Talk:White people/Archive 2

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Contents

A white person should submit a photo of themselves

I suggest a person participating here, who classifies themselves as a white person should submit a photo of themselves. Is there a white person here who will submit a photo of themselves? Spookwaffe

We need a better photo

The photo now is absurd. Does anyone know of any copyright-free photograph showing one or more white people who aren't famous? We need a photograph here, not a painting of the Declaration of Independence signing. Give me a break. Moncrief 23:28, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

IMO, the article's scope should not include history except as relevant to the history of the "white race" concept itself. If anything European or American is fair game, you could justify sucking in the majority of Wikipedia's content. Leave the Declaration of Independence in American history articles. --JWB 02:44, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
If you ask me, there's no need for this article to have a picture. We all know what a white person looks like. --Gramaic | Talk 03:14, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Assuming "we all know" something is naive. Certainly there should be a photo of a horse in the article for Horse even though "we all know" what one looks like. But the photo that's there now in this article is really the wrong photo for this particular article. Moncrief 03:57, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

How about the Judd's?

Here we go again -- somebody named DonSiano keeps insisting on putting the freaking Venus by Botticelli on this page. I shouldn't have to point out all the reasons why this is inappropriate, but here goes:

  1. It's a painting
  2. It's a painting of a non-person, therefore, it cannot be a painting of a white person
  3. Since it is not a white person, it must be here because DonSiano thinks it has some sort of relevance to white people. Well, I'm white, and Venus doesn't look like that in my imagination. I doubt she looked like that in the imagination of very many ancient greeks, either.
  4. Venus is synonymous with beauty and perfection. Putting a painting of her on a page about white people implies that whites are more beautiful than other races and is certain to offend some non-white people.
  5. Need I say more?

ThePedanticPrick 21:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

PS, I've replaced the painting with a photo that more accurately represents white people.
The Venus pic is ridiculous. Ideally we should have images that represent the range of people whole have been considered "white", from Scandanavians throgh to north Africans. Paul B 22:04, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
That's a great idea, Paul. How about a collage (is that the right word?) of 4-8 people who are considered white and identify as white, but are some sort of exception to the rigid categorization practiced by some. Keanu Reeves and Carol Channing spring to mind, since they have been mentioned here, but I'm sure there are others. This would be the best way to illustrate the main theme of the article, which is of course the many varying definitions of "white". ThePedanticPrick 15:41, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

White Trash (ethnic slur)

Arguably, this phrase is the most common use of "White" in the USA today, and its history says a good deal about the history of the term "White" itself, so I think it makes sense to have information on it. It is not exactly analogous to "Nigger" etc. because it is understood to mean a subset of whites and not the whole group. It is usually used today in contexts where it is humorous and only mildly offensive. --JWB 16:08, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

  • My feeling is that its inappropriate. We're trying to build a legitimate encyclopedia, so an epithet is not necessary. It could open up a pandora's box where we list all slurs on the relevant subject pages? Not a good idea. Regarding "white trash" being different from "nigger", there's not much difference.

Wikipedia: White trash (extended: poor white trash; acronym: "WT") is an ethnic slur or racial epithet usually used to describe certain low income persons of European descent....."

White trash appears to be a thoughtful article with lots of good information and analysis related to the concept of "white race" in the USA. I don't think we should be ashamed to link it. It is probably a better written and less racist article than this one.--JWB 09:42, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The White Trash article is about a ethnic slur and epithet. I would disagree that it has "lots of good analysis". Most of that article is completely unsourced and non-encyclopedic in nature. Icemountain 18:39, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes, of course it's an insult; for that matter all racial terms are most often used as insults. This does not mean they are non-encyclopedic. I notice you removed a bunch of film and literary references from White trash as unsourced even though they prominently cite the works in question.--JWB 19:17, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The term "white trash" has very little to do with race and almost everything to do with socio-economic status. As such, it would seem to have little relevance to this page. I'm staying neutral on this issue, however, at least until I hear some better arguments. ThePedanticPrick 19:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

The scope of this page is mostly the interaction of race and socio-economic status. It is not primarily about physical characteristics (anthropology articles like Caucasoid focus on this) or about listing famous white people or historically white countries (a huge number of other articles do this).--JWB 20:15, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

White-history link

Certain misguided bigots keep trying to include the following link in the external links section: [1] They claim it is a mere "History of the White Race", which it is not. The plain agenda of that site is to convince its readers that racial mixing will destroy western civilization as we know it, leaving our cities in ruin and our societies dissolved by violence. I haven't bothered to read the whole thing (I also don't need to drink a whole gallon of milk to know whether or not it's rotten), but the thesis is clear from a reading of the home page and the conclusion sections. I'll grant that the External Links section doesn't have to be NPOV, as does the rest of the article, but I must object to the actions of bigots to disguise their hatred as "History". To claim that I am espousing a POV by describing their favorite Web site as "a white-separatist site that discourages racial mixing" is the most blatant hypocrisy. Those are the kindest terms I could find to describe the beliefs that site is promoting. If you find the terms "white-separatism" and "anti-miscegenation" offensive, then maybe you could explain to me the nature of your bigoted beliefs. If, indeed, you don't think the white race is superior or that whites should not mix with "inferior" non-whites, then let's get rid of that link and discuss some real history. If not, then at least be honest about who you are. White sheets and pointy hoods are for sissies. ThePedanticPrick 19:21, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

You acknowledge haven't even read it, but you know the "agenda"? You claim the site is a mere "hate" site, which it is clearly not. It covers 350 centuries of the history of the White race, in terms related to the subject topic: White people and the White race. This article is about the White race, so history as viewed through the lens of White people is relevant. The link should not be deleted outright. It's a huge compendium of information, and a bibliography and footnotes are provided for you to review. And can you show some evidence of your claim of "hate"? I suggest you review a few of the chapters to see what your strong objections are. There's great amounts of raw information and history there. It may not be perfect, but look at the breadth of the subject. The link shouldn't be deleted. Icemountain 22:12, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
The agenda is plain for anyone with an ounce of perception to see. On the front page, it says: "Most importantly of all, revealed in this work is the one true cause of the rise and fall of the world's greatest empires - that all civilizations rise and fall according to their racial homogeneity and nothing else - a nation can survive wars, defeats, natural catastrophes, but not racial dissolution." I see no reason why a description of this agenda should be added next to the link. ThePedanticPrick 21:11, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, but it also says its agenda is: "The complete and comprehensive history of the White Race, spanning 350 centuries of tumultuous events". The vast majority of the information in the link/book is raw historical data about the history of White people and White nations. Not many other books or sources that I am aware of have performed such a huge undertaking and I applaud the guy for compiling it and analyzing it. It's more than just a history of Europe and the USA, it looks at it through the lens of White people, which is why it's particulary valuable to this article. It is an incredible resource of data. If the link itself, describes itself on its top page in a way you agree with (as the other description I agree with), then why do we have to have a moniker with it here? Let the reader see the site and determine whether it's a valuble source of info (with footnotes) and history, or just a polemic on racial issues. Thanks. Icemountain 22:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Let's address these lies one by one:
  • "Yes, but it also says its agenda is 'The complete and comprehensive history of the white race'..." So what? It only offers up this 'history' in service of its agenda--to promote the belief that racial mixing leads to the downfall of civilization.
    • I disagree. The majority of chapters cover historical events viewed through a white racial lens, for instance noting wars in which Whites were on both sides (WWII, US Civil War, etc.) and also when wars were based on colonialization and races were on opposite sides. This is history as it occurred, it is not objectionable.Icemountain 02:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
  • "The vast majority ... is raw historical data" Wrong! Almost every chapter is a piece of history misread and distorted to serve as an example for the author's thesis--that racial mixing leads to the downfall of any civilization.
    • I believe you are using hyperbole. Chapter 29 to use just one example among the many chapters I have reviewed, is very factual. It doesn't involve so-called white supremacy either, since England and the "oppressed" Irish were both white. Again, it is a good summary of White history, the bad with the good. Most chapters are similar, if you take the time to review them please.
  • "Not many other books or sources that I am aware of have performed such a huge undertaking" Then I guess you are unaware of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, the World Book, any decent high-school or college textbook on European and/or American History, and the rest of Wikipedia. All of these are sources that cover the history of the "white race" (whatever that is) in all its breadth and depth, but don't try to discourage racial mixing while they do it.
    • Yes, there are histories of Europe etc. but not one that covers it from a "White" persepctive which is why this work is valuable and meaningful to this article. This is not the Western Civilization article, this article is about White people, and it could benefit from a White history link. Can you offer a better one?
  • "it looks at (history) through the lens of white people" No it doesn't, it looks at pseudo-history viewed through the eyes of a stupid, ignorant, racist bigot. As a white person, I'm deeply offended that you would make that generalization.
    • Listen to the way you sound please. Stupid, ignorant? A compilation of 350 centuries of data and history is no small feat. There are plenty of footnotes and it is thoroughly researched. Racist? Well, it claims to be a history of the White races, which it is. Can something be racist or about the White race and not be bad?
  • "It is an incredible resource of data" This one is actually true--no sane person would consider it a credible source.
    • Kindly show where there is a historical inaccuracy? There are enormous amounts of historical facts summarized specifically as it relates to the White races. When the plague killed one-third of the White race, is that not a fact?Icemountain 02:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
ThePedanticPrick
Just as one example, [2] cites an older article to claim Europeans lived in eastern China, which was based on poor analysis and later refuted in the same journal. [3] The whole site mixes commonly known history with wild and often documentably false racist interpretations and pseudo-facts to make the latter look plausible. This viewpoint is repugnant to almost all white people, and the site should not be showcased as an objective or reliable source, or as representing the viewpoint of white people.--JWB 01:46, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
White history is repugnant to white people? Plus, is that the "documentably false data" you have come up with? the last Appendix 17? about Ancient China? a link? Have you personally reviewed the scientific data, the DNA issues in those links, to support your slam job? C'mon. That's not what this discussion is about. The site is not "false" and neither is the history contained and summarized in it.Icemountain 02:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
White-history.org was written by a white supremacist who goes by the name of Arthur Kemp. As ThePedanticPrick said, it is a hate site. I've even seen a link on that site which is supposedly about Italian history, which says that Italy is a biracial nation, and the majority of the "White Italians" reside in the Northern part of Italy. The site is not only misleading and false, but also is very biased and hateful. --Gramaic | Talk 06:55, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Who are the people that call it a "hate site"? I don't see it that way, it's not written in a propagandist or "hateful" fashion, and it is not supremacist. Can you show where this occurs repeatedly? Can you look at the entirety of the site, and not one or two problems you find? Also, are you referring to Chapter 37 on Italy? That is factual and well compiled history. It has barely any "controversial" elements in it. You cannot take an entire source, pinpoint a couple of items and then delete something this comprehensive. If the subject site has "a link" that you object to, you want to toss the entire 99.98% of the rest of it? Your description of it as "misleading and false", is based on your personal interpretation of a link of Southern Italian history that Italians continue to debate today? That's misleading and false to claim the entire subject source is bogus, when it's cleary not. C'mon. Icemountain 02:37, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

The site is obviously racist, so it shouldn't be in the "Links" section simply as "A History of the White Race". Maybe "For an example of the kind of thinking engendered by [racist concept], see...". In the meantime I have removed it. Jer ome 07:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Of course that site is a racist nest. This guy there is a charlatan. A similar site is the following, which happens to be a parody of that one, but at least funny: http://www.sitesled.com/members/racialreality/medish/index.html#gallery

Nambia and Zimbabwe

I removed the part that said there were signifcant white populations there because it has become antiqudated. I'm sure it was accurate at the time it was written but now both these countries have greater than 90% black populations and less than 4% white. For a country of 2 million people I don't 4% white people would be considered signifcant. You wouldn't say Canada had a signifcant black population because they have 5% blacks right.

I also removed the part about Mark Shriver because it is inconsistent with other artilces one race. Particularly the aritlce on blacks said that most black in Americas have white ancestry which is contradictory to what Shriver study SUGGEST (Not proves). Maybe Shriver is right but he even claims his own study as a suggestion and not fact. I suggest that whoever put this in talk to the person who created the part of the black article so wiki doesn't look like it is made up by a bunch of white and black supremist.

