Talk:White people

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I thought the formal and politically-correct term was "caucasian." Having a "white people" article seems more like the kind of thing you'd find in an encyclopedia that often uses the words "ain't" and "y'hear." Is there a distinction or very obvious dichotomy that I'm missing? 68.102.179.135 11:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree 100 percent. 66.63.86.156 19:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

From what I've seen, our Caucasian race article deals with the historical classification system, while I guess this article (poorly) deals with the "white race" itself. I'm not sure, however, if this is the best setup... I can see some reasons for a merger. The Behnam 19:40, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they are slightly different ideas that have overlapping but different histories. "White" and "Caucasian" may have identical scope to many current Americans, but "white" has been narrower in other countries like Australia and Britain. There are also other terms like Caucasoid, which was coined to be even broader.

For what it's worth, Race (United States Census) uses "white" and not "Caucasian." {unsigned}}

I would say White race should cover the concept of a white race and its history, and ditto for Caucasian race, but they should not be the main articles about genetics and other characteristics of people of western Eurasian descent; they should summarize those topics as needed to explain the subject of the article. --JWB 20:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

People! Caucasian is basically only used in the States. In most European countries a Caucasian is a person or people from the Caucasus! That is to say, someone from the Countries and regions of the Caucasus (Adygea, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkessia, Krasnodar Krai, North Ossetia-Alania and Stavropol Krai). Wikipedia must assume a universal NPOV. Thank you. The Ogre 14:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The article Caucasian Race states that "In Europe, especially in Russia and nearby, Caucasian usually describes exclusively people who are from the Caucasus region or speak the Caucasian languages." The Ogre 14:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The same article also says that "The concept's existence is based on the now disputed typological method of racial classification", and was, in fact, a product of Scientific racism. The Ogre 15:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate Genetic elaboration

As I've discussed before, the genetics section places undue weight on genetic theories for whiteness, and also involves some OR. I think that the information about European genetics is best placed in the article about European genetics, rather than for the general concept of white people.

The main proponent of this OR was User:Lukas19, who is now banned, so we do not have to worry about him anymore. If there are no objections I will remove the genetics information. The Behnam 17:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Go for it,--Globe01 15:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to remove this innapropriate information. Alun 16:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'll take it out. I'm going to take the whole thing out, but if there is a specific part you think should be kept then bring it up here. It is good to finally get that problematic section out the way. The Behnam 16:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You have deleted a lot of information. What's the justification for this? Mentioning light skin is clearly "appropriate" in white people page. 130.94.107.217 20:37, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

That is already mentioned in the first sentence and elsewhere. The genetic information, on the other hand, was inappropriate for a number of reasons, such as undue weight on the 'genetic' approach. Also, there is an element of original research as some of the studies cited were not themselves investigating the concept of 'white people' but rather European genetics, but were added to the article as being about 'white people'. Doing so promoted the view that 'Europeans are THE white people'. The studies chosen were even focused on traits like light-colored eyes and hair centered around the Baltic as if these are central traits defining 'white people'. The user who promoted this material, User:Lukas19 (known previously as User:Thulean, see Thule society), seemed to be using these studies to promote the ideas underlying Nordicism. He ended up getting banned for warring in favor of white supremacist ideas across a number of pages. For more information on the mess you may read the past discussions. Cheers. The Behnam 02:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Like before on this section of talk page, again, you are talking about problems with genetic SUBSECTION. If this is the case, why have you deleted all of Physiology and genetics SECTION, that is the information besides genetic section? You havent explained this so I'm restoring that part. KarenAE 13:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The whole section is a problem because it elaborates on certain European traits in the article about 'white people' to the effect that these traits are associated with 'white people'. This isn't necessarily true, and the studies cited are about European genetics, not 'white people', which are not necessarily the same. These studies cannot be concluded as the scientists behind them were not exploring the genetics of 'white people' but rather the genetics of Europeans, so the information cannot be misconstrued as pertaining to 'white people'. Anyway there is so far no case or general agreement on keeping that information so it is again removed. Please feel free to make a case here for the information, and then we will see if it can be put back into the article. Thanks. The Behnam 03:53, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Reading the talk page, it seems that you have made same arguments before, arguing that information about Europeans can not be represented in this page, but were found incorrect by the meditator. Despite this, you have made changes with the ban of Lukas19. That's very irresponsible (deleting 2/3 of the article). Stevertigo:

"Im inclined to agree with Lucas on this one, provided his statements are represented as a list (as they are here), and the purpose of which is to represent the diversity of views on "whiteness" - not selecting examples which exclusively correlate with "Europeanness." Its an issue of a semantic connection (not a "genetic" one, Lucas) between two words which have some relationship but one that differs by source. It would be interesting to know how the US and UK for example differ on the meaning of the term. -Stevertigo 01:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Lukas just wants language that says, for the most part white = caucasian and to some extent = European. Just as a semantic statement this doesnt seem improper -Stevertigo 04:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)"

Do not delete this information again. KarenAE 03:14, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

