Confusing questions about race that Starbucks probably didn't expect

Two weeks ago, I walked into Starbucks with some coworkers to get a tall coffee. As the guy handed me my drink, I asked if there were any cups left that said Race Together on them. He just kind of mumbled a bit and mentioned Starbucks was only doing that for a week.

I felt bad that I missed my chance to ask these questions. I wasn't the kind of guy that would take the coffee, pour it on the cash register, yell at the guy, demand a second cup of coffee, pour that second cup out, yell at the guy some more, demand a third cup of coffee, and pour that one out too. I just wanted to have awkward conversations with the staff and ask the dumbest questions.

It is possible to have a gender change operation? Is it possible to have a race change operation done? Is that even possible? Has anyone had a race change operation before? Yes, I would have taken the conversation into this sort of direction.

But after thinking about dumb questions to ask, I actually thought about some questions that I was really curious about.

First off, how many races are there? According to the US census, there are 5 or 6 unique races. The races are Black, White, Asian, Native American, Pacific Islander, and there is probably one more. There is also the option for multi-racial and other.

I guess that the Black and White race are named because of the color of a person's skin but why is the Asian race called Asian. It is a derogatory term to call the Asian race yellow, but why is it racist to name a certain race after a color and not hold the White or Black race to the same standard?

When it comes to Asians, how come Indians and Russians aren't generally considered Asian? In the past, I would have designated someone's race as Indian but that is incorrect. India is a country so being Indian is a nationality. So what race are Indians? Well, they are Asian. But when the average guy thinks about Asian, the Asian that comes to mind is Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese.

Indians are designated the color brown. Well, how come they don't have their own race? Come to think of it, I have never met anyone from India that identified as Asian.

Speaking of identifying races by color, Native Americans are considered to be red. I guess the reason for that is being sunburned? But I've never see a portrayal of a Native American that was red.

Now a few years back, I wondered how come Mexican wasn't a race to choose on the Census. Well first off, Mexican is a nationality so the race would be Hispanic. However, when I looked at the census, I noticed that Hispanic was broken down by every single race. I had no idea why. It seemed kind of racist to me. Why just omit a race and break it down by every other race? Actually, I found the answer to this one by listening to one of Cappy's podcasts. Hispanic isn't a race, it is an ethnicity.

Well if Hispanic is an ethnicity, why is that the only ethnicity that is broken down by every race on the census? Does the US not care about any ethnicity other than Hispanic? I don't even know what any other ethnicity are. I guess I should look up a list or something. I guess if more than one ethnicity was included on the Census, it would turn the Census table into a spreadsheet.

Are there only 5 or 6 races recognized in America? Is it different around the world? Is Indian a race in India? Are there races I've never even heard of before? Is it like gender where there are more than 30 types of gender? Could there be a break down and we will have 30 races in the future?

I've heard that the race together campaign lasted only one week in Starbucks and was shut down after public backlash. I kind of wonder if it was shut down because someone was holding up the lines asking these crazy questions above.

To anyone reading this. If you want to have some fun, print out this article and hand it to the staff at Starbucks and see if they can answer these questions.