I don't know who put back in that whites make up a siginifcant % of the population of Zimbabwe but if you have any evidence please present it. Although this may have been true 20-30 years ago this is a country that is 98% black people this is taken from StatsZimbabawe and anyone can go verify that. I'm sorry but 1% of a population is not significant. We don't say that Italia or Greece has a significant black population it just silly to consider 1% as signifcant. You might be wondering what the other 1% of people are they are a variety of backgrounds like chinese and indians

Mulattos, quadroons, octoroons, and the one-drop rule

I've noticed a lot of edit wars going on over the paragraph about who is (or has been) considered white in Latin-American countries. I'm familiar with the caste system of Haiti that placed mulattoes above full-blacks, but I never heard of them being called white. I'm also going to need to see a credible source for this idea that "any white admixture rendered a person white". I know human nature and I've lived around a lot of latinos and spaniards, and I just don't see them saying "Ok, your grandmother was white, you're white now too. Welcome to the ruling class!" But that's just my impression. How about we get some good sources here instead of just reverting back and forth? ThePedanticPrick 16:25, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

This stuff might be best handled by experts on each country. In my opinion, this article should note that standards differ by country, time, or even individuals' opinions (as one study in Brazil found, terms for race do not even have a consistent meaning) but should not get bogged down in debates about exactly who is white. It's more important to explain the history and meaning of the concept.--JWB 20:56, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
It isn't that "any white admixture rendered a person white". I would invite the both of you to read the article properly. It basically says any black admixture in the U.S. rendered a person non-white, and because in U.S. race relations there are only two categories (i.e. black or white), so non-White inevetably means black. In other countries of the Americas, any white admixture renders a person non-Black, however, in the race relations of these countries there are more than just two categories (i.e. not just black or white), so atlthough "non-black" here DOESN'T atomatically mean "white", it nonetheless could, and manytimes does.
  • Race in Another America : The Significance of Skin Color in Brazil
by Edward E. Telles
Pages; 1-2
"Recently, the president of the United States asked the president of Brazil, “Do you have blacks, too?” Unbeknownst to President Bush and many other North Americans, that South American country currently has more than three times as many inhabitants of at least partial African origin as the United States. Both the United States and Brazil were colonized by a European power that dominated militarily weaker indigenous populations and eventually instituted systems of slavery that relied on Africans. In the Brazilian case, European colonists and their descendants enslaved and imported eleven times as many Africans as their North American counterparts. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both countries receive millions of immigrants from Europe as they sought to industrialize. Since then, the light-skinned descendants in the United States and Brazil have come to dominate their darker-skinned compatriots through discriminatory practices that derive from racial ideology, creating what sociologist call racially stratified societies. Both societies have experimented with affirmative-action policies to promote blacks and members of other disadvantaged groups, beginning in the 1960’s in the United States and only recently in Brazil. However, the major similarities between these two large multiracial countries regarding race may end there. For one, the vast majority of persons in the United States with any African origin are catergorized as black. In Brazil, large numbers of persons who are classified and identify as white (branco) have African ancestors, not to mention the brown (pardo, moreno), mixed race (mestiço, mulato), and black (preto, negro) populations. Unlike in the United States, race in Brazil refers mostly to skin color or physical appearance rather than to ancestry. This difference, and many others regarding race matters, between the two countries derives from two distinct ideologies and systems of modern-day race relations. Although both racial systems are rooted in the ideology of white supremacy, their respective racial ideologies and patterns of race relations evolved in radically different ways as they responded to distinct historical, political, and cultural forces. W.E.D.Du Bois arguably set the stage for the study of race relations in the first decade of the twentieth century when he declared the color line as the problem of the century. However, that assertion was clearly based on the bifurcated U.S. model, where blacks and whites were understood to be clearly separate groups. Had Du Bois witnessed the Brazilian case, he may have perceived that racism and discrimination were important social problems there, but he is unlikely to have identified the color line as the central problem. Also, Du Bois noted that blacks were exceptionally excluded from North American democracy; but for the most of the twentieth century, there was no democracy in Brazil. Most of the population, including many whites, was excluded from access to even the basic rights and subject to authoritarian domination. Since Du Bois, the relation of blacks and whites in the United States has continued to serve as the paradigmatic case for the sociological understanding of race. Theories derived from the U.S. case are often then illegitimately applied to interpret other cases. In particular, mechanisms affecting race relations in the United States are often assumed to exist in other places like Brazil. But this is clearly not the case..." (Pages, 1-2)
  • Coal to Cream : A Black Man's Journey Beyond Color to an Affirmation of Race
by Eugene Robinson
There were literally dozens of terms for skin color in Brazil-black, white, mulatto, and pardo, of course, but also more fanciful and evocative terms. In surveys, Brazilians have described themselves or others as "burned," "burned by the sun," "around midnight," "chocolate," "coffee with milk," and "navy blue." One particularly subtle and elusive hue was called "miscegenation..." There was another clear difference, one that made the two societies in a sense mirror images. American orthodoxy is that a single drop of African blood inevitably darkens its host. In Brazil, the problem is approached from the other end of the scale: A single drop of European blood is seen to inevitably whiten. There is at least one clear, indisputable effect of the one-drop-darkens view of the world versus the every-little-bit-lightens view: The American scheme tends to maximize the number of black people, or people of color, or nonwhites-whatever term you prefer-within a given population, while the Brazilian view tends to minimize the count. In the United States, if your father is black and your mother is white, then you're black-there is no way that our society is ready to consider the son of a black man anything but black. In Brazil, it's not that simple. If your father is white and your mother is black, then your own category will depend on a lot of things, most important your skin color. If you're very, very dark or very, very light, then it's an easy call. If you fall into a middling café au lait range of skin tones, then you're probably going to be thought of as more white than black. Another effect, perhaps less clear-cut, involves the general level of racial tension. In Brazil a person with discernible African heritage is not necessarily immutably black. If you're light-skinned, and if your hair can be called wavy instead of kinky, and if you're upwardly mobile you can call yourself mulatto if you choose and perhaps even white. In the United States, black people can educate themselves and make money and enter the upper reaches of society, and still they and their children and their children's children will always be black. Except for a handful of people who "passed" as white, there has never been any conceivable way out, never been a means of escape. Black people thus had to make a stand. They had to demand their due from society as black people, now and forever." (Pages 26-27)
I hope this sorts out any problems with the constant reverts. Al-Andalus 18:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC).
Searching on the Brazilian color terms [4] gives lots of good references.
In the spring of 1988, the Black consciousness movement sought to further its goals during the centennial of the abolition of slavery in Brazil by organizing mass public demonstrations against racial discrimination. By the 1990s, the debate in Brazil had also crystallized around changing procedures for collecting and reporting official data on race—particularly on the decennial census. The goal has been to replace the distinct color categories of preto and pardo with the single racial category of negro. The net result of these new trends has been to move Brazilian race relations toward a greater emphasis on the negro/branco (or Black/White) dichotomy, if not the strict enforcement of the one-drop rule of hypodescent.
There is now a corpus of work on the basis of which many scholars believe that racial categories in Brazil are quite different from their counterparts in the US (Harris et al 1995, 1993; Byrne et al 1995; Harris 1970; Sanjek 1971; Harris & Kottack 1963). The main contention is that racial categories in Brazil are highly ambiguous with very fuzzy boundaries. In light of my findings, I shall now argue that this conclusion is premature and, given the methodology employed so far by Harris and colleagues, not yet supported by any data.--JWB 20:50, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with TPP on bringing some sources in for some of the statements.Icemountain 00:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

And I will go ahead and trim that paragraph back down until we get some sources for the more dubious claims. ThePedanticPrick 16:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Are all Hispanics non-white?

There's some back and forth going on in the sentence about Hispanics being excluded from the definition of "white". I tend to think that all or most hispanics are seen as non-white, even the very light-skinned european-looking ones, due to their association with the mestizo and mulatto members of this minority group. I'd venture to say that only the blondest spaniards and argentinians could be accepted as white in this country, and that a lot of dark-haired, olive-skinned spaniards would be excluded. It's strange that the US is so race-conscious that they've turned "Hispanic" into a quasi-racial category, when it's simply a linguistic-cultural designation(the Census is aware of this, most Americans are not). Anyway, enough about my opinions and impressions, can we get some independent data on this? Maybe a survey of European-Spanish immigrants who say they are being treated as non-white? Something along those lines? ThePedanticPrick 16:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

There are several different but overlapping categorizations going on here: Anglo vs. Hispanic based on language or recent ancestral language; Latin American vs. European, African, Asian, and Native American (of the US not Latin America) based on continent of origin or recent ancestral origin; and La Raza or mestizo or Native American (including indigenes of Latin America) vs. white/Caucasian, black, etc. based on race (continent of ancient ancestral origin, more or less).
IMO Hispanic is contrasted with "white" only when "white" is being used as shorthand for "white Anglo". I don't think anyone would deny that many Spanish people are white even under more restrictive definitions excluding Mediterraneans. What is needed is not the assumption that they must fit in one box, but an explanation of how those three categorizations differ. --JWB 18:17, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

GEEEEEZUSSSS!

"Furthermore, while South Asians are also an anthropologically caucasoid people."

Gawd, this is the pinnicale of the stuff that sets me off. South Asians are not anthropologically caucasoid. They vary. Do we need to get into this? It is obvious at this point (in Wiki land) that "Caucasoid" is being substituted for "White". I had an edit war on the Caucasoid link becuse someone wanted to force Ethiopians to be Caucasoid (and thus White). Veddic, Dalits, and the half dozen different types of Australoid people in Asia are NOT Caucasoids. The magic word here is intensionalism, you can't make "Caucasoid" mean "everyone with round eyes and wavy to straight hair". Their skulls don't resemble. GOD!!!!! - --208.254.174.148 13:51, 27 November 2005 (UTC)Zaph

Yeah, I think the absolute statement is a very bad idea and should be weakened to "some South Asians" or "some North Indians and Pakistanis" or "South Asians have varying degrees of Caucasoid and other traits".
Also, most likely the early 20th century Supreme Court briefs used "Caucasian race" not "Caucasoid". Probably the SC case should be discussed using the original terms, and we should make it clear our discussion is quoting the terms used at that period, not presenting a current scientific view.
Discussion of the SC case does require "Caucasian", otherwise I would agree any significant discussion of physical anthropology issues should be in the appropriate articles instead of this one.
By the way, there is another edit war on Caucasoid where someone wants to exclude any mention of North Africa. Would appreciate your input there.--JWB 18:01, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Well the whole thing centers around what the English speaking American and NorthEast European thinks. If they say no North Africans allowed, then we have no choice but to obey their rules. Me personally, I rather shrink their size, and for that reason I also find North Africans to be "not" white. Whiteness expands and contracts by the desires of the American European mindset which needs the numbers from time to time to use as demographic leverage in statistics and social policy. --208.254.174.148 01:57, 28 November 2005 (UTC) Zaph

Often true about "whiteness", but "Caucasian" and "Caucasoid" do not have identical definitions, even if the former is a popular synonym for "white". The Supreme Court case is a good example of a formal or scientists' definition of Caucasian conflicting with popular social definitions.--JWB 19:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

--142.161.64.231 21:22, 1 January 2006 (UTC) Well, the thing is they have all the feature that most simliar to caucasoid, and not even close to mongoloid and africanoid, so yah.... they are close to Caucasoid. im sorry

I will see your garbage and raise you a sarcastic commentary

"Whites are also nearly unique in that they exhibit a variety of hair and eye colours. In parts of the world north of 50° North latitude, sunlight is low and weak enough that people (and white coloured polar animals for that matter) with blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin have an advantage over those with darker colouration. Benefits include resistance to rickets, possibly frostbite, and a suggested aesthetic appeal"

...higher asthetic appeal for Europeans as a kind of natural selection... Tell me what you think. Does the wind really blow differently when it approaches a blonde haired human? Maybe the polar bears are nicer to the lighterskinned humans.... or maybe when a European passes gas, it really does smell more asthetically pleasing because it's coming out of a pale skinned body? The authori suggests that whites are more asthetically pleasing, because the white people themselves insist that it is, and well, circular reasoning is always asthetically pleasing.

I just wonder, when someone posts this stuff, and tries to blend it in to the rest of the objective material... when the rest of you guys read it, doesn't somebody question it? I mean does it pop up in your minds "hey, thats not objective, that bias!". I mean yes, the word "suggested" is put in there, but WHO is doing the suggesting? After all, someone is going to respond that the thing should be left "as is" because well, the word "suggest" is used to "balance" the pov. But heck, people suggest all sorts of things. I'm sure NAZI scientists suggested a certain asthetic appeal, but we need some factual references to this, and I doubt we are going to find a factual scientific basis to promote the idea that blonde-blue-light skin is more asthetically appealing to anyone besides the white people themselves (self promoting), or those in the rest of the world who believe that there is some inherent "goodness" factor for their children/grandchildren to be part-white.

I am putting a controversal flag on this discussion, as it's apparent that the discussions on this topic has warranted it.

Zaph

I'm not going to edit this out since this is flagged as "controversial" and I suspect in any case that it's there to draw people's attention, but really, does this belong in the article: "...a suggested aesthetic appeal to... um... the blonde haired descendants and their colonized victims, whom they had berated for three centuries that they are more asthetically appealing." KathL 20:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I certainly agree with you. I took it out. Glad you agree. I wondeer why someone would have put "a certain asthetic appeal" into the article in the first place.--68.60.55.162 05:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC) Zaph

Gentlemen, I offer three comments on this topic: one regarding "esthetic appeal," one about latitude, and one about the relevance of skin tone to this article.

