Talk:Caucasian

message: (( Moved text to Talk:Caucasian race ))
"Caucasian" has several distinct meanings in different contexts, and none seems universaly more important than others.  In particular, the linguistic sense and the  strict geographic sense(s) seem to be the most important ones among *I vote to make "Caucasian race" the main article here with a link at the top to the disambiguation.  There are really only two things we need to disambiguate here, "Caucasian race" and "Caucasian languages".  "Caucasian race" is really what people are looking for when they search for "Caucasian." ☞spencer195 05:24, 9 May 2004 (UTC)

message: I would like to take issue with the statement that "in common usage and political political contexts, especially North America, Caucasian usually means a white person of northern, eastern and western European descent, excluding people with southern European descent (which are often called "Latins"), or with Asian, African, or Mediterranean origin." This statement is simply incorrect and does not reflect common usage in the United States.
I am Italian-born, therefore a southern European, who has lived in the United States for over thirty years, and I know this country very well. I assure you that southern Europeans are not referred to as "Latins" in this country, for the simple reason that this term is used to refer specifically to Latin-Americans (or Hispanics). It may be that in Northern Europe the term "Latin" is frequently applied to Italians and other southern Europeans, but not in the United States.
Personally, I have no axe to grind. I would have no problem with being labeled a "Latin" as I feel totally comfortable with the "Latin" (i.e. Latin-American) culture, and speak both Spanish and Portuguese fluently. As a matter of fact, in the United States, I can "pass" for "Latin" culturally, but I know full well that what I am doing is "passing" (an important term in North-American anthropology, meaning "to appear to belong to another racial/cultural/ethnic group than one's own").
Furthermore, having been an anthropology maven since the tender age of fourteen, I have always known that "Caucasian" is not synonymous with either "white" or "European" in traditional physical anthropology, and that, for example, Ethiopians or South Indians are as Caucasian as the Swedes and Finns, even if their skin tone is jet-black. (While the classifications of traditional physical anthropology have been rendered nearly meaningless by more recent genetic studies, as Jorge Stolfi correctly points out, they still maintain a certain degree of broad usefulness.)
For better or for worse, Americans have traditionally been obsessed with separating whites from blacks (remember the "one-drop rule" or the "paperbag test" and other such racist yardsticks), but not so much with creating too many distinctive categories. Only in recent decades, such terms as "Asian/Pacific Islander" (a broad category including East Asians, South-East Asians, plus all the native people of Oceania) or "Hispanic" (a cultural category, spanning any combination of Native American, European, and African genetic descent) have become common. But the increasing numbers of people of North-African, Southwest Asian, and South Asian descent continue to defy easy classification. And as for the term "Mediterranean," you hear Americans apply it to a cuisine, a diet, a lifestyle, but never in opposition to "Caucasian."
In conclusion, without getting lost in too many details, I would like to propose amending the above passage as follows:
in common usage and political contexts, especially in North America, Caucasian usually means a white person of European descent, excluding people with Asian, African, or Middle-Eastern origin.
(NOTE: An analogous correction should be made in the article "Caucasian race".}
Pasquale 22:09, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the original Latin adjective appears to be Caucasius (the feminine Caucasia agrees with 'varietas').  Caucasica would be something that appeared after the Roman period. Don't trust everything you read in taxonomic species names: Biologists will say just about anything ;p  The adjective ending in -ius/-ia/-ium appears in some other national adjectives, such as Armenius (Armenian), Aegyptius (Egyptian), and Atropatius (Azerbaijani).  —Muke Tever (la.wikipedia and la.wiktionary sysop) 23:28, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Regarding "common usage, especially in North America"

message: This page had a circular link (Caucasian type is a redirect back to Caucasian). I have left it unlinked, since it seems to be a term distinct from Caucasian race. — Danc 14:07, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Circular link

message: In Australia the word Caucasian is used to refer to those people who have Anglo-Saxon background, this happens in the media as well as in official documents. There is an important number of Australians who are of Greek, Italian or other European descent which are not regarded as Caucasians. The Australian government refers to them as the ethnic communities along with other racial minorities.--tequendamia 11:08, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In my experience, "Caucasian" applies to any white person whether Anglo-Saxon or other white European. The difference is, as you say, Southern Europeans (ie, Greeks, Southern Italians, Spaniards etc), are not always considered white in the purist sense. Hangover from the White Australia days, I suppose. But Nords and Germans (Saxons afterall) would be considered "Caucasian".--Cyberjunkie | Talk 11:50, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usage in Australia 

message: With DNA analysis, "race" has been shown to be a total myth.  Humans come in all colors of beige, from light shades to dark browns, but we are essentially all the same.  We should entitle this article "Caucasian" not "Caucasian race".  MathStatWoman 00:59, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Caucasian and Caucasian race are indeed separate articles. Maybe you got confused because Caucasian Race (caps) was a redirect to Caucasian instead of Caucasian race (uncap).  It is fixed now.As for having an article on Caucasian race, it doesn't matter whether concept of race is scientifically meaningful or not. The concept is terribly important in politics, sociology, history of philosophy, etc., so it deserves an article, just as psychic surgery or Mu (lost continent).All the best, Jorge Stolfi 04:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Race is a myth

message: I propose that this be moved to Caucasian (disambiguation) and that this redirects to Caucasian race as it is actually the primary topic. Arenlor (talk) 10:41, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal for name swap