The information about "phenotypes" was not presented as a list, so you are not adhering to the point above made by Stevertigo. The deletion of the information was discussed on the talk page and was removed after several people agreed to it, it was not done unilaterally but by consensus. This article is about "White people" not Europeans, so the information is incorrect anyway. The only identifiable phenotype a White person can have is that of having pale skin, I would have thought that that was little more than a statement of the obvious. What is the defining characteristic of a White person? Well it's in the actual name of the article, they need to be "White", and this equates to little more than how White is defined by different cultures and societies, because it is different in different places. Besides you are suspiciously similar to Lukas19 in your editing style and beligerant attitude "Do not delete this again", Wikipedia works by consensus, not by someone making demands and ordering others around as if they had total authority on an article. The word of a mediator is not "law", mediators are here to try to forge a consensus, while Stevertigo is entitled to agree with you (Lukas19?) on certain points, this does not mean that what he is saying is binding. Besides there is a massive difference between saying "for the most part white = caucasian and to some extent = European....not selecting examples which exclusively correlate with "Europeanness."....Its an issue of a semantic connection (not a "genetic" one, Lucas)" (which seems to be in agreement with the secion in the article that discusses the meaning of White applied by different cultures) and then including a long section that effectively says that "white people=phenotypically European". So in fact you are not really in agreement with the section you have quoted from Steve anyway. Alun 04:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

It is presented as a list, as the information is not attributed to all white people but just to Europeans (per source). And that information is given because most definitons use Europeans and whites interchangeable for the most part. So although this article is about white people, addition of information about Europeans should be valid.

As for your suspicions, I'm not Lukas19 but feel free to have it checked. Do not bother me about it again though. KarenAE 09:16, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

It is not presented as a list. A list would not involve any discussion, and certainly would not include any maps, obviously. Besides it is not relevant, as you say, because it is not attributable to all White people. I don't see any evidence for the claim that "most definitions use Europeans and Whites interchangeably". Besides this claim makes no sense. Most definitions of what? How can a definition use the terms "interchangably"? This would not actually constitute a definition would it? Most definitions actually state that White people have light coloured skin, so that's the definition we use here. Both the OED and Merriam Webster say this. Merriam-Webster (remowned American Dictionary): being a member of a group or race characterized by light pigmentation of the skin OED (renowned British dictionary): relating to a human group having light-coloured skin, especially of European ancestry. Now if you want to argue that more often than not White people are synonymous with Europeans in certain parts of the world, then I do not disagree with this. This is exactly what Stevertigo is saying when he says for the most part white = caucasian and to some extent = European (I think this is a US point of view and in the UK the opposite is true, for the most part White=European in Great Britain, hence the different emphasis in the OED definition) and also Its an issue of a semantic connection (not a "genetic" one, Lucas), and I have no problem with this point of view being expressed in the article, but this is merely a question of including a single sentence, possibly in the introduction along the lines that in some parts of the world the term White is usually used to mean European. The inclusion of lots of physical characteristics of Europeans as if this somehow "defines Whiteness" is a completely different thing. Alun 09:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

As for whether you are Lukas19, I don't know, but I am suspicious, and I just want to be open and above board about that. There are five or six similarities that I can identify. If I feel there is even more evidence for sockpuppetry then I will simply ask the community to decide by collecting evidence and presenting it to Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets. Please also be aware that it is forbiden to use sockpuppet accounts to evade bans, and that doing so will reset the time on any ban, so if it were decided that you really are Lukas19, then your ban would be a year starting from now. See WP:SOCK#Circumventing_policy. Besides when have I "bothered you" about it? I have left no messages on your talk page. This sort of comment is itself reminiscent of a Lukas19ite attitude. Alun 09:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

By bothering me, I mean, not mentioning it to me further as you have just did, so I wouldnt have to write some sort of answer. Just do what you have to do without telling me and let me know when you've filed the report or something.

Don't tell other editors what to do. Everyone has the right to post here, you do not have any censors rights. Alun 04:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

As for the list, it is not meant as a literal list, but is meant as not breaching the WP:NOR rule. Read the context.

Not meant as a literal list? That's called clutching at straws, is it a riddle? "when is a list not a list? When Lukas19 defines it..boom ...boom. Come on, a list is a list, see List of African-American writers, if it's not a list then you can't include it. LOL. Alun 04:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

As for definitons, I meant definitions of white people. Most definitions use or define white people interchangeably with Europeans. I dont understand what part of this you dont understand. Clearly, definitions define usage of terms, therefore definitions use certain explanations.

I understand it perfectly. I am just saying that you are wrong, and I have provided two definitions that don't include "European" as a synonym for White people. Alun 04:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

As for the proof of this, this seems to be the usage in Western world. While there are some exceptions (that is, some Middle Easterns may be white), for the most part, white=Europeans in USA, although official defintion differs. This is further explained (with sources)in White American. This seems also to be the case in Canada, as their visible minority (non-white and non-native) status includes pretty much everyone except Europeans (such as Arabs and Latins). Europe pretty much uses OED definition, with UK and Norway sections clearly stating that. So for the most part, that is with some exceptions, Europeans = white. The only exception seems to be Latin America. Therefore, as I said, most definitions use whites and Europeans interchangeably. And European definitions of whites hold more weight than others simply because these racial classifications were devised by Europeans. Latin Americans disputing the meaning of whiteness is a bit like Indians disputing who is Chineese. I'm not saying these views shouldnt be represented. I'm just saying that due to small weight of these views, you shouldnt censor information. Just because there is a dispute that Taiwan is part of China does not mean we shouldnt add any information to the geography section of China. Clearly, almost all naturally blond people are white, therefore mentioning blond hair makes perfect sense. It also increases the readibility of the whole encyclopedia, with articles linking to eachother. I do not understand what you are trying to achieve by constantly deleting this information. KarenAE 21:00, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Europe may more or less use the OED definition, I don't know because I've only lived in two places in Europe, Great Britain and Finland and I'm not sure it is true to say that usage over the vastly different cultures and languages of Europe is absolutely consistent, and I don't think you can support this. But here's the point the OED definition does not actually say that White=European, it says that "White=light coloured skin, especially European", I can't say it any clearer than that, it is a misunderstanding or a distortion of the definition to say that this equates to White=European, because this is not what the definition says. It basically says White=Light coloured skin and that often this means European, this is not strong enough "evidence" to include lots of physical features that you claim are especially associated with Europeans as if this is somehow a comprehensive list of physical features associated with White people. If you want to include the definition in the article then that is fine, but this definition does not support the contention that White=European, and neither can it be used to justify including a massive section that basically says that "light-coloured skin=blond hair and blue eyes", which makes little sense anyway. This is little more than your POV as far as I can see. You have provided no definitions above and beyond the two that I provided from the OED and from Merriam-Webster, and neither of these support your contention. As for most of the claims you make, they seem to be little more than speculation and opinion on your part. Alun 04:41, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

