Twitter Conversation

[fantasyecho]

Inspired by katherineokelly's comments in my latest Linkfest, I threw a question out to the Twitterati:

what if, instead of using the term "white", we used the term "European American"?

(ETA: Since tweeting this, 4 people have re-tweeted it, including @vonslatt, THE Jake von Slatt of the Steampunk Workshop.)The responses are various. I will introduce folks as

Comments

[divabat]

I was using Anglo-Saxon personally, since a lot of what I was trying to describe as "white" culture was really British & Brit-export (America, Canada, Australia). Then European (western or eastern) for things more specific to that area.

I'm technically part-Caucasian but would never be regarded as such :P

[fantasyecho]

AHA! Do tell!!

[divabat]

Er, a large chunk of my family tree is Indian. Caucasia is the region around North India and Turkey and stuff in between. I also have some part of my family tree from Uzbekistan so I'm pretty sure they'd be Caucasian. Of course, not being white, no one's going to take my claims of being Caucasian (in part) seriously.

Why, were you hoping for something titillating, a family scandal? That's just buying into the stereotype, and rather rude.

[fantasyecho]

Actually, I got exactly what I was expecting =D A total explanation based on geography which, I think, really disproves the idea that Caucasian necessarily means "white". A lot of people I meet think Caucasian means white, and only apply the term to what we understand as European, or of European descent. They don't think about the people who are ALSO Caucasian but don't fit the definition of "white". Which is why I like hearing from folks who can explain it a lot better than I can about that term.

[divabat]

As I like to say, I'm more Aryan than Hitler :P

[fantasyecho]

LOL!

[tariq_kamal]

Reaaaaally? Didn't know that.

as I explained to fantasyecho

[divabat]

Er, a large chunk of my family tree is Indian. Caucasia is the region around North India and Turkey and stuff in between. I also have some part of my family tree from Uzbekistan so I'm pretty sure they'd be Caucasian. Of course, not being white, no one's going to take my claims of being Caucasian (in part) seriously.

...and, judging from this thread, there's still that strong stereotype of "Caucasian" meaning "white", even though as far as I know none of my family tree comes from Celtic, Anglo, or other Euro sources. The Arab, North Indian, and Uzbek lines may be a bit muddled, but that's about it.

Re: as I explained to fantasyecho

[dhobikikutti]

Yeah, I was brought up (as an Indian in India) to think of my race as Caucasian. It took me a while to realise that there was a fair bit of internalised racism in that description, since what it also was supposed to imply was "we're the same race as white people, and we're not Negroid or Mongoloid" with the added colourism of "Aryans are Caucasian vs Dravidians who are not".

Re: as I explained to fantasyecho

[divabat]

I wasn't really brought up to think of my race as anything but Bengali, though growing up in Malaysia meant that I was denigrated as scum. I don't think anyone would have known what Mongoloid/Negroid/etc meant :P

Re: as I explained to fantasyecho

[fantasyecho]

Anyone who doesn't fit the upper-middle-class standards of acceptability is scum.

When you entered your race for documents, did you put in Bengali if the Lain-Lain allowed you to specify?

Re: as I explained to fantasyecho

[divabat]

"Bangladeshi" usually.

Re: as I explained to fantasyecho

[fantasyecho]

My brain might be confuzzled here, but isn't that a nationality, as opposed to a race? O_o

Re: as I explained to fantasyecho

[divabat]

It is, but for most intents and purposes it's the same (for us anyway) and no one's really checking!!

Re: as I explained to fantasyecho

[fantasyecho]

That is infallible logic! :D