Talk:Nerstrand, Minnesota

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[edit] No racism

It is a bit strange to observe that someone seems to think it is useful/necessary to write:

“The racial makeup of the city is 97.85% White, 0.00% African American, 1.72% Native American, 0.43% Asian, 0.00% Pacific Islander, 0.00% from other races, and 0.00% from two or more races. 1.72% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.”

And if so: Why using the expression “White”. Shouldn’t it be “European Americans”? And “Asian” has to be changed to “Asian Americans”. Further “Pacific Islander Americans”. The mess is complete.

There is one human race. Hispanic and Latino or whatever, we are of the same kind. You can sort us in religious believes, language, age, address, even property. But not race. That is why I am removing this.

Arnejohs 14:48, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Your edit summary indicates that you corrected an error, but here you're saying something different. I appreciate your sentiment, but racial distinctions do exist. If your only rationale for removing the info is your personal opinion that "we are of the same kind," then I think it would be appropriate to replace the statistics you deleted. If they are demonstrably inaccurate, let's correct them. Cribcage 15:21, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. To your question: Yes and no. Yes, it was an error there. The error could have been corrected by exchanging race with population. That was in fact my first thought. But have a look at the numbers. "0% African Americans 0% Pacific Islanders". Why select this information and not all the other things which also not are there. In addition we have the problem of inconsistency pointed out above. I felt uncomfortable of selecting out this information to be provided. But I regret writing "we are of the same kind". Not because it's untrue, but because it caused confusing. I am sorry. Arnejohs 15:59, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You make an excellent point about those zero statistics. My guess is the information was cut & pasted directly from a database, which would explain the zeroes and the poor grammar. But I agree with you: There is no reason for those races to be listed, if they are not present in the population.

"White" versus "European Americans" is simply a matter of common usage. "White" and "African American" are the usual terms, so they seem appropriate to me. But if you think changing "White" to "Caucasian" would make sense, give it a try. Cribcage 16:25, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The demographics data was retained from that added by Rambot. A quick check of other articles on cities and towns will reveal similar data with similar verbiage. I thought about editing it out when I made the other changes, but didn't. UninvitedCompany 03:13, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)