Ummm no that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is physical ethnicity as a primary form of identification as we see it in racism is a very modern concept which is based on physical ethnicity. It is not solely confined to physical ethnicity or specific places of descent. When you look at the criollo-mestizo setup in Latin America and the white-black-Indian dynamic established in that period they delineate specific privileges based on descent from certain groups of people which was initially heavily based on physical ethnicity. Culture was definitely a big part of it, which I am not denying anywhere, but the primary form of identification used in those systems was based on physical appearance.
This is putting a lot of words in my mouth I never said. Please kindly walk that back, I do not appreciate what you are implying with your statements.
What you are also sweeping aside with your impassioned rant is in periods when this form of control was more overt and culturally accepted compared to the modern day, as anyone who has read up on the War on Drugs or the US prison system can tell you Jim Crow ain't dead just playing by different rules, is while there was specific culture associated with each group even if an African-American man (emphasis on man BTW) in the 18th or 19th centuries was free, owned land, managed to make it rich, get educated, and acted like a rich white man was expected to at the end of the day it wouldn't change the fact that to society he was still black. Compared to the Roman Empire, where ANYONE could become civitas romanum, or the early Caliphates, where anyone could become a Muslim and received the privileges that came with that status, its a huge difference and is a much harsher and more direct form of oppression.
The situation with anti-Semitism is a much more complex one. There are three issues at play in this case: Jewish tradition which favors birthright over conversion but allows for converts and adopting outsiders into the fold, religious issues in Christianity many of which are medieval in origin, the economic dimension, and the subsequent influence of race-based discrimination. The religious angle comes from the odd tension between the blood libel issue and the Papacy's self-proclaimed historic role as the protector of European Jewry mostly because to them back then having living Jews around helps prove Jesus happened. Economically due to many laws preventing Jews in Europe from owning land or setting up conventional businesses many went into trade, one of the few things they could legally do, and as a result a lot of crowned heads of Europe decided to make these Jewish merchants the offer they couldn't refuse of working for them as their taxman (and taking the flak from angry peasants) or being expelled. In fact many of the great expulsions (this leaves out the far more numerous pogroms by the way, that's a whole different mess) of Jews prior to 1492 in European history were frequently motivated not by bigotry but thanks to a monarch running out of money to borrow from Jewish merchants and moneylenders and said monarch deciding to deal with the question of repayment by throwing their communities out of the kingdom. It was in Spain that the concept of taint of the blood first kicked off thanks partially to the Spanish Inquisition grabbing on Jewish religious practices regarding membership in the community and using it as justification to kill a whole lot of people under suspicion of having converted insincerely. From there it was only a hop, skip, and a jump away for anti-Semitism to graft on major elements of racism to further justify its positions. It says a lot that Hitler's anti-Semitism, while coming from the same broad cultural tradition (so to speak) as Martin Luther's anti-Semitism, takes on a very different kind of language, tone, and set of specific fears and concerns. Racism, similarly, has not been static and has developed over time.
Why would you need to unless there is a significance attached to those differences? In the Roman Empire there wasn't any special significance attached to if someone looked like a Spaniard, an Italian, a Gaul, or a North African. We know the Romans had at least half a dozen North African emperors plus dozens more from outside of Italy because, among other things, they identified primarily based on culture rather than ethnicity. In the Abbasid Caliphate what mattered first was if one was a Muslim or not and second what language they spoke. In the numerous Chinese dynasties there was no special significance ever placed on race so much as on customs and language.
There's always going to be ways people will and have determine differences between groups. As happened in those examples it was frequently by region, religion, or language as well as on a broader level cultural practices. What the example of those societies shows us is one does not need to divide based on physical ethnicity and indeed as the colonies and later states that were established in the Americas, Australia, and South Africa proves is the differences of identity which society emphasizes are frequently involved in forms of social identification and control. In short you do not distinguish identity on that level unless there is a specific social reason, which is usually driven by reasons of power and privilege, to do so.
And that's bullshit.
We have numerous examples of highly interconnected societies and trade networks in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas demonstrating even in the ancient world there was a great deal of travel, communication, and cultural exchange happening between different societies and communities. We see examples in Egyptian art, specific references in Roman documents, Chinese art and documents, plus a whole host of other places which show there was definitely awareness of differences in physical ethnicity and awareness there was a great deal of variety in that. We have finds proving there were trade networks spanning from Spain to Seoul going back to the 8th and 9th centuries with merchants who traveled these routes. This also leaves aside the examples of regular contact and exchanges between groups once deemed to be different ethnicities (like how Italians weren't first really considered "white" in the US until the 50s and 60s) happening as far back as the 2nd century BC in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia for some of the more recent stuff in the Han Dynasty, Rome, Persia, and the states of India. All of this is affirmed by modern genetic mapping studies which show how largely inconsequential race is on a genetic level.
Society is a lot more intermixed, blended, and fusing into itself than you would think. The whole concept of specific ethnicities being little pockets of cultural identity as best embodied in the volkwanderagun thesis has long been debunked by history and science.
Choosing race is a modern means of discrimination where culture, language, or religion do not suffice and you are making artificial or definitive distinctions between the two where they very well might not exist. That is my point and only point.
I have no idea what you think I am implying in my prior statements that would be offensive. Again, my point is the distinction between physical features and other group characteristics is often blurred or selected based on what is morally convenient at the time.
Having polluted this discussion already, I'll respectively bow out here so as to avoid the appearance of trolling. Sorry for the tangent. I stand by the innate fallibility of humanity and suggest the USA was always going to be discriminatory/hostile toward Latinos and Chinese immigrants for that reason. Good day.