system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
What's fucked up is having to tick a box with your ethnicity. I've lived in over a dozen different countries, in four different continents and in my experience Britain and the US are the only countries doing that shit. And I really hope there are not many more.
gpt
When I lived in Scotland I thought the same until someone explained to me that the aim was to monitor systemic racism, for instance to see how the percentage of a certain minority in postgraduate programs correlates with the percentage of said minority in the general population, so that they can monitor the progress and react to diminish inequality. I found that a reasonable approach.

Being white, I have never experienced negative racism myself, what explains why I didn't understand the importance of ticking the right box. Now I do and now I always tick white or caucasian because I'm more aware of my privileges.