  • Regarding esthetic appeal — I shall not write an essay on sexual selection because anyone interested can easily look it up. The point is that some of nature's most bizarre and counterintuitive adaptations occur because individuals of one sex come to prefer a peculiar trait in the other sex, then selectively breed with those that carry the trait, thus producing offspring who then carry both genes (preference and trait) in a runaway snowball selection. The traditional examples are the peacock's tail, the deer's antlers and (in this context) the unnecessary protruding mammary glands of the most populous hominid. In short, women with big boobs have a gene that, in baby boys, produces a preference for big boobs and, in girls, produces big boobs. On page 145 of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza, The History and Geography of Human Genes, trans. Sarah Thorne (Princeton: Princeton University, 1994), the world's most famous geneticist concludes that the odd light skin tone of Nordic Europeans is, in fact, due to sexual selection. "Esthetic appeal" may be non-scholarly phrasing, but that is precisely what Cavalli-Sforza's theory boils down to. Just to clarify, by the way, I think that Cavalli-Sforza is mistaken. (You will find my own theory at The Paleo-Etiology of Human Skin Tone.)
  • Regarding latitude — of all the populations who live in the far Arctic, north of 55 degrees (Inuit, Saami, Aleuts, Nganasans, Evenks, Sel’kups, Yukagirs, Chukchi, Evens, Koryaks, Nivkhs, and Udegeys) not one is as fair-skinned as Nordic Europeans. All are darker. The light skin of the Nordic Europeans is unique to the region within a few hundred miles of the Baltic Sea and is unrelated to latitude, at least regarding Nordic Europeans. I suggest dropping the latitude theory in this context.
  • Regarding relevance — there is already an excellent article on skin tone in Wikipedia. Why not simply mention it, link to it, and possibly summarize it rather than trying to express a separate (and untenable) theory. -- FrankWSweet 23:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)


FrankWSweet, the only problem I have with your essay is that you claim that the only solid proof of skin tone at certain times in the past would be in the form of artwork. You claim that "the hunting scene above, one of many examples showing dark-brown bowmen shooting medium-brown deer, was painted in what is now France fifteen to thirteen millennia ago. Judging by the artists’ palettes, Europeans then had not yet lost their brown complexion," and thus that the limited colors available to Neolithic cave painters reflects the artists skin tone. This is illogical, and is contradicted by a recent study that is cited in a section below: [5]. As you can see, according to this study, the mutation for white skin is at least 20,000 years old. Genetic analysis is much more concrete proof of the age of certain genetically-determined phenotypes than cave-art (besides, the color of the hunters and the deer that are in the photo in your essay look the same to me, and any perceived difference would be subjective). Furthermore, you quote that “the first depiction of variable pigmentation in man dates back to about 1300 BC and was found on the walls of the tomb of Sethos I,” and mention the depiction of the pale Lady Nofret predating these wall paintings to argue that these are the earliest proofs of white skin, when the quote clearly states "depiction", and in no way suggests that this is proof of the earliest appearance of white skin. And if white skin first appeared around the Baltic and North seas, would it make sense to find proof of the earliest white skin in Egypt? I don't have an education in genetics, so I don't have any other problems with your paper; and I've heard the meat/dairy vs. grain-based diet account of skin-tone discrepency between populations at the same latitude before, but you're argument about artwork as proof of the age of certain physical traits just stands out as poor reasoning. --Jugbo 00:22, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

pre-20th-century "racial identity" determination

Original paragraph:

Due to the historic one drop rule in the United States, people with any known admixture of African origin have always been catergorised as black, including mulattos and quadroons, or octoroons. In Europe, these same people would always be classed as 'mixed race'—a blanket term for all people with any multiple racial heritage. Meanwhile, in Latin American countries like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, or Brazil, they may be considered, and may consider themselves, white.

Comments

1. The statement “people with any known admixture of African origin have always been catergorised as black” is a bit strong. “Always” could refer to our emergence as a species 160 kya. As pointed out in the wikipedia article on “one drop rule,” the notion of invisible Blackness was not widely known nor made statutory until the 20th century.

2. The use of the term “known admixture” is misleading. About one-third of Americans who self-identity as “White” have detectable recent African admixture of which they are unaware but which is common knowledge among molecular anthropologists (see http://backintyme.com/essay040608.htm). No one would consider them “Black.” “Known ancestry,” on the other hand, suggests openly acknowledged Black heritage, which many Americans do see as making you Black.

3. The phrase “including mulattos and quadroons, or octoroons” is unnecessary. Altering it to read “any known African ancestry” would just make it redundant.

4. The three sentences summarizing the pre-20th-century criteria of membership in the U.S. White endogamous group clarify that the notion of invisible blackness is 20th century, and did not “always” exist.

5. The statement “In Europe, these same people would always be classed as 'mixed race'” is incorrect if it refers to people of trivial African ancestry who look utterly European. Such people are simply “White” anywhere but in the United States. If it refers to people of slight African appearance, then their designation as “mixed” or “coloured” applies also to Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America – not just Europe.

Oh no no no my friend. MUSLIMS are a religion, do not put that in the article. ARABS have much more than a slight African appearance. Yemeni, Egyptians, Southern Iraqis, heck, its pretty big of a chunk. --208.254.174.148 10:39, 3 December 2005 (UTC) Zaph

FrankWSweet 14:08, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Welcome, Frank! You demonstrate qualities that all wikipedians should emulate -- common sense, courtesy, good grasp of English, and source material to boot! Wow! I have only one criticism. On first reading of "(Hispanics and Muslims are an exception, not being labeled “Black” despite known but invisible African ancestry.)" made me think you were implying that ALL hispanics and Muslims have invisible African ancestry. Then I thought about it some more in context, and it seems less sweeping, but I'm still not sure I agree. Many hispanics in the US, especially those from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, are very black in appearance, and I highly doubt that they consider themselves non-black, or that anyone else would do so. I know that many black people living in the arab world are so, er, Arabized that they would never think of themselves as anything other than Arab, but I don't think that stops white people from seeing them as black. Again, these are just my opinions and impressions, and I'd be interested in hearing what you have to say about them. Thanks and welcome again. ThePedanticPrick 16:53, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Good point. I shall reword the sentence to: "(Hispanics and Muslims are an exception, in that those who look utterly European are not labeled Black even though they may admit to having slight African ancestry.)" The question of self-identity versus genetic admixture is interesting. Puerto Ricans are genetically 50-50 Euro-African. Nevertheless, 90 percent check off "White" on the census.FrankWSweet 17:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Hey Ped, why didn't I get that glorious fanfare? And isn't amazing how clearly the whole Arab and Latino thing looks in relation to Blackness when we discuss it from a white context? It's pretty "evident" where the lines are drawn! I think you guys should clearly show that whitness is largely determined by proximity to Northeastern Eurasia, and that the strength of white identity is determined by the proximity into that region. You could even narrow it down into a specific circle, of "eternally white" and varying circles of "whiteness" all the way to an outer rim of peripherally white, with everyone else outside the circle, not white, but "closer to being white". You know how to do it! --208.254.174.148 10:38, 3 December 2005 (UTC) Zaph

Zaph, it would be rude to point out all the ways in which you frequently fail to demonstrate the qualities I mentioned in my welcome of Frank, so I'll just leave it at that. I have complimented you on occasion for your passion and your ability to argue circles around ignorant bigots, so let's move on. I'm not sure what you mean by "where the lines are drawn" and "arab and latino thing..from a white context". Sociology and race studies are not my area of expertise. I have only a middling level of education, and my major was computer science. That's why I mainly contribute spelling and grammar corrections -- as the word "pedantic" in my username implies. Perhaps you could explain further what you're getting at? ThePedanticPrick 18:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Let me count the ways... one 1000, two 1000, three...Awww, well I guess it's fair, since I never give you fanfare either. I'm being silly about that. Did you know that it is the "if...then" statements and "exception" errors in computer programming, those I base my argumentative tactics on? As in "if ancient egyptians are not black due to their widely varied DNA structure which may include some semetic admixture, then black americans are less black due to their northern european admixture"... "unhandled exception, mtDNA does not flow consistently with skin color, hair texture, and facial morphology, racial conclusion of ancient mediterranean cultures inconsistent with observable information." LOL I'm going to use "exception error" next time I encounter a bigoted arguement. --Zaphnathpaaneah 21:14, 7 December 2005 (UTC)


==Discussing recent changes by IceMountain==

  1. Why the following removed? It is accurate and informative. — "It is somewhat of a misnomer. While the extremes of human skin color range from pink to blue-black, the vast majority of people have a skin color which can be best described as some shade of brown. This include all races and ethnic groups whether they are described as "white", "brown", "black", "red" or "yellow". See Color metaphors for race for more discussion."
  2. Why the following removed? It also is accurate and informative. — "Today "white" and "black" are less often used as nouns (e.g. "whites"), as they seem slightly impolite; instead the phrases "white person/people" and "black person/people" are used."
  • That's not true, and a non-encyclopedic opinion: "seeming slightly impolite" -- according to whom? It would appear to not be necessary in an encyclopedia article. Also, the terms Whites and Blacks are used millions of times each and every day as nouns by millions of people, but the adjective forms have always been more often used, so why even bring up the noun forms at all (that are still highly used)?Icemountain 22:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  1. According to the note, the following was removed because it is non-encyclopedic, uses dubious sources, and has non-working links. What does "non-encyclopedic" mean? It looks pretty encyclopedic to me. For sources on the premodern use of the term as merely descriptive, rather than classificatory, I recommend: Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race, 2 vols. (London: Verso, 1994); Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, New ed. (New York: Oxford University, 1997); Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1996); or Audrey Smedley, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 1999). The one nonworking link goes to copyrighted material (Muse) and so should be removed anyway. The removed text was — "Pre-modern usage of white may not correspond to recent concepts; for example, the first Europeans who traveled to Northeast Asia in the 17th century applied white to the people they encountered [6] [7] [8] - the term having then no other connotations - and indeed, even today the name of the Bai people of Yunnan, China translates as "white"."
  2. Why the following removed? It is accurate and informative. — "Still later, when inclusion of Asians and some sections of other groups became useful, the term white has been played down as divisive, and emphasis has shifted to other signifiers like educated, professional, and modern."
  3. According to the note, the following was removed because "Chinese are not White for the purposes of this article." This is nonsense. The purpose of this article, as I understand it, is to inform when, where, how, why, and by whom "White" is used to classify people into groups. I would be glad to add a paragraph on how the Chinese-Americans of 1950s Mississippi, for example, were able to join Mississippi’s infamous White citizen’s councils, became members of White churches, were recorded as White on driver’s licenses, and could openly marry members of the White endogamous group. That White Mississippians of the Jim Crow era saw Chinese as White, and would violently defend this—to them—obvious fact of nature is precisely the sort of odd phenomenon that this article is about. The removed text was — "White" as opposed to "Light Skinned" There is considerable controversy as to the difference between "light skinned" as opposed to "white". As mentioned above, the term "white" is a misnomer, as almost all people (regardless of race) have a skin color which is some shade of brown. Thus people who are not white in the traditional sence, but have light skin, such as Japanese, Koreans and Northern Chinese may well be able to legitimately describe themselves as white. It has been noted that light skinned Arabs, North Africans and South Asians have managed to "pass" for white in the West (a few Blacks have been able to as well). In non-western countries, the term white and light-skinned is often used interchangelby."
  • "Inclusion of Asians"? Asians are not considered White by the overwhelming majority of White people. How can that be accurate and informative, when it's not true? Icemountain 22:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  1. According to the note, Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0415918251 was removed because it is anti-White. It is nothing of the sort. It is a straightforward narrative of how Irish Americans fought to be accepted as White and eventually succeeded. Similar scholarly peer-reviewed books are Karen Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University, 1998) and Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). The note also says that the book "belongs in controversial whiteness studies." Controversial or not, is that not precisely what this article is about, how people define who is White? -- FrankWSweet 12:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Celtic people are White, and Noel Ignatiev's anti-White, Race Traitor-positions cannot change that. That kind of thinking belongs in controversial whiteness studies. Kindly read back to the earlier discussion on this issue. It is absurd to call Celtic people non-White. Kindly, let's stick to the overall assumption for this article which is that the majority of White people are of European origin, as the Celts are. Therefore, Celts are White and that's just totally common sense. There is an article on Wikipedia for whiteness studies, where some of the splitting hairs might be more appropriate. Icemountain 22:56, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
It may well be "absurd to call Celtic people non-White," just as it may be absurd to call Chinese White. But for many decades, millions of Americans did just that. We cannot suppress this knowledge. A NPOV demands that well tell about it. Telling about phenomena does mean that we advocate them. -- FrankWSweet 04:33, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

