"Where you from?"

This is a clip from stand-up comedian Steve Byrne, talking about being asked where he is from (the important bit is actually only from about 0:30-1:15, but the rest of it is kind of funny, too)

http://comedians.comedycentral.com/steve-byrne/videos/steve-byrne---lying-down

This reminded me about our discussion about the "common sense" law, defining Asian as according to 'common sense' as opposed to any other category. Byrne points out, through humor, that while we might scoff at this idea at the level of law, it is much more believable in every day interactions. Not that such a judgment is appropriate, as Byrne also demonstrates, just that it seems less obviously outrageous.

As we discussed at the beginning of class, Race is far too complicated a concept to define so simply. "Common sense" fails, as do attempts to classify race based on origin, family ancestry or phenotype. Yet still, on the census, on college applications, on a variety of paperwork, we are required to check one of just a very few boxes designating our 'race'. And in a way, it seems like our responses to this question might well fall into the 'common sense' category. To that end, I have a few discussion questions:

Do we, in fact, still use a form of this 'common sense' thinking to make racial groupings? Do we do this on a personal level and/or on a policy level? If we agree that such a grouping is not well-based, what would be a better solution, or should we eliminate racial categories (at the level of policy, at least) entirely? What would the disadvantages of this be?