What “race” is this Yemenite Jew?
So Nikki Haley identified as “white” on her voting registration. Is that an issue? Of course, if she can pass that is her privilege. The problem is not the fiction itself but how it is used. Being proud of your ancestry is usually a great GOOD .. unless that identity is used to demean others or to demean your own ancestry.
Denial of ancestry is not unusual. A lot of members of the KKK find out, when they have their genomes read, that the white skin hides a black past. Jonas Salk, winner of the Nobel for his discovery of Polio vaccine, was strongly insistent that he was not a Jew.
If Haley actually wants to be white, I have no objection at all. But, by the same measure, I see no reason that a person with African features or European can not make whatever decision. As far as I am concerned , Rachel Dolazel had every right to classify herself as Black and the new Brit princess has every reason to classify herself, if she chooses, as African American.
As another example one of the museum founders for Seattle’s African American museum is, by the same criteria you 
most use as “white” as most folks from Italy, Greece or Sephardic Jews. in this case, however, Mr. Carver Clark Gayton knows that his ancestors came from a breeding farm where “white” slaves were intentionally bred as a select property. So, when Carver decides to identify as Black, isn’t that his choice? On the other hand, he has relatives who identify as Scot. Isn’t that their choice ?
Contrast Carver’s “white relatives” with the ohso many “white” southerners whose genome show African ancestry. Is it innocuous when they deny their descent?
My friend Knut, a Norwegian, believes Halley did the right thing. As for “Some Indians are negroid, some are mongoloid, some are Caucasian (according to the old divisions into 3 main groups). Nikki Haley is Caucasian. I.e. White. ” Knut’s ideas are very outdated and antiscientific statement. The genotypic data now emerging from India tells us that much of the visual classification of Indians as to ancestry is wrong. Interestingly, recent data in Europe also seems to say that the true contribution of the Arayans, that is the “Caucasians” was also much less than we had thought. My own paternal ancestry form the Cro magnon, may be a lot more common then I thought! We Cro Magnon-Neander hybrids rule!
You certainly can make a guess as to someone’s ancestry by their appearance but assigning them to a “race” based on that is purely … racist. As for Haley, her parents and ancestors were Sikh. Given the proud achievements of that culture, I for one hope her choice does not demean the Sikh people.
You hate Indian people and women, don’t you? Nikki Haley and Kshama Sawant are at opposite ends of the political spectrum, yet you regularly defame both of them in your idiotic diatribes that are full of false claims and downright lies.
Hunhhh???
What BS? Sawant touts her skin the same way a white bigot does. So yeh. As for Haley, I have never dissed her other than remarking that she oddly chooses white when filling out racist forms in her state.