Talk:White people/Archive 18

message: Si I'm going to attempt to be constructive here. Let's try to find common ground. Above Talk:White_people#How_it_might_look SamBC makes a compelling case for "it's probably worthwhile mentioning what "looks european" might mean, at least vaguely, or mentioning the commonalities in typical appearance between those different views." So what do we want to say about the characteristics of "white people"? I'll have a go at outlining some possibilities, for the sake of discussion.
*We already have a section about light skin colour, it seems to me that this is usually, but not always, the defining characteristic (for examples where white people don't have to have light skin colour we can use Brazil as an example).
*Frosts paper European hair and eye color: A case of frequency-dependent sexual selection? is not about "white people", it is about his theory that during the European upper paleolithic sexual selection led to an increase in certain genotypes associated with hair and eye colour. It's a perfectly good theory, although I am sceptical. But from Frost's maps certain obvious conclusions can be drawn:
**Light hair and eye colour is not definitive for any concept of "white".
**Light hair and eye colour is not a majority phenotype for "white people".
**Light hair and eye colour is not definitive for Europeans.
**Light hair and eye colour is not a majority phenotype for Eurpeans.
**Light hair colour represents at least a significant minority (>20%) of the population of north central Europe only.
**Light eye colour represents at least a significant minority (>20%) of the population of approximately the same region, but with a slightly larger range.
*If we want to mention hair and eye colour we need to put it into the correct perspective. That a subset of Europeans, who represent a subset of white people have a greater degree of hair and eye colour polymorphism.
*Given that these phenotypes are relatively restricted and are absolutely unimportant for identifying "whiteness" it seems to me that including the maps represents undue weight.
*If we have a discussion about eye and hair colour then we need also to discuss the political history of light hair and eye colour, how it has been used by racists to promote discredited ideas of purity and superiority.
*I suggest we expand the section that currently discusses skin colour. Have a section called "characteristics", include skin colour in this section, then include a section on hair and eye colour, we need only a single section for this as far as I can see. We can link to the hair and eye colour articles in this section, where it would be more appropriate to include Frosts maps. I appreciate any comments.
NB. I am on record as not supporting the inclusion of hair and eye colour at all, but I am trying to be constructive here, let's see what we can compromise on. Alun 05:45, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely, Frost discusses variation and "light" hair and eye colour. So this needs to put into the context of a greater degree of variation. I'm not sure about eye colour, I have some vague recollection that people with blue eyes have a problem producing proper pigmentation, but clearly there is more than a single process going on because there is no uniformity of blue or brown eye colour, variation exists within blue and brown eyes. Maybe there is more info on the eye colour article? Alun 05:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Frost cites: Beals, R. L., & Hoijer, H. (1965). An introduction to anthropology (3rd ed.). New York Macmillan. for his maps, so he has not generated them himself. Probably this source states what the criteria actually were for determining "light" eye and hair colour. It is a weird way to present the data though, "light" hair and eye colour. It would be good to know the criteria used to make this estimation. I wonder what sort of system they used in the 1960's (or possibly earlier) to determine these characteristics? I wonder how much it depends on human judgment, like measuring cranial capacity, the experimenter might see more "light colour" where they expect (or want) to see it, if this is just someone with a colour card making comparisons manually Alun 06:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: So what should we include in a section about characteristics?

message: I mean, there's a strong consensus for a major change/reworking, and the nature of the new version is pretty well agreed-upon by those willing to work on it, so how about we focus on that and leave the page alone, except for trying to keep the changes that run counter to consensus out. Just an idea. SamBC(talk) 21:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Here's a suggestion - leave the page alone and work on the replacement version 

message: This article does not make any sense from an academic point of view. I'm in favor of removing it completely. 71.68.15.63 04:24, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can nominate it for deletion if you like, but I guarantee that it won't get deleted, it's been tried before, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/White people. The article may not be very good, but the subject of the article meets all the criteria for inclusion. Why don't you make some suggestions as to how to improve it? Alun 06:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uh 

message: so, as the upshot of various trolling campaigns, there is now not a single image on this page? This is silly. Compare Black people, which has a good selection of pertinent and completely uncontroversial images. How difficult can it be to agree on half a dozen Caucasoid mugshots? dab (𒁳) 11:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Images of so called "Caucasoid" people should be in the Caucasian race article shouldn't they? Sometimes white is used as a synonym for "Caucasoid", but not always. Why is there any need to include images of individual people? If there is a consensus not to include images of individual people why do you call that "trolling"? There is a whole group of people who disagree with you, do you suppose that all of these people disagree with you simply because they are mass "trolling"? If there is a consensus to include images of individual people on the Black people article, then that is a different thing, obviously there people have agreed what images are appropriate. Personally I think that images of individual people are misleading, most variation, both genetic and physical is at the local level. The whole nonsense about white people having blond hair and blue eyes is symptomatic of this sort of nonsense. White people are a social group and not a "physical type", for "physical types" you should concern yourself with articles that are about the discredited idea of typology such as Caucasoid race or The Races of Europe. Alun 12:26, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What is silly is the idea that we ought to have images just for the sake of images, and we use those images that are convenient because they are fair use or on the commons.  That is silly.  Yes we should have images.  But the images, if we can find them, should illustrate the content and make sense in the context in which we put them.  There is still a vast literature on white people that this article does not even draw on.  Let's develop the content, and then find appropriate images to illustrate it! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  images 

