Talk:White people/Archive 1

message: Before 1950, Indians from India were classified as racially Hindu, even though some were not Hindu. Between 1950 to 1970, Indians were classified as racially white until some Indian-American organization protested to the Office of Management and Budget to have Indians be removed from the white category, thus Indians today classify themselves as Asian, or Asian Indian. If anybody looks up the word Caucasian in the dictionary, its definition is people who originate from Europe, southwest Asia, North Africa and the Indian sub-continent. It has been 35 years since Indians were taken of the white classification, and they are defined as caucasian in the dictionary. If Indians are defined as caucasian in the dictionary, why do they view themselves as non-white?--Gramaic 09:07, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I think most ethnologists believe that the "gypsys" originated in India, which is something entirely different. Jayjg (talk) 17:27, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Are people from India white? 

message: >Whites living in the United States and Canada will typically have one or several Native American ancestors.
This is simply not true. By 1890 there were next to none indians lefts in North America, except for a few thousands in totally closed reservations. Now consider the huge amount of european immigrants who reached USA between 1890-1927 and tell me where do you see redskin ancestors for them? It is matter of fact that yankees and the whites exterminated the red indian race in North America and so they don't have many descendants. In contrast, the Caribbean, Central and South America are full of people, who were born out of (more or less) peaceful coexistence of native people and Iberian conquerors.
:You're making the flawed assumption that there has been little intermarriage between people of different European ethnic groups in North America.  In fact, the large majority of white people in the U.S. and Canada are "mutts" of multiple ethnic stripes. I, for instance, have one ancestor that came over around 1900, another that came around 1850, and one that came in the 1600s.  (And yes, I have a bit of Native American blood.) Not to rain on your parade, but I wouldn't exactly describe the situation in colonial Latin America as "peaceful coexistence."  The Spanish, who encountered far larger numbers of Native Americans in their colonies than the British did to the north, enslaved them en masse. Oh, and the Caribbean?  Not exactly full of Native Americans these days.  Funnyhat 23:19, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Junk data in this wiki article 

message: An anon user deleted everything from the article earlier, but another anon user restored it. Who the hell would delete an entire article and then replace it with very stupid and childish writings?--Gramaic 05:20, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article was gone, but restored. 

message: Race is the same as "subspecies," a term used by taxonomists. "Homo sapiens afer" is the scientific name of the negro (See "Race" by John R. Baker, 1974). "Homo" is the genus, "sapiens" is the species and "afer" is the subspecies or race. The concept of race is not invalidated by intergradation (mixing) and even with races of animals it is quite normal and expected that where the range of two subspecies meet there is mixing. The physical differences that identify races represent adaptations to different environments, for example, dark skin is an adaptation to the tropical sun. Race is not just a paintjob. Races can be identified from skeletal remains and from DNA as everybody has seen on television. There are many other physical differences, too. It is important to avoid intergradation and preserve these natural human differences because as the environment changes some races will inevitably be better adapted than others and survive while the others die out. Race-mixing is putting all of humanity's eggs in one basket, so to speak.
It is important to know the motive for some people to make the absurd assertion that there is no such thing as race.
Marxists think that all group conflicts are just proxies for the one conflict that they see as real and legitimate, class conflict. They say that race is an artificial social construct because they think that people who value their own racial identity are suffering from false consciousness. In effect they think that white people are the "bourgeoisie." Marxists hypocritically promote race-consciousness among non-whites as a tactic to create revolutionary consciousness among them.
Jews are hostile to race consciousness and ethnic nationalism among whites while promoting it for themselves. Jews are obviously zoologically white, but they have a strong sense of national (some would say racial) identity and are in competition with European whites among whom they live. Nationalism and race consciousness are major threats to the existence of Jews as a double-identity group occupying a high socioeconomic niche in an alien society. For this reason Jews have promoted multiculturalism, cultural relativism, globalism, and massive immigration. Most of the intellectuals who have attacked the concept of race are either Jews or Marxists or both. For example, Stephen Jay Gould in "The Mismeasure of Man" is a Jew who admits he is a red diaper baby. Noel Ignatiev, author of "How the Irish became White" is a Marxist. In "For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism" Martha Nussbaum, Jew, self-servingly proposes that people should focus on universal moral principles and promoting their ethnic interests and disregard the interests of the "host nation."
A long list of interesting books about ethnic conflict is here: [www.stormfront.org/forum/showpost.php?p=1749282&postcount=4 Reading List]
Here is an interesting web board promoting European American interests with currently 50,000 members: 
[www.stormfront.org/forum/index.php?referrerid=58588 Stormfront]
:But don't you admit that "Race" is a very fuzzy notion, with no way to say if an individual belongs to one race or another? I think "Race" is at best a descriptive term, like we might say, there are reddish flowers or hardish rocks or fairly rainy days.
:This statement caught my eye: "It is important to know the motive for some people to make the absurd assertion that there is no such thing as race."
:It is also important to know the motive for some people to make the absurd assertion that there is no such thing as Santa Claus.
User:Backlash (sig added by Sam Spade  08:12, 3 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  race is not an arbitrary social construct 

