The Caucasian race (1795) is the race that is found mainly in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and India. Since 1500 it has spread to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and southern Africa. Caucasians are best known for the light skin many have. Some have light eyes and light hair too.
The term “Caucasian” seems to be most common in America. It is what the white people there often call themselves, even though it has a broader meaning than just “white”.
“White” in America currently means someone who seems to be of pure European (or European Jewish) blood, particularly those who are not Muslim or foreign. So, for example, most people in the Middle East are Caucasian but not white.
Until 1946 these brown Caucasians, as I shall call them, could not become American citizens if they were foreign-born. Their ancient histories are claimed as part of white history, to prove how wonderful white people are, while many of their countries have been screwed over by British and American power.
The Caucasian race is the invention of a German scientist, J.F. Blumenbach at the University of Gottingen. We even know the day he came up with it: April 11th 1795.
In the middle 1700s Linnaeus divided mankind by the continents: Asians, Europeans, Africans and Americans. He did not rank them. Blumenbach was about to change all that.
Blumenbach measured and studied skulls, gathering them from all parts of the earth. He said his most beautiful skull came from a woman of the Caucasus mountains. European travellers said that the women there were the most beautiful in all the world.
That led Blumenbach to conclude that mankind came from the Caucasus mountains. That and the fact that it was not far from Mount Ararat where the Bible says Noah landed and began to people the earth after the Flood.
As mankind spread to the four corners of the earth, climate and custom changed their appearance over time, slowly losing the perfect beauty they once had, leading to five “varieties” of mankind:
- Caucasian – From Europe to the Ob River in Siberia, North Africa, the Middle East, India north of the Ganges
- American – natives of North and South America
- Mongolian – East Asia
- Malay – South Pacific
- Ethiopian – Africa from Ethiopia southwards
- American – natives of North and South America
Since he thought Mongolians and Ethiopians were the ugliest, they were the farthest from being Caucasian.
He did not go just by beauty – he also used skin colour and skull measurements too.
He got things kind of backwards, but his varieties roughly match the main migrations out of Africa:
- Ethiopian – the African root
- Malay – southern branch
- (Eurasian) – northern branch
- Caucasian – West Eurasian branch
- Mongolian – East Eurasian branch
- American – East Eurasian offshoot
West Eurasians, however, are a bit broader than Blumenbach’s Caucasians. Going by Cavalli-Sforza’s genetic distances, you would need to add:
- Europe: Finns and Lapps
- India: Dravidians
- Africa: Tuaregs, Nubians, some people in present-day Ethiopia
Blumenbach thought Finns and Lapps were Mongolian by blood while the others he thought were too dark-skinned to be Caucasian.
See also:
- Linnaeus
- human migrations
- Cavalli-Sforza on race and racism
- How black was Ancient Egypt?
- British and American power
- white people
- Jacob Bronowski: Knowledge or Certainty – which is mostly about the Uncertainty Principle of quantum physics, but compares it to Blumenbach’s skulls and the ugly racist certainties it led to.
Nanuka Gogichaishvili looks like Kim Kardashian!
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It’s funny, Nanuka looks (to my eye) what I would call “South American” — meaning, I suppose, a mixture of European and Indian (of the Americas)
http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=nanuka+gogichaishvili&cp=21&qe=TmFudWthIEdvZ2ljaGFpc2h2aWxp&qesig=KUDMaQDKGsPtYdr2n3sxBg&pkc=AFgZ2tk0zxdZnIRMuljTkLAJaiw8khljtIrEMmH3xP3ePpEI3Uph3GgyqH3I37J8mbmEdk8wSk6YmM91jgJWk9CFm0RkqtuQOw&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1167&bih=686
Maybe it’s it’s just me.
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I find mixed European and Native American women to be absolutely beautiful! Especially if they have freckles!
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@King
I believe they’re called mestizos.
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@ serpentus
Yes, but since ‘mestizo’ was originally linked to the European colonial caste system, I have found that some people find the term to be objectionable… like ‘mulatto’ or ‘quadroon.’
But as for beauty, they’re just like everyone else, I suppose—some are, most are average. The mixing of any two ethnicities has yet to produce a type of woman who improves the percentages for facial symmetry and desired body proportions.
Besides, beauty is best enjoyed when it is rare. A beauty that becomes common is soon simply seen as normal and boring.
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Serpentus said:
Not surprising since the Kardashians are from Armenia, just to the south of Georgia.
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Excellent post! 😀
I always have found the term caucasian hilarious. For me it means the people of the Caucasus region, not a race.
When I was living in the States I thoughed it was funny when in official documents they asked your race. Well, I put in “finn” and everytime some nice lady on the counter corrected me: “sir, a finn is not a race, and you are caucasian”. “No I am not, I do not live in Caucasus region, I live in Northern Europe”. “Sir, you are a caucasian.” 😀
Also this funny myth about caucasian being somehow blonde or pale or what ever. They are dark hairy guys down there mostly, with some semi blondes in between. And yes, the feared tshetsens are true caucasians, as are the abkhasians, georgians, azeris, the ossetians etc.
During the WW2 we, as some of you perhaps know, had to fight against Soviets along side with Germany. Some finns went even to fight in the waffen-ss Wiking division and other troops. Now, the SS was supposed to be racially pure at that time and now they had finns there, those frigging northern mongols! 😀
I can’t remember what kind of racial somersault they did, but all trough the war the nazis had a problem with the race of finns. We were perhaps their best allies militarily in Europe but what race? It was embarssing that finnish soldiers, who in many cases were actually much better than german aryans, were untermensch, sub humans. 😀
We of course did not think our selves as mongols. As a matter of fact, one finnish nationalist academic made a study in which he proved that finns were actually the remines of the atlantean race.
He proved that when the Atlantis sank, the atlanteans, that is the finns, roved their boats to Egypt. There we finns put up the pyramids. Then we moved to the Babylonia and build up that civilization too. And since we were so great, we moved on to Greece and created the whole hellenistic civilization. And then we went to Rome and made that great too.
For some weird reason, we then left it there and walked all the way to the most furthest northern forests we could find and stopped to be civilized and lived in log huts ever since. 😀 And this guy was serious!!
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This girl could pass for Serbian, only if her clothes were different (attractive girls here wear different, trendy clothes). But since this girl is a modoel, I assume putting her in that sweater and with flowers in her hair was to ethnicize her and make her look like a “traditional beauty”.
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Christians believe that mankind has descended from Adam and Eve. Being a Christian, I too believe that. We are now what we are because of climatic factors and cultural developement.
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“Christians believe that mankind has descended from Adam and Eve. Being a Christian, I too believe that. We are now what we are because of climatic factors and cultural developement.”
So like, if you combine the Bible verse that says God created man in his own image with the “out of Africa” model than that makes god black 🙂
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@ Jas0nburns
See, that’s what we’ve been tellin’ you for years!
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@ King
That must be what’s behind the rise in Atheism among WP 🙂
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Ha! Yeah, they can never get past the dreads. lol
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Abagond, do you believe that the ancient Nubians were Caucasians?
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“So like, if you combine the Bible verse that says God created man in his own image with the “out of Africa” model than that makes god black”
Black Jew, actually. LOL. But, no, God isn’t a specific race.
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@Sam
“When I was living in the States”
You used to live in America?!! (cue shocker) Wow. I never knew that.
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@serpentus: yup, twice actually. In 80’s and then again in early 90’s for few years. And yes, I am that old. 😀
Now heres a real deal caucasian whom these “caucasians are pures whites” guys somehow forget:
http://www.answers.com/topic/joseph-stalin
I have no idea why he isn’t mentioned when morons ramble how good looking and nice caucasians are.
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@Sam
“In 80′s and then again in early 90′s for few years.”
So that’s why your English is so good.
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Did someone mention Black
JesusJews??Personally I think God looks like those guys from the Blue Man Group in Las Vegas.
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***Now heres a real deal caucasian whom these “caucasians are pures whites” guys somehow forget:
http://www.answers.com/topic/joseph-stalin
I have no idea why he isn’t mentioned when morons ramble how good looking and nice caucasians are.***
This is getting a bit off the point, but Stalin’s not a bad looking guy (google young stalin). Murderous and evil maybe, but reasonably good looking.
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“This is getting a bit off the point, but Stalin’s not a bad looking guy”
A bit swarthy though, wouldn’t you say? You could almost fit him with a sombrero and bandoliers.
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To King:
A bit swarthy though, wouldn’t you say? You could almost fit him with a sombrero and bandoliers.
White American chicks (and back door guys..) dig that Latin but not too indigenous look.
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To Abagond:
Until 1946 these brown Caucasians, as I shall them, could not become American citizens if they were foreign-born.
I believe that applied to immigrants of South Asia (what is now India and Pakistan) but not to Lebanese (the largest source of immigration for West Asia) immigrants.
South Asians, such as Pakistanis and Indians used to be classified as Caucasians in the US but are now counted as Asians. West Asians (Arabs, Iranians, North Africans..) generally were and are still counted as Caucasians.
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To Abagond:
“The new immigrants faced an identity problem. The U.S. immigration authorities denied them citizenship on the ground that they were Asiatic, and federal law banned the naturalization of “Mongolians.” When an Arab man named Shishim was denied citizenship in California, he went to court and argued that if he were Mongolian, then Jesus Christ must also have been Mongolian. On November 5, 1909, Judge Frank Hutton of Los Angeles ruled that Middle Easterners were of the white race and could acquire citizenship.”
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Schwartz,
Even going by Western standards of beauty, Stalin was FUGLY. Pock-marked face, very short, very portly, and his clothes… Yeesh, talk about someone who’s got a Napoleon complex.
Check out the required reading: Young Stalin, by Simon Sebag Montefiore.
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@zek: yep, old Joe was not that much of a male model material, but lets just say, his personality was such that he was successful in life anyway, as far as we can call his deeds a success. Few million dead aside.
@uncle: 😀
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Wow… How did this thread turned into “Joseph Stalin: Hot or Not”?
Personally, I find thinking about this as yucky as “Hitler: Hot or Not” so, could we just… Move on now?
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Stalin’s hotness is now off-topic. I will delete any further comments on the matter.
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@abagond: sorry.
back to the subject: can anybody explain why this caucasian thing (race) is so much alive in USA?? Is it just an old thing that nobody has not noticed or why??
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@sam:
Why wouldn’t it be? You have to do something to feel good about yourself!
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I must admit I still confuse white and Caucasian. I can’t tell the difference between the two. The way we learned in school, that’s one race. But race was never much of an issue in my culture, ethnicity is. So someone’s race is not as important as their ethnicity.
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Miss Georgia up there is kinda fly.
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Even though I’m a libertarian who does not bind himself to politically correct ideas, as a helpful hint, I have heard that “Lapp” is considered offensive. The PC term to refer to them is “Sami.” I guess this is one of those odd cases where political correctness has blotted out the only word people know for a given people and if you use the PC word, generally nobody will know what you’re talking about, like “Roma people.” Roman people??? Roaming people???? No, Roma!
Also, to add to the discussion, the position Finnish language has always intrigued me. It isn’t related to the North Germanic (Scandinavian) languages, nor is it part of the Indo-European tree, but it is related to the Sami languages. In fact, the Finnish word for both the language and the nation itself is Suomi, which is pretty similar to Sami. I’m from the US, so correct me if I messed any of this up, Sam.
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@chris: Well, the word Lapp is used in everyday language here, even by the saami themselves. The word lapplander means a person who lives in Lapland but is not a saami. Notice I use the long aa. I have no idea who wrote the Sami (that is my name by the way) but here it is pronounced with a long wowel Aa, saami. Saamelainen, a saami person.
I guess some over zelous political correct people use the word Saami but as long as the folks themselves use the word Lapp I guess it is ok. It is a bit like the gypsies over here: the politically correct term is the romani people and the finnish word is Mustalainen ie. blackie/blacker etc. And they use that name themselves too. When one wants to be more official or serious, one uses the PC name but in everyday language the gypsies use the name Mustalainen themselves. There are racist names too, like Manne etc.
Finnish belongs to fenno-ugric language group, like hungary and some others. Estonian is the closest I guess but saami is very different.
There are several theories about the name Suomi. Originally it was the name of the people in south west region (still called Varsinais-Suomi, Real-Finland). The first part of the name means swamp, Suo, and there used to be a lot of those up here. But the word suomu means fish scale and those people made clothes out of sealskins and fish skins. These are two theories of the origin of the name Suomi.
There were several different tribes or peoples in present day Finland untill the medieval times. The Suomi lived in the south west, the Hämäläiset lived more in land around the present day cities of Hämeenlinna and Tampere. Carelians lived in the east and Savonians in between. The Lapps lived all over the place, particulary in the north. All of these used to talk a different dialect. The saami spoke their own language.
Sorry about this abagond, I just answered to chris.
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Very interesting.
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To Mira:
I must admit I still confuse white and Caucasian. I can’t tell the difference between the two.
Essentially Whites are a subset of Caucasians.
To sam:
back to the subject: can anybody explain why this caucasian thing (race) is so much alive in USA??
Do you mean why is race discussed so much in the US…?
To herneith:
Why wouldn’t it be? You have to do something to feel good about yourself!
Whites would be at an even greater advantage in the US if race were never discussed.
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I was under the impression that Nubians were more African than caucasian, or that they resembled inhabitants of Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia. I do not doubt that they are a mix of both races but I question the idea that they have caucasian origins.
I recently read the book “Blacks in Antiquity” by Frank Snowden and numerous accounts from Greek travelers indicated that people inhabiting regions in Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, and what we call Nubia had tightly coiled hair, flat noses and dark skin ranging from coppery-brown to deep brown-black a-la models Alek Wek, Atuai Deng and Ajak Deng (their words, not mine).
Images of Sudanse women, not the best but I didn’t feel like searching extensively:
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@ aiych:
black people fitting those descriptions were and still are found in all those places. However, that doesn’t mean that they are representative of the population as a whole.
There is a clear Caucasian component in Ethiopia, Northern Sudan, and Somalia to a lesser extent. Caucasian types have been present in the Northern fringe of Africa for a long time, and have blended more with black Africans the further south you go. Some Ethiopian groups like the Amhara speak a language that is descended from the Arabian peninsula.
The women in the first picture you posted appear to be Sudani Arabs, from Northern Sudan, who are black with some degree of Caucasian admixture. The women in the second picture are classic examples of the Nilotic type, typically found in South Sudan, and probably have no great degree of Caucasian genes.
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“The women in the first picture you posted appear to be Sudani Arabs, from Northern Sudan, who are black with some degree of Caucasian admixture. The women in the second picture are classic examples of the Nilotic type, typically found in South Sudan, and probably have no great degree of Caucasian genes”
Those women in second link have my face, except for the big eyes, high cheek bones and my nose is a bit smaller. Quite a few of my family look exactly like the one in the first and second. Hate the small nose, though. It’s a pain they have to push up my glasses every four seconds. I’ve never thought of it as being Caucasian. Just simply a different type of black.
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What I don’t understand about this whole “Out of Africa” thing is that if humans are all descendants of blacks, aren’t blacks like Ethiopians still black, even if they have a tiny but of “white genes” in them from living in a different region of Africa? Because isn’t migration a factor when it comes to being lighter? Unless they are actually mixed, it just seems presumptuous/arrogant for (actual) whites to assume that they HAVE to be the offspring of a black person and a non-black, if they don’t look like your stereotypical West African.
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“What I don’t understand about this whole “Out of Africa” thing is that if humans are all descendants of blacks, aren’t blacks like Ethiopians still black, even if they have a tiny but of “white genes” in them from living in a different region of Africa? Because isn’t migration a factor when it comes to being lighter? Unless they are actually mixed, it just seems presumptuous/arrogant for (actual) whites to assume that they HAVE to be the offspring of a black person and a non-black, if they don’t look like your stereotypical West African”
Co-signed(: Not that there’s nothing with the latter.
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@ Franklin:
The West African phenotype is only one type of black person (the most numerous type). So of course Ethiopians and the like are still black. But it is unarguable that they have Caucasian elements in them. It doesn’t make them any less “African”.
There is a clear gradient in Northern Africa between people who look mostly “Caucasian” and people who look mostly “black African”. Move south through Egypt from the Mediterranean and people gradually get “blacker”. It is no different to other regions of the world where two racial types meet; think of Central Asia (European/East Asian) or Eastern Indonesia (East Asian/Papuan).
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@ Eurasian Sensation
I know that there are many different types of black Africans. I was mainly criticizing/questioning those who often say/hint that those groups who make up the different types AREN’T “real” blacks (not “Africans”) because they have white admixture. (Which once again, doesn’t seem to make any sense when you look at lightness in relation to generational migration patterns with ALL humans.) It seems like it’s brought up in a very spineless and cowardly way, to downplay their overall blackness, and isolate them from West Africans who are labeled as “real black Africans”.
Don’t mind me though, it was just a thought that’s been sitting in the back of my mind for a while now…
@ Usagi
Oh no, don’t misunderstand me. I wasn’t implying that there’s anything wrong with it at all.
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Franklin
Thank you Thank you. This is why I can’t take black people embracing the one drop rule seriously. It seems to be more their self-esteem than anything.
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@ Eurasian Sensation— I didn’t say that there was no Caucasian component in people in those regions. It’s clear that there is. I just thought that it was not the predominant component as suggested by the map. The map seems to suggest that Nubians were of Caucasian origin predominately whereas historical accounts of interactions between Greeks, Romans and Northern Africans suggests otherwise. Also, I was basing some of my assumptions on imagery from ancient Greek vases, amphoras, coins and other artifacts that show Africans from Nubia, Egypt, Libya, etc as being unmistakeably black.
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Also, from what I have seen, people in Southern Egypt, Northern Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia frequently look more “African” than the people in the USA that we would call black. Yet why are Nubians frequently suggested to be of Caucasian ancestry whereas even fair skinned Americans of African descent are considered black and predominately African? Definitions of blackness change depending on what is at stake and what region the black people are in I guess.
It seems that people do not have a problem calling American blacks “black” because American blacks have never been the creators of a great civilization. However, Nubians have. Therefore the Nubians could not possibly be of predominately African descent because Africans cannot build great civilizations. Those Nubians must be of Caucasian stock.
Also, early colonial pictures of people from the Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Ethiopia made me further question just how “caucasian” these people really are.
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@ Franklin and Aiych:
all true things. I agree that the map is quite problematic; not sure why it shows a gradient in India but not anywhere else.
Describing Nubians/Ethiopians/Somalis as being partly Caucasian might be correct, but describing them as a branch of the Caucasian race (as you will see sometimes) is quite odd.
I suspect, as Aiych says, that part of them being seen as “white” comes from the nature of their civilisation.
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@aiych, I co-sign. You have to understand “Caucasian” is a very political term.
Many people in North Africa are mixed race, as are people from Latin America and the Arabian Peninsula. It’s somewhat misleading to classify these people as ‘white OR “Caucasian,” since the terms are interchangeable in the U.S. There was a case in the late 90s of an Egyptian man suing the U.S. government for classifying him as white based solely on his nationality. He looked VERY black.
Also, I stay clear of the “Caucasian” label because its origin coincided with colonialism, Eurocentrism and scientfic racism, and this should NOT be overlooked.
Furthermore, “Caucasian” has NO meaning to many people who are forced under the label. There are many Middle Easterners who DO NOT consider themselves Caucasian, and don’t care, and there is a campaign in the U.S. for Middle Easterners to be removed from the “white” category. South Asians DO NOT consider themselves Caucasian at all. So, why people continue to apply these labels to them is puzzling, if not arrogant.
Furthermore, when Muslim Middle Easterns commit acts of terrorism, they are NEVER white. They are only white when Europeans are claiming themselves to be the founders of the world’s greatest civilizations, by association.
I think racial mixture among North Africans, Middle Easterners, and Hispanics is too complex to simply classify these people as “white” or “Caucasian.” This “Caucasian” label should be banned.
PS. Read Nell Painter Irvin’s book: “A History of White People,” which talks about the politics and origins of the term “Caucasian.”
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@ Mel:
that’s all true. The only problem is in finding terminology that we can use to replace it with. I use the word “Caucasian” only because people tend to know what is meant by it, whereas “European”, “white” or “West Eurasian” might be confusing or not completely applicable.
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White people think they came from the caucaus mountains….LOL…the joke is on YOU!
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Abagond:
Do white people want to be white? Is whiteness worth saving? These are two questions that whites have to confront. As a blackman observing white culture from a distance, I see a lot of contradiction and insecurity. White europeans don’t like white arabs, white arabs don’t like white europeans, white americans don’t like white spaniards, white spaniards don’t like white americans, and so forth. Whites from the middle-east don’t see themselves as white, whites from latin-america don’t identify themselves as white, jewish and italian whites don’t think they’re white enough to be considered white. White people don’t know what they want to be at any given time. Jennifer Lopez, Kim Kardashian, Khloe Kardashian, Eva Mendez, and Eva Longoria went from white to black, but the media forgot to pass on the info to blackwomen. Blacks in latin-america should disavow their african roots, but it’s okay for white cubans, puerto-ricans, dominicans, and brazilians to enjoy and exploit afro-latin culture, but not actual black people. It’s okay to use white models who look like blackwomen, but not real blackwomen, WTF! It’s okay for white arabs in the US to hide behind black muslims, and at the same time, support the slaughter of black christians in north-africa because they don’t want to be muslim.
“Destroy Blackness” and “Worship Blackness” don’t add up as far as i’m concerned. Whites obsess over black people and culture, and destroy black people at the same time. Whitewomen want blackmen to mate with them and have mixed babies, but that results in diluted blackness or no blackness at all. Whitewomen who are liberal in political ideology support socialism, fascism, marxism, communism, and radical-islam……all of which harm and kill black people all over the globe, What Gives!? Do whites want to be white, or do they want to be black, Yes or No?
Tyrone
Eagle1
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@ Tyrone:
your questions are easily answered.
White people are not all the same. There is no homogeneous white ideology.
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To Mel:
Furthermore, when Muslim Middle Easterns commit acts of terrorism, they are NEVER white.
When they commit crime they are often considered White:
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/alert/omid-tahvili/view
Place of Birth: Tehran, Iran
Height: 5’9″
Weight: 165 pounds
NCIC: W683726392
Occupation:
Unknown
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Sex: Male
Race: White (Persian)
Nationality: Iranian
The Latino version:
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/alert/juan-jose-esparragoza-moreno/view
Date(s) of Birth Used:
February 3, 1949
Place of Birth: Chuicopa, Sinaloa, Mexico
Height: 5’8″
Weight: 200 pounds
NCIC: W456628782
Occupation:
Unknown
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Sex: Male
Race: White (Hispanic)
Nationality: Mexican
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To Tyrone:
jewish and italian whites don’t think they’re white enough to be considered white.
Jews can be any phenotype including Black or Asian but the large majority of Jews in the US would consider themselves White and Jewish. Do most Gentile Whites consider European Jews to be White?… well take a look who was first Jewish Secretary of State in North America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judah_P._Benjamin
As for Italians.. I am quite sure that the large majority consider themselves White.
Do white people want to be white?
Is there an option..?
Is whiteness worth saving?
What is whiteness?
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Tyrone,
I am white, so I guess I should answer your questions.
Do white people want to be white?
I don’t know what “white people” want. Contrary to the popular belief, not all whites are the same, and chances are it all depends on their culture (yes, there are many white cultures all around the world).
But speaking from personal experience, race was never an issue in my culture so I never thought about whether I want to be white or not. I think I wanted to be a little darker, though. Is that an answer to your question?
Is whiteness worth saving?
I don’t know what “whiteness” might be, but it’s definitely not worth saving, imo.
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Oh yes, and one more thing:
Whitewomen who are liberal in political ideology support socialism, fascism, marxism, communism, and radical-islam……all of which harm and kill black people all over the globe
Waaait a minute. Did you just say socialism kill black people?
Ever heard of Non-Aligned Movement?
In any case, if socialism kills people, it’s hardly restricted to blacks.
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@ tyrone: We finns hate our nearest neighbours with gusto and most of the homicides up here are between friends. In 80% on homicides both the victim and the killer have been drunk 😀
There is no white unity as it seems to be or as some like to portray. The so called World Wars have been mainly European or “white” civil wars, fought mainly between the whites with millions and millions of dead.
Racism has been one attempt by some to create somekind of white unity. Nazis were taking about the European Crusade against the sub humans of the east, they were the first the use the term Fortress Europe etc. but they were talking about whites, slavs and jews, when they talked about sub humans and the race war.
Socialism as it was practiced in Soviet Union was terrorising millions of people, though it was transformed something called “marxism-leninism” which was supposedly higher version of it. And of course, Stalin and Mao had their totally unique ideas about the whole thing and killed millions.
White people do not usually even think about being white. There are lot of whites who get exited about foreing cultures all the time: oriental belly dancing was a huge thing among finnish feminists back in the early 1990’s, now we have a lot of young women getting into afrodance and music, turning into muslism (and usually being so strict in their faith that even some immigrants have their islam a bit strange indeed9 etc.
American black rock n roll was readily adapted by white kids back in 1950’s as was black rap from 1980’s on wards. We just do not think about the race too much. In reality, most people don’t even think if that exists. In areas with lot of immigrants, there is more of a cultural clash than racial. Some older immigrants, those who have done well in Europe and adapated into it, are very critical of those who have not. And the “native europeans” just do not want to be bothered, usually. So, white people just want to be, usually.
Just like Mira and Uncle said; what is whiteness? There is no such thing. Even in US there is a huge difference between the whites in deep south, some northern big cities and in the west coast. The only place where whites act a like is in TV. But then again, so do majority of the blacks on TV shows too. If you go to say Boston, if a white guy is from northern parts he is very likely not be considered a “us” by the southies. Huge difference among the locals. Is a white newyorker is from say Bensonhurst Brooklyn, he is not a white guy from Upper East Side Manhattan. etc.
Most of jews I know consider themselves as whites but then again, being a jewish is more of a cultural and religious thing than racial one. There are black jews also. Just like there are black catholics and chinese catholics.
Ask any italian is he/she white and the the answer you are likely to get is: “Whadda ya mean I’m not white? Whatsa matter with ya?” 😀 Just kiddin.
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Most Jews do consider themselves whites, but their “Jewishness” is used as an exceptional quality. When Joan Rivers made unflattering comments about Michelle Obama, recently, her defense was that she’s Jewish. Sarah Silverman and Chelsea Handler have both been able to get away with otherwise “nasty” jokes about black people by emphasizing their Jewishness. Non-Jewish whites can’t get away with much of this.
In regards to Arabs, they, overwhelmingly, don’t consider themselves white, especially in the Middle East. They just see themselves as Arabs.
Most of jews I know consider themselves as whites but then again, being a jewish is more of a cultural and religious thing than racial one.
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@Uncle Milton, notice in those profiles their ethnicities are stated beside them (Mexican; Persian). What’s the point of this? It’s to emphasize the “specialness” of their whiteness; in other words, it’s not really white. When Mexicans commit crimes, the crime is counted as Hispanic NOT white crime.
The 911 terrorists are NEVER described as white in the media, but rather, Arabs/Middle Easterners.
@Tyrone, Jennifer Lopez is clearly mixed. I hope ppl realize that many white Hispanics are like Jennifer, Eva Mendez, etc. They are mixed race people who SELF- classify as white.
The reason for the disuntiy among “whites” is that the white/Caucasian category is OVERREACHING. It’s a convenient category with no relevance to most people’s real lives.
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“@Tyrone, Jennifer Lopez is clearly mixed. I hope ppl realize that many white Hispanics are like Jennifer, Eva Mendez, etc. They are mixed race people who SELF- classify as white.”
I guess in much of Latin America “white” means looking mostly European. In North America, on the other hand, “white” to most means looking purely European.
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But someone’s ethnicity is not the same as race. People in my culture don’t think of themselves as “whites” but as “Serbs”. But if you ask them about their race, they’ll say “white” (and, as far as I know, are seen as whites). But they’d still put ethnicity as much more important than the race.
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@Mira
Is there such a thing as a black Serbs? I mean, if black people moved to Serbia, gained citizenship, would those black people be considered “Serbs”?
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To Mel:
When Mexicans commit crimes, the crime is counted as Hispanic NOT white crime.
Maybe in Canada but not the US…. look at the Uniform Crime reports from the FBI.. there is no Hispanic category for perpetrators… there are categories for White, Black, Native American, and Asian. The vast majority of Latinos are classified as White in these reports.
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_43.html
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How does ‘Mexican’ tell you someone’s precise race? Not all of them are non-white. Some of them are Castizo. They may not be viewed as white according to American classifications, but they are predominantly Caucasian/ European in heritage and are therefore “white” in a sense. Many are mestizo which is more or less half white. Every study I have seen on Puerto Ricans show they are predominantly European on average. The majority of Cuban Americans are white also.
Here, check out tables 4, 5, & 6 in the Discussion:
Admixture in Hispanics: Distribution of Ancestral Population
Contributions in the Continental United States
Bernado Bertoni et al.
Click to access bertoni01.pdf
What’s the problem w/ lumping some Hispanics in with whites? In the Southwest of the country they seem to be 64-67% European in ancestry and to the East they are damn near white.
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@Uncle Milton Check out table 1 for admixture in New Mexico
Click to access klimentidis%20miller%202008.pdf
Table 7 & 8 for admixture in Mexican Americans
http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1082&context=kine_fac&sei-redir=1#search=“mexican+american+european+admixture”
According to these studies the Hispanic pop seems to be predominantly Euro on avg. So whats the prob w/ puttin some in the white race category? Did you ever stop & think maybe 75% of Juan Jose’s ancestors are descended from Europe? I kno you didn’t say this directly, but some white ppl like to act as if Hispanics distorting white crime statistics. Excuse me if I am wrongly assuming thats the real reason you brought up those FBI wanted crime profiles.
@Tyrone To me, JLo, Mendez, and Longoria are white. Socially they may not be considered as such in America, but they more than likely are predominately white in ancestry. This brings me to a question I wanted to ask earlier…
If you are predominantly white w/ non-Euro admixture are you still considered Caucasian? Especially if you are predominantly white, but inherited a bell pepper nose and curly hair from your African ancestors? Thick straight hair and epicanthic eyefolds from your distant Amerindian fam?
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To Cynic:
According to these studies the Hispanic pop seems to be predominantly Euro on avg. So whats the prob w/ puttin some in the white race category?
Consistency… Hispanics are classified separately for admissions to higher education, hiring, school performance etc.
King and I had a humorous debate about this… I wanted to claim JLo and Jessica Alba for Whites..(or more importantly for myself but I think those ladies would protest..) he claimed that JLo (because of her backside..) was Black. Jessica Alba FWIW does not identify as White.
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To Serpentus
Is there such a thing as a black Serbs? I mean, if black people moved to Serbia, gained citizenship, would those black people be considered “Serbs”?
Probably a handful… the Serbs don’t have a long history of African immigration like Western Europe… you certainly have Black British, Black French, and Black Irish
The late Phil Lynott of the band Thin Lizzy:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/4/newsid_4041000/4041511.stm
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Your right about the consistency thing. Personally, I don’t think the term Hispanic should be put on any form in this country. It gives ppl the illusion that they are a mono-racial group.
I remember last year Rick Sanchez was talking about facing discrimination from white guys in the workplace along w/ something he said about Jews that got him fired. It took me a couple of seconds, but I was like, “hey wait a second… your white!” Sanchez is a Cuban who looks like he came straight from Spain and he’s talking about “white guys” as if he is not one.
Idk… maybe the Hispanic surname and swarthy skin tone make some ppl look down on him.
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To The Cynic
Your right about the consistency thing. Personally, I don’t think the term Hispanic should be put on any form in this country. It gives ppl the illusion that they are a mono-racial group.
Hispanics are arguably more diverse than non-Hispanic Whites…
I remember last year Rick Sanchez was talking about facing discrimination from white guys in the workplace along w/ something he said about Jews that got him fired. It took me a couple of seconds, but I was like, “hey wait a second… your white!” Sanchez is a Cuban who looks like he came straight from Spain and he’s talking about “white guys” as if he is not one….Idk… maybe the Hispanic surname and swarthy skin tone make some ppl look down on him.
Sanchez grew up poor and apparently was made fun of as a kid because he didn’t speak English… probably more a class issue since a high percentage of the Jewish guys he encountered in the broadcasting business came from upper middle class households who didn’t have to go through such an experience.
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Are white Russians racist?
No way! Just look. They let Joseph Stalin become dictator even though he was Caucasian!
LOL. Hope you got the joke.
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serpentus,
Is there such a thing as a black Serbs? I mean, if black people moved to Serbia, gained citizenship, would those black people be considered “Serbs”?
There’s no really such a thing as black Serbs. There are a few black people here (mostly people who came with the Non-Aligned nations and their descendants), but there are so few of them you can live here and never meet one, or even see them on the street.
That being said, being a “Serb” is seen mostly as a “blood” thing. So if one of your parents is black, and another one Serbian, you have a great chance of being seen as a Serb if you declare yourself as such, if you’re an Orthodox Christian, etc. (you don’t have to gave up your black identity, though).
As with new immigrants… There aren’t any. Nobody’s crazy enough to come here.
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Ummm… I know this is post is kind of old and this comment is coming from out of nowhere, but I want to recant this statement: “To me, JLo, Mendez, and Longoria are white.”
I just watched Jenifer Lopez’s new video, “I’m into you” featuring Lil Wayne and idk what I was thinking. She looks super mixed. I swear in some scenes she look like a half black chick(not trying to claim her. Jus sayin…)
Mad nobody answered my question though. I still wonder if you can be predominately white w/ noticeable admixture and still be considered Caucasian or is it imperative that you have straight hair, thin nostrils, light skin, & thin lips? What about a dark skin Blk person like my sis who doesn’t have Negroid(hate that word) facial features?
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My bad, I meant to drop the video just in case anybody wanted to see it.
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To The Cynic:
What about a dark skin Blk person like my sis who doesn’t have Negroid(hate that word) facial features?
Umm Somali?:
I just watched Jenifer Lopez’s new video, “I’m into you” featuring Lil Wayne and idk what I was thinking. She looks super mixed. I swear in some scenes she look like a half black chick(not trying to claim her. Jus sayin…)
You may claim JLo even though she’s almost old enough to be your mom… albeit still very hot. Travel to almost any of the Southern and even some of the Eastern European countries and you’ll find women who have full lips and ample backsides.
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Not so fast…
Also Somali
http://www.huntalternatives.org/pages/7377_asha_hagi_elmi.cfm
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“Travel to almost any of the Southern and even some of the Eastern European countries and you’ll find women who have full lips and ample backsides.”
That is a huge stereotype.
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To serpentus:
That is a huge stereotype.
If you haven’t noticed with the exchange between King and myself.. we’re not taking ourselves too seriously.
Are you saying one will not find women with those characteristics in Southern or Eastern Europe…? Like it or not we are walking down the road of stereotypes when describing racial phenotypes.
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I see no Russians on this blog, so I want to add a comment as a Russian person inspite of the fact that my English sucks.
“The term “Caucasian” seems to be most common in America. It is what the white people there often call themselves, even though it has a broader meaning than just “white”.
The funny thing is that we (in Russia’s predominately ethnic Russian areas) usually call people from the Caucuses (and southern parts of Russia) “black” because they often have darker skintone with black hair and eyebrows. And they (“true” caucasians) usually have distinct facial features, one can easily tell a Russian (or another East Slavic ) man or woman from a Caucasian one. Moreover, Caucasian peoples differ from each other in appearance, for example, a person with a trained eye can tell the difference between the looks of the Georgians, Chechens, Armenians or Azeris. To make things more confusing , I can say that there are different types of physical apperance within a particular ethnic group,so you can find a blue-eyed, red-haired Georgian or Chechen person with a porcelain white skin as well as you can find a Ukranian or a Russian person with somewhat darker complexion and brown eyes (especially in the North Caucasus Region).
“European travellers said that the women there were the most beautiful in all the world.”
Those travellers must have been very horny from travelling for a long period of time without getting laid.
And yes, Stalin was a hotty!
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JLO has the bone structure/build of an African woman. She may be of predominant European descent, but she looks mixed. So does Halle. She’s of predominant European descent, too.
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I have always thought the term Caucasian was a bizarre choice to use as the descriptor for people of European descent. It seems to imply… I don’t even know what it seems to imply. That the “white race” originated in the Caucasus region?
Well, actually, given that humanity began in Africa, I suppose it is possible that human beings migrated into Russia and then the rest of Europe through the gap between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, which is pretty much the Caucasus region. Still, the connection is tenuous.
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Aaron, I consider “Caucasian” when not meaning “from or relating to the Caucasus region” as the most racist word in existence, it might not be the most offensive, but it does imply that white people and relatives are the original human beings, that people were meant to be whitish, that black people are not just different, but deviant. Mankind was thought to be originating from the Caucasus, so they call the whiteys Caucasian…
Thus:
Whites are original, true, beautiful human beings. It might not be really offensive towards whites, but it is to every non-C-word person.
In a big report on women who abandoned their babies for adoption in the Netherlands nearly 200 in ten years, ONE was listed as Caucasian, with a footnote that the researchers had not succeeded in finding out where in the Caucasian region that woman’s origin was to be found. You cannot use a word like that without explaining what you mean in civilized company, people might think you were just some racist trying to say “white woman of unknown origin”.
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Teddy,
The most racist word in existence? Worse than the n-word, or spic, or chink, or towelhead. Come on now. It’s more archaic than anything, and borders on nonsense. It is a reflection of racism from 200 years ago, and it’s continued use in the United States is a relic of that nation’s history of racism and white myths of superiority. However, it’s continued use is not meant to be racist, it’s just one of those things no one bothered to change because the vast majority straight up forgot why it was ever used in the first place..
The last paragraph of your post I have no idea what you are trying to get across. Report on 200 women in Netherlands who gave up their children to adoption over a period of ten years. Check. One listed as Caucasian, with note that researchers didn’t know where in Caucasus region she was from. Check. You didn’t mention when this report is from, or what you intended to demonstrate by it. I am genuinely confused.
I also am not sure what you mean when you say that the word “caucasian” cannot be used in civilized company, why would anyone think you were a racist for calling a white person a caucasian. I suppose it would be less than helpful, but it wouldn’t mean you were trying to put the any particular race down.
Maybe you could explain to me what you meant?
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Sam ! You are me, or what. I can co-sign word for word… Replace “Sir” with Miss… And “__” for “race”.
“I always have found the term caucasian hilarious. For me it means the people of the Caucasus region, not a race.
When I was living in the States I thoughed it was funny when in official documents they asked your race. Well, I put in “finn” and everytime some nice lady on the counter corrected me: “sir, a finn is not a race, and you are caucasian”. “No I am not, I do not live in Caucasus region, I live in Northern Europe”. “Sir, you are a caucasian.””
Check out my “Caucasian” post on my blog !
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In “The History of White People”, by Nell Irvin Painter, among other books, but this one tends to summarize references and sources, you will learn that Caucasians were thought to be the most beautiful people on earth, because their women had “whiny white skin” and rosy cheeks, which was the epitome of feminine beauty at the time. Also, their women used to be part of the “Harem” women around the Mediterranean and slave/prostitutes in brothels in big cities in the Mediterranean.
That’s apparently the reason for the choice of Caucasians as symbolic of “whites”: they were deemed beautiful. It was theirs, not mine.
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I think Bluejeansadmitit’s comments is by far the most interesting.
And Americans are often noticeable in that they always (often) try to put people in a (race) box (the JLo “debate”). Never ending debate. Because there is no box.
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Funny post!
It’s an absurd word and has special associations.
It’s been taken, and used, both by Americans and Russians in a big way, and means something quite different to each.
If I watch an American cop show and the word “Caucasian” crops up, I really “hear” it. To me, it sounds like a needless way to say white person.
For Russians, it’s as if the Caucasus is this mythic, Wild West kind of place, and a Caucasian is their special kind of Noble Savage, akin to Tonto: folks that they love and fear, that they have to crush and own, whilst admiring.
There is such a thing as anti-Caucasian racism from white Russians…
Though I understand that people in the West mean “white” when they say “Caucasian”, it makes me cringe because in my own mind, “Caucasian” is not a race or a skin colour.
Accordingly, I don’t associate “Caucasian” with white or idealized beauty, because the notion of idealized “white” beauty as the only and genuine pinnacle of human beauty, has never convinced me. More than that, I find the history to that particular beauty myth, rotten.
I feel this way because the linking of the Caucasian peoples to idealized European beauty standards, etc., is overshadowed by the history of conflict and poverty in this mountain region, and the resulting trafficking of children and slave trade that was its outcome. The way it was used to designate superior “whiteness” polarized from inferior and “negroid” blackness is no less repugnant.
“Caucasian” became the desirable descriptor for “white” and “European” because white Europeans wanted to be strongly associated with the fabled bravery and great beauty of a particular set of Caucasians — the Circassians: the men for their bravery and the women for their beauty.
At one time, the Circassian woman was famous for her curly black Afro-like hair, which added to her eroticism!(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Circassian.jpg).
It should also not be forgotten that Circassian Caucasians ran Egypt’s Mamluk Empire from the 14th century onwards and their presence in North Africa never faded away.
The point is that during the time the word was invented and became a descriptor for white people, the Circassian-Caucasian played a crucial role as PROVIDER for ELITE SLAVES in the Eastern Mediterranean’s political economy. After all, “Mamluk” literally means “slave”:
Male Circassians served initially as military-slaves before they took power in Africa. Female Circassians were sought after as wives of high level players in empires of the near East, acquired at great expense. A number of Circassian-Caucasian women came to wield real power as the mothers and wives of sultans, and many were bought at extremely high prices in the slave markets. Therefore, the notion of the superior, beautiful Caucasian is part and parcel of the white European Orientalist fantasy.
Abagond mentioned Blumenbach, but I feel Nikolas Marr deserves a mention, too. Marr, like the European scientists and thinkers of the Enlightenment before him, deified the beauty and bravery of the Circassian-Caucasians, and also believed in the romantic tales of the Orient.
He also trusted the biblical interpretation that all humankind’s languages were descended from the “3 sons of Noah”. He believed in and promoted the idea of linguistic paleontology, believing that Noah’s son Japhet, being white, was the father of the Caucasian.
Caucasus, though is a region, rather than a race.
Not that big (smaller than the state of Texas, I believe). It was/is home to many, many different ethnic groups, speaking more than 50 languages, and has probably never lived in harmony — except under the enforced peace during of Soviet repression.
An article about Circassia through Western eyes:
http://www.pediaview.com/openpedia/Circassian_revivalism#Circassophilia_in_the_West
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A 20min-plus documentary about the Circassians.
My previous comment about them, as Caucasians, is in moderation.
I don’t know why.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwMTYCvCC8w)
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I saw that people were saying that Ethiopians, Nubians, and Somalians had Caucasian blood. Maybe they did in the South Asian/Arabian sense, but they most definitely did not have any genetic ties to Europe at all. They were and are for the most part essentially Black Africans. Nubians are ancestors of the Northern Sudanese. There is no way those people had any European ancestry.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/01/the-genetic-affinities-of-ethiopians/#.Uk-7rySE4sY
http://www.pbs.org/wonders/Episodes/Epi1/1_retel1.htm
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“Caucasian” is so much more than the word for a skull shape.
Or another way of saying white person.
There are many kinds of Caucasians — the ones from the Caucasus region. Their traditional cultures aren’t as white and Western as the word suggests.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGBpKSZuFRM)
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Instead of defining Caucasian by ‘white’ American foolishness, why not define it how PEOPLE ACTUALLY FROM THE CAUCASUS (& their geographic neighbours) do?
@ bluejeansadmitit, I completely agree. You’ve spoken the most truth here so far.
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Using “Caucasian” to refer to white people in general seems like a way to make yourself sound smarter than if you used “white”, like you know better than all those losers who just use the word “white”.
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