Oh they don't pretend it doesn't exist. The link is, effectively an EU anti-racism law. It's just that it's not based on biological race, but on "racial or ethnic origin".
Official racial identification in America is based on self-identification. The data from these maps came from people filling out a form saying what race they are. On modern census forms, people are allowed to choose multiple races, and the same holds for ethnic origin.
Some of the comments here seem to suggest that these maps come from measuring craniums and all that.
Fortunately that's one horror that didn't survive the boat trip across the ocean.
Re:Map of America's Racial Segregation
by rowanseymour on Tuesday August 27, 2013 @02:10AM
(#6281759)
Fortunately that's one horror that didn't survive the boat trip across the ocean.
Actaully, Phrenology enjoyed brief but widespread popularity in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology#United_States
Oh, it did survice the boat trip (see e.g. paper bag parties). It only died overseas, not during transit, if at all.
Self-identification is mostly the way it's done in Europe as well.
I can see ethnic origin not being biological, but how can racial origin and biological race be different things?
It's "(racial or ethnic) origin", not "(racial origin) or (ethnic origin)".
Very clever. "We'll deal with the subject by pretending it doesn't exist!"