message: Why was this article redirected to Caucasian race?--Gramaic 05:47, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect? 

message: Gramaic  Can you explain the revert?  The article needs some positive improvement, and that was a start, don't you agree?Provost 20:09, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I agree. The reason I reverted the article is because Middle Eastern and North African was being omitted from the definition of white. But after reading the new information you put in right now, I realized it's good information, so I just added Middle Eastern and North African to what you added. Whether someone thinks of a person from the Middle East or North Africa as non-White, doesn't mean we have to just keep the definition of White just for Europeans. We must keep this article in a NPOV.--Gramaic 02:07, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: This article needs improvement

message: We should not reinforce subliminal racial prejucide by using Massaoui (a terrorist) as an example of a Black Arab. Instead, if we are going to use an example of an Arab that is also of African descent, there are many positive examples, for example, the former president of Egypt, Anwar Saddat. There is also Mostafa Hefny. (I am sure you can find others). 
Please do not continue to reinforce the older stereotypes. Here in wikipedia, there is an opportunity to overturn the racial hierarchy and subliminal subconscious racial dysfunction in our society and correct the unfounded misconceptions that perpetuate racism and racial discrimination.
I find it insulting to associate a terrorist to a Black Arab in this article, and it was unnecessary to do so when there were other more positive choices. These articles that discuss defining characteristics of the people of the world are the foundation of what direction young people think when they learn about people. 
We associate Native Americans with Casinos now thanks to the racial stereotyping, the last thing that Wikipedia should be doing is associating Black Arabs with terrorism.
The person that wrote the above statement is an anti-white bigot.
: Let me make sure I understand. If someone asks for a positive example of a black person to be used in this article, then they are an anti-white bigot? That's an idiotic conclusion. --208.254.174.148 13:05, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using a negative individual as an example. 

message: The word white is not a proper noun. As a description of "white" people, therefore, it is not capitalized. And in Wikipedia, it’s not even a noun at all: "If possible, terms used to describe people should be given in such a way that they qualify other nouns. Thus, black people, not blacks; gay people, not gays; and so forth." Apart from that, this article is a load of semiliterate horseshit. Carry on. (Sixten8 22:58, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia style note

message: The term "white" has to do with color, not ethnicity. I don't understand the confusion that surrounds this issue. Black is a description of color, African-American is a description of ethnicity. Therefore, one could be Caucasion but not white, just as one can be African-American but not black. That is why Asians and Hispanics are not considered "white" even if they are Caucasion.  -an american white guy
White and Black BECAME associated with ethnicity over time. Just like "slav" (latin for slave) BECAME associated with the ethnicity of eastern europeans, and Native American BECAME associated with the indigenous people of the western hemisphere (who have about 5000 different ethnic groups). Black and white are also not mirror or opposing forces. The criteria or detail taht describes a white person may not fit well to describe a black person. For example, a white person is one who almost exclusively has very very light skin much less that 50% of the way from the lightest to darkest skin tone. A Black person at least in America is NOT one who almost exclusively has very very dark skin, and many people in the middle skin tone are considered to be Black. --68.60.55.162 06:16, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Colors