"anti-White, Race Traitor-positions"? Yes, thank you for being so explicit about your transparent prejudice. Paul B 01:28, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Clarification of Race Traitor: The book being discussed was Noel Ignatiev's doctoral dissertation. It is an impeccable study of nineteenth-century Irish assimilation. But today, rather than continue historical research under his former advisor Stephan Thernstrom (editor of the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups), Ignatiev co-edits the magazine Race Traitor: Treason to Whiteness is Loyalty to Humanity, a periodical dedicated to “the abolition of the white race.” Its premier collection features an apologia for Timothy McVeigh. The piece portrays his deliberate murder of 168 people in the Oklahoma City Federal Building as less reprehensible than the U.S. bombing of Iraqi military targets in the Gulf War. (The article claims that the U.S. deliberately targeted women and children whereas McVeigh did not know that the Oklahoma City Building held a daycare center.) In 1997, Ignatiev led a Manhattan conference on abolishing whiteness. According to a reporter who was there, "After an hour of back-and-forth over the insidiousness of white suburbanization and the importance of beating up Nazi skinheads, one participant with baggy pants, chained wallet and a crew cut [said], ‘All this talk, you know, is good and everything … but I just want to do something. I just feel like tearing some shit up.’ Liberal academic heads nodded in agreement.” My point is that Ignatiev is a total fruitcake and I would gladly cross the street in a driving hailstorm to avoid meeting him on the sidewalk. But we are talking about a book, not the man. Although I suspect that Thernstrom deserves the credit, ratherthan his student, the book is excellent. -- FrankWSweet 03:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Clearly I misunderstood and misrepresented the meaning of the reference. Thank you for pointing that out. I doubt I misunderstood the broad intent of Icemountain's stip-mining edits though. He made some legitimate interventions, but disentangling them from the sheer deletion-frenzy was not worth the effort.
My own alterations to the "Aryan" section were intended to correct the Indocentric bias of the earlier version. The term was never exclusively used of Vedic peoples or 'South Asians', nor is it likely to have originated with them. It cannot reasonably be said that Houston Stewart Chamberlain wrote a "falsified pseudo-history of India". "Falsified" implies deliberate deception. There's no reason to doubt that Chamberlain believed what he wrote to be true. In any case, he has relatively little to say about India in his most important book. The usage of Aryan in its "Nazi" sense was also well-established long before Nazism itself. Paul B 05:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Paul, reverting without reading and comprehending is not assuming good faith. Thank you to FrankWSweet for explaining Noel Ignatiev's White-hatred and anti-White views. His summary above is accurate, and people should not prejudge Ignatiev to be a fair or unbiased academian.Icemountain 14:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Icemountain, your comment is both false and illogical. As I said, I read your edits. Misunderstanding a specific reference has nothing to do with not "assuming good faith". We are all liable to misunderstand any specific comment. Your own remarks above are an example. I certainly do not assume that Ignatiev or any ohter writer is "a fair or unbiassed academian (sic)". The central problem with your edits was that they were in large part deletions of content that provided valuable information about the historical complexities and ambiguities of racial classification. That information is useful to readers. On Ignatiev, I have only just begun looking at his views, but I agree that the definition of "white" as near-interchanagable with "accepted group" is more than problematic. Paul B 15:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I should also stress that I am not in any sense in "support" Frank Sweet's edits, which I also think contain misleading elements, which overly tend to stress the apparent arbitrariness of the term "white". I strongly doubt the claim that Celtic peoples were ever widely regarded as non-White. It's certainly inconsistent with my own reading of 19th century race-theories. The inferiority of Celts to "Saxons" was certainly argued by some, and likewise contested by others. But saying that Celts, or more specific groups such as the west-Irish, are inferior is not the same as saying that they were widely perceived as non white. However, I cannot deny that I trust him rather more than someone who adds a link to "www.white-history.com". Paul B 15:26, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I cannot deny that likewise trust people rather more than someone who supports including links on this article from anti-White racists like Noel Ingatiev.Icemountain 18:58, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Regarding, "Thank you," you're welcome, but do not lose sight of my point. Despite the man's later descent into silliness, his earlier dissertation was an excellent narrative of how the mid-19th-century Irish fought tenaciously to be accepted as White, and eventually succeeded like the Germans before them and the Italians after them. -- FrankWSweet 15:32, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Do Middle Easterners resemble Northern and Southern Europeans?

Gramaic, it is not accurate to say that Middle Easterners resemble Europeans, that's misleading because the vast majority of Middle Easterners who are Muslim Arabs and Perisans are very different from Europeans. So why should it be in an encyclopedia entry when it's the exception rather than the rule? For every Ralph Nader who some view as White, there are hundreds of millions of Arabs and Persians, that aren't considered White by the vast majority of the White world.Icemountain 14:38, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[Spanish leader and Moroccan King]

Gramaic, I really don't think Wikipedia should start going down a slippery slope on this stuff. Suffice it to say, that your opinion that Middle Easterners are White and look like Europeans, even southern Europeans, is your personal opinion. Seriously, kindly stop pushing this controversial view into a Wikipedia encyclopedia article where it is just not appropriate or necessary. Wikipedia is not a place to debate a controversial issue that is not agreed to or vetted. It most definitely is POV. Icemountain 16:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course it is a place to "debate a controversial issue", or rather, more accurately, to summarise and explain debates on a controversial issue. Anyway, there's nothing controversial about the claim that some N. Africans look very like southern Europeans - which is none to surprising when you consider geography and history. The only "slippery slope" is the one that exists in your mind. Paul B 16:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Paul, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a blog. The information that goes in should be vetted. I don't think North Africans look like Southern Europeans, but you do. Do you have a poll of the entire world's opinion on this? Including the views of Middle Easterners? I guess two people can view the above picture and see similarities? Others see differences. Which is the correct picture to refer to? There is no way to vet that kind of POV statement, and so it really is non-encyclopedic.Icemountain 16:55, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not about what I think or you think. We don't need a poll to tell us that numerous writers from Ripley (1899) and before have included large parts of the N African population in the category "Caucasian". Sergi (1901) even claimed that N. Africans and southern Europeans constituted a united "Medierranean race" which was "the greatest race in the world". In contrast, the Aryan/Semitic model allowed for a separation between N. Africans and S. Europeans, on the grounds that the former were "Semiticised" (Gobineau). But the Nordicist model could also be used to partially exclude southern Europeans along with N. Africans, on the grounds that they were "mixed"... etc, etc. When we add the religio-cultural differences into the mix then things get even more complex. The term "white" can be and has been used in ways that slip between or merge with these various models. That is a fact of history. However, we have to express this concisely and clearly, but as completely as we can. Paul B 17:15, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes Icemountain, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. We as an encyclopedia must educate the readers that there are Middle Easterners that resemble Europeans. I'm not the one who's pushing anything here, you are. I'm not saying that all Middle Easterners and North Africans resemble Europeans, but many actually do. So stating that there are Middle Easterners and North Afrians who resemble Southern Europeans (and a minority also resemble Northern Europeans) is very NPOV, but denying that there aren't fair skinned, European looking Middle Easterners is the one that is misleading and inaccurate, and also biased. Please reveiw WP:NPOV. --Gramaic | Talk 01:43, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

While we're at it, maybe we could mention that when a person is either ignorant or extremely prejudiced, they are unable to see the resemblances between themselves and those who are not members of their imaginary race. I don't think we'd have to look very far to find some examples of this phenomenon to cite. By the way, some scientists recently isolated the gene that makes humans white[9]. We're mutants, the black people are normal! Isn't that cool?! I wonder if I can get mine mutated back--I'm sick of having to go the tanning salon. ThePedanticPrick 19:31, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
No, black people are mutants too. We all are. It's called evolution. Paul B 13:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I know. I'll be the first to admit that my sense of humor is a bit weird when I'm hungover. ThePedanticPrick 15:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The Epistemological Challenge

Someone at IP 208.254.174.148 added this section to the article. They copied and pasted here from something that I wrote for an entirely different article. I have no objection to the unattributed copying (this is Wikipedia, after all), but the original is inapplicable to this topic. Rather than reverting it, I have tried to adapt it. Specifically, the three Eurocentric/Afrocentric criteria for deciding whether someone is White or Black (ancestry, appearance, self-identity) operate differently (but compementarily) for White than for Black. To be accepted as White in the Eurocentric/Afrocentric view, one must be of mostly European ancestry AND "look White" AND self-identify as White. To be accepted as Black in the Eurocentric/Afrocentric view, one must be of some African ancestry OR "look Black" OR self-identify as Black. A Venn diagram might help to get the point across. -- FrankWSweet 13:38, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Who is White?

My father was a Half Breed American Indian, and my mom is a Mixed-Blood(her ancestry consists of Hispanic(Mexican & Spanish),Arab-Jew, Along with Brittish Isle,Scandanavian & Various American Indian groups, so the question remains: am I White? I mean on nearly every legal Document I put White/American Indian or other(which is a very vague definition,I have dark skin(many people think I am a full-blooded Mexican), blue eyes, and a Middle Eastern Nose, though everyone tries to tell me that I "Look Mexican & Act White" my heritage is mainly American Indian I just want to know if everything else I am is White.... Mutt 02:57, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that this question would get more answers (and more experienced answers) if posted to a discussion group for multiracial individuals. Email me privately at fwsweet@backintyme.com if you would like me to suggest one or two. -- Frank W Sweet 03:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Icemountain's changes of 14 December 2005

Revision as of 20:16, 14 December 2005: added "*A History of the White Race - A site that covers 350 centuries of White history and discusses the theory that racial mixing contributes to the downfall of great White civilizations."

I cannot grasp why a link to a White-supremacist website adds to the educational/informative value of this article. I am willing to be persuaded that this is useful but, so far, IceMountain has made no effort to persuade anyone. He just keeps putting the link back.
  • Frank, there is plenty of accurate and vetted historical information summed up on that link. If you can provide another link that summarizes the history of White people, that'd be great too. Your characterization of that link is quite unfair. Icemountain 16:42, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
>>Unfair or not, your are going to have to be specific as to what information from that site is important to this article, but cannot be included in the body of the article. -- Frank W Sweet 17:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Frank, I believe more White/European history and geography should be incorporated into this article. Why shouldn't this article cover or link to items that relate to White people: such as the history of Spanish reconquest or the issues regarding European colonization of the Americas etc.? Otherwise this just becomes another whiteness studies. Please don't also try to say the Amerindians were white too, because they didn't view themselves as white either!  ;-) Icemountain 18:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Revision as of 20:56, 14 December 2005: removed, "Thus people who are not white in the traditional sense, but have light skin, such as Japanese, Koreans and Northern Chinese may well be able to legitimately describe themselves as white." Also, "(although Greeks, Sicilians, Spaniards and Portuguese are sometimes considered non-White by other Europeans)" Also, "Every New World nation save one (the United States) has a unimodal Afro-European admixture scatter diagram revealing complete mixing of European with African and Native American ancestries.

The first two are informative and important to the topic. The third is necessary to back up the otherwise unsupported assertion of the prior sentence. ("In the New World today, however, the White/non-White distinction is cultural, not genetic.")

Revision as of 21:22, 14 December 2005: removed, " In the New World today, however, the White/non-White distinction is cultural, not genetic."

Important and informative to the topic.
  • Frank, that statement above " In the New World today, however, the White/non-White distinction is cultural, not genetic." is outrageous POV.Icemountain 17:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
>>Be specific and I shall pay attention. Merely saying that you think a piece of verifiable data is "outrageous" carries no weight. -- Frank W Sweet 17:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Frank, you are the one that made the above statement, shouldn't you provide a source or basis for it? That statement is controversial and you know it, so how can you possibly justify placing that POV into an encyclopedia?Icemountain 18:25, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

  • "Chinese and Japanese may legitimately describe themselves as White"? What does this even mean? First, you place text in the article saying everyone is some shade of brown, so now you want use the color white to describe Asians? It's not really clear, and it's just misleading and unecessary. Even if we assume everyone is brown in color, then the cultural definition of White comes into play, and Asians, especially Japanese and Chinese are not considered White. I also don't really see what the point is to find one or two isolated examples of when the Chinese were included in the White category (in Mississippi or whatever), because we all know this is not common sense and even the Chinese themselves don't think they are Whites and vice-versa. Please, Frank can we focus more on what White means (for the reader) rather than on all the exceptions and controversies involved?Icemountain 16:42, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
>>No we cannot. The goal of this article is not to reify your personal conviction about who is (or is not) White. There is no common-sense consensus on this. That is precisely the point of this article. This article should explain when, where, how, and why certain people see/saw other people as White (or not). The NPOV cannot, must not, take sides that one person's perception was or is better or more correct than any other person's. -- Frank W Sweet 17:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I know what you are saying, and I would hope for compromise and consensus. This article should also clearly articulate what White means in 2005, just as the articles from the 19th Century reflected that period. So I don't see why the emphasis shouldn't be about Whites in 2005, rather than a whiteness studies emphasis. I am working from 2005's most widely accepted idea that European-descended people are White, not my personal definition. I really believe that you should contribute to whiteness studies, because that is primarily what you are focusing on. Thanks.Icemountain 18:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

There were also one or two Icemountain changes that I left in situ. The most important is the elimination or softening of several references to people "looking white" (or not) couched in language that assumed objectivity when judging this. If the studies of Robert Kurzban, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides have taught us anything, it is that whether someone "looks white" (or not) is in the eye of the beholder. I think it best to avoid saying, for instance, that Middle-eastern Jews "look just like" Middle-eastern Muslims. They dress differently, after all. And anyone who doubts that dress, posture, body language, hair style, and the like can radically change whether someone "looks white" to unprompted subjects has not yet read the literature on "racial" perception. -- Frank W Sweet 15:57, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

