White people

For other uses, see White (disambiguation).

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White (noun, white or whites; adjective, white people) is a colour-defined term used as a form of ethno-racial classification. Though literally implying light-skinned, "white" has been used in different ways at different times and places.

A common element to the various definitions of "white" today, is that the term refers to a person of European descent. Also generally associated to white people is European culture, Christianity (whether as a religion or part of their cultural heritage) and Western Civilization. Outside this scope, the inclusion and/or exclusion of other groups of people may vary from country to country due to differing popularly espoused understandings of the term, definitions based on government guidelines, or factors of socio-racial implication.

Regions and countries that are today predominantly white include Europe, Russia, United States, Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, Australia and New Zealand.

Synonyms

In the United Kingdom, "white" and "black" are not often used as nouns (e.g. "whites"), as they seem slightly impolite; instead the phrases "white person/people" and "black person/people" are used.

In North America, and to a lesser extent other countries, the term Caucasian is used for "white" people (even though Caucasian properly refers to people from the Caucasus region). Anglo-Saxon is a less commonly used synonym, which generally includes all white Northern-European ancestries, not just English, as the term would seem to suggest.

Historic use of the term

Pre-modern usage of white may not correspond to recent concepts; for example, the first Europeans who traveled to Northeast Asia in the 17th century applied white to the people they encountered, a time when the term had no other connotations. [1] [2] [3]. By the 18th century, however, "white" had already begun shifting in meaning and started showing signs of the term's nature as an exclusive label. Benjamin Franklin's essay "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc." defined white to narrowly included only the English (Anglo-Saxons) and North Germans - Anglo-Saxons also originally North Germans, from Angeln and Lower Saxony - even then excluding nationalities such as the French and Swedes. [4]

As European colonization of the Americas and eventually other parts of the world brought Europeans into close contact with other peoples, the term white and other contrasting racial colour terms, such as black, brown, yellow (Far East Asian or Oriental), and red (Amerindian), etc, came into wide use as a quick shorthand to refer to race. Europeans defined the other terms with reference to "white", in other words, a "black" or "brown" person is defined by having darker skin than a "white" person, and any given "color" may apply to unrelated peoples. In the U.S.A, "black" quickly came to denote African ancestry and "brown" was later attributed to non-white Hispanics and South Asians (people of the Indian subcontinent); in Australia, for example, "Black" denotes Aborigines and "Brown" denotes South Asians and Middle Easterners/North Africans.

These terms were in more common usage in the beginning of the 20th century as ethno-historians attempted to trace humanity's history through linguistics, a process that has been largely superseded with the advent of DNA analysis. At the turn of the 20th century, some scholars thought of white people as being the descendants of Indo-Europeans and divided them into two categories: Semitic and Aryan. It is now known that this early categorisation was highly 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 South Asians.

Although it is most prevalent in casual conversation, the term white is increasingly rare in academic and formal discussions of racial demographics, but it is still often used in discussions of racial attitudes, particularly in the humanities, and in fields such as African American studies (Black studies), critical race theory and whiteness studies.

Who is white?

The scope of the term White has changed over time, and varies from place to place. In the United States, the term usually applies to people of ethnic European descent or anyone that appears European with no other discernable non-European features.

In Cuba and Brazil, lighter skinned mulattos (people of mixed European and African descent) with considerably more European ancestry and appearance (such as quadroons or octoroons; former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as an example) are often considered white. In the United States or Canada, those same people would always be considered "black" (See also: One drop rule). Not so long ago, light-skinned Colin Powell stated "In America, which I love from the depths of my heart and soul, when you look like me, you're black" when responding to an earlier comment made by dark-skinned golfer Tiger Woods on the Oprah show, when the spotsman identified as Cablinasian instead of Black [5]. Meanwhile in Europe, people similar to Powell or even lighter would still not be considered white, but neither would they or people like Tiger Woods be considered black, they would all be classed as 'mixed race'—a blanket term for all people with any multiple racial heritage.

Race in the US Federal Census
The 7th federal census, in 1850, asked for Color:[6] white black mulatto
The 10th federal census, in 1880, asked for Color:[7] white black mulatto Chinese Indian
The 22nd federal census, in 2000, had a "short form"[8] that asked two race/ancestry questions: 1.Is the person Spanish/Hispanic/Latino? 2.What is the person's race? White Black, African American, Negro American Indian or Alaska Native 10 choices for Asian and Pacific Islander Other This census acknowledged that "the race categories include both racial and national-origin groups." See also Race (U.S. Census)
Race in the UK_Census
Census 2001 asked for a person's ethnic group:[9] White British Any other White background Mixed White and Black Caribbean White and Black African White and Asian Any other Mixed background Asian or Asian British Indian Pakistani Bangladeshi Any other Asian background Black or Black British Caribbean African Any other Black background Chinese or other ethnic group Chinese Any other

Other contemporary difficulties of the term, in the United States for example, is that Anatolian Turks, Arabs, Iranians, caucasoid Jews (Northern/Eastern European Ashkenazim, Iberian Sephardim and Middle Eastern Mizrahim), may also be seen as non-White by a majority of people, even though some people in these groups may look very similar to Southern Europeans; and in the case of Ashkenazim, to Northern Europeans.