message: The W in white should be lowercase as writing uppercase-W "White" is (which is almost never done outside the context of white supremacist literature), especially as almost all instances of "white" as a racial construct are written with lowercase-w. That is indisputably lopsided, racist, and belies the editorial slant that informs much of this article. 
The single solitary link to the web leads to a very prejudiced website that for one, falsely describes the Egyptian society as a nordic one. Two, it equates any Caucasoid admixture as pure-whiteness (like nefertiti), and three equates any racial mixture in a society as the catalyst for it's downfall. I want to thank Kwertii and ThePandricPrick for inadvertently bringing these quality issues to my attention.--68.60.55.162 06:04, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What's a Pandric Prick? The penis of a panda that has been studying tantric sex? ThePedanticPrick 14:46, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Fascinating. Thanks for providing those. ThePedanticPrick 14:46, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  More work needed 

message: I propose this article is renamed to "White (people)", for two reasons:
1. For consistency with the article Black (people)
2. Because in the UK at least, the plural noun "whites" (and "blacks") is impolite; the normal term is "white people".
Ben Finn 12:07, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmmm, why not white people, then? We don't have an article at, say, English (language). - Nat Krause 11:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Title of article

message: I am from Canada, and I have never heard of a Middle Easterner, North African or Indian ever being classified as white, anywhere. Apon reading this article I decided to look over an American Census report, just to get a better idea about things. Evidentally, on an American census report an individual can check which ever race/box he chooses, or more than one if he so chooses. ( In other words, in America anybody can claim to be white on a census paper, so long as they check the necessary box.) 
The term Caucasian - or white - usually refers to white people, not brown people. If this were the case, individuals including Halle Berry, Ben Harper, Mariah Carrey, Thurgood Marshall and even Bob Marley would all fit neatly into a Caucasian catagory. Further more, Italians and most Spanish people are rarely seen as white on this side of the world.
I beleave the middle Easterners on this page are attempting to claim another man's ethnicity. Example: You do not see very many American Indians claiming to be Chinese, dispite both groups being part of a "supposed" Mongoloid common ground?? I find this all absolutely rediculous, and I am puzzled as well as startled to find that there are Middle Easterners actually insisting they are white. Absolutely rediculous.
:I am startled to read such an ignorant posting. This type of attitude is what breeds prejudice and fallacy. There are many Middle Easteners who are blonde with light eyes and skin. How would you "classify" them? For example, the previous Queen of Jordan, Queen Noor is Lisa Halaby, an Arab-American who is blonde and blue-eyed. For the point of argument, I assume that you are white. Why do you self-identify as white? Because your ancestry originated from a country designated as "white"? There are black people in every country so simply being from England for example does not dictate one's ethnicity. I believe there was an official "white paper" (no pun intented) that was published by the British government in 1952 or 1953 upon Queen Elizabeth II being crowned that asserted her position as head of the Commonwealth by stating that she had some black ancestry. The statement, "I believe the Middle Easterners on this page are attempting to claim another man's ethnicity," is especially offensive, given the anthropological evidence that the "Caucasian" people originated from the Middle East. "White" is not one ethnic group. Your analogy regarding American Indians and the Chinese would make sense if you were saying that someone from the Middle East were saying they were French or German or Dutch. The "White" race contains many ethnic groups who are not exactly the same, but share common physical characteristics as compared to the other races. Personally I believe there really is one race---the human race. However, as long as people insist on classifying themselves it should be done fairly and accurately. I still cant get over the American Indian-Chinese comment as though "white" was one homogenous group. I find it interesting your being from Canada as Canada has French Canadians who maintain a distinct identity, language, culture. A "white" Canadian can be of many individual ethnic groups. So please recognize that the "white" race has a diversity of ethnic groups. It would help if the article made the point that the white race is made up of different types, i.e. Nordic, Alpine, Mediterranean, etc. Most "Caucasian" countries are made up of an intermix of these various types...some countries are more predominantly one type over another. For example, the people in Southern Germany tend to be darker and more similiar to the Mediterranean type, while people in the Northern part generally are the "Nordic" type. When you said Italians are not considered white, are you aware that in Northern Italy, people are generally blonde and light-eyed. This is the problem with stereotypes and the problem with taking a label such as "white" and trying to apply it exclusively to one type such as Anglo-Saxon to the exclusion of the other types that make up the group.
:Please don't make any accusations. Middle Easterner's and North African's are considered White in some countries. Many people from that part of the world are indistinguishable from Southern Europeans. Please review WP:NPOV. --Gramaic | Talk 01:03, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: This is all absolutely ridiculous

