete Category:People by race/ethnicity
A user put forward a proposal to delete the Category:People by race/ethnicity and all subcategories. The reason was
 * It's racist to make a subdivision on this one. Every person would be in a category for a race/ethnicity. It is bound to be a source for a lot of disputes: is this person white? Or is this person mixed? This makes it even worse than a gender subdivision. Race/ethnicity is not clearly defined. We do not want to add a race tag to every person with an article on Wikipedia. It would be even more racist to add such a category only to some people. This category must go, a.s.a.p.

The majority of editors supported deleting the categories. Of those that opposed deletion, they noted that "the current structure is horrible (White people? Black people?) and needs to be reworked carefully." In the end it was closed as No Consensus, which defaults to Keep.

I couldn't find any revisions of that page that far back in the history, as it has moved from Category:People by race/ethnicity to Category:People by race or ethnicity to Category:People by ethnicity (at which time the page history was lost.)

It is worth noting that this nomination came the day after the nomination for deletion of Category:Women scientists, Category:Women biologists, Category:Women chemists, Category:Women mathematicians, and Category:Women physicists on the grounds that these categories "enforce gender inequality." That discussion also ended with no consensus.

July 3, 2005, Category:White people and Category:Mulattos deleted
A few days before the two previous CfDs were closed as No Consensus, a user proposed the deletion of Category:White people and Category:Mulattos asking "Do we really have to categorize people by race? What purpose does it serve?" Both were deleted.

June - Dec 2005, initial discussion
Recognition of a need for and discussion of a policy on categorization based on gender, race, and sexuality took place on two separate talk pages. These are archived at Wikipedia talk:Categorization of people/Sensitive categories/Archive 1. The range of view points included:

Advocacy for no race categorization (eg a color blind policy):

 * To remove the bias, either no, or all, people should be categorised by "race". Since "race" is not clearly defined, it's better to do no categorisation by "race" than to try to define a "race" for every person in Wikipedia. Since "race" is not clearly defined, it is not possible to categorise by "race" at all. See User:Gerritholl/stupid categories for a list of race-based categories. Many should disappear.

and


 * We should not do categorisation by "race". At the moment, some people are categorised by "race" (Michael Jackson), while others are not (George W. Bush). It seems only "black" people are categorised by "race". This is a racist bias. To remove the bias, either no, or all, people should be categorised by "race". Since "race" is not clearly defined, it's better to do no categorisation by "race" than to try to define a "race" for every person in Wikipedia. Since "race" is not clearly defined, it is not possible to categorise by "race" at all. See User:Gerritholl/stupid categories for a list of race-based categories. Many should disappear. See also: Categories for deletion.

and


 * It should be possible to categorize people as Category:Real blondes and Category:False blondes, Category:Blue-eyed males, Category:Brown-eyed females, Category:Bold people, Category:People born with a cleft. No, I am not being serious. But I can not imagine that anyone would seriously use "race" for categorization of articles on the wikipedia. First of all "race" isn't very clear, then there's all kind of mixtures, maybe not in the USA, but in other parts of the world different "races" do interbreed (and produce fertile offspring), and last but not least, it is not very important to which "race" somebody belongs.

which also takes the form of advocacy that universal humanism supercedes all categories
 * Another example is Bill Cosby. I fail to see why he should be categorized as an "African-American" when it's a cultural category and not a race-based category. His TV-shows represent human culture, not African-American.

Addressing Category:White Americans and grappling with ethno-nationalism


 * Something like Category:White Americans is not neccesary because, by default, Americans are considered to be white. African-Americans, Asian-Americans, etc. are sub-categories of the American population. It would be like having Category:Black Kenyans or Category:Hispanic Puerto Ricans.

The sole Black editor is initially the only one supporting any kind of categorization by culture (e.g. ethnicity)


 * Are you worried about offending anyone? The (very few) black editors that are here (myself included) are far less than offended by the organization of African American categories. BTW, "African-American" is the US-Census approved term to define people with ancestors who are indegenous to Africa, and it is politically preferred over "Black" (note capital), although the two may be used in tande

and
 * I don't see it as categorization by race, but categorization by culture (which is why the category for mulattos was deleted). To beny that African-Americans, Italian Americans, Latinos, etc. each have a culture all their own is ridiculous.

this editor is eventually supported by a gay editor, who writes
 * It is very telling that FuriousFreddy is arguing in favor of African-American categories, and I, a gay American, am arguing in favor of LGBT categories. I don't see African-Americans, Women and LGBTs clamoring for the removal of these categories.

Concern about universalizing US culture.