In the United States, generally speaking, the biggest dilemma of White inclusion is for caucasoid Americans of Middle Eastern and North African descent: Berbers, Anatolian Turks, Arabs, Iranians, Kurds, Mizrahim, etc. For the purposes of statistics, they are always categorised as white by US government agencies and the U.S. census. This categorisation, however, does not always lead to a sense of inclusion for most of them, as they are often excluded from the general structural concepts of white-American society, and may even experience hostile rejection. Furthermore, while South Asians are also an anthropologically caucasoid people—and recognized as such by the United States Supreme Court—not only are they also excluded from both the popular definition of "white" and the general structural concepts of white-American society, but are excluded as "non-whites" by US government agencies as well, and are instead categorised and tallied up as "Asians". (See Race in the US Census). For an example of legal contradictions in United States Supreme Court rulings of "white" vs "caucasian", please see United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind.

By contrast in Europe, Canada, and Australia those same Middle Easterners, North Africans, and South Asians are never regarded or categorised as White, neither by society's general understanding of the term nor by government institutions. Instead, they are regarded as racial minorities. This latter understanding of the term in Australia has little to do with White separatist exclusionism, but rather a traditional, and still currently espoused, definition of white which has never encompassed Middle Easterners or North Africans, and which, unlike the definition of "White" in the United States, has not undergone continuous alterations to include an ever growing number of people. (See also: Wog).

In the American context, where Middle Easterners and North Africans are grouped as white by government agencies, the popular contention of excluding these Caucasoid groups of North Africa and the Middle East from the white label is based largely on the argument that there is a significant Black sub-Saharan component in much of their populations (a long-spanning presence throughout the history of that largely contiguous region) and on their disparate cultural, religious, linguistic heritage and ancestral origins. It is undeniable that many Arabs in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, etc) and the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, etc.) have enough black African ancestry or are dark enough—at times being as dark-complexioned as some African Americans—to be considered black by popular US standards. However, at least for the Arabs of the Levant (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, etc.), though a good proportion can be as dark as Arabs from North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, just as many are lighter-complexioned by comparison, comparable to Southern Europeans.

Additionally, the popular definition of white in the United States often excludes all Hispanics, more so those from the Americas (even if of unmixed European descent, or of distant non-European admixture but with no discernable features other than European ones) and at times also questioning the whiteness of those from Spain. Of the countries of Latin America, those that it can be said are composed of an overwhelmingly European population are Argentina and Uruguay. Chile and Costa Rica are also quite "European", and possess mestizo majorities where it is not uncommon for the European element to predominate heavily over the Amerindian one (See also: Castizo); of those, very few would acknowledge the admixture and would simply identify as white. Countries such as Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru, on the other hand, possess Amerindian majorities, and although they also harbour large mestizo minorities, on average the Amerindian element predominates over the European one. Furthermore, Guyana and Surinam have significant South Asian populations. Also, Haiti and the Dominican Republic are composed mainly of people of African or mixed African descent. Despite these vast racial differences, there is a marked tendency in the US to label all people from South and Central America as Hispanic or Latino, not white, no matter how white or black they might be in appearance.

Whiteness and White nationalism

Main article: White nationalism

The strictest definition held by most white nationalist groups around the world - whether white separatists or white supremacists - is that anyone of total ancient ethnic indigenous European ancestry is 'white.'

White nationalists in the United States often have a definition of "whiteness" that is more limited than the official government definition. "Whiteness" in this case implies an ancestry that is solely or overwhelmingly European, but also requires a psychological identification with the European ethnicity and a commitment to advance its interests. Under this definition, therefore, many ethnically European peoples are excluded, such as Northern and Eastern European Jews (Ashkenazim) and Eastern European Muslims (Albanians, Bosniaks, Macedonian Torbesh, Bulgarian Pomaks, and Serbian Goranis). Despite this "whiteness" method used by white nationalists, as with many other racially-minded groups, the definitions still vary greatly.

White Nationalists that follow the ideology of Nordicism and Germanicism only consider as white people from Northern Europe who are Nordic or Germanic and are not Jewish, shunning Southern and Eastern Europe. Pan Europeanism is the White nationalist belief that includes all Europeans, which accepts every European from fair skinned Swedes to dark skinned Italians.

