I think we may agree on some level but be stuck on semantics. There is an ethnic group XYZ living in and historically originating from what is today China. This is documented and scientifically backed. This group's name is homonymous with a separate idea in everyday speech; let's call that other idea ABC. ABC is essentially the name of a nation, which as you know doesn't have to do with genetics.
When I say Han, I'm referring to the genetic group XYZ. I understand that some people say Han and mean the nation ABC. I also agree that calling all people from the modern country of China Han is propaganda and "Han"-washes (to make a parallel to white-wash) a number of different ethnicities and cultures.
To bring it back to the original points:
> (you) “Han Chinese” isn’t based on genetics it’s many different races that call themselves Han because they share culture
> (me) Not quite. Han Chinese is a specific ethnicity. But it is true that "Chinese” isn’t based on genetics, it’s many different races that call themselves "Chinese" because they share culture. Or to cover all cases, it's many different races that the Chinese government calls "Chinese" to push a facade of homogeneity, marginalize minority peoples like Uyghurs, and marginalize minority languages and cultures in China that aren't Han Chinese, though their current nationality is Chinese.
You were talking about the ABC Han, or Han as the name of the Han nation, while I was talking about the Han ethnicity. I don't think we really disagreed, just got tripped up on semantics. Although if you still disagree with the scientific belief that there is a Han ethnicity in spite of all the data, then I think we can't go much further here.
If you classify "Han" like "black people", "Hispanics" "Asian/Pacific Islander", or "white people" I would agree that there are "Han Chinese".
I don't think its a very useful classification, but I do not think its stictly scientific, its more cultural since ethnicity is a social heuristic, classifying races isn't scientific but its has uses. If we classify it as a group of Y-haplotypes it can have a scientific basis, but its still classified by social norms. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Y-chromosome-haplotype...
When I say Han, I'm referring to the genetic group XYZ. I understand that some people say Han and mean the nation ABC. I also agree that calling all people from the modern country of China Han is propaganda and "Han"-washes (to make a parallel to white-wash) a number of different ethnicities and cultures.
To bring it back to the original points:
> (you) “Han Chinese” isn’t based on genetics it’s many different races that call themselves Han because they share culture
> (me) Not quite. Han Chinese is a specific ethnicity. But it is true that "Chinese” isn’t based on genetics, it’s many different races that call themselves "Chinese" because they share culture. Or to cover all cases, it's many different races that the Chinese government calls "Chinese" to push a facade of homogeneity, marginalize minority peoples like Uyghurs, and marginalize minority languages and cultures in China that aren't Han Chinese, though their current nationality is Chinese.
You were talking about the ABC Han, or Han as the name of the Han nation, while I was talking about the Han ethnicity. I don't think we really disagreed, just got tripped up on semantics. Although if you still disagree with the scientific belief that there is a Han ethnicity in spite of all the data, then I think we can't go much further here.