actually, i didn't misunderstand. other than a brief comment to hint that i thought it pretty irrelevant, i chose to ignore it. ethnicity is one of the very few aspects one's identity that is beyond change. your coments above and that some ethnic groups really are overrepresented (for whatever reason) in areas of social control (mental health, criminal justice) and suffer unemployement and poverty, suggests that the classification system *should* inform and have policy, potentially legal and service delivery implications on a quarterly basis, rather than be considered political correctness.

hence i posted a link to enable all, of those whose ancesters walked also from the rift valley some 70 to 120-odd thousand years ago, to understand that, here, chinese aren't asian - they're chinese, japanese, moroccans (berbers), americans and afghanis are other, asians are indians, pakistanis and bangladeshis (who really do suffer, incidentally), and none of them are muslims for the purposes of the labour force survey. one probably shouldn't forget the irish, the poles, the italians or eastern europeans either... *sigh*