    • Just who's literature would that be? Here are two well-known men wearing Western style suits: [Spanish leader and Moroccan King] Are you saying the suit makes the two men the same?Icemountain 16:58, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I doubt you've ever been to spain, but I have, and the moroccan king could easily pass for a southern spaniard. Not that would make a damn bit of difference to you, since your favorite Web-site--hateful-white-bigotry masquerading as history.com--claims that the spanish empire fell because they interbred with black slaves, a ludicrous and untrue notion, but then again, bigots never give a rat's ass about the truth. ThePedanticPrick 18:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Please stop ad hominems TPP. I have been to Spain. That you believe that the Moroccan king could pass for a Spaniard is only your personal opinion, so why should that make it encyclopedic? I also believe that a Moroccan can indenfity a Spaniard easily. Do you think the Spaniard PM can pass for Moroccan? I doubt the Spaniards/Moroccans would have as much trouble indentifying who and who isn't their own countymen as you are seeming to have. Why were the reconquest wars even fought then? Icemountain 18:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I do believe he could pass for moroccan. I once met a moroccan girl at a bar in Granada whose skin was lighter than Zapatero's and had a nose a bit like Aznar's. I didn't know she was moroccan until she told me. Mmmmmmmm! PS. The reconquista was fought because Christians don't like muslims. Shheeesh, are you so bigoted that you don't realize there are other forms of bigotry? ThePedanticPrick 19:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
No kidding? We lived in Madrid from 1969-1972, when I worked for IBM there and in Valencia. We spent a two-week vacation in Morocco around Christmastime one year (Marrakesh, Fez, Casablanca, etc.). We never met the king, though. <grin> When/why were you there? -- Frank W Sweet 18:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I studied there for about three months in college. Loved every minute of it! ThePedanticPrick 19:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Frank, are you going to say that the people that live in Fes are "White" or even that "some" of them are? That all I am getting at. Let's be accurate and not misleading.Icemountain 18:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)



>>The best current studies on the perception of "racial" traits are: Robert Kurzban, John Tooby, and Leda Cosmides, “Can Race be Erased? Coalitional Computation and Social Categorization,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98, no. 26 (2001): 15387-15392; Robert Owen Kurzban, “The Social Psychophysics of Cooperation in Groups” (Ph.D., University of California, 1998); and Lola Cosmides, John Tooby, and Robert Kurzban, “Perceptions of Race,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7, no. 4 (2003): 173-79. Again, I understand that your own perceptions are tenaciously held and important to you. Nevertheless, this article cannot assume that your perceptions of who is "really White" are correct and mine are wrong (or vice-versa). We must rely on factual data that explains when, where, how, and why these perceptions are formed and expressed. Pleas read the literature. Better yet, just google the above names and I am sure you will turn up popularizations of current studies. If you want to question their methodology, findings, or conclusions, I will pay attention. By simple insisting over and over that your perceptions are unalterable carries no weight. -- Frank W Sweet 17:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Your examples are the exception rather than the rule, and that's all I see you putting into the article. My perceptions are not however as "tenacious" as someone who devotes their career to studying the subject. The justification for my edits is based on the principle of NPOV and requiring valid and non-biased sources. Kindly discuss the edits and refrain from ad hominems. Thanks.Icemountain 18:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
>>Along those lines, I notice that you are once again posting a series of changes to the article without either taking into account previous discussions nor explaining your changes in this venue. This is despite the instructions at the top of this page. Your actions are beginning to smell more and more like vandalism, virtually guaranteeing that your changes will be reverted as soon as you finish. -- Frank W Sweet 17:54, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Frank, every edit has been justified. It is most definitely not vandalism. Please stop ad hominems and refer to the edit itself. I would be glad to discuss any and all of my edits with you.Icemountain

15 Dec 2005, Icemountain / FrankWSweet Debate

Icemountain wrote: I believe more White/European history and geography should be incorporated into this article. Why shouldn't this article cover or link to items that relate to White people: such as the history of Spanish reconquest or the issues regarding European colonization of the Americas etc.? Otherwise this just becomes another whiteness studies. Please don't also try to say the Amerindians were white too, because they didn't view themselves as white either!  ;-) Icemountain 18:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that we could include more history. The problem is that you want a history of White people and I want a history of who, when, where, how, and why certain people saw certain other people as White. I oppose writing a history of White people because this leads to debate over who is White and who is not, and there is no way to resolve this. And so, I opt for a balanced set of statements on how different people see the whiteness of others.
I suggest that we take just one of your changes at a time, rather than your applying multiple changes at once. Take just one change and let's discuss it. -- Frank W Sweet 23:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Icemountain wrote: You are the one that made the above statement [In the New World today, however, the White/non-White distinction is apparently cultural, not genetic, since every New World nation save one (the United States) has a unimodal Afro-European admixture scatter diagram revealing complete mixing of European with African and Native American ancestries.] Shouldn't you provide a source or basis for it? That statement is controversial and you know it, so how can you possibly justify placing that POV into an encyclopedia?Icemountain 18:25, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Okay. This is a good example of a single point that we can look it. I did not mean to include the United States in the first part of the sentence, since U.S. culture is extremely racialist in ascribing ethnic differences to genes. I would be willing to split it into three sentences, perhaps like this: [In Latin America today, however, the White/non-White distinction is apparently cultural, not genetic. The evidence for this is that every Latin American nation has a unimodal Afro-European admixture scatter diagram revealing complete mixing of European with African and Native American ancestries. Hence, whether you are seen as a White or Black Brazilian or Dominican depends heavily on your appearance and socioeconomic class, but little on what your grandparents looked like.] I would be happy to provide sources for Latin American admixture studies. -- Frank W Sweet 23:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Icemountain wrote: This article should ... articulate what White means in 2005, just as the articles from the 19th Century reflected that period. So I don't see why the emphasis shouldn't be about Whites in 2005, rather than a whiteness studies emphasis. I am working from 2005's most widely accepted idea that European-descended people are White, not my personal definition.Icemountain 18:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Again, let us talk about a single point rather than generalities. The problem is that what White means in 2005 to a Puerto Rican (90% of whom check off White on the census) or to a sensei from San Francisco, or to a Vietnamese shrimper in New Orleans are all just as valid as your idea of what White means. (To say nothing of the opinions of Azerbaijanis or Khazaks overseas.) You claim that your perception of who is White is "widely accepted" and imply that those who disagree are exceptions. I see no evidence of this and a great deal of evidence to the contrary. There are many understandings of what White means and they are all as valid as yours. Again, let us discuss just one specific point at a time. -- Frank W Sweet 23:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Icemountain wrote: Frank, are you going to say that the people that live in Fes are "White" or even that "some" of them are?Icemountain 18:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

No, of course I am not saying that. Fez came up only because you and someone else were debating whether Moroccans "look White." I merely pointed out that any given Moroccan may look White (or not) to the person you were talking to, he or she may look White (or not) to you, and he or she may look White (or not) to themselves. My point was that none of these opinions is better than anyone else's and so debating them is a waste of time. What is important is not whether Moroccans are "really White" because there is no way of resolving the issue. Neither is it important whether they "look White" because, again, there is no way of resolving this. What is important is whether they are considered White by themselves or by Algerians, Spaniards, or Maltese. Again, the goal is to explain who, when, where, how, and why some people see others as White. We at least have a shot at resolving that. Again, pick just one change that you want to make and let us discuss it. -- Frank W Sweet 23:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Reverted unexplained changes by Gramaic

The major change made by Gramaic at 22:58, 15 December 2005 was from this:

Another difficulty with the term is the difference between any given popular definition versus the parameters used for the official government definition in the same locale. For example, some claim that many Americans consider Arabs, Berbers, Iranians, Mizrahi Jews, Kurds, Armenians, Turks, etc. to be non-white. U.S. federal agencies, on the other hand, make no such distinction. The EEOC defines only five "races" (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian) and explicitly defines "White as "peoples of Europe, North Africa, or the Middle East." (See Employer Information Report EEO-1 and Standard Form 100, Appendix § 4, Race/Ethnic Identification, 1 Empl. Prac. Guide (CCH) § 1881, (1981), 1625.) And Census Bureau classifications are completely voluntary by each reporting individual. Given the explicit EEOC definition and the volutary nature of the census, it seems likely that most U.S. voters would agree that North Africans and Middle Easterners are White. This was not always the case. Until the 1960s, the U.S. restricted immigration and naturalization depending upon whether an immigrant was White, and U.S. courts waffled back and forth many times when considering whether non-Europeans were White. (See United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind.)

to this:

Another contemporary difficulty of the term is the difference between any given popular definition versus the parameters used for the official government definition in the same locale. In the United States for example, many view Arabs, Berbers, Iranians, Mizrahi Jews, Kurds, Armenians, Turks, etc. as non-white. This is despite the fact that for the purposes of statistics, all the aforementioned are always categorised as white by US government agencies and the U.S. census, and even though some of the people in these groups may look very similar to Southern Europeans.

The first problem with the change is that it replaces the specific citing of EEOC and Census Bureau regulations with the blanket statement, "all the aforementioned are always categorised as white by US government agencies and the U.S. census." The use of "all" and "always" make the statement weak and unpersuasive. Worse, it is factually in error; the Census Bureau does not classify anyone as anything. The Bureau allows each respondent to classify themselves however they wish. A secondary problem is the removal of the conclusion that most U.S. voters are in agreement with EEOC regulations. This conclusion is based on the fact that if most voters disagreed, they would express their desires to Congress, the appropriate Congressional committee would review the regulations, and the Executive Branch would implement Congressional wishes. This sort of adjustment to regulations happens virtually every day and, in fact, was the mechanism whereby the census was changed to allow "check all races that apply." Finally, rest of Gramaic's changes removed objective phrasing regarding appearance and replaced it with subjective phrasing and the obsolete term "caucasoid." -- Frank W Sweet 01:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

I just like to know, why is the statement regarding Middle Easterners looking like Europeans constantly being removed? Icemountain is constantly removing that sentence, and has stated "that it is not accurate." Actually many Middle Easterners look like Southern Europeans, and minority resemble even the Northern Europeans. Obviously Icemountain does not have experience with Middle Easterners, stating in his summary that this reference about people of Middle Eastern backround is "misleading and not accurate." I'm not trying to start another "Who is White?" discussion, but what exactly is POV about that statement? On the contrary, denying that there aren't any European looking Middle Easterners and North Africans is the one that is highly POV and biased. --Gramaic | Talk 03:58, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Gramaic, please stop making prejudicial comments and ad hominems. I know Middle Easterners, and the vast majority do not consider themselves White. Can you kindly stop pushing this POV when it just doesn't hold up to scrutiny? Go visit the Middle East, or visit any Middle East retail neighborhood of a large US city. Icemountain 18:47, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I'v been to the Middle East and have been to Middle Eastern stores and retailers and I'm very familiar with Middle Easterners, so don't tell me what Middle Easterners are Icemountain. Whether you consider Middle Easterners white or not doesn't mean you have to deny that there are European looking Middle Easterners. I'm not the one making prejudicial comments, you are. This is not going to be another "Who is White?" discussion, and were not going to deny that thre are Middle Easterners who resemble Europeans, just because it offends some prejudice individuals. As for your accusastions of me pushing a POV, it is you who is doing that, by denying that there aren't any European looking people from the Middle East. --Gramaic | Talk 23:44, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry. This was probably my doing. Until the 14 Dec 2005 round of changes/reversions, it was Icemountain who kept removing it, for the reason that you just said. But in the 14 Dec 2005 round of changes/reversions, I am the one who left it out. The reason that I left it out, as I tried to explain above, had nothing to do with POV. I left it out because it just struck me that whether anyone "looks white" or not depends on who is doing the looking. To me, almost all Middle Easterners look White and I have spent quite a bit of time there (in fact, my wife went to highschool in Teheran). But Icemountain claims that they do not look White to him. Maybe he is sincere. if so, there is no way that he will ever be convinced to the contrary. My father-in-law used to insist that Italians did not look White to him, and I finally gave up trying to argue with him. And so, I left out the business about middle-easterners and north africans looking white because it seemed to be a source of pointless debate that ultimately could not be resolved. If you feel strongly about it, put it back in. I shall back off and let you and Icemountain fight it out. (I would prefer, however, if you could phrase it in some way that leaves wiggle-room for people like my father-in-law (and Icemountain) who honestly see non-Whiteness where others see Whiteness. -- Frank W Sweet 04:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Be wary of anthropological revisionist politics at Wikipedia

Wikipedia has come under scrutiny in recent weeks, and it is about time. While it has always been a reasonably accurate source of information with respect to technical and to a lesser extent hard science topics, it tends to be little better than an opininated news group when it comes to topics in the areas of the humanities, particularly topics relating to history, politics, anthropology, race, religion, etc. Here it tends to reflect the POV of the American academic hard left rather than anything approaching an objective appraisal of reality.