message: Do we need this section? This article is suppose to focus on how the meaning of White was defined over the generations, not talk about a type of extremism. Most of the general public are unaware of the term "White nationalism," which is of course just another term for "White supremacy." BTW, I don't think it's appropriate to have A history of the white race (which is a bunch of texts written by a white supremacist named Arthur Kemp) as an external link or reference. Thanks. --Gramaic | Talk 08:00, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Since the article is about varying definitions of "white", I think it's appropriate to mention that some people have a more restrictive definition than others. I am opposed to letting that section get much longer than one paragraph, however. About the link, it is clearly the most biased, racist interpretation of history I've ever seen. It proudly portrays Hitler next to other great white men of history, and the underlying theme is that racial diversity leads to the downfall of great civilizations. I don't think it belongs in this article at all, at least not without a disclaimer. ThePedanticPrick 14:47, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: ThePedanticPrick maybe you could read the link, before mischaracterizing it?  It doesn't proudly portray Hilter, OK?  He was a historical figure, a "reckless blunderer" that started a White civil war (WWII) that killed 50 million White Christians.  It says clearly: This is their incredible story - of vast visions, empires, achievements, triumphs against staggering odds, reckless blunders, crushing defeats and stupendous struggles.  It's a relevant link.  Thanks.Provost 17:07, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Provost, I don't need to drink an entire gallon of milk to know whether or not it's rotten. I doubt a site that has the goal of discouraging racial mixing and condemning non-white races as inferior would have that many bad things to say about Hitler. Even your attempt to play down the portrayal of Hitler on the front page just exposes you as one of his many apologists. Your only complaint about Hitler is that he recklessly started a war with his white, christian bretheren. As a white atheist, I'd hate to live in a country where you or your kind were in charge. ThePedanticPrick 18:09, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

text: About the section, that it should not be more than a paragraph long, yes I agree with you on that. You're absolutely right about that website, I've read the most biased trash from that site. For example, it refers to Italy as a bi-racial nation, saying that most of the Whites in Italy are mostly concentrated in the North. --Gramaic | Talk 18:59, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whiteness and White nationalism 

message: Why, to illustrate an article about people, would you have a sculpture carved in rock??  That makes no sense.  It looks like an Unencyclopedia parody.   Yes, I know those presidents, as human beings, were all white. Here, however, they're all made of rock.  The photo is very unhelpful.  Moncrief 05:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's an idea. If you want to use those people to illustrate the white people article, why not use, at the very least, a painting of them, so we can see what white people look like in human, not stone, form?  Moreover, I'm not sure that this is the best place for "white people of accomplishment."  That's not the subject of the article. The subject of the article is white people in general.  So a photograph of some generic white people would seem to be the most apt illustration of the topic.  Moncrief 16:23, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  That photograph is absolutely absurd 

message: These colour terms were in more common usage in the beginning of the 20th century as ethno-historians attempted to trace humanity's history through linguistics (on the basis of language family) and cultural and physical traits. A commonly-held 19th century view was that white people were the descendants of Indo-Europeans, and divided into two categories; Semitic and Aryan. This view is now held by academia to be flawed, since Semitic people, although Caucasoid, are not a sub-group of Indo-Europeans; "Aryan" was erroneously applied by European anthropologist to themselves; and South Asians were altogether excluded, despite being a caucasoid people, and unlike Semitic peoples, are actually a sub-group of Indo-Europeans. Most popular and government definitions still do not categorize South Asians as white. Paradoxically, the term "Aryan", highly associated with white supremacy, most correctly applies to Vedic South Asians.
*Color terms have no relation to linguistics and have never been particularly used by linguists
*"ethno-historian" is at least an anachronism and probably a neologism
*Semitic was never considered a subgroup of Indo-European
*South Asians do not all speak Indo-European languages (neither do all Europeans for that matter, either past or present)
*Race and language are not synonymous and this point needs to be made.
*Conflation of race and language was typical of 19th century and earlier.
*Bad and overly verbose writing
--JWB 13:40, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My vote's with the slimmed-down version of the paragraph, but that's just my personal preference. I don't see anything wrong with pointing out that scientists have made mistakes, like linking linguistics with race. ThePedanticPrick 18:03, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please stop reverting correction of this paragraph 

