How do you define BAME?

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There have been a lot of concern that more BAME people are dying of Coronavirus. On another thread about Germany someone was asking if their BAME population is smaller than the UK. But who is actually included in this definition? I am partucularly confused about the ethnic minority part.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary ethnic means:

relatingto aparticularraceofpeople:

OR

from a differentrace, orinterestingbecausecharacteristicof an ethnicgroupthat is very different from those that arecommoninwesternculture:

What's a race? Is everone in western culture the same race? What is even western culture? Do you feel included in the BAME definition? I'm from A western culture, not from western culture in general. I am from a minority culture (in the UK) that is much smaller than the Black ethnic minority, for example.
And black is a skin colour, Asia is a continent....

Just feels like talking about the BAME as a "community" is a very strange thing to do as it includes so many different people who are very different to eachother!

For analysing COVID 19 effects they would be better off trying to break it down between African, Indian etc as the factors as to who is hit worst might differ between groups.
Normally it means not white.

It's not remotely clear cut IMO, particularly in these days where there are many more mixed race people

Not just these days. I had a friend at school who was Black British, half Jamaican. People would be always asking him about reggae and expecting him to love it, but he absolutely hated it.

He liked rock music and punk. He identified more with Johhny Rotten and the Sex Pistols than with Aswad

Thank you cinnamonbuns, I couldn't find an official definition of it.

I find it an annoying as a mixed race person - it ignores the fact that i am 3/4 white.

*an annoying term

@CeibaTree if you want to categorise yourself as white then that’s your prerogative. There is a box for other on all forms which ask about ethnicity and you can detail your ethnic makeup there.

@lljkk well obviously it isn’t because ethnicity is genetic and is determined by dna.

@Flaxmeadow well your grandparents may not like the term and other BAME may like it and not identify themselves as British. Your grandparents don’t speak for all BAME people.

Also the reggae thing is a weird diversion. It’s stupid stereotypes that hiss classmates put on him but I’m not sure what that has anything to do with the term BAME?

@cinammonbuns I don't want to categorise myself as anything thanks (which is kind of my point), but I can still not like the BAME term as it just lumps everyone with a skin tone other than white together.

well your grandparents may not like the term and other BAME may like it and not identify themselves as British. Your grandparents don’t speak for all BAME people.

My Grandparents died ages ago.

I don't know any 'BAME' people who like the term BAME, and I come from an area in England with a high proportion of both historic and recent immigration.

I think the term is more popular with white middle class liberal progressives than anyone else

@Flaxmeadow well I’m BAME and have no problem with the term so your grandparents don’t speak for me.

@Flaxmeadow I find the term amusing as the majority of the world are non-white.

Anyway in regards to deaths and ethnicity they do need to break it down so comparisons can be made between say Pakistan and British Pakistanis etc.

I remember reading a cancer study a few years ago. In the summary it concluded after one generation the risk of getting breast cancer for women who were classified as BAME was the same as the those classified as white.

@Millicent10 I thought the largest ethnic group was Indian? According to the ONS, and the last census (a good while ago now though I guess) statistically Indians, not Afro Caribbeans, are the UK’s largest ethnic minority group.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/articles/ethnicityandnationalidentityinenglandandwales/2012-12-11

Sorry, *largest ethnic minority group, missed the word in my first sentence

Anyone not of Caucasian ethnicity!

Thanks Cinammonbuns, that link is interesting. I've certainly never considered Irish as part of BAME and consider the term to encompass anyone not white. It's only in the last couple of years that it's been said about or to me, but more in relation to my 'culture' being slightly different to the UK's.

Most people would not regard Irish as BAME in the UK although there has certainly been Irish discrimination (and I suppose discrimination against white English too at times). Medically we need to break it further down particularly in teh Covid 19 study and its effect o BAME people (and I suspect we need a similar study on obesity as pictures of a lot of the younger but not already sick people dying of it seem to indicate obesity might be a big risk factor)

Anyone who is obviously not Caucasian. I’m part of an ethnic minority, parents were migrants and all that. I definitely would not be welcome in a BAME only context because most people can’t tell that I’m not native British although it is visible.