[blueerica]

Normally, that's exactly how I feel, however when talking about demographics for a paper I had to write, it came up in the course of races being labeled Black, Filipino, White-European, White Non-European, Japanese, Chinese, South Asian... Which I thought was odd, as well.

Anyhow, regarding HR asking your race, I find the whole practice really odd. I always understood it as an "according to the law" thing, that prospective employers can't do things like ask your race or ethnicity, age, etc - since hiring or not hiring could be construed as discrimination. I would have figured the same practices would continue once hired. By knowing your ethnicity, if you were to be fired or lose your job in the near future, could you potentially accuse them of firing you because of your race (and the whole quota thing)?