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I have found that a great many people, for that read all, mistake phenotype for ethnicity. Personally I hate the term race. It's a horrible Victorian era word which focuses on difference and separation.
I used to have a mixed race work colleague. She was ethnically White. That's to say her culture, beliefs and traditions. Shed been raised by her English mother and grand parents.
On the other end of the scale I had a mixed race friend who very much described himself as black. He looked White. He looked whiter than I do. I'm White and have no mixed racial genes. As far as I know anyway. He'd get very upset because his ethnicity and phenotype were very different. People always assumed he was White which was contrary to how he saw himself.
You can have radically different ethnicities within a particular phenotype. I'm a Scottish Presbyterian, One of my elder sisters converted to Judaism and married a Jewish lad, (These are both white cultures but very different,) they're quite observant in their religious life. That's quite a culture clash right there. My family has always been accepting but it hasn't exactly been easy either.
How often is tradition used as an excuse these days for intolerance. Tradition has become a smoke screen for ignorance. Many cultures these days frown on people marrying out. It ridiculous really.
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