"White=light coloured skin, especially European", yes, that's why adding info about Europeans is valid. The sections you deleted does NOT say European=white. It just contains info about Europeans. And not just Europeans. Two maps show also parts of Mid East and North Africa. Blond hair and red hair sections does not mention Europeans and there are blond and red haired non-Europeans. But I think any discussion with you is pointless given your huge bias.

1)For ex, you deleted Europe, Germanic people but not Middle East nor Iranian peoples. [1]

Um...European American is still there and also Demographics of Europe is also still there. I removed Europe because I failed to see the importance of a geographical region, this is not a geography article. Alun 16:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh really? Then why havent you deleted Middle East as well? Demographics of Europe does not include links such as Germanic people or Anglo Saxons, so its non removal does not justify other deletions. KarenAE 19:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If you want to delete Middle East then that's fine with me. I didn't even notice it was there. An oversight is just an oversight. As for your point about Germanic peoples etc. I agree with you entirely, we should not include all possible ethnic groups that might be considered "White" by certain definitions, if we did then the see also section would contain thousands of ethnic group articles.. So you are right we should remove them all. As I say an oversight is just an oversight. Alun 05:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

2) You let the section you have deleted [2] to stand at first [3], then deleted when you didnt like where it was going.

I did not notice it had been inapropriately reintroduced into the article.[4] I made some edits to the section without realising that it should not have been there. It had been removed before, I just had not noticed that it had been put back in. I should have noticed that it was out of place when I made those edits, but obviously my mind was on the edit and not on the fact that this section should not have been re-introduced into the article. Alun 16:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Why also have you let a similar section stand in black people article, an article you've been editing? KarenAE 19:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I haven't edited the Black people article for a very long time, I wonder how you could possibly know this since you claim to be such a newbie, something that is obviously untrue. Besides there is no consensus here that we should include this info, if there is a consensus for inclusion of such a section on the Black people article then that is a different thing. It should also be noted that the White people and Black people articles are about very different concepts, it is not true to claim that the same criteria apply to both articles. Something that might be applicable to the Black people article is not necessarily applicable to the White people article. Besides I would probably oppose such infotmation in the Black people article as well, but I have not edited that article for a while and I am always happy to accept a consensus for something, even if I do not agree with it. There is no consensus on this article for the inclusion of such data. You may think it should be included, it is your prerogative, but as far as I can see you are in a minority of one at present. Alun 05:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

3) You deleted all "inappropriate general discussion about the concept of "race"" [5] but then let this part:

"However, by the mid-20th century, following the work of Franz Boas and W.E.B. DuBois, a position of the nonexistence of biological equality had reached something approaching a consensus, as symbolized by the UNESCO statement on race in 1950, which included the text: "“Race is less a biological fact than a social myth and as a myth it has in recent years taken a heavy toll in human lives and suffering."[17]"

Your non-neutrality is clear. KarenAE 09:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy for the other section to be removed as well. Neither of these section should really be in the article. I am not a sociologist, I am comfortable removing information about science if it is inappropriate because I am a scientist. I feel less confident with information about sociology and culture. If you want to remove the other info, you won't get an argument from me. As you like to say, please comment on content and not on editors themselves. Alun 16:45, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

As I said, Your non-neutrality is clear to me, whether you care or not. And You have not answered to this part: " "White=light coloured skin, especially European", yes, that's why adding info about Europeans is valid. The sections you deleted does NOT say European=white. It just contains info about Europeans. And not just Europeans. Two maps show also parts of Mid East and North Africa. Blond hair and red hair sections does not mention Europeans and there are blond and red haired non-Europeans. " KarenAE 19:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Obviously I don't really give a toss what you think of me, so I don't really understand why you feel you have to keep telling me. As you like to say Lukas19, comment on content not on users. Information about Europeans is already included, duh. We don't say that Europeans are not White anywhere, so how can you claim it is valid to include info about Europeans? No one has said that we should not include info about Europeans, it's already there. What we said was that physical features of Europeans or indeed Middle Eastern people are not relevant, one does not have to be European or indeed a Middle Easterner to be White. White is a ocial construct that has very different meanings in different parts of the world and to different governments and peoples, to include long sections about the physical attributes of Europeans is irrelevant. You haven't really explained how the fact that some Europeans have blue eyes, or some have red hair is applicable to White people. It's only marginally applicable to Europeans, given that the vast majority of Europeans don't even display these physical properties, it's even less important to the concept of White people. So don't you think it would make more sense for you to explain why we should include this irrelevant info? Alun 05:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

NOT HAPPY WITH IMAGES ON 'CAUCASIAN RACE' PAGE.