message: There has been some debate about this issue but Wikipedia as an encyclopedia has responsibility to present facts as it may be cited as a source for research papers, etc. The PedanticPrick stated that most Americans do not consider people of Middle Eastern origin to be "white". This is his opinion and simply not accurate. Examples have been presented of well-known and prominent Arab-Americans who are seen as "white" in American society. 
I looked up the term "white" in Webster's Dictionary. As the term related to people, it said, "a person whose racial heritage is Caucasian." (Webster's Dictionary, Copyright 2000)  The same dictionary then defined Caucasian as "of designating, or characteristic of one of the traditional racial divisions of humankind, marked by fair to dark skin, straight to curly hair, and light to very dark eyes and orig. inhabiting Europe, North Africa and parts of W. Asia."
As some other comments have stated in this discussion history, what is presented needs to be NPOV. Otherwise, the value of Wikipedia is diminished as a credible source if everyone just changes the article based on opinion.
:Anonymous person, please don't assign me certain prejudices unless you know I hold them. I never said arabs are not white, and when I say "most americans think such-and such", I am rarely including myself. I know there are many fair-skinned arabs, but I don't think most americans are aware of this. In addition, there is strong anti-arab and anti-muslim sentiment in the US right now, which leads to them being seen as outsiders, non-white, just as many light-skinned hispanics are considered non-white. However, since I haven't conducted any formal poll of american opinion on the matter, I really don't know for certain. ThePedanticPrick 14:29, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I found some evidence to support my opinion: "Although the U.S. census classifies Arabs as white along with the European majority, a sizable number believe they are not treated as whites, but more like such other minorities as Asians Americans and Hispanic Americans A definition of Arab-Americans(The Arab-American Institute)" ThePedanticPrick 14:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

text: ThePedanticPrick, you say that because of the strong anti-Arab sentiment is one of the factors that most people don't consider Arabs white. During World Wars I and II, there was a strong anti-German sentiment, does that mean that the Geramans in those eras were not white? Provost, about you mentioning the organization CAIR. CAIR is a Muslim organization not Arab, CAIR has membership that ranges from Arabs, non-Arabs, so there's no official race for this organization. Most of the Middle Eastern population I have known have always considered themselves nothing but racially White, and everybody around them; ranging from Middle Easterners, Europeans, Asians etc. have considered them nothing but White. --Gramaic | Talk 20:35, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're missing the point. What we have here are two separate facts: a) Arabs are, for the most part, white. b) Most Americans see arabs as a non-white minority. Fact a doesn't disprove b anymore than b disproves a, so both of them belong in the article. ThePedanticPrick 15:20, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Now that you mention it, a major point of WWI Allied propaganda actually was calling the Germans Huns, an Asian group.--JWB 13:41, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Classification of Middle Eastern People In US 

message: I'm removing this because the conclusion makes this trivial, and not particularly relevant.  
*Shriver pointed out: "There is a very small degree of overlap in the population distributions." In America, most of the whites are extremely European and most of the blacks are quite African.
*Among those whites found in Shriver's study to have black ancestry, they average an admixture of 2.3% black (of 128 grandparents, 3 are black and 125 are white).
What is trivial about this? I think it makes an important point about the US, that the reason the White/Black distinction made sense was because the population consisted of relatively separate communities of generally very light and very dark people. This is less true in much of the US now and accordingly the term "White" has become less useful. Most other countries do not have a strict color line either, and either have a continuum or are homogeneous. My vote is for putting it back. --JWB 13:50, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: By my understanding of the study, it concluded that the white and black populations of the US have actually mixed very little. It's interesting that the person who initially cited the study tried to use it to support the exact opposite conclusion. Did they neglect to read the article, or were they deliberately misleading readers? In any case, the study's results are certainly germane to a discussion on race in society. I'd like to see it described in more detail on this page. ThePedanticPrick 15:28, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

text: It may be that some people consider it is news that there is any mixture at all. --JWB 06:56, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mark Shriver study