It's hard for me to see how asking people about their race results in a win for WMF or for the movement.
First off, as others point out, race is a touchy subject. How do we ask people about their race without raising legitimate concerns among many of our respondent regarding why we're asking them for such highly personal information, and how we intend to use it? I feel like it's easier to provide a rationale for asking about gender (tho I know that can put people off as well).
Second, race (even "ethnicity") is closely tied to national/cultural/regional contexts. I don't know how Pew does it , but if we come up with our own list of racial categories, many of them are going to be wrong--maybe offensively so. Alternately, if we ask respondents to state their racial identity in terms that are meaningful to them, aggregating the information becomes a logistical nightmare.
Third... what would we do with this information? Conduct targeted outreach to encourage people in country FOO to edit, but only if they are members of ethnicity BAR?
Fourth, what are the potential unintended consequences of collecting and releasing the data? For instance, what are the consequences if we report that 80% of editors from an ethnically-divided country are members of an ethnic minority associated with an oppressive regime?
It's one thing for community members to self-identify and organize on-wiki around (impossible to verify) racial identity or race-related topics. It's another for the Wikimedia Foundation to be seen as taking a stance on the proper racial makeup of our volunteer community. A lot easier to take a stance on categories like gender, Global North/South etc. IMO but these are also potentially hot-button issues.
We have all sorts of racial gaps. Too many to address (or even articulate) individually given the resources we have. We also have socio-economic gaps, ideological gaps, and geographical gaps that are deeply intertwined with each other and with race. Which lens do we want to use?
If we do want to use race as a lever for increasing editor engagement and content quality, seems to me our best shot is to spread awareness around the major race-related gaps we know about (e.g. coverage of the US Civil Rights movement) as a way of drawing attention to the general problem that racial gaps create for our topical coverage and the POV of our content.
In other words, don't tell people what flag to rally around; suggest opportunities for them to make meaningful contributions.
And please, please don't racially profile people based on photos :)
- J