 * US-culture is not world-culture. I will resist against pushing the US-view on the world as being the way the wikipedia should be categorized.

Which is similar to, but not quite the same thing as the cultural context of diasporas.
 * My friend was born in the Caribbean, became a Canadian citizen as a teenager, and became a USA citizen as an adult (and now lives in the USA). The thing he said was that he had trouble fitting in as an immigrant, among other things because he was not African-American. Suppose my friend becomes sufficiently encyclopedic to merit an article, how do we categorize him?

Concern that removal of categories would erase African-American presence and history

 * As far as who wants what categories gone, none of the other African-American users (I only know of three other active ones besides myself) want any of the categories gone. In fact, we have to fight just to make sue that Rosa Parks and Eddie Murphy are mentioned as being African-Americans (the Rosa Parks article in particular does not read properly without such a distinction).

Advocacy for race/sexuality categories, and occupation categories, but not race + occupation subcategories


 * For example, there would be no justification for a "gay linguists" or an "African American economists" category; these aren't distinct and identifiable subtrends within the larger context. (Which does not mean, however, that a notable gay linguist shouldn't be filed in an appropriate gay category or that a notable African American economist shouldn't be filed in an appropriate African Americans category; it just means that the intersection of that particular identity with that particular occupation doesn't deserve its own special dedicated subcategory.)

Someone proposes these categories should exist, but only should be attached if gender/race/sexuality relates to notability

 * No Categorization Unless It's Relevant To The Entry. There is an anonymous user out there who is trying to attach the descriptor "Jewish" to any and all celebs/musicians that may possibly be Jewish. Seems just as absurd to me as the A-A distinction, unless their race has some particular relevancy to their art/music/political view, etc. Let's keep the focus of an entry on why the person is notable, not on sidelines. If their race is important to their work, by all means include it. Otherwise not.

and
 * Suppose we have someone here who could be described as a homossexual, white, male, American, politician. Why is the article here? That's what should go to the categories. He certainly is not here for beeing homossexual, white, male, American or any combination of those -homossexual American, white male, etc.. So, certainly politician is a must as a category. Even the choice of word's order says it all, some of you may have switched the first two but I think most would use the same order for the last three. He is a politician who just happens to be American and so on.

This becomes the focus of the discussion, and after several more weeks of discussion, someone makes an initial summary of the consensus, which is then turned into a policy.

While three editors identify as gay/queer, only one person identifies as a person of color. It is clear that many of the editors display a lack of intellectual, historical or embodied familiarity with the topic at hand; for a few editors this disposition shifts into hostility and racial insensitivity.

January 1, 2006, first policy
First Policy posted. In a nutshell: "General categorization by race or sexuality is permitted, with the following considerations: [...] Terminology must be neutral. [...] Subcategories by country are permitted, although terminology must be appropriate to the person's cultural context. [...]  Inclusion should be justifiable by external references."

2006-2007 Multiple Deletions of Category:White people and Category:Black people
==== June 2006, Deletion of Category:Multiracial people, Category:Multiracial Britons, and Category:Multiracial Canadians ==== The rationale for this CfD was:
 * The global cateogory is a confused mess. It is a worldwide category, but it is justified on the basis of a U.S. census definition. Everyone is multiracial, so how far back do you go? This isn't a defining characteristic so it is POV category clutter.

June-July 2006, Second Deletion of Category:White people
The rationale for this CfD was:
 * Skincolour or race, however that is defined, doesn't follow from being of a certain ethnicity. I discovered this today when it was added to Category:Swedish-Americans, a category which happens to include Quincy Jones III. With these hyphenated -American categories being as inclusive as they are, I assume there must be other examples. Delete this abomination, please!

November 2006, Deletion of Category:Black people
The rationale for this CfD was:
 * Categorisation by skin colour is pernicious, which is perhaps why Wikipedia does not have Category:White people, Category:Yellow people, Category:Brown people or Category:red people. It is just a perverse form of political bias to treat black people differently. Skin colour does not determine whether people have encyclopedic accomplishments.

September 2007, Second Deletion of Category:Black people
The rationale for this CfD was:
 * Delete as subjective, see also discussion of November 1st

November 2006
An editor creates the topic "Propose change from "Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality" to "Categorization/Gender, ethnicity and sexuality"" which seems to be agreed upon quickly.


 * This may sound petty, but the terms 'race' and 'ethnicity' aren't interchangeable. If you look up African American, one of the 'races' listed, you find an ethnic group. Race is just a leftover from the Eugenics movement that doesn't mean anything at all. Ethnic groups are distinguishable cultural groups, and should be used instead of 'race', which is highly subjective. You won't have to change anything but the name of the article. What do you think?

