From: mvij@ocf.berkeley.edu (Pendragon)
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian
Subject: Re: SCAA & Caucasian
Date: 28 Aug 1992 20:40:49 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: tempest.berkeley.edu

In article <5225@dove.nist.gov> hira@cme.nist.gov writes:
>In article <bjag-280892142624@owl.ls.nwu.edu>, bjag@nwu.edu (Bharathi
>Jagadeesh) writes:
>|>I don't find the useof the word "caucasian" to mean white at all insulting.
>|>The whole concept of dividing all of the peoples of the world into just
>|>three races was always a really foolish plan and the problem of classifying
>|>Indians as caucasians is just one of the results of that foolish plan. 
>
>Agreed, it was a foolish plan; however, people still commonly use the stupid
>term on scaa. The races were taught at the public school I attended, and 
>I associate myself with the term caucasian. When I hear people using it
>as a synonym for white, it confuses me. Besides the fact that they're using
>it at a time when they want to bash white people.:-)

Ron, where did you attend public school?  I've been through public
education in the S.F. Bay Area, and the racial classifications were not
taught.  I picked them up elsewhere but never really associated myself
with Caucasoid. Mongoloid or Negroid.  It is useful in the field of
physical anthropology to analyze bodily features, but the term caucasian
has become associated with European descent, and is also politically
loaded now.  Consequently, when a friend of mine from Singapore called
me caucasian last year, I was horrified.  I felt as if somebody had called
me whitewashed, or a coconut ;).

So in the anthropological sense, I don't mind being called Caucasian,
although my friend's explanation "you're a caucasian with brown skin" doesn't
wash.  (And white people are Indoloids with pale skin, right?  I like
that way of putting it ... :-) )

But in the political sense, I feel it is detrimental to be called
Caucasian, unless you're running for office in David Duke land.

Interestingly enough, in the Thind case during the earlier part of this
century, an Indian-American was arguing that he was Caucasian in order
to qualify for citizenship under the racist laws of the time.  As I recall,
he won his case, lost it on appeal, but was granted a special exemption
and allowed to remain a citizen while other people of Indian descent
were not.

Currently, national organizations like the FIA are arguing the opposite,
that Indians may be racially caucasian but are NOT ethnically caucasian
and deserve protection under Affirmative Action legislation.  In this
vein, do people feel that we as Indian Americans are trying to have it
both ways?  My personal feeling is that although we are currently 
a prosperous community, it is despite our minority status and due to our
high level of education.  I think that as the immigration laws allow in
less-educated Indians, affirmative action could certainly come in handy.
-- 
                                          /-\o /-()  -- -  --   -
   Manish Vij    ::    '89 EX500          \_/ \\/ )  -- -    --
   mvij@ocf.berkeley.edu                       |/_\  -- -  --   - 
                                                \_/.  .  . . ........
Newsgroups: alt.culture.us.asian-indian,soc.culture.indian