You never really know when a question is going to offend somebody.

We were all sitting at the dining room table on some family occasion when my aunt – the one who kept the journal and solved the riddle of my little brother’s birthday – turned to me and asked, “How old are you Danny?”. “Twelve,”, I replied, “how old are you?”. The assembled multitude gasped. Everybody knew I had offended against propriety by asking a personal question of an elder. There was nothing wrong with the question per se, just that the age of my mother’s sister was none of my business. And my aunt replied, chuckling, “I’m forty-nine.”

I discovered two things that day. First, intrusiveness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. My mother and most everyone including me, thought I’d overstepped the line, but my aunt didn’t mind a bit. And second, big people can ask little people anything they like. No one had been shocked at my aunt’s question.

Now, I understand that some of you are tired of the subject of the long form census. Well, I’m tired of people who tire so easily, but I won’t mention it if you don’t. And I will try to make this my last comment on the subject, though I have requested to appear before the House of Commons Committee that’s considering the matter, and might want to let you know how that goes.

Anyway, in 1996 I declined to answer the question about my race, and I would like to explain my reason for doing so. It’s generally assumed that privacy is the only consideration in refusing to answer a question, but this is a case where privacy was not the concern. The truth is, I am offended that our government continues to attempt to sort Canadians into racial groups.

I believe race is an ancient superstition that has persisted into modern times. It has caused untold suffering throughout the ages, culminating in the most genocidal century in history. And it is high time that we put an end to this meaningless and offensive way of sorting people.

Of course the genes for skin, eye and hair colour, and for facial features and head shape, are not evenly distributed throughout the world’s population. But these differences tell us nothing of any importance about an individual. If they matter at all it is only because they are ancient caste marks used to stratify society. As such, they should be of no more significance than one’s astrological sign or whether one was born in the year of the monkey or the pig. Race and astrology are fine for small talk at a party, but not for governing in a modern, liberal democracy.

It can be interesting to learn that this or that person is descended from sub-Saharan Africans, the people of China or South East Asia, the Celts of Northern Europe, or Australian bushmen. But I don’t need to know these things to serve you or treat you with respect. And neither does the Government of Canada. And besides, with all of the mixing that’s gone for millennia, when it comes to our race, many of us are just guessing.

But if we really must ask, how about this for a question? On a scale of 1 (black) to 100 (white), what are you? Personally I think I’m about a 55 in the summer and a 63 in the winter. But, then again, what do I know?.

If you are interested in the subject of race and have an hour or so to spend stretching your mind, click on THE CONCEPT OF RACE by Richard Lewontin. It’s a lecture about genetics, with lots of challenging numbers, but very enlightening.