Can someone explain this to me? (Race related)

[LolaNova]

I’m a member of a group online specific to something I have an interest in. When people post pictures, they usually add a caption for visually impaired members describing the pictures. Eg. Woman standing on mountain and smiling, wearing purple dress.

Now the thing I don’t really understand is that nearly everyone identifies their ethnicity/race/skin colour in these captions.
‘Black man’
‘White woman’
‘Non binary mixed race person’
Etc.

AIBU to feel this is a bit unnecessary? It doesn’t seem relevant. It almost feels like woke virtue signalling, although I can’t really express why I feel like this. I don’t know if I’m just being really ignorant though? Maybe it IS important for representation? It just feels odd. More than happy to be told IABU and it is important.

I am the least person you could accuse to be woke, but you are talking shit.
Taking out the whole Representation, Privilege, etc... debate, providing a full description is the point, right?
Of course skin color is important when describing somebody. It is what drives their whole appearance! People are going to see the color of my skin before they can see the color of my eyes. And this is going to help draft roughly the rest of the features in people's mind.
It has nothing to do with identity politics but everything to do with painting an accurate picture for those who can't see it. Also, as @apalledandshocked mentioned, there is nothing either insulting or validating about White/Black/Asian/East Asian. It is a skin color.

I don’t think it’s virtue signalling.

The whole point of it is to give a description to visually impaired people - so you add detail to share the image. It’s a description, and a way to be more inclusive.