We sometimes use the words culture, ethnicity and race interchangeably, and whilst there is some overlap between the terms, it’s important to know the differences between them, and to use them correctly.

Culture

These are learned behaviours – thoughts, beliefs, values and customs – that you pick up as you grow up and choose to adopt or leave behind as you get older. You can have cultural elements and influences from various places, and in general, it’s your choice.

e.g. “I’m Irish, I can’t go to this house party empty handed.” And, “We don’t wait for our dad to sit down before we start eating anymore.”

Ethnicity

This refers to those you have a common ancestry, language and/or culture. You can go as micro or as macro as you like, but the distinction here is heritage. For example, someone who is 5th generation Australian with ancestors from India may consider themselves still ethnically Indian. In general, you don’t choose this yourself (although you may choose the specificity) but it’s something that as a collective you give yourselves and refer to yourselves by.

e.g. “I grew up in Laos but I’m ethnically Chinese.” And, “My parents raised me here in Melbourne but I’m Lebanese – my great-grandparents migrated to Australia years ago.”

Race

This is mainly based off your appearance and to some extent ethnicity. Race is usually much broader groups to try and categorise all people into just a few boxes. The exact racial groups differ from place to place (e.g. ‘Asian’ in Australia means something different to ‘Asian’ in the UK) but they’re nevertheless broad categories. In general, race is a distinction that’s placed upon you that you can’t change.

e.g. “I really like Latino women.” And, “I hang out with mostly Asians.”

An example with all three would be, “I’m racially Asian, ethnically Han Chinese, but grew up in Australia to Malaysian Chinese parents, so I have cultural elements from their home country, Australia and China.”

So why are these distinctions important?

Race and ethnicity are often intertwined. Especially for minorities, you’re often racialised before you can come to properly identify with your ethnicity. In this case it’s often easy to identify more with your race than ethnicity. E.g. African Americans came from a variety of countries, but are racialised as “black” on the US, and so that often becomes more of their identity rather than their ethnicity.

Race doesn’t tell you anything about what a person is like. Because race is more grouped by appearance, one can look a certain race but have a culture that is very different from their heritage. E.g. a person of Han Chinese ancestry who looks Asian may have never been to Asia and may not speak a word of Chinese. Additionally, you can’t ascribe non-physical traits or characteristics to a racial group. E.g. saying Latinos are passionate does not consider the many cultures and characteristics that individuals may have.

You can have traits from multiple cultures whilst having one ethnicity. Whilst your ancestry may be from one area, you can often pick up cultural elements from many different groups. E.g. A Caucasian German who grew up in Denmark may have many strong Danish cultural traits, whilst still exhibiting some German traits.

Especially in times of a pandemic, it’s easy to let fear take over and to marginalise an entire racial group, but it’s important to remember that just because someone looks Chinese to you doesn’t mean they have any connections or even cultural values linked to China.

When you distinguish what separates race from culture and ethnicity, it becomes apparent that racism, apart from being hurtful, just doesn’t make sense.

But even more than that, when we examine the genetics of different racial groups, there’s more genetic difference within any one racial group compared to the average between them, and yet amongst all of us, we are so remarkably similar (99.9% alike in fact). Yes, there may be some value in grouping people into racial groups, but at the end of the day, we have much more in common with each other than we don’t.