message: There is a real body of literature that is explicitly about "white people" so there will be no doubt about appropriateness of sources or NOR, these works direcly address the subject of this artilce.  Yet this article doesn't cite these sources!  Let's write a great article by doing great research.
Perhaps the single most important reader
*Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic;
Both are law professors and it is published by Temple University Press, so it is quite reputable. As an edited volume it contains essays by a plethora of authors and thus represents a wide range if views - helpful for complying with NPOV, and all in one easy source.  I think this is generally considered the best collection of diverse essays.  But to help you guys out some more, here are some other books directly relevant to this article:
*Allen, Theodore The Invention of the White Race 
*Babb, Valerie. Whiteness Visible: The Meaning of Whiteness in American Literature and Culture (Valerie Babb is a professor of English at the University of Georgia)
*Bonnett, Alastair. White Identities: Historical and International Perspectives (Alistair onnet is a Reader of Geography in the University of Newcastle-upon-Thyne)
*Brodkin, Karen. How Jews Became White Folks: and What that says about Race in America (Karen Brodkin is a professor of Anthropology at UCLA)
*Dyer, Richard. White (Richard Dyer used to be in Media Studies at the University of Warwick)
*Hale, Grace Elizabeth. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940 (Elizabeth Hale a professor of History at U. Virginia (and her book is very well-regarded, often assigned in college classes))
*Haney-Lopez, Ian. White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (Ian Haney Lopez is a professor of Law at UC Berkeley)
*Hill, Mike, ed. Whiteness: A Critical Reader (Michale Hill is a professor of Social Policy at U. of Brighton)
*Hollinger, David. Post-Ethnic America (David Hollinger is a professor of History at UC Berkeley)
*Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White (Ignatiev is a professor of Critical Studies at the Massachussetts College of Art and a Fellow at Harvard university; this book is one of the foundational texts in Whiteness studies and is very widely cited)
*Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Matthew Frye Jacobson is Chair of the American Studies Program at Yale) 
*Kincheloe, Joe, ed. White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America (Joe Kincheloe is a professor of Education at McGill (and there is a Wikipedia article about him!))
*Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (George Lipsitz is a professor of Black Studies at UC Santa Barbara) 
*McCarthy, Cameron and Warren Crichlow, eds. Race, Identity, and Representation in Education (Warren Crichlow is a professor of education at York University) 
*Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination 
*Thomas, K. Nakayama, Judith N. Martin (editors): Whiteness: The Communication of Social Identity (Thomas Nakayama and Judith Martin are professors of Communication at Arizona State U) 
*O'Donnell, James and Christine Clark, eds. Becoming and Unbecoming White: Owning and Disowning a Racial Identity (James O'Donnell is an associate professor of Education at New Mexico State U.) 
*Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1980s (Michale Omi is an associate professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley; Howard Winant is a Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara) 
*Rasmussen, Birgit Brander, et al., eds., The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness (Birgit Brander Rasmussen is a professor of Chicano Studies at U. Wisconsin-Madison) 
*Roediger, David. The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (David R. Roediger is a professor of History at U. Illinois Champaigne-Urbana (his book is another classic, it is assigned in LOTS of college courses),  
*Rogin, Michael Paul. Black Face, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Melting Pot (Michale Paul Rogin passed away but was a professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley) 
*Saxton, Alexander. The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (Alexander Saxton is a professor of History at UCLA) 
This is only a partial sampling of the amount written by scholars on the concept of "White people" - there is much more than the very length of the list reveals just how inadequate this article is, how much it is leaving out.  Now, some of the above books are absolue classics.  But for more cutting-edge research, your best bet is journals (it takes less time to write and publish a journal article than to write and publish a book, so rejecnt journal articles are more likely to be "state of the art."  Of course, journal articles are also shorter which is a mixed blessing: obviously, they take less time to read, but they are much more focused.  Still, good articles review the literature and thus provide handy summaries of the range of views.  They can also provide great little case-studies that illustrate specific aspects of the concept "White people."  
*American Anthropologist (Hartigan's article in 1997 is a god starting point)
*American Ethnologist
*Cultural Anthropology 
*Current Anthropology
*American Journal of Sociology
*American Sociological Review
*British Journal of Sociology
*Journal of Historical Sociology
*Comparative Studies in Society and History 
*Critical Inquiry
*Representations 
*Public Culture
Any major library will have subscriptions to at least a few of these journals.  In hard-copies, one could look at the index at the back of any given volume; if one has J-Stor or another electronic version of the journal once can do a boolean search.  It woul dnot take long to search for "Whiteness," "White+Race" and "White+Ethnicity."  You will not come up with an overhwlming number of articles, but what you do come up with will represent the best scholarship (these are all top-ranked peer-reviewed journals; the authors of the articles did all the complex hard work, we just need to benefit from their labor).  You will also come up with book reviews and if the review is positive, it is probably worth reading the book.  In the end, you will know a lot more about White people (which presumably is what you want, if this article interests you) and you will be able to improve this article by ensuring it complies with NPOV and by ensuring that you are not violating NOR.  Like I said (I think!) above - good luck!  No article in Wikipedia is ever perfect - after all, by its very Wiki nature, all articles are perpetual works in progress.  But obviously this article can be much, much better.  That's pretty exciting! Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:07, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Here's an idea: let's write an article about White People! 