The images on the Caucasian Race page are implying that only Nordics or people with paistey colouring are `Caucasians/Caucasoid'. I propose we supply images similar to the following:

Norwegian people: http://www.bi.no/upload/Grafisk-marked/internasjonal/artikkelbilder/bunader.jpg

Italian girl: http://www.lifeinitaly.com/culture/img/italian-girl.jpg

Berber father and child http://www.worldpress.org/images/berbers.jpg

Rajput man http://pchanez.club.fr/Images/rajput.jpg

I wrote this here as it gets more attention that the Caucasian race discussion does. Can anyone help out? thank you Ruts77

Check out the commons ethnic groups category for some public domain and GFDL images you can use. I agree with you, if photographs are to be used at all they should be representative and not give undue weight to people from a particular region. Alun 06:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Physiology

My understanding of the word Physiology is more about the workings of the human organs and cells than it is about physical appearance. Thus by physiology humans are pretty much the same, Its not like there are different methods of digestion, respiration or filtration, excretion metabolism and reproduction, they are the same accross populations . Anatomy, maybe, but under the skin all humans are pretty much alike. Thus phenotypes maybe a better heading. The problem however is that none of the phenotypes are unique to whites or caucasians. They can be found in other populations too.Muntuwandi 14:18, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I think Phenotypes is also wrong. A phenotype is how the genotype is manifested in an individual organism. For example a person with brown eyes can still have a gene for blue eyes. It only really has importance when discussing things like dominance. I don't think phenotype can be applied to characteristics associated with whole populations. Surely "physical anthropology" or "physical appearance" is more accurate? Besides this doesn't address the problem that the physical attribute that defines a White person is pale skin, it's White people and White people are defined by pale skin, this is the defining characteristic, and it is not a "racial" characteristic, and it certainly isn't an exclusively European characteristic. Alun 09:51, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

physical appearance is fine with me.Muntuwandi 13:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

"Phenotype" bothered me too "physical appearance" is what were talking about. futurebird 22:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Alun, are you sure that white skin is the only defining characteristic of white people? If "whites" were defined in everyone's mind as "humans with white skins" and "blacks" were defined in everyone's mind as "humans with black skins" I doubt that there would be such huge problems among groups of people. One wrinkle is that skin color is taken as a kind of "labeling characteristic" by which the "true nature" of somebody can be known without bothering to get any closer to him/her than the range of a good pair of binoculars. But the other wrinkle is that the people who are so passionately wedded to the bastard concept of race are the very ones (I am betting) who would never accept Ainu as members of the so-called "white race."

The same concern for color + (something else) came up in the discussion on black people because there were people with black skins who violently rejected the inclusion of their groups under the heading "black people" because it would associate them to closely with African blacks. (Or am I reading too much between the lines? Clearly they didn't want to have their group represented in the article.) I suppose it could be color + a bunch of cultural and linguistic stuff too. But I don't think color by itself will fly. Some Chinese are "whiter" than some "white Europeans" -- it depends on how much UV they've been getting. The skin on the legs of one of my Chinese dorm mates was paper white under the long pants he wore every day of his life, whereas I retain a little residual tan even in the wintertime. Does that make him white in the eyes of the racially conscious? I guess we could take him to a recruiter for some Aryan nation group -- might be a dangerous experiment though. P0M 08:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment 2

Which version of See also section should be used? http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=White_people&diff=126321335&oldid=126310169

Whats the rationale in deleting numerous links in the See also section? KarenAE 09:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Presumably the links were spurious links to articles that are not associated with White people, but with tiny minority White supremacist groups that do not represent White people. It's like having a link to Nazism on the site for German people isn't it? Alun 14:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

In See also section of Germany, Nazi Germany is included. And white supremacy was the dominant ideology for the most part of 19th century and early 20th century. Again, what are you trying to achieve with these censorist attitudes? KarenAE 21:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

So what? It is fair enough to include a link to Nazism in the Germany article, Germany is a state, Nazism was the ideology of the state for some time. The state is a political entity, and Nazism is a quasi-political philosophy, so the state and the political ideology of that state in any period of history is relevant. What I said was that it would be analogous to having a link to Nazism in the German people article, but most German people, even at the time of the Third Reich were not members of the Nazi party, indeed one could argue that it was German people themselves who were among the main victims of the Nazi regime. This article is not about a state or a political ideology, it is about some people who happen to share the attribute of having light coloured skin. Your argument makes no sense. Alun 03:54, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

But most people in late 19th century was white supremacist. And there are other links there, besides white supremacy such as white flight. KarenAE 09:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Most people? How can you say that? Were most Africans then, or most Chinese, or most Indians? Most people in the 19th century weren't White, just as most people today aren't White. Most people in the 19th century had probably never even heared of the idea of "White supremacy". Get a grip. I don't think so called White flight has got anything to do with White people either. It's really middle class flight isn't it? It's a class thing really. Alun 16:32, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Clearly, I was talking about white people. I thought you'd figure it out from the context, but you chose to rant instead. KarenAE 15:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah... so you meant that a tiny sub set of people with a vested interest promoting a distorted social concept because it allowed them to maintain their economic and social dominance spread this lie? Fair enough, but it's hardly anything like a convincing argument is it? Alun 05:23, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the White supremacy link should be included; the other subsets and groups shouldn't. People can find these minor factions through the White supremacy article if they wish.--Daveswagon 01:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this point still disputed or can this article's listing on Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Society, law, and sex be removed?--Daveswagon 23:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

No one has responded, so I have removed this article's listing from RfC. You are welcome to re-add the article if there is still a dispute in progress.--Daveswagon 03:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Lead

Lead is too long, it should be as brief as possible and least controversial. Some stuff needs to be moved into the main body of the article.Muntuwandi 03:08, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree futurebird 22:47, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Good work shortening the lead Muntuwandi. Alun 04:53, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The Pic does not do justice to white people as a whole

Ok, that pic is only going to infuse the stereotype that "white" people are only the pale skinned people that wear solid colored polos and drive SUVs in the suburbs. It is a very AMERICAN way of looking at white, which only promotes the pale skinned Anglo as the true white. According to the article itself and actual logic, white can range from pasty pale Anglos to olive skinned Italians in Southern Europe. I think that as an informative website we should have a duty to dispel the horrible useage of "white" in the United States from it only meaning Nordic types. I mean I am meeting Russians, Slavs, and even Blonde Haired Argentinans that think of themselves as NON-WHITE every day because they've come to believe that they are such due to the horrible usage of the label. Can't we atleast post some pics throughout the webpage of OTHER whites like Eastern Europeans, Hispanics and even Middle Easteners?

Quantifiably, without question, it isnt even an American way of viewing white people,' or the varying and different definitions around the world. A 'white person' just in the United States can be Mostafa Hefny, someone ethnically identifying as hispanic, Iranian, German, 'Anglo,' etc. I have no solution to this picture dillema. However, it is necessary to point out that: in the United States, the FBI, Census, all other government organizations use a much wider definition of white, and that this is easily quantified. It is also important to note that this definition changes around the world.Wood345 03:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The Question of Mustafa Hefny as white is a non-issue. He is clearly non-white and probably a black man with decendents from sub-sarahan africa who is from Egypt. You wouldnt label an African American as white simply because he lived in a white majority country. The point is that when it comes to white in the United States, the Southern European, the Middle Easteners of Asia Minor (NOT ALL MIDDLE EASTENERS), and others are rubbed out of the equation due to the erroneous use of the term white being only attributed to Nordic types. The picture just seems to reinstate that for who so ever pops onto the page without reading it or skimming it. I mean I believe this is so because the first image of the white person is whats posted, rather if a picture of an olive skinned Sicilian or Lebanese were on there first, it would be a shock to others.

Well we could include a gallery like on the Black people article, with a selection of White people from different parts of the world. Some Europeans, some Arab people, some Central Asians, some Siberians or whatever. If we include some pictures of different White people from different regions of the world and try also to include the different ways White people are identified in different contexts. For example Europeans are always considered White (as far as I know), Arab and Middle Eastern people are considered White when White is used synonymously with Caucasian, and alos for the US census. That sort of thing. What do people think? Alun 06:05, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we should have a gallery of various peoples classified as white. Instead of making one from scratch, we could ressurrect one from an older version of the article.----^DarkTea 12:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

How about these?

• 
  Benjamin Netanyahu former Prime Minister of Israel.
• 
  King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

The Behnam 16:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Well are Saudi Arabians really white though? I know Middle Easteners are white but I thought it was because of the Caucasian people that inhabited Asia Minor and North Africa. I mean like Berbers, Phoenicians, Assyrians and Egyptians. You know before the Arab invasion. I consider Saudis to be an Asian group similar to South Indians. I could be wrong though. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.7.101.65 (talk) 00:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

Well Saudis are Arabs, and Arabs are Caucasian aren't they? Indeed I think Arabs and Persians are both Caucasians aren't they? I'd be more interested to know if people from Pakistan are Caucasians? Sometimes people from the Indian subcontinent generally are considered Caucasian and sometimes they are not and I'm no expert on this sort of thing. I think Dark Tea is more knowledgeable than me so I'll defer to her. Besides even people who are not normally considered Caucasian are considered White by some organisations, look at the US census definition of White, it includes people from very geographically distant parts of the world. I recently read in a book that 85% of people with mixed Native American/European ancestry identify as White (acording to the 2000 US census), so White identity is a very broad category indeed, encompasing people with all sorts of backgrounds. This should be reflected in the gallery. I don't really like Binjamin Netanyahu and would prefer Ehud Barak, but that's just my personal bias. I'd probably go for:

• 
  Ehud Barak
• 
  Yasser Arafat
• Jinnah
  Jinnah

As for Europeans we could go for say four of:

• 
  Vladimir Putin
• 
  Bertie Ahern
• 
  José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
• 
  Vojislav Koštunica
• Angela Merkel
  Angela Merkel
• 
  Ségolène Royal
• 
  Maggie

Just some ideas. Sorry they are all politicians, I don't really know any "celebs", they all seem a bit vacuous and unimportant to me. Alun 05:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Some South Asians consider themselves to be whites, but their individual opinion is not WP:RS. According to the 2000 US Census, 25% of 2nd generation South Asian Americans marked the white category.page 76 top Under the South Asian American umbrella, Pakistani and Sri Lankan Americans marked white in the 2000 US Census to a greater degree than Indian Americans.(page 72 bottom) Individual identity notwithstanding, South Asians should be on the gallery as people who are currently not white on the US Census with a reference to the historical periods when they were legally white.----^DarkTea 07:38, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I dont think King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia would be accepted as white in much of the Western world. And white is a term defined by West. I used this example before, some Middle Easterns and South Asians disputing the meaning of white is like Indians disputing the meaning of Chineese. And too many politicians. KarenAE 09:26, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't really matter what you think. If he is White by certain definitions, for example as a Caucasian, or defined as White by the US census, then he can be in the gallery. Simple, we have several sections to the gallery, ech section identifying different sorts of people who can be considered White, depending on the criteria used. It is clear that in some parts of the world Caucasian is synonymous with White. It is also clear that in the US census he would be considereed White. You personally may not consider whim White, that is your prerogative, but this does not preclude him from being White by certain criteria. Alun 16:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

No I dont think that King Abdullah or Arabs as in Saudi Arabians are generally or should be seen as white. Even in the Arab world, other cultural Arabs, know that that most of the white Arabs are concentrated in Asia Minor, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and North Africa. I have Egyptian friends who joke about some Arabs looking too Saudi which means they're dark skinned. They know that they themselves are not TRUE Arabs. I think that what the census is reffering to in the Middle East is the remenants of white caucasian tribes like Berbers, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, etc. that were there before the Arab invasion and integrated into Arab culture. Since the societies are so mixed that its hard to single out the white arabs from the "real" arabs. So the US Census just labels them ALL white, like they do with ALL Hispanics. The same can be applied to with South Indians, who in my book, are for sure NOT white. I only think that a certain number of caucasian tribes in Northern India are actually white. To recap lets not throw the whole debate into the water by actually considering that EVERYONE the US Census labels as white is really white. I know that its in error to assume that white only means Nordic people from Europe but I believe that the only people in the Middle East that can be labled as white are the people that have significant ancestry to those of the indegenous tribes of the Middle East BEFORE the Arab conquest.

Well I don't know if a personal story should rule Abdullah out, but nobody objects to Netanyahu, right? I don't think his whiteness can really be contested. The Behnam 06:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Well whatever your personal friends think we can't cite them as a source. The point is this, under certain criteria Saudi people may not be considered White people, for example some criteria for White people only include Europeans as White. On the other hand different criteria are used for other definitions of White. Basically we need to cover all the bases and I don't think there is any evidence for a unified and globally accepted definition of White, so we say that sometimes Saudi people would be considered White, for example on the US census, and other times they might not be considered "White", especially when White is taken to mean European, which it is sometimes. OF course this does not preclude us from using his photograph, as long as he is considered White by certain definitions. Alun 06:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that Netanyahu is really white, he is more brown than being white even King Abdullah is whiter than him.

Yes I agree, Jewish people are similar to Arabs, some of them are white "as the western countries orign" and some of them are black "like ethiopian jews". Also, Arab people are devided by two groups. Semetic and most of them are white and they live in the Asian side, and the other group is the Hamitic and they live in the African side and they are mixed "example: Berber, Nubian, Somali etc." and some academic people consider them as an "Arabian speaker groups" not Arabian ethnic group. Moreover, some of the semitic Arabian people are dark because the southern coast of Arabian peninsula was a major point for importing slaves from Zanzibar and everyone can read the history of Oman empire. Thats why the Saudi Arabian people are mixed between white people "Pure Semitic or Pure Arab" and dark people "son's of slaves". Also, there is a significant point that some Arab countries their people are more white because they had few or no slave trade (For example: Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon).

Race and Genetics

I made some big changes in this section and hope my edit summaries were enough to explain them. Just writing this to give a heads-up. I found the same mistakes in Black people but couldnt edit the article (it was semi protected). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by OceanblueY (talk • contribs) 09:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC).

Mediation again

I've been reading the discussion page for the past 2 days. It seems this text was agreed upon and never added. It's currently in Archive 11.

"In an analysis of molecular genetic data, biologist Alan R. Templeton found "all of the genetic evidence shows that there never was a split or separation of the 'races' or between Africans and Eurasians. Recent human evolution has been characterized by both population range expansions … and recurrent genetic interchange."[22]X1 Nevertheless it has been observed that when individual genomes are clustered solely by genetic similarity, individuals sort into broad clusters that correspond to large geographic regions. -Europe and the part of Asia south and west of the Himalayas appearing in the same cluster.- [23] The picture that begins to emerge from this and other analyses of human genetic variation is that variation tends to be geographically structured, such that most individuals from the same geographic region will be more similar to one another than to individuals from a distant region. X2 However, Some individuals, such as Indians, from boundary locations between these regions were inferred to have partial ancestry in the clusters that corresponded to both sides of the boundary. Therefore these clusters may overlap. Also, In many cases, subclusters that corresponded to individual populations or to subsets of populations were also identified. Some scientists reject this clustering approach and claim that human genetic diversity consists of clines of variation in allele frequencies. While some others think that human genetic diversity consists not only of clines, but also of clusters, which STRUCTURE observes to be repeatable and robust.

In references section: X1: By races, authorts mean subspecies. In biology, subspecies is the may mean race but there is no consensus on the definition of race(sources)

X2: By geographic regions, authors mean origin. (or something of this sort. We should explain, by geographic proximity, they dont mean one white and one black roommates)" KarenAE 09:20, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

How is any of this relevant to White people? I'm sorry but this would be better in the article Race where it would at leas make sense for it to go. Makes no sense for it to go in this article, not only does it seem to be irrelevant to the article it would constitute a POV-fork. Alun 17:29, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

How is any of this relevant to White people? Can you really not see the relevance? White people is a racial category therefore race is a relevant subject. As for POV-fork, I realise there is a race article but there is also a White American article. If mentioning relevant subjects is a POV fork, existance of United States and Brazil sections is also a POV fork since they also have their articles. KarenAE 15:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

What's a "racial category"? Is it the same as a "race"? Is it different to a "race"? Who defines this category? Is it a consistent "category" across political, state, social, biological and anthropological disciplines and organisations? I don't think it is. I think the idea that White people are a "racial category" may be held by certain people or organisations at certain times and in certain places, but I don't think it is a universally held concept. Indeed look at the UK census, here "White British" is an ethnic classification, it has nothing to do with "race", it is simply used to distinguish the "White British" ethnic group from the "Black British" ethnic group, showing that both White and Black British people are British, but that they can also be considered different ethnic groups. It has go nothing to do with "race" in this context. I think you are trying to confuse the issue by introducing a very specific use of the term as if it were a general usage. The term "White" is not always considered a "race" or a "racial category" as both of our dictionary definitions clearly indicate. Alun 05:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I was in mediation. I never agreed to the text as listed, though Lukas proposed it. Alun's right, and his comment is consistent w/ my concerns as expressed before.--Carwil 02:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

IQ testing and white people

Some interesting information about white people's IQs.

First, these studies are very controversial, and to understand them one has to read first the Flynn effect.

Still, some scientists are making tables about races, nations and IQS.

The results are interesting for a number of reasons:

1. The highest scores are to be found among East Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans), not about white people as some would think, maybe.

2. The highest scores in Europe or any other white countries have been established for Italy in 2006 (Well if Italians are white, then it seems that some people here say they are not, in that case, whites would go further down and if Jews are not white either, then another step down. They would be in 4th position then, after Askenazi Jews, East Asians and Italians).

3. Moreover, Ashkenazic Jews demonstrate the highest IQ scores in the world.

See: [6] [7]

Do not know if this may be helpful for the article. I am sure it is very controversial. Here it is in any case. 72.144.17.17 17:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Race Map is poor

Why is North Africa, Asia Minor, and all the Middle Eastern countries considered white people? If the article uses out dated and racist 19th century propaganda then wouldn't people in those locations be considered not white? What about people who have black ancestors who now are considered white, due to appearance, and not blood line. Via blood line how many people would be condsidered white? --Margrave1206 18:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The map reflects the 2000 US Census definitions of race. It is located in the section about the US definition of race to illustrate the text.----^DarkTea 22:48, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

While I do agree that the US Census would consider most of those places as being part of the caucasian race, I think that the map should be reformed to exclude the Sudan. The name of the country is actually an arabic word which means land of the blacks, and looking at most Sudanese people you can tell they are pretty black. I think someone may have misinterpreted the definition of North Africa. While it certainly makes sens eto classify most moroccans, algerians, tunisians, and egyptians as caucasian, i highly doubt that the american actually think that sudanese are white when most sudanese are blacker than most black americans. I think the map should be refitted to exclude Sudan, otherwise it is fine

White Hispanic?

Why is there a White Hispanic page and the White British, White Australian and White Canadian pages have been deleted? The White American page still exists and it appears that Wikipedia is biased as it only exists to suit Americans! Secondly (I am writing from Austrlaia so I'm not 100% sure on what is necessarily implied in U.S. terms), I thought that the term `Hispanic' in the U.S. referred to Spanish speaking people of the Americas, not from Spain itself. I thought their degree of `whiteness' only pertained to how much European ancestry they had and whether they `looked' European in appearance. Finally, there are images of people like Rita Hayworth and Raquel Welch on these pages. Both of them are mixed and have an Irish (Northern European)parent. If this is the case, can I create a page called `White East Indian' and include images of Nikki Bedi, Nasser Hussain and Ronnie Irani on it?

There is a reason why "White Hispanic" has an article, but I agree with your other points. "White Hispanic" has an article because it is a term used by the US Census Bureau. The Office of Management and Budget of the United States defines a Hispanic or Latino to include "a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race", so Rita and Raquel are Hispanic by Spanish origin. Secondly, I was the one who created the White Australian and White British articles. Someone decided they didn't like them, so they blanked and redirected them. The White British article should never have been redirected because it is an official term with the British census. I recommend you not try to make a White East Indian article because WP:POINT.----^DarkTea 03:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

You are very observant. You should be given an award for being so smart. I'm surprised you're the first person to notice the evil American-white man is taking over the world and internet.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.116.13.211 (talk • contribs).,

Nordic race realy isn't white

All whites are white, but some are more white than others. But Nordic race realy isn't white, they are pale pink...

---

You certainly have a point there. In fact if you are from Europe we know that in Southern Europe they are often spoken of as pinkish or reddish or even orange, and there are many jokes about them because of this.

A will give you an example of a Spanish joke:

(This is not to offend anyone, and I hope it does not. It is just to explain this point).

To undertsad pay attention:

When you want to say that something is very good, in the case of a woman very beautiful, in popular Spanish, in Spain, you say:

La madre que te pario = meaning something like (your mother gave birth to a beautiful thing) Parir means to give birth.

Well the joke goes:(obviously the humour is lost in the traslation and the puns but it will be understood for this purpose).

A Swede who did not know Spanish very well saw a beautiful girl and said: "Niña, a ti te pario una madre" and the girl responded "y a ti una gamba". Meaning: a) A mother gave birth to you: Response: And a shrimp gave birth to you.

Shrimps are eaten cooked in Spain and look very red.

Well I could explain dozens of jokes like this. In short, they are not very much perceived as "white" but rather as red, pink or orange in popular culture in Spain, Italy, etc.

This has always been like that but this perception is lately exaggerated because of important immigration from Northen Eruope into countries like Spain. See these articles that deal with the British:

See:

http://www.byebyeblighty.com/1/british-immigrants-swamping-spanish-villages/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,1588156,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/spain/article/0,,1830838,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6210358.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5237236.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6161705.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/brits_abroad/html/europe.stm

We all know that massive immigration always has different types of influences in how people are perceived, often exaggerating certain features and leading to stereotypes.

In any case, the article already states that "white" is a color metaphor for race. It has nothing to do with the literal meaning of the word.65.11.70.20 14:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

---

You are right. North Europeans are called in the Balearic Islands (Spain) Salmonetes:

See a picture of Salmonetes:

http://www.diabetesjuvenil.com/fotos/fotos_recetas/salmonetes_al_horno.jpg

But it has nothing to do with the concept of race, it is just a popular way of calling people. On the other hand, no one is literally white. 72.144.221.103 20:00, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a soapbox post so I may remove it soon. The Behnam 20:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe, but on the other hand I found it quite interesting and amusing. To go one step further down the daisy-picking trail, what is the logic behind calling southern europeans "olive-skinned"? They're not green, and they're not black, and they're not the color of olive oil. I just don't get it. ThePedanticPrick 17:21, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Added pic

I just added the picture of Stephen Colbert (who is obviously White), because it is relevant to race, as he often jokes on his show that he doesn't know if he is White or not, and that he does not see color in race when referring to issues on African Americans.--PericlesofAthens 20:38, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Who gives a hoot about Hefny?

Honestly, is this piece of anecdotal evidence (of what?) at all relevant to the article? "Ooooh, look at me! I transcend the census bureau's arbitrary categorizations! I rock!" Come on, people! This article has gotten really good; let's not let the filler start creeping back in. ThePedanticPrick 22:34, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

• I tried to pull that crap out last week and was over ruled, but I agree that Hefny is a non-notable fart in the wind of time. --Kevin Murray 23:39, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Pic

added a picture of a nameless person from I do not where. I hope that this might have less controversy.Muntuwandi 00:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The connection between white people and the inability to dance

I recently saw a study conducted by Harvard that finally showed the reason white people are unable to dance is due to lacking certain enzymes. see also: white people, inability to jump.

Fact check - UK

"In the UK white usually refers only to people of native British and European origin"

Is this really true? I'd like to see a more general source than immigration manuals; immigration departments often don;'t reflect national usage "in the culture" or "in the public".

Do we really mean that two british people on the streets of London, discussing someone as White, have an implicit understanding they are talking about a native British or European originating person?? Surely not. or if they are, then the word "ancestry" needs to be in there, with a more specific cite on cultural usage in the UK. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 02:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

article scope

this article is clearly about the "white skin" phenotype. Racialist notions associated with it clearly have a place, too, but these have their own main articles, in places like whiteness studies, Caucasoid etc. I don't follow how The Behman can denonce the "genetic approach" above, since the topic of this article is clearly a genetic trait. We obviously don't want any OR. We want respectable genetics studies that trace the particulars, history and distribution of "light skin". The various social issues attached can be mentioned, but they belong delegated to their respective main articles. dab (𒁳) 07:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I only just note that The Behnam removed a full discussion of this in one go, here. I don't follow how this can be justified: this is the main topic of the aricle. If anything is treated with "undue weight" here, it is the harping on social issues that are treated in great detail elsewhere. Discussion of the genetic trait is clearly the central focus of this article. I am afraid I will have to restore the lost material in toto. If it contains any OR, this should of course be removed point by point. dab (𒁳) 07:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I've responded again at your talk page. I may paste some in here so that others can follow. The Behnam 07:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Basically most of it was OR. Whenever we take a study of European genetics and present it as the genetics of white people (in general) we commit OR. You may try looking at the archives for more of the discussion, though the more recent ones are probably clearer. The Behnam 07:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that a genetic section is necessary and useful, since genetics is being used to trace lineage and lineage has always been a fundamentla concept for race. Genetically speaking Europeans are a very homogeneous population and other populations from the Near East and North Africa are also close to Europeans genetically speaking and they are more or less the people who are called white or have been called white by Anthropologies in the past. So I would agree to introduce the genetic section.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.216.137.97 (talk • contribs) 20:21, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The OR issue must not reappear. Studies cited must be about white people in general, not just about Europeans. And please don't go too far into the past for sources... The Behnam 19:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

And please, people, stop reintroducing these genetic section unless the OR isn't there. The Behnam 19:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, to say that Europeans are not the most representative population of white people makes no sense whatsoever. Europeans are the white people par excellence, which does not mean that they are the only white people, but to question that Sub-Saharan Africans are not the black people par excellence is the same (and of course they are not literally black nor are Europeans literally white, but that is an issue already in the article). With this kind of politically motivated reasoning this article can never be good. The genetics about Europeans is the main reference for the genetics about white people. Do people here really question these basic issues? Genetics is the most scientific approach to speak about a group of people in terms of lineage and common biological heritage, the main concepts of race. Anything else is what is really OR and subjective approaches mixed up with fantasies and sometimes political propaganda. I am not putting it back though, but support the re-introduction of the genetic section, probably the most updated and valuable information in this article. And again, if there are people who are called white outside of Europe it is because they can trace their ancestry to Europe and also to other areas like the Middle East or North Africa, like in some censuses or past anthropologists. But the European thing is never questioned. I think that some common sense would be needed here. Jan.

I agree. I edited this article a little under the name KarenAE but have to leave due to time constraints. Benham seems to be owning the article ([WP:OWN]). I've read some of the archives and he was warned about his imaