Racism in Europe?

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Well, the implied but never outspoken view in the north western part of Europe is that slavs arent properly "white" either and just one "step" above "blacks". We can shove it under the carpet all we like but there is a hierarchy between the arbitrary labels we call race. Ask anyone not of northwestern European descent how they perceive it if you do not believe me.

Extremely silly but a reality nonetheless.

 

I remember a high school social studies class where the one thing that stuck in my mind was about race.

Few people can claim to be of a "pure" race. Most of us are mixtures. Ethnic groups may exist but Race? There is only one species of human as far as I know. We got rid of the competition.

 

My thoughts exactly. The only way to sustain such stereotypes is to either invent new classifications (sub-races?) or assess and deal with people on the basis of ancestry. I remember reading about a place where that attitude was entrenched in a political ideology... and what it eventually led to.

Maybe eventually people will start to realise how baseless and counterproductive it is to categorise and differentiate people on the basis of race. We're all fundamentally the same basic meatbag organism.

 

Well, Svy, there are plenty of terms, pronounciations, etc that are inaccurate in any languange, not only American English. I mean, we also talk about the Dutch in Holland, rather than the Nederlanders in Nederland, and we say PAIR-is instead of pah-REE. The Hispanic/Latino thing is especially odd, given that someone from Spain wouldn't count as Hispanic. In some ways, it's all about tracking a disadvantaged group in the US, although I must admit having seen it abused a number of times, as when, say, a "hispanic" scholarship goes the wealthy son of parents whose bloodlines come direct from Spain.

The term "Caucasian" is also rather absurd, the brainchild of some 18th century German racial suprematist who thought for some reason that people from the Caucasus were the best looking of the "white race," and thus likely the purest starting point of the race.

With certain minor exceptions, such as reaction to certain drugs and susceptibility to certain diseases, the concept of race is genetically meaningless; that is, it really only has cultural meaning. Thus Alan Keyes complained that Barack Obama wasn't really "African-American" because his father came from Kenya; apparently for Alan one could only be African-American if one was decended from slaves in the US. And so, these terms operate more on a legal and cultural level than they do in actual or historical reality...

 

Well, from what I've heard, when speaking of races, we have the following:

Caucasian (white) - predominantly Europe, but also northern Africa, Arabia and India.
African (black) - pretty much the rest of Africa excepting the northern parts.
Asian - predominantly the far east, and more common in the southern areas.
Pacific Islander - The Pacific Island region, but also including Australia.
Native American - which includes all of the Americas, but also the Inuit populations, and even some parts of northeast asia.

Based on this, if you don't have any European ancestry, I do not think it is correct for Hispanics to refer to themselves as caucasian. The obvious reason that there is a distinct difference in racial naming in north and south America, is because in North America, we essentially whiped out the entire population of native people. In South America, the wars only went so far to gain dominion over the native people, and after that, we started seeing mixing of different races.

 

Aldeth, you are perhaps the first person I have ever encountered who considers the inhabitants of the Indian suncontinent to be the same general 'race' as the people from northwestern Europe. I bet Sarevok doesn't see it that way.

 

Well, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration; currently about 2.5 million people identify themselves as "Native American" (not to mention all the interbreeding that occured...

The reason South Asians might have to identify themselves as "Caucasian" is that they are a recent immigrant group, and there isn't much of a history of their presence in the US. Thus very few of the stupid forms we have to fill out in the course of our daily lives have a box for "South Asian", so these people have to choose between "Caucasian", "Asian", or "Other"...

 

Well they are both descended from the Indo-European tribes that migrated from central asia (the precise location is uncertain) following two main routes of migration: one to western Europe, and the other to Iran (which derives its name from the word Aryan), and India. The Indo-European language of which Sanskrit is the closest descendant, has now ceased to be associated with any defined racial type. Sir William Jones recognized the similarities between Sanskrit and Greek and Latin, thereby allowing the possibility of extremely widespread early language families. The term Aryan (the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-Europeans: first attested by Vedic Sanskrit.) originates from the Sanskrit ārya 'noble' and the religious beliefs of the Aryans are recorded in ancient Hindu scriptures written in Sanskrit known as the vedas, and involved the worship of a plurality of divine beings. The Indian caste system seperates Aryans from the indigenous Dravidian peoples, who came to comprise the lowest of the four castes of Aryan society.

 

Yes, this prejudice has always been, and it is nothing new to me. However, I think while this "hierarchy" and bias exist, it is not an issue of being considered non-White, because, as a matter of fact, you can not get any "Whiter" than Russians or Polish. So, except for a few morons and idiots, like himmler, who called us mongols - and looked mongolic himself - this prejudice is more Cultural or whatever. Not that is makes a difference, as I think the botton line is Northwestern Europeans regard us as something else, which is not something I will call out against them, as the feeling is mutual, and I never bothered with prejudices anyway.
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Well, that is what leftist scholars would want us to believe, but I dont buy it. I have read enough scientific data to support the existance of different Human Races.
There is this study of a Canadian scientist for instance... I will have to dig his name. Sorry, for some reason his name did slip from my mind.
As much as purity goes, I used to have a few genetical studies which dealt with the ethnical composition of Indo-Europeans in the European continent, and as far as Slavs are concerned, we are pretty much VERY homogeneous racially speaking. Most westerns had a good deal of homogenity as well. If anyone is interested, I can ask a friend of mine to look this out for me.
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Actually, these subraces already exist. Some pals of mine were heavily into this, and although I thought the subject interesting, it was never a priority of mine, so I am not a specialist or anything like, but I can tell you Caucasians are divided into many sub-races, amongst them: East Baltic, Hallstat Nordic, Noric, Nordic, Keltic Nordic, Battle Axe, Neo Danubian, Mediterranean, Alpine, Dinaric, etc...
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True. But I guess using the term Latin - which has a clear and unique definition everywhere else - to classify those people who come from South America, regardless if they are mestizos or pure blooded Spaniards alike is plain misleading. Not to mention it creates some unusual situations.
I was also under the impression that sometimes Spanish people get labelled as Hispanics. I remember reading Antonio Banderas complaining about that somewhere before... But I could be wrong.

I am not too sure who coined this term the first time in History. I do know one of the first to use it ostensively was Gobineau, who despite being French himself, was a Germanic supremacist as well.
As for White, I am fairly sure it was created by the first American settlers to distinguish themselves from the, well, rest.

I dont think it is merely a matter of susceptibility to diseases. Damn, if I can remember the name of that Canadian I will provide his full study. There is also the Bell Shaped Curve though.
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Aldeth,

Yes, you are right, as far as the denominations and everything, but my point was that there are pure blooded Caucasians in South America, descendent from Europeans, and they get labelled as "Latinos" regardless. Of course most of them are mestizos, mulatos though...
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HB,

It might sound surprising, but read SatansBedFellow's post, as what he says is historically accurate. They look very different because the Aryans - which were the elite, thus the word meaning noble - were a tiny minority, and as time passed they mixed entirely with the dark masses they ruled.
Actually, Sanskrit is the closest to Russian. There are many simillar words.

 

Yes yes yes, I can accept that there may be some theoretical historical and genetic similarities between the subcontinental Asians and "Caucasians". My point was that I had never previously heard of anyone lumping Europeans and subcontinental Asians into the same category before, especially when you are talking about what is the most prevalent racial/cultural division that exists in the United Kingdom.

Also, given the fact that the Indians/Pakistanis/Sri Lankans/Bangladeshis etc probably make up the second largest "racial/cultural group" in the world (after the "Chinese Asians"), it seems even more odd that you are not referring to them separately.

All this goes to further highlight that so many of these divisions and groups are extremely arbitrary at best. This is why I always answer "Other" to my racial background when filling in forms.

 

Not quite sure if that's true throughout India; IIRC, the Aryans didn't make as many inroads into the southern half of India as they made into the north. I think you can track it by whether a region speaks a Sanskrit-derived or a Dravidian language. [EDIT: actually, this isn't true; Dravidian languages in India are also very Sanskritized. A better track would probably be the influence of Farsi, the court language of the Mughals...] In addition, northern India was also repeatedly invaded from the North, buy Mongol tribes as well as the Muslims that set up the Mughal empire. For various reasons, the South was more successful in warding off these invations, though there was still alot of mixing (and many coastal areas in the South have lighter skin or eyes due to mixing with sailors from France, England, or Portugal). Just saying it's hard to determine caste based on skin color alone...

[ November 09, 2005, 16:00: Message edited by: Bion ]

 

HB,

Sure. I was going to mention, but I forgot, so let me do it now: That is why I think the term Caucasian is meaningless. Too broad and devoid of real racial/cultural meaning. For me Indo-European bears much more sense and significance.

 

I've been all over the world (very nearly) during my time in the US Navy. I've seen prejudice and racism everywhere I've ever visited.

The degree that racism is obvious is varied, but it still exists. Many people are so ingrained with racism in thier culture that they don't see it themselves. As an example, I know many people from the southern states that honestly believe the confederate flag is simply a symbol of regional pride -- yet it is also a symbol of racism.

I've been in countries where the store owners just ignore their non-local customers (or non-customers), simply pretending to be busy rather than help the foreigner. In another country I literally saw a sign that read "No Sailors or Dogs Allowed" in English -- the meaning was very clear.

Private clubs are an excellent way many localities exclude others -- it's still an accepted form of racism in many areas.

I've found that most people who don't see the prejudice are not a member of a minority race. Often people don't see anything wrong because it doesn't affect them negatively.

 

I agree with Undertaker. "Caucasian" is nonsense. Indo-European is good enough. Then again, "Caucasian" is probably a broader term, covering e.g. those European peoples which are not Indo-European.

 

The term “Caucasian” relates to one of the traditional divisions of humankind as developed by the German physiologist Blumenbach and others in the 19th century, Caucasian (or Caucasoid) included peoples covering a broad group of peoples from Europe, western Asia, India and North Africa. It is so named because Blumenbach believed that they originated in the Caucasus region.

Indeed, the classification is outdated and the categories are now not generally accepted as scientific.

 

Try being 'Irish Traveller' in the UK, Ireland and US. A native race to Ireland, yet also the most discriminated race there, who have their own language (not gaelic) and way of life. Irish travellers usually have darker skin, darker hair and are usually confused with the 'Romas'. As I am a settled traveller, and half white, I never had the problems that my fellow people still experience. Even Travellers in the US have hard times and they are only 200,000 strong over there. And the Protestand and Catholic's think they have it tough here!

Idiots like Brad Pitt also help enforce the stupid stereotypes that the traveller community face (see Snatch).

All hail the gypsy races!

 

@Bion

Very true, but these are later developments and were not present at the origins of the formal caste system, as articulated in the Law Book of Manu; the popular indigenous term for caste is varna (Pali, vanna) which means ‘colour’ - so the system of social stratification was based on the factor of race.

Nevertheless, your points are entirely valid; as India has proved a rich and difficult subject of anthropological and sociological interpretation—one that resists simple accounts of caste practices.

[ November 09, 2005, 19:40: Message edited by: SatansBedFellow ]

 

Actually, that would be me, Svyatoslav.
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Wait, what do you mean by "Irish Traveller"? Is that an euphemism to gypsy? Because, at least in Eastern Europe, their stereoptypes are welldeserved. You need to see how they behave in places like Slovakia, Czech Republic. It is a nasty sight! It is no surprise none is viewed with less regard and respect than romans in Eastern Europe.
If you dont mean gypsies, what exactly are these Irish travellers? Because I did see Snatch, and I was surprised to see Brad Pit play a gyspie with his looks - I dont mean his good looks, but his very European one.

 

Eh, not really; idiots who see Brad Pitt's performance in what is quite clearly a comedy film and then think that's an accurate depiction of the typical irish traveller, they are the problem.

 

I bloody hate pikies .