A question of ethics in MMORPGs

[the Langolier]

Since I have been required to fill out 'ethnic' information on official forms, which became very common in the past 5-10 years, I decided to conduct a silent protest:

I always check "Other" or write in "American."  I give no dignity to any of the categories that are listed because I personally object to the purposes behind them.

As do I. It is, however, a perfectly valid question when paired with others relating to height, weight, age, hair color, eye color, etc - it can be used to better describe physical features. Exactly how does it relate to name, social security number, address, etc? The only thing it could possibly do is to support descrimination (even against white males such as myself, especially on scholarship applications).