The issue of race in particular tends to be described at Wikipedia from the POV of "Whiteness studies". This is a relatively recent and controversial "field" created by American academics openly identifying as left wing which presents itself as the critical evaluation of 'the concept of Whiteness', but which in fact tends to boil down to a new religion whose chief article of faith is the idea that the 'white race' is essentially a Nordic conspiracy to disenfranchsie everyone darker than a Frenchman. Unfortunately, topics relating to race in particular tend to be contributed disproportionatley by far left, Anglo-American academics of the 'white lib guilt' variety.

The bottomline is, the concept of 'white' and certainly 'caucasian' is not nearly as 'fluid' or 'arbitrary' as those on the racist left suggest. 'Race' describes essentially those qualities of appearance that can be captured by a statue. Given a gray statue of a human figure, any layman could discern immediately that it was from Europe and not from Sub-Saharan Africa or East Asia, though he might not be able to discern whether it was from ancient Greece or ancient Ireland, even though Greeks can generally be readily distinguished from Irishmen in the flesh.

Well, isn't that nice! You come barging into a discussion that was bordering on uncivilized already and inject politics into the debate! Thanks a lot! Would you give steroids to a raging bull, too? I'm not going to waste my time explaining to you why thinking critically about the prejudices one is raised with is not exclusively the province of lefty liberals, but perhaps when you start thinking for yourself and doing a little bit of reading, we can talk. Question everything. Toodle-oo ThePedanticPrick 12:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, TPP, but I don't think he's talking about "politics", and his comments show critical thinking. Aren't you being slightly reflexive here? Let the man speak. From what I see, the Whiteness Studies people attempt to define White indentity as one of exclusion, when that's totally not true, it's about self-indentification and inclusion as part of a group, like any other people. Most White people are proud to be White because of who they are, where their family came from, White culture and accomplishments, and genetics passed down to them by parents etc. It's purely logical. Everyone does this and is proud of who they are. For someone to say White is only a "construct", well they must not be White, or trying to destroy the indentity for some reason. The White indentity exists, sorry to some to hear I guess, and millions of people have it. But it's not about exclusion, it's about who we are and where we came from. Wikipedia in 2005 should focus on what White means in 2005, not focus on Chinese being considered White in isolated cases, or Germans being considered non-White? That belongs in Whiteness Studies. Icemountain 20:24, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean, let the man speak. He spoke, no one deleted his position. In addition, his speech was nothing more than a desire to censure "left" and "liberal" views. So tell him to let US speak. But look at what you yourself say. Whitness is proud to be white because of all things... genetics??? What other group of people do YOU know of that stress some genetic "reason" to be who they are? In addition, how can whiteness be inclusive, if one of the things that gives it pride is a genetic makeup? the others who are inclusive further diversify the genetic pool making "genetics" less and less of a clear distinction! Arabs, East Indians, Latinos, (people who are considered to be white in some fashion or another) are radically different from Germans. And you think this is not exclusive, well explain these comments by white judges and politicians who based "whiteness" on concepts of "purity" and "virtue", with virtue being nothing more than a "fair contenance" and a "radiant comlpexion"! Europeans did not categorize themselves as white when they first settled in Virginia. Now if you do not want to address the history of how whiteness was invented and where and why it "grew" to include this group or that group, thats going to be a problem. This article is about white people, so their history and origins should be clearly laid out, good and bad. We aren't going to make assumptions, and omit information based on a belief in bygone conclusions. And yea the man spoke, but he didn't show any kind of serious thinking. He wants anything he doesnt like to be thrown into the trash. He may be "white" but that does not make him the final expert on all things white. --Zaphnathpaaneah 04:57, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

The word white in Latin is Albion. Which is what the Romans called Britain upon conquering it in 46 AD!!! Sometime after Jesus died. These classes of races like Indo-European, Causcasion North African are simply ways to put the"white" into history. And of course we know that they had no written language, just what the Romans said about them at the time. The other word used by Rome was Barbarian. We can clear alot of this up due to Dna testing for melanin, which is something whites&albinos have very little of. The dna testing of King Tut was not released due to not wanting to let the world know that he was not a white or even mixed person!! Races have been diluted over the years but lets get it right. Europeans from Europe proper we're not in the game until 46AD!

Your post is terribly incoherent. Where does this stuff about Rome conquering Britain come from? DNA analysis doesn't reveal melanin levels, and what do you mean by "Europe proper"? Don't deviate from the discussion. --Jugbo 23:14, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

And be aware of unilateral attempts to dominate and control Wikipedia

This left-liberal accusation made by the anonymous poster in the previous section is in actuality another "pre-emptive" atttempt to dominate the direction Wikipedia is going. I agree that Wikipedia is not very neutral in the manner of history, and race. However, the leanings are too far to the "right". In addition, too much of the Wikipidia contributions are done in surreptitious ways and with dishonorable intentions. Our anonymous poster above is an example of how "right" wing ideologues have a pre-determined goal of controlling racial, historical and political topics. I know that this anonymous commentator is only interested in having the Anglo-American perspective upheld as the perspective with the veto power, the unltimate and sole deciding factor in the racial, historical and political articles. This must not come to pass.

Other examples of flat out rhetorical manipultion of a "right wing" nature is the use of "race riots" to describe just about every massacre in America that befell African Americans. The insistance on describing Ancient Egyptians as a Caucasoid civilization with only external Sub-saharan admixture.

I (a black contributor) expected an underhanded tactic like your comments to somehow respond to the recent changes to this article. If you lived in Astoria, you would know that Greek people do not resemble Irishmen and look more bi-racial than Indo-European, and they do not view themselves as White, much of the Arab population does not consider itself to be white.

== Dear self-hating black: I never said Greeks generally resemble Irishmen. My point from the beginning has been that that while one could readily determine the race of a statue (ie. both Greek and Irish statues are obviously caucasian), the specific ethnicicty remains ambiguous. I said Irishmen can generally be readily distinguished from Greeks in the flesh, but laymen would not in general be able to tell whether a statue was of Greek or Irish origin - it's just a marble white guy.

I certainly see a difference in the sculpture of Ancient Egyptians (who are also artifically dropped into the Caucasoid category) compared to the sculptures of Romans. Greeks also vary widely in their apprearances. If the recent absurdity of the Tutankhamun reconstruction is any indication, the objectivity of the European scholar is usually lost when they are aware of the cultural implications. It's no coiencidence that the blind studies of Tut had him appear more black looking. So no, this isn't a white-self-guilt-left-wing problem you are dealing with. This is worldwide experience, and we are not so naive as to merely sit and wait for your perspective to "tolerate".

You don't like the notion "that the 'white race' is essentially a Nordic conspiracy to disenfranchsie everyone darker than a Frenchman." Then I'll tell you what, you invent a time machine, go back in time, and stop your ancestors from passing laws in Virginia and elsewhere that do just that. Stop YOUR people from creating organizations that colonized and plundered people all for the virtue of "not being White". And finally, stop YOUR ancestors from passing laws, and dicating ideas that every civilization in the world was created and maintained by some Nordic based ruling class. You don't like this notion, but you seem to have amnesia, as it is essentially the white nordic perspective (Eurocentrism) that has created the "white race". If not them, then who? Did Africans, or Asians, or some Native Americans force white people to be defined as "purely of Indo-European" descent?

What you dislike is seeing white people analyzed, broken down and clarified just as easily as black people, asians, and others. You are not above critical analysis, despite the fact that you will, without hesitation, analyze and draw conclusions of other races of people regardless if your conclusions are inconsistent and flat out wrong. Still you will do everything in your power to uphold them. This use of rhetoric on your part is only one phase of a broader campaign here in Wikipedia to unilaterally control the way the content is presented. Once Wikipedia is "right winged" then it becomes nothing more than a tool to maintain the status quo, Whites on top dictating the content, blacks and others having little or no say. Your cry of reverse-racism, or Afrocentrism, or white-liberalism, is nothing more than a smoke screen.

Although I agree that race is nothing more than the identification of people in groups based on their appearance, I disagree that you can rely on their appearances (especially from a statue) to deterime which 'race' they fall in. After all, it's absurd to me to take a person from East India, or Ethiopia, and categorize them as a "Caucasoid" despite the fact they resemble in no way an Irish-man. So what happens then is that right-wing ideologues, in their quest to preserve the white identity from eventual assimilation into the world, recategorize "white" to include people who have historically been outside of white identity. To be "Caucasoid" is to be somehow a part of a more sophisticated form of humanity.

The reason why this article was recently updated was because it had to be consistent with the corresponding article on Black People. --208.254.174.148 07:51, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


==LOL! I happen to be of Greek heritage, and while I now live in New Jersey, I am well aware of the large Greek and Cypriot population in Astoria Queens. Your suggestion that Greeks look 'bi-racial' and do not view themselves as White is absolute nonsense. This claim would be absurd anywhere, but it is particularly absurd in the context of NYC, where the vast majority of whites are of the swarthy Med type (Italians, Jews etc.) You sound like a self hating black guy, trying to feel better about being black by suggesting that dark whites are really light blacks. Pathetic but funny. And as far as Greeks in general not resembling Irishmen, I made this very point myself in my initial comments when I said race describes those characteristics that canbe captured by statue - you can usually tell a Greek from an Irishman in the flesh but most layman would never be able to distinguish an ancient Irish statue from an ancient Greek statue. It's worth pointing out however, that there are Irish who could readily pass for Greek and Greeks who could pass for Irish. The swarthy Irish actor Colin Farrel of course recently played Alexander the Great (imagine how a Greek audience would react to a 'bi-racial actor in that role? LOL!), and famous Greek-Americans such as Bob Costas and John Stamos could easily pass for Irish. Take pride in your own heritage- stop envying the cultures of others -it's obvious and pathetic. By the way, there are plenty of readily recognizable lily white Arab-Americans as well, such as the prototypical 'white frat boy' QB Doug Flutie, arch neo-con John Sununu and icon of the 1950's nulcear family TV hour, Danny Thomas (not to mention his daughter, Marlo Thomas). Speaking of icons of lily-white 1950's nulcear family TV, nobody ever regarded Desi and Lucy as an interracial couple.

Excuse me, I know that you are wrong. I spent some time in Queens doing some research on my family tree and I met a few Greeks-Americans that run a catering service and they do NOT view themselves as WHITE.


-- LOL. You spent 'some time' in Queens? I AM a Greek-American and I was BORN in Astoria. I have spent half my life there. Your suggestion that Greeks don't identify as White is insane. Morever, one does not need to be pale to be 'white' - most Greeks and other Meds are relatively swarthy (ie. they have dark eyes, hair, tan well etc.). This does not mean they aren't white. In fact, in NYC, most whites are either Meds or Jews and tend to have relatively dark complexions (as whites go). They are still unambiguously white. 'White' is just a euphemism for Caucasian- it doesn't require one to be pale or Nordic in appearance. By your twisted logic, Richard Nixon's first vice president (the Swarthy Greek-American Spiro Agnew) was 'non-white' (imagine?), and Jackie Onassis's marriage to Greek shipping Tycoon Aristotle Onassis after JKF died was 'interracial' (who knew?). Give it up dude - you're making an ASS of yourself. By the way, thanks for admitting Telly Savalas never looked white to you - this places all of your other coments into their proper perspective;)

I do not imagine that during the last century Greek people were not white. There are many ethnic groups that were not considered white back then. Imagine being arab, from Egypt living in the US in 1902, or a Sicilian, or a Yemeni. They were not White....

  • Pardon the interruption, but you are just plain wrong here. Sure, Sicilians (and other Meds) by and large are dark (at least as compared to Englishmen), and they didn't necessarily always recieve the warmest reception as new immgrants circa 1900, but they were nevertheless always classified as white. (There's even a recent book that addresses this very issue - coming to us from of all places the Whiteness Studies academic crowd! - called "White On Arrival" in reference to Italian and Sicilian immigrants). In fact, there were two Italian-Americans among the signers of the declaration of Independence; heck, the country is NAMED for an Italian! But even the darker Middle Easterners you refer to (ie. Egyptians and Yemenis - some of whom are clearly Negroid) were always classifed as white - you can check this out. This belies one of the central claims of the Whitness Studies movement (ie. that the circle of those counted as 'white' originally encompassed only Nordics and has subsequently been only reluctantly expanded). In fact, the historical record indicates that precisely the opposite is true; it is only with the growth in recent decades of political correctness and 'identity politics' that groups traditionally classified as white (ie. Latins, Arabs)in the U.S. are being referred to as something other than white (see my comments elsewhere about Danny Thomas and Desi Arnaz and 1950s TV). I can't claim to know precisely what motivates these Whiteness Studies types - whether it's just more white lib guilt, or perhaps an attempt to increase the liberal base by encouraging a wider spectrum of the population to identify as excluded ethnic victims. What is clear nevertheless is that their claims are sheer revisionist nonsense readily refuted by the historical record.
  • "Can't we all just get along?" - Rodney King


... What you are trying to do is not argue with "my" logic, but argue instead with the logic of white people over the past century. Judges, congressmen, scientists, etc. Your greek background may be on one side of the arguement, but I have met other greeks who do not identify as white, and you can call it insane or not. You think a "swarthy" complexioned Greek is more "white" than a "lightskinned" African, because what, their skull is shaped slightly differently? I don't say these Greeks are black, I say merely they are not white. Your definition of whiteness is centered around skulls and regional location. Skin color is not a factor. So you and I are having two different conversations. I showed you examples below, and I fail to see how those people, being "swarthy" are white by virtue of living in Europe and having a Caucasoid skull. And you know what? that whole skull shape nonsense is where the racial argument leads to myths about intelligence and IQ testing. I'm starting to see the link here, and why Caucasoids have been associated outside of Europe with "being slightly more bright" than non-caucasoids in Africa and across Asia. Why is "race and intelligence" still a part of the links in this article anyway? We will clear this up sooner or later. I'll be gone for a while, have fun without me.--Zaphnathpaaneah 05:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

They are very familiar actually with the whole racial game of trying to place them inside a white identity, and they seem to be unable to relate to it. I met a doctor, who looks very pale, (Irish) and he does not consider himself white, a computer analyst, in fact, just about every Greek i DO know, making it plainly clear, they do not consider themselves WHITE.

*I'm trying to picture this; you meet an Irish looking Greek doctor (ahem - I thought you said there were no Irish looking Greeks?), and he tells you he doesn't consider himself white. Hmmm... I'm having a very hard time imagining a realistic scenario in which an Irish looking Greek doctor confides in a black stranger that he doesn't regard himself as white. Even in the infinitely unlikely event that your claims were true, if you had any intelligence it might have occurred to you that a lot of whites are uncomfortable around blacks and feel compelled to offer proof that they are not racist (ie. I'm not really white, I'm...)

They view their background as something other than white and they do not feel a part of white identity. They told me about ...

*LOL - Who told you this? This whole scenario you are presenting simply lacks the ring of truth

... growing up were treated differently, not as white.

*In NYC? Astoria? Dude - 99% of the whites there are swarthy Meds - Italians, Greeks, Jews, etc. Go home and sleep it off.


Unless they are doing what everyone else is doing, that is going after $$$ and fame. And with that in mind, you aren't going to find the everyday Greek or a famous Greek portrayed on the screen by anything other than either a "white" or a "white looking" greek. Nowadays Greeks of darker complexion are not goin to be on TV other than as provincal stereotypes (the Balki typecast). TV in general is not a good reliable non-biased representation of people of color. Usually they are made up, hair colored, and reimaged to de-ethnicitize. So if we find some older pictures of greeks and local pics.... oh lets say like these: http://www.symidream.com/NG/People%202/images/Greek%20boy2_jpg.jpg I know a bi-racial child that is identical in appearance to this picture. He does not look Irish, nor German.

  • No - he looks Meditterranean. Swarthy, sure, but unambiguosuly white. Is being black really so bad that you must envy us so?

Telly Savalas has never looked white to me. In fact, he http://www.mountaintimes.com/mtweekly/2005/0630/muegel_PeopleGreekIconPainter.gif - another. http://www.mustrad.org.uk/graphics/bellou.jpg http://www.dam.brown.edu/people/yiannis/IMAGES/StelKaz.jpg

  • All these people are unambiguously caucasian. White. Swarthy? Sure. But MOST whites are swarthy. And you are STILL black.

Oh but let me guess, the only "real" greeks are the ones with the "doric" phenotype right?

  • No, in fact, all of the pictures you show are unambigusously of caucasians; you must labor under the delusion that only Noridcs are white or something. Most Europeans have brown hair and eyes and tan well , and might've looked rather like the boy in your pic at age 9 or so.

I understand there are greeks out there that blend in, that's to be expected, you can find anybody that has round eyes and fair skin trying to pass for white (regardless of their background). That does not close the issue, and it certainly does not give you license to drop all people of a particular nationality into a category. I know my history, and Greek people were not white in the states at the turn of the century. --208.254.174.148 03:37, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Greek people are now, and have always been classified as white. In fact, even Yemenis have always been classified as white, and they probably shouldn't be. Anyway, you are still black, and will never have a Greek girlfriend. Learn to accept the face you see in the mirror and stop wishing you were Italian, or Greek, or Jewish, or whatever else other than black. You're black -deal with it.
"most laymen would never be able to distinguish an ancient Irish statue from an ancient Greek statue." Really? You don't know much about the history of art do you? Have you seen any ancient Irish art? But seriously, pop over to the talk:Akhenaten or Tutankhamon page to see how contributors would very much dispute the "you can tell from a statue" line. Paul B 07:57, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

You're not very perceptive - which part of LAYMEN don't you undertand? This is not about art or history or even about sculpture for that matter, save but for the fact that 'race' describes essentially those aspects of appearance that can be captured in statue. This belies the claim of 'Whiteness studies' types that race is somehow an entirely 'arbitrary' and 'fluid' 'construct' with no anchor in objective reality. What I have said about race being essentially such features as can be captured by statue is a readily observable fact that will resonate with anyone reading this, which rather nicely cuts through the BS and subterfuge of so much of the nonsense and revisionism posted here. No opinionated posts at 'Talk: Tutankkamon' (lol - nothing is more of a magnet for anthropological revisionists than topics involving Egypt) will change the fact that, for instance, the Statue of Liberty is readily recognizable as a Caucasian woman and NOT someone from the far east or Subsaharan Africa, and she could be just as easily imagined Greek as Irish.

A real-size copy of the face of Statue of Liberty exhibited in the Museum of Statue of Liberty.
A real-size copy of the face of Statue of Liberty exhibited in the Museum of Statue of Liberty.
Well that was a spectacularly brainless reply. ANY layman could tell the difference between ancient Irish and Greek art, but if you had any sense you'd have spotted that that was just a light comment, the central point being that even realistic images often can't be readily placed. The statue of liberty, by the way, is an imitation of ancient Greek scuptural conventions, to which highly idiosyncratic stylised elements have been added. Here's a reproducion of the face from the museum. As you can see it doesn't actually resemble any specific human race. Have you ever seen anyone with a nose like that? It is certainly not "readily recognisable as a Caucasian woman". It just goes to show, sometimes you see what you want to see.
"Whiteness studies" seems to be a semi-imaginary demon you and your pals have constructed, to which you attribute the view that race is an arbitrary construct. Drawing attention to the fact that "white" is not a clear or stable concept is not the same as saying that it is completely arbitrary. However, it is important to point that "rules" such as the designation of someone half African and half European as "black" rather than "white" are arbitrary - or rather they are historically constructed. Paul B 01:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

You guys can't even decide what "race" is.

You lie. From the beginning, I have maintained that Race describes those aspects of appearance that are captured by statue - a statue's race is usually obvious while the specific ethnicity is not.

I have no idea what you mean. How can you tell that Liberty isn't dark skinned? Paul B 02:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Come on guys, define it. Is it the shape of the skull, the hue of the skin, the region your ancestors lived in? You can't figure out where the "dark skinned whites" end and the "lightskinned blacks" begin.

It has less to do with the hue of the skin or the region one's ancestors lived in than the shape of the skull, though the domain of the white race is essentially all of Europe, plus North Africa, the Near East and South Asia. Dark skinned whites end rather abrubtly below North Africa. If there is a 'border region' where the people (while definitely black) have both Negroid and Caucasoid features, that would be perhaps the horn of Africa (ie. Ethopia, Somalia).

By "dark skinned whites" you mean caucasoids, yes? Paul B 02:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Sure. This is one of the problems with the use of the term 'white' as a synonym for 'Caucasian'. I don't deny that the term is problematic and somewhat political, or that it is absurd to characterize the sometimes black skinned Caucasians of South Asia as 'white'. I am only objecting to the revisionist nonsense pushed by 'whiteness studies' suggesting that the term has historically been limited to Nordics, or has until recently excluded Italians, Greeks and even the alabaster complexioned Irish! This is just nonsense. At least in the case of Mediterraneans (not Irish), I can see why people might be confused. I think this stems largely from the fact that in the last few decades, 'Hispanics' - who can in fact be of any race - are almost always (nowadays) referred to as something other than white in American media, even though the media images we see of 'Hispanics' are almost always white (ie. Spaniards as opposed to mulattoes, mestizos, blacks, etc). This has the effect of suggesting that the swarthy med look is something other than white - or at the very least - confusing many as to what exactly 'white' refers to.
The sad fact is, white Spaniards are at least as guilty as the English with respect to the oppression of Native Americans and Africans, and we do a profound injustice to the memory of the victims of Spanish colonialization when we lump white Spaniards together with 'Indians', blacks, mulattoes and mestizoes as "oppressed people of color". Imagine if English speaking whites, blacks, and Indians who emigrated to Quebec from the U.S. were similarly lumped together as one oppressed 'race' (ie. 'Anglics'), or if white South African Boer immigrants to America were classifeid as African-Americans? It'd be pretty damn absurd, right? Yet that's exactly what we do with respect to the 'Latino' population in the United States. It really is NONSENSE and it needs to STOP.


You have these half-african people that are classified as Caucasoid whites in history, and even pass for white today, but only 30 years ago they were undeniably black.

Nonsense - name one such group. This is the essence of the dishonesty of Whiteness studies, which argues that those included under the banner of 'white' has been more exclusive in the past. In fact, the increasingly common perception of relatively dark whites (ie. 'Hispanics', Arabs - to a much lesser extent Southern Europeans) as something other than 'white' is a very recent phenomenon, stemming largely from the recent tendency in American media to sloppily lump together Latin Americans of mixed race with pure Spaniards as a single racial group ('Hispanics' or 'Latinos'). In actual fact, in America, 'Hispanic' is not a racial but linguistic category, and the U.S. census clearly states that Hispanics can be of any race. Spanish "Hispanics' are and have always been classified as 'white'. As I pointed out before, the 1950's are often imagined as the peak of lilly white intolerance in America, and the popular TV show of this period "Ozzy and Harriet" is often used as a metaphor for this period. How telling it is then that in fact, far more popular than "Ozzie and Harriet" was "I Love Lucy", starring Cuban Desi Arnaz and red headead wife Lucy, and "Make Room For Daddy", starring openly Lebanese Danny Thomas. NOBODY regarded Desi or Danny as 'non-white' at the time, or their on screen (and off screen) marriages as 'interracial', nor could either show be remotely construed as 'controversial' or pushing ethnic envelopes or the boundaries of American tolerance. Who can deny that these same shows, had they aired today (in the modern era of PC, revisionist anthropology), would be described as 'controversial' shows featuring 'interracial' marriages testing the boundaries of American tolerance. The PC, 'Whiteness studies' left is engaging in pure Orwellian revisionism in an attempt to Balkanize America.

It remains unclear who these villains of "whiteness studies" are. However, I do think that the U.S.'s obsession with ethnic identity differentiation is profoundly divisive. Paul B 02:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Lets wait another 30 years and lets see how the "race is real" experts try to mix it up for the next generation. --208.254.174.148 03:37, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Paul, even this distorted perspective of "Lady Liberty's" face you posted (it's so warped her sex is ambiguous- yet her race is still obvious - more proof of my point!) is still clearly Caucasian. That you should find it racially ambiguous is revealing, and undermines the credibility of all of your preceding comments regarding race, placing them in their proper context. I'm glad you posted the pic - it will reinforce my point to most viewers/readers that the idea of race describes those features that are captured by sculpture. Even in your warped angle pic, this is clearly a Caucasian face, not a southeast Asian or Subsaharan African. That this white icon is inspired by Greek sculpture is a delicious fact I was unaware of - thank you for further proving my point! The obviously white woman depicted by the statue of Liberty is based upon Greek sculptures - I'll have to remember that - thanks Paul!

px100
px100
It's not distorted in any way as far as I know. How is it ditorted? The point is that no actual human of any race - however defined - looks like that. Yes, when you ignore the non-human aspects there are some specific "caucasian" elements, but that category includes many black people. Is Lady Liberty very diiferent from, say, Iman. Paul B 02:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

However, I must say that your latter comment about the racial designation of persons of mixed race being arbitrary is quite reasonable. In fact, I also agree that the idea of race can be needlessly devisive - I prefer to focus on what people have in common rather than what separates them. But this is quite different than suggesting that there is no such thing as a white or caucasian race, or that Greeks are racially ambiguous, or that the idea of 'white' has historically been limited to Nordics, all of which is sheer revisionist nonsense. In closing, I ask all to take note of the shameless hypocrisy of how the same folks who argue that racial differences are either exagerated or insignificant or nonexistent nevertheless DEMAND that we acknowledge significant differences between Southern and Northern Europeans.

Should a new article be created, and this content be merged or moved to Whiteness Studies?

People are talking past each other on this article. I believe there is a place for two articles: 1) content that includes the whiteness studies concepts and 2) another that isn't negative and summarizes White people in an article that covers Etymology, Culture, Population, Languages, History, Countries, Famous Whites and accomplishments (and failures). I'd suggest the White people article be based on the same format used for other entho-religious groupings, (see a model format at Jew).

A basis for the article should be uncontroversial and what is generally accepted globally: "A common element to the various definitions of "White" today, is that the term refers to a person of European descent. Also generally associated with white people are European culture, Christianity (whether as a religion or part of their cultural heritage) and Western Civilization." Now, OF COURSE there are exceptions, but they should not come to rule the content of the article at the expense of providing general, encyclopedic and useful information to readers about White people-- past, present and future. We do exist. Icemountain 19:38, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

As a historian, I agree with Icemountain that the article's historical content now focusses too much on the changing definitions of "White," epecially in the U.S. (which is the field that I happen to know about). If you interpret "White" to denote Western (European) civilization and its cultural values, then the article could probably benefit from shedding more light on this aspect of Whiteness. The European (Western) conquest of the virtually the entire planet about half a millennium ago is astounding. In 1421, for example, China's military technology was far in advance of Europe's and they could have walked over the place, had they chosen to do so. When, where, how, and why Western (European) culture came to dominate the globe is a story worth telling. I cannot do it because I know little about it. But I would be more than happy to lend a hand to Icemountain or anyone else who wants to address this (after checking into other Wikipedia articles to make sure we do not neddlessly duplicate what others have already written). FWIW, my personal groundrules for history-writing are explained on my Wikipedia home page. -- Frank W Sweet 16:56, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The problem with finding the format is that the other ethno-religious groups do not fit the same premises. Jews are a religious group, with a clear distinction. Arabs and HIspanic are a linguistic groups. Black people fit two groupings. White people seem to fit a social order, and not a ethno-religious group. Because many of the ethno-religious groups can contain white people, and many white people can be a part of these groups. Christianity is certainly NOT a part of what makes a white person white. There is no place in the world where a non Christian, fitting the other descriptions would be considered NOT white. No way an Irish Muslim, or a German Hindu, or a Swedish buddhist will be considered "non" white. I have never ever ever heard of a European fitting all of the other agreed descriptions, being 'excluded' from being white for lack of being non-christian. I have never ever ever or heard of a middle easterner from Lebanon, or Chaldean, or Coptic Christian, be socially accepted as "white" because they are Christian, only if their features fit within an "acceptable zone" of whiteness regardless of religion, would they be "white" or not. I contest the Christian aspect and do not feel it should be included. Christianity in fact has become more synonymous with Latinos, and Ethiopians now than with whiteness. I honestly think that those who wish to maintain some endogamous link with whiteness and Christianity are doing so out of a political agenda, and not an objective methodology.

People think that Black and White people are both polar opposites or have identical descriptors. If white people are known to like chocolate, then someone will want to talk about how black people "logically" should like vanilla (or dislike chocolate), or at the very least they will want to put ice cream into the black people article. A silly example, but the point is many people want to describe Black people also as a "social order" in a way, but it is not. Black people are an ethnic group. White people are a social order, and is purely based on skin color and facial phenotype. I could really be from anywhere in the world, and be white if I have light to pale skin, and if my eyes are round, and if I show no obvious features that identify my ancestry coming from Africa, Aboriginal Australia, or the Far East (all groups that fit within a Eurocentric social order). In many countries, like Brazil, Whiteness is purely a social-economic identity. Now the U.S. Census is trying to use a strictly regional parental descriptor to designate who is white. My mother could look like Shaka Zulu's sister, but if her family was born in Egypt, she would be "white", and thus so would I, "legally". See "Mostafa Hefny". It seems to me that a lot of white people want their group to BE a "ethnicity" because either they feel its unfair, or the lack of an ethnicity puts their identity in a bad light. But thats how their social group was designed, over time, it included and excluded ethnic groups based on social and political sensibilities. There is no religious, ethnic, historical, anthropological or logical context to it. Currently in this generation, it seems to be now just based on an exclusive "look" and less a regional proximity to Europe (along with the look)... oh and a don't ask don't tell policy regarding non-European heritage (the importance of this varies). --68.60.55.162 20:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC) Zaph

Nicely done, zaph. Would that all your arguments were this concise, structured, and dispassionate. ThePedanticPrick 21:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Well Pedantic - imagine that someone responds later that White people are a Christian ethnic group because of some research done by some goofball, and the term "Christian" is more of a racial term than a religious one. Then you will see passion, chaos, and confusion. :) Lets see what happens.--68.60.55.162 22:02, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd expect nothing less, dude, but can we point and laugh, too? ThePedanticPrick 22:34, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I suppose, but if they unilaterally update the article, then they will activate me, and upon activation, I exhibit chaotic, scathing, unrepentant etiquette free run on sentances that ultimately polarize the discourse while simultaneously annhiliate the offender's position. --68.60.55.162 22:52, 19 December 2005 (UTC)


An interesting statistic has emerged. 60% of whites are Christian, another 40% are Muslim, thanks to the U.S. census. Half a billion Muslims live in Europe North Africa and Middle East (white areas). Sooner or later, there will be more white Muslims than white Christians. Now guys, what were we talking about? --68.60.55.162 21:05, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

--Frankly, considering that most Europeans are agnostic, and most Muslims are white (yes, the indigenous population of North Africa and the Middle East is and has always been caucasian- certainly not Negroid or Mongolid), I suspect that there are already more white Muslims than white Christians and this has probably been the case for quite some time.

You have a long way from assuming that the Middle East and Egypt is and always has been caucasian. http://www.saudi-american-forum.org/images/Newsletters/Supp20030430b.jpg - Saudi Prince http://www.nku.edu/~waltersd/images/yemen%20photo%20album/pages/girls.htm - http://www.peterlanger.com/People/Africans/pages/EGASW010.htm - Egypt (as if i need to be posting Egyptian examples) http://www.courses.psu.edu/art_h/art_h111_bac18/head.jpg - Giza 2250 BC I'm not going to go through this same argument. You need to catch up with the times. Egyptians and Arabs have not always been caucasoid. The Caucasoid presence in Egypt has steadily INcreased (not decreased) over time. --208.254.174.148 04:34, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Methinks they doth protest too much

Gee, that post warning about anthropological revisionist politics sure struck a nerve, didn't it? The raving protests that followed it have done nothing but prove the point - which I find delicious. Keep it up;)

Oh how the tables have turned

See what happens when my commitment to REAL neutrality is addressed. White people is a disupted page, finally. The bias on here finally could be viewed when you take all the "variables" out and compare constants. I'm still not going to interfere for the time being, I want to see how you wonderful people resolve this conflict. --208.254.174.148 02:28, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

White as ethnicity

Someone (above) wrote, "Black people are an ethnic group. White people are a social order, and is purely based on skin color and facial phenotype," thereby implying that "White" is not an ethnicity.

It may be of interest that, when asked to identify their “ethnic heritage” on the census long form, fewer than one percent of Americans claim to be “White.” The most popular choices of ethnicity are: German (23.3%), Irish (15.6%), English (13.1%), African-American (10.0%), and Italian (5.9%). In other words speaking mathematically, self-assessed “Blacks” are among the four largest “majorities” in America (pluralities, actually) and the term “White” is insignificantly buried just below Puerto Ricans and Slovaks (0.7%) and just above Danes and Hungarians (0.6%). (This factoid is available from the Census Bureau website or in any Almanac. My own desktop reference is Borgna Brunner, ed. Time Almanac: The Ultimate Worldwide Fact and Information Source (Boston, 1999) 364.)

Thank you then for reaffirming my conclusion that white people are a social order and Black is an ethnic group. It is the most logical conclusion to why so many black people physically can "pass" for being non-black choose to remain black. Like any other ethnic group, their identity is tied to their heritage, not to their physical appearance. Where as whiteness is based solely on physical appearance, less so on ancestry (where it is noticeable), and further less so on any heritage (cultural, linguistic, religious), the only uniting factor between those Italians, Slovaks, and Irish is the social order that places their individual ethnicities to the side for a greater "social" identity that unifies them in comparison to non-Indo-European types.--Zaphnathpaaneah 05:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I reaffirm nothing. I suggest only that White is not a U.S. ethnicity in any serious sense, since so few claim it. -- Frank W Sweet 11:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The same person (above) wrote, "the point is many people want to describe Black people also as a "social order" in a way, but it is not. Black people are an ethnic group." This explicitly claims that "Black" (in contrast to "White") is an ethnicity. Nothing could be further from the truth. The claim is worse than false; it is unintelligible. The inaccuracy lies in the word "Black." If the poster meant his use of the term to denote "African American" then the claim is accurate. The African-American ethnic community has a long and well-documented history from its origins in the 1750-1830 northeast, through its full expression in the Jacksonian era, to its Reconstruction-era assimilation of traditions of the freedmen and Creole elite of the lower South.

Nevertheless the African-American (Afro-American) commnuity throughout the U.S.A. interchangeably identifies as Black. Their identity "as" Black is related in the strongest to their African American identity. Except for Afrikaaners, and Arabs whose "African-American" identity is related to the physical continent, and detached from any relationship between the "black" people of that continent, African-Americans view their blackness as a key component. It will be very rare (again less than 1%) to find an African-American, of strictly Equatorial African & European mixture in the U.S., descendants of slaves in America, who will identify as "not black, but African American". --Zaphnathpaaneah 05:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

But given that the poster avoided the term "African American," his wording clearly implies that all members of the African Diaspora throughout the globe, plus all people around the world who "look black" to him (even those without African ancestry), plus all the people around the world whom he thinks self-identify as "black" in some local socio-political squabble, that all of these are members of some vast global multilingual, multicultural, multireligious umbrella ethnicity. This is arrant Eurocentrism/Afrocentrism without a shred of falsifiable evidence. -- Frank W Sweet 13:44, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Well then how do we therefore make a similar claim to unite all members of the European diaspora throughout the globe, plus all people aruond the world who "look white" to you (even those without Indo-European ancestry), plus all of the people around the world whom you think self-identify as "white" in some local socio-political squabble, that all of these are members aof some vast global multilingual, multicultural, multirelgious umbrella ethnicity? Again, the prevailing myth is that people from North Africa, Middle East, as well as Europe are "white". Many are dark skinned, or at least middle complexioned. Egyptians especially. --Zaphnathpaaneah 05:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
The "European diaspora" is real enough if we mean Europeans who migrated during the imperial period. yes they are "united" in significant ways. That's a very different matter from claiming that anyone with pale skin is part of an ethnic identity called "white". The connections between mediterranean peoples is no myth. Paul B
I have never made such a ludicrous claim. Pathologically obsessing over the color line and projecting it upon every social conflict in the world is stricly a U.S. phenomenon. U.S. Eurocentrists/Afrocentrists are peculiarly delusional about it. -- Frank W Sweet 11:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I'll tell you this, much of the world has yet to really believe that white indo-europeans have released their death grip of racial superiority and prejudice that somehow magically disappeared in the late 1960s. Maybe those ,who I consider "liberal" (although, many will claim these to be neo-conservatives), can actually explain the transition period, where white-superiority-purity as a defining factor shifted towards this new 21st century "logical" and "objectivity" that is so popular now. Now white and black is being pushed as strictly based on "skin color" alone. Just when black people around the world are starting to recognize a shared common experience, now the white... er the "Caucasians" of the North and West, are proclaiming "There is no more racism, we gave that up sometime in the last 40 years, so you can all stop being black now". You'll have to do better than that. --Zaphnathpaaneah 05:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
No-one says that racism disappeared in the 60s. Straw man. What you mean by "white indo-Europeans" is a mystery to me. But racism was never simply defined by melanin levels. Can you please explain how "black people around the world are starting to recognize a shared common experience"? Paul B 02:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
This is the second time that this individual has used a racial epithet towards me. (Calling me White.) Hence, this is the last time that I shall respond to anything he writes. He has lost all intellectual credibility in my eyes. Henceforth, I shall delete without comment any sentences or paragraphs that he inserts into my prose in a discussion area. -- Frank W Sweet 11:06, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Well he didn't actually say anything about you directly, but anyway, what would be the problem if he did? If you feel thst your racial identity is irrelevant, say so. If you feel that the term is inappropriate, say why, though you should surely acknowledge cthat people have the right to use terminnology in ways that are generally accepted as normative. Frankly, this kind of obsession with racial labels seems to a Brit such as myself to be very very peculiarly American. Paul B 02:20, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

What happened to Keanu Reeves?

In a revision as of 21:45, 27 December 2005, contributor "88.111.78.218" removed Keanu Reeves as an example of an American seen by most as White, despite having a part-Chinese father. Why was this example removed? -- Frank W Sweet 22:56, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Not having received an answer, I restored the reference. -- Frank W Sweet 11:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Probably because he doesn't have too many fature that is consider as "Asian" by the American????????

Gloria Reubens is Canandian, not American?

If we are going to question whether Gloria Reubens is African-American or Jamaican-Canadian, then it would seem the racial issue is whether her ancestry is African or Jamaican, while the question of -American versus -Canadian is one of nationality. From her photo, she appears to be a mix of white and black, but calling her African-American is a different issue from caller her Black. 1 January 2006 1:12 am (PST)