It is not clear if this change was made, and if so whether it stuck, given that there is a substantive discussion about this issue in 2009 (see below.)

January 2007
I'd like to suggest that we replace the word "race" with "ethnicity" - in the page name, and in the content of the page. I presume the reasons are obvious?

There was no discussion.

May 2009, successful CfD
Two CfDs moved to deprecate the use of race and/or ethnicity to categorize biographies. The first discussion successfully removed “race,” establishing policy that only allowed the use of “ethnicity” for categorizing biographies. The initial proposal was to either delete or rename all race/ethnicity categories, opening up the possibility of the removal of ethnicity as well. This discussion had significant dissensus, thus the outcome was a compromise was to rename to remove race. The second discussion attempted to remove the possibility of categorizing a biography by ethnic origin or descent, only permitting national origin. This proposal failed, to criticism of "blatant POV and seemingly extreme non-neutrality" of two editors.

May 2011 Another iteration
A response to a question posed about the intersection of categories. No significant clarification or action.

September 2010 continuing discussion
A discussion clarified that ethnicity should also be used when creating subcategories based on the intersection of ethnicity.


 * It means that a sub-category of Category:Race (such as Category:Semitic peoples) should not be juxtaposed with a sub-category of Category:People (such as Musicians or Category:Music people). In other words, categories such as Category:Semitic musicians or Category:White musicians or Category:White Canadian musicians should not (and indeed, do not) exist. This obviously also means that a category such as "Black Canadian musicians" probably should not exist either, for there is no point in singling out blacks when none other of the so-called "races" have such race-based sub-categories; categories which could be (and are) easily covered by simple ethnicity-based categories such as Category:Syrian musicians or Category:Romanian musicians. This also neatly avoids subjective and ultimately needless discussions as to whether or not a given person "fits" into said arbitrary racial categories. I also disagree that the "Special subcategories" sub-section of this guideline allows for such categories since it clearly addresses ethnicity and sexuality, not race (African American is an ethnicity, not a race).

This leads to an extensive discussion about the nuanced differences between race and ethnicity, especially as it applies to diasporas. One editor believes that African American is acceptable as an ethnicity, but insists that Black Canadian is a racial term; another editor argues that both are ethnicities, just that the term for people of the African diaspora living in Canada is different (e.g. not African Canadians). Incidentally, the user who was so headstrong that Black Canadian was not an ethnicity is now permanently banned from Wikipedia, as a result of a sockpuppeting to get around a topic ban for POV pushing on racial/ethnic topics about Somalia.

May 2016
Discussion of whether someone whose mother was Haitian is themselves African American.

2006-2015, Vanessa Williams
An intermittent conversation about Vanessa Williams which began with the question: "can she be properly described as "African American", as she's currently described throughout the article? According to the text, her ancestry is 5/8 "African American" and 3/8 "Caucasian"." The majority of the participants were IP address editors. What follows is a protracted racialized conversation about her physical appearance: "I thought she was white at first," "very white," "I think she is gorgeous at any rate." As well as some color blind universal humanism: "And that's without even looking at what a nonsense the phrase itself is - there are no Americans who are not of African decent; everyone on the planet is of African decent!"

There is very little discussion of guidelines or policy. The closest the conversation gets to policy is that some editors advocate for the importance of self identification:


 * In any case, I do believe, one's own personal definition of self should be paramount. And, Ms. Williams has always identified herself as a Black Woman.

and


 * ANYONE with known African ancestry who self identifies as African American is African American, regardless of the proportion of "pure" (whatever THAT means) African ancestry: That is why African Americans literally come in all colors, with wide variations in phenotypes. Its more a cultural designation that biological one (for that matter, so is "race").

July 2011 UK context
In a discussion about race vs ethnicity, an editor mentions:


 * In the 2011 UK census, 'ethnic group' was used to include race. So people were asked to self-identify which group they belonged to, eg White Irish, or Arab, or anything they chose to write in, which sidestepped the whole question of whether race is even a valid let alone meaningful concept for a population with often very mixed ancestry. Which is, incidentally, an important reason why BLPs should not impute ethnic origin - birth parentage and ancestry is not usually verifiable. That is now normal practice in Britain and ethnic origin is always taken to include race. I would not have thought that race need be mentioned separately in the guidelines unless there is a need because of different understandings elsewhere, eg the US or Australia.

