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Notes -
It was normal to use it this way in the past e.g the Irish Race Conventions.
I haven't dived into its etymology but I don't think 'ethnicity' ever excluded sub-races to begin with, it's just that it also included a grab bag of other ways of distinguishing different peoples.
The awkwardness we feel lumping something biological like race in with arbitrary things like culture seems like something modern. Traditions, styles of dress etc once seemed about as immalleable as facial features, both because culture changed more slowly and because people used to have some weird ideas about how quickly environmental changes would bring about physical differences.
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