Bestowing the "non-White" label upon ethnic European peoples of Southern European, Eastern European (Slavic) and Ashkenazi descent, is a serious ideological point for many white separatists. This occurs even within countries such as Italy, where northern Italians have been accused of possessing racially motivated separatist sentiments stemming from allegedly irreconcilable differences with Southern Italians. Polls suggest that most Italians see this as a bizarre and confusing attitude and reject any 'racial difference' between the North and South of Italy.

Quite a few white-supremacist groups in the United States, however, have accepted Southern Europeans and Eastern European Slavic peoples as White. This is demonstrated in the written requirements for membership in white-supremacist organizations such as the National Alliance. The requirement for membership is that an individual be of "wholly European, non-Jewish ancestry."

Then there is Pan Aryanism, that accepts Whites from all of continental Europe and extends its definition to non-European caucasoids such as Middle Easterners, North Africans, and Central/West Asians, but stop short from including caucasoid South Asians. With regard to acceptance of caucasoid Middle Easterners as White, Pan Aryan White nationalists accept Syrians, Lebanese, Anatolian Turks and Iranians, but not Saudis or Yemenis.

In recent years, some non American white-supremacists not associated to Pan Aryanism have formed an alliance with the peoples from the Middle East, North Africa, and Central/West Asia in an attempt to more effectively oppose Jews. While these specific white-supremacists do not consider the latter mentioned people to be white, they do hold a somewhat positive attitude towards them due to the separatist and anti-semitic attitudes also espoused by some of their members.

Criticisms of the term

One recent genetic study suggests that approximately 30% of self-identified whites (non-Hispanic) in the U.S. possess some sub-Saharan-African ancestry, due to mixing with the population now called black or African American in the U.S. Among those whites found in the study to have black ancestry, they average an admixture of 2.3% black (of 128 grandparents, 3 are black and 125 are white). The author of the study, Pennsylvania State University molecular biologist Mark Shriver, a self-identified White who had no idea that he had any African ancestry, discovered he was in fact 22% black.[10] Many, however, have argued that the percentage rates are too small in most cases to warrant the abandonment of the umbrella terminology, contending that those Americans who retain some form of miscegenated blood due to interracial couples are more often a rather invisible part of the populace. Indeed, whites who have ancestors which settled in the Western United States during the 19th century may have American Indian and/or African-American ancestors.

The broad usage of "white" is sometimes criticized by those who argue that it de-ethnicizes various groups, although the same charge is not leveled at the question of ethnic diversity within blacks. During the era of Jim Crow Laws in the Southern United States, facilities were commonly divided into separate sections for white and "colored" people. These terms were defined by law, with people of northern and western European being labeled white and African-Americans labeled as "colored". The categorization of people of other ethnicities and mixed ancestries varied by state, county, and municipality.

Areas of habitation

Countries with a majority of white ethnic Europeans include all the nations of Europe, as well as some of the countries colonized by them through the 15th century to 19th century, such as the United States, Canada, Argentina, Uruguay, asiatic Russia, and oceanic Australia and New Zealand. In these nations, the relatively small indigenous populations were overwhelmed by white colonists from one or more European "mother countries". The distribution of Europeans worldwide may be explained by the traditional argument that Europeans thrive best in temperate climates above about 30° latitude in both hemispheres, but do not fare well in the tropics, except at high elevations. Indeed, Europeans have colonized most of those portions of the north and south temperate zones which had low indigenous-population densities when discovered by European explorers, which excluded East Asia but included virtually all other temperate regions.

Whites are also nearly unique in that they exhibit a variety of hair and eye colours. In parts of the world north of 50° North latitude, sunlight is low and weak enough that people (and white coloured polar animals for that matter) with blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin have an advantage over those with darker colouration. Benefits include resistance to rickets, possibly frostbite, and a suggested aesthetic appeal. However, the only major part of the world where such conditions exist is in northern Europe and western Russia. Parts of Alaska and western Canada, and, in the Southern Hemisphere (south of 50° South latitude), a small section of South America including Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands would fit the requirement as well, but they were thinly populated at the time of discovery and are now dominated by the descendants of European settlers.

Significant minorities of Whites live in the various Latin American and Caribbean countries, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia. Many of these nations have experienced considerable political conflict between the white minority (descendants of settlers from the former colonial power) and a mixed or non-European unmixed majority.

See also

• Caucasoid
• Caucasian race
• Black (people)
• Human skin color
• Race and Intelligence
• Validity of human races

Further reading

• A History of the White Race
• Where did white people come from?
• Why Europeans conquered the world and not the other way around.