October 2015 - January 2016 Maria Carey
This discussion took place over two different pages. The first was on the talk page for the African Americans article in a section entitled "How the hell is Mariah Carey African American?" This conversation then moved to the Mariah Carey talk page, and an editor's talk page. The conversation began because a photo of Carey was (is no longer) included on the page. Eventually the conversation produced a mild edit war attempting to remove the photo, which included some insensitive edit summaries such as "people must be included in that etnics groups regards of their true ancestries and not wishes of users."

This discussion revolved around three sets of viewpoints:


 * 1) Advocates for removing who offered essentialist arguments based "true ancestries," visual appearances, and other forms of colorism.
 * 2) Advocates for keeping who argued based on self identification and RS: "Carey identifies as African American, is part African American, and a variety of WP:Reliable sources state that she's African American; that's how she counts as African American."
 * 3) One editor who advocated for removal based on the way Wikipedia policies align with the One-drop rule, concerns about OR (lack of independent sourcing, insufficient public statements from the subject), and a general perspective based on an "understanding of race as a social construct." See:


 * I don't personally have an opinion about whether Carey "should" be considered "black"; I think this kind of racialist thinking is ridiculous to begin with, and the "one drop rule" is basically politically motivated and manipulative superstition. My concern was that one video clip where Carey confirms partial African descent does not equate to an "I am African-American" self-identification, that's all. It's original research. If there are additional sources confirming such a self-identification (even in a sideband way, e.g. speaking at a NAACP event, etc.), then it wouldn't be OR (though this is a matter that should be taken up at her own article, which does not ID her as an African American). Due to WP:BLP we have a responsibility to respect self-identification over external labeling; it's not enough that some articles probably refer to Carey as African-American. Because of increased understanding of race as a social construct, mostly one bent to negative ends, more and more people actively resist such labeling, and we don't have enough information to know whether Carey is one of them.

This last editor then started an RfC asking again "Are "African American" categories supported by sources and policy?" based on these arguments. Such categorization received unanimous support, with the closing admin summarizing: "The consensus is that Ms Carey inclusion in African American categories is correct. The majority opinion is that is how she is identified in reliable sources and has self identified in a video."

Several of the key contributors to this conversation continued the discussion on the talk page for Race (human categorization), objecting that the "well-sourced scientific consensus that race is primarily a social construct has been stripped not just from the lead but from the entire article." This conversation indicates that the larger Wikipedia editor community has not reached consensus about the issue.

2018 RfC about categorization of Biracial biographies
As a result of discussions at Talk:Kris Humphries and Talk:Meghan Markle, an editor started a RfC asking:


 * 1. Should people with, for example, one African-American parent be added to Category:African-American people (and subcategories)


 * (a) on the basis of (i) reliable sources saying that the person in question is African-American themselves, (ii) self-identification, or (iii) both


 * OR (b) is the identification of one parent being African-American sufficient?


 * 2. Should a statement of this be included in the guideline?

The closing admin summarized the discussion:


 * This discussion has established that:


 * There is consensus against categorizing a person ethnicity or race based only on information about their parents;
 * There is consensus for using a combination of self-identification and independent reliable sources to categorize a person by ethnicity or race. Participants in this discussion are aware there can be marginal cases where self-identification and independent reliable sources disagree, but the solution of these marginal cases was beyond the scope of this RfC.
 * There is no consensus either way whether the guideline should be updated to include these.

2018 Essay Race and ethnicity
One of the editors involved in these conversations expanding their thoughts in an essay the discusses the anthropological views of the social construction of race. In a nutshell, the essay "is an over-simplified crash course in why "race" and "ethnicity" (and ancestry in general) are usually screwy concepts to use as classifiers of people on Wikipedia." It argues that "Wikipedia is a bad place to engage in labelling that isn't absolutely integral to international public perception of the subject."

August 2012 - January 2013 RfC on "Categorization of persons"
As a result of an AN/I thread, a user requests comment on the question "Should we categorize people according to genetic and cultural heritage, faith, or sexual orientation? If so, what are our criteria for deciding an identity?" 32 users contributed their opinion.

While this conversation didn't change policy these experienced editors we in agreement as summarized by the closing admin: "there is no "one-size-fits-all solution" and "that it's a complicated one to answer, and is why we have guidelines, not policies in place, because we need room for discretion. reliable sources and consensus are key to each individual situation that we evaluate to decide if the inclusion is right or not."

This discussion exhibited a similar set of dissenting opinions as past conversations. Editors continued to express belief there should not be any categorization by ethnicity, though that opinion is now in the minority.

This RfC is the clearest articulation of why Wikipedia does not categorize by majority groups. Categories are intended as a navigation aid for discovering articles, not as metadata for classification.


 * Categories are supposed to be used as a navigation aid, not for labeling people. As a navigation aid, I have the gut feeling they do a very poor job and are not used very much by the average reader. I know that I have pretty much never used category browsing to discover similar articles when browsing. I'm much more likely to use "See Also" or a navbox (in some cases).

Their size matters, as an editor notes: "A good category is neither too large nor too small" and as such another editor states "I'd hate to see "White / Caucasian football players" or "Christian politicians", because that's too generic."

September 2016
An articulation of why Wikipedia doesn’t categorize by majority groups. In this case the query is regarding heterosexuals. Though the response framed out in terms of ethnicity.


 * For the same reason that we have, for example, a category for Category:African-American people, but not a corresponding one for Category:White American people — it's not useful or maintainable to categorize people by membership in the majority group, if that category would have to contain 75 or 80 or 90 per cent of all the articles that exist at all. People are, fairly or unfairly, defined by being a member of a racial or sexual minority group in a different way than the majoritarian equivalent

Additionally, the editor argues that this practice reflects scholarly practice, arguing that Wikipedia should categorize people by subjects that are distinct genres and/or subjects of scholarly analysis. Which is to say: categories that themselves are notable enough to have their own Wikipedia pages.


 * And for that reason, it is "scholarly" to include categories for minority groupings: these are groupings that actually have context for them. "LGBT literature" is the subject of critical and scholarly analysis as a distinct genre of literature, while "heterosexual literature" is not. Academic studies do exist about LGBTness in relation to careers in politics, in sports, in entertainment; similar studies do not exist about the impact of heterosexuality on those same careers. And on, and so forth.

September 2017 Third, Fourth, and Fifth Deletion of Category:White people
In January 2010 and January 2014 Category:White people was speedily deleted, as a WP:G4 on the grounds that it was the recreation of a previously discussed deletion.

At some poing after 2014 it was again recreated; this CfD deleted it. This was the third CfD and the fifth deletion overall; the page is now protected, so only an admin could recreate it. The grounds for deletion were that "we categorise people by their ethnic origin or nationality, but not the shade of their skin." As another editor added: "The term "white people" is not clearly defined. I cannot find a similar category "black people" either (it has been deleted). There is also no use for this category because it would be incorrect to categorise individuals as "white people"."

August 2011 National origin
A discussion of "How far in the family tree should these categories go from the subject of the article" when categorizing someone by national origin. No conclusion is reached. And a reiteration that ethnicity and nationality are not the same:
 * Don't confuse ethnicity and nationality, they are not the same thing. They may seem so when they coincide, such as being Dutch and living in Netherlands. But following with the example, consider the Dutch Jews.

Containerization of American people by continental origin
These discussions are about whether to "containerize" a continental category. Containerize means that the category can contain subcategories (e.g. categories by specific nation) but cannot hold articles directly. These proposal essentially means that it would remain possible to categorize people by nation of origin, but not continent of origin.

2012, category created for Category:American people of African-Jewish descent
Category:American people of African-Jewish descent was originally created as a container category in 2012.

November 2013, CfD for Category:American people of Latin American descent
Initially the CfD proposed merging Category:American people of Latin American descent to Category:American people of South American descent because they were "Duplicate categories." This was pointed out to be false, because " Latin America includes Mexico and most of the countries of Central and South America that use Romance languages. It doesn't include places like Suriname (Dutch) and the non-French edition of Guyana. South America never includes Mexico, and includes the non-Latin South American countries. So the first is a Social Similarity/Language grouping of countries, the other strictly Geographic." The discussion was closed, keeping the category, but containerizing both.

As a result of this discussion, Category:American people of South American descent was also containerized

==== November 2018, CfD for Category:American people of European descent ==== This proposal requests to "containerize" this contental category. The rationale argued that the category is "misused for a significantly sized but utterly random selection of generically white and/or partially-white multiracial people whose more specific ethnic origins aren't sourceable." It further argued that "many past attempts to categorize Americans for whiteness have gotten deleted at CFD, so using this as a detour around those past deletions is not acceptable."The proposal was accepted by near unanimous consensus.

==== December 2018-January 2019, CfD for Category:American people of African descent and Category:American people of Asian descent ==== As a result of the previous containerization, an editor proposed the containerization of the continental categories for Africa and Asia, as "having articles directly in them implies a racial use." Though one person opposed on the grounds that "sources are not always available on the specific country of origin that the individuals are from" both were containerized.

January 2019 discussion
After the above CfDs, many of the same editors engaged in a further discussion about whether or not national categories are proxies for race and/or ethnicity, and the difference is between "American people of African descent" and "People of African-American descent."