message: I will use Pele for example, I do not know a single Brazilian who considers him to be White just because he is part of the upperclass. He is still seen as a Black man here in Brazil.
:Maybe, but let's avoid OR, one good source on the complexities of race is Donna Goldstein's new book on race and gender in Brazil. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Money Whitens In Brazil Is Not 100% Accurate 

message: Among the goals was to demonstrate the diversity within the definition "White People," and to show examples of the various ethnic groups.
These are photos of Europeans with links to articles on the ethnic group which they represent.
Image:Gordon Brown 2005 IMF close.jpg|Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is Scottish 
Image:Anna K.jpg|Russian athlete Anna Kournikova
Image:Katarzyna Skowronska.jpg|Polish athelete Katarzyna Skowronska
Image:Elli Kokkinou crop.jpg|Greek singer Elli Kokkinou
Image:Tom Jones 2005.jpg|Welsh performer Tom Jones
Image:Makka sa.jpg |Chechen singer Makka Sagaipova
Image:FatihSultanTekke.jpg|Turkish athelete Fatih Tekke
Image:Ibarretxe.jpg|Basque politician Juan José Ibarretxe
Image:Sopho Khalvashi-tight.jpg|Georgian singer Sopho Khalvashi
Image:Colin James Farrell at Miami Vice Premiere in 2006.jpg|Irish  actor Colin Farrell 
Image:Monica B 2.jpg|Italian actress Monica Bellucci
Image:Ségolène Royal - Royal & Zapatero's meeting in Toulouse for the 2007 French presidential election 0276 2007-04-19 cropped.JPG|French politician Ségolène Royal
Image:Vaclav havel.jpg|Czech politician Vaclav Havel 
Image:Finland.TarjaHolonen.01.jpg| Finnish President Tarja Halonen.
Image:Ketterle.jpg|German Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Ketterle
Image:Sami woman 2005-08-25.jpg|Sami people are indigenous to Lapland.
Image:Bartók Béla 1927.jpg|Hungarian composer, Bela Bartok
Image:BjorkDebut.jpg|Icelandic singer, Björk
Image:Pablo picasso 1.jpg|Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso
I fail to see why this is controversial. It should be in the article. Maybe with fewer images. It could also use some americans. (wow, never thought I'd type that, most of the time there are too many americans.) futurebird 13:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wobble, I respect you opinion, but maybe a gallery could be a way to show diversity? Just a thought... futurebird 16:52, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My problem with this suggestion is my problem with the gallery - white people are white in a given context and the gallery takes photos out of context.  Now, perhaps in some countries the context is so stable that there is wide agreement as to who is white, and everyone who people think is white actually self-idnetify as white.  I know this was not the case in the US at certain times in history, nor is it the case in many other countries. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, part of the problem with this issue is that people keep trying to stipulate what should or shouldn't be included in the article on the basis of conclusions that the article itself doesn't reflect or hasn't reached. Unless we were going to include pictures of people who are considered white and who it is that considers them so, then there probably is no place for a picture gallery. I should add though, that I am a bit confused as to the extent to which the English language Wikipedia is supposed to reflect obscure disagreements among Brazilians or 16th century colonists over how to apply the term whiteness. Personally, I don't see how such ideas are any more relevant to this article than prehistoric man's ideas about "dogness" are to the dog article (astute observers will note that the "dog" article editors haven't hesitated to put up a picture of just one animal that at least most people agree is a dog). W.M. O'Quinlan 19:30, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, English-language wikipedia doesn't actually just cover things from an English-speaking point of view - that would be systemic bias. It obviously happens unintentionally and naturally, but we're supposed to work against it, not for it. As to comparing 16th century ideas to prehistoric ideas, the factor discriminating between them is that one is historic, and the other is prehistoric; that is, we have no way whatsoever of knowing about one, whereas we have historical documents and historical analyses for the other. SamBC(talk) 20:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right about the distinction between history and prehistory, but that is not really what I was getting at (I just happened to pick a poor analog for that example; any historical period would do, and I think you'd find that there isn't this obsession with trying to reconcile definitions across time). In the case of avoiding systemic bias, I understand that to a point, but I think the examples used to counteract perceived bias are often very selective and are given disproportionate weight and significance in their respective articles. So I'm not suggesting that there is no place for them whatsoever, but they shouldn't be given more authority than they're due. W.M. O'Quinlan 22:59, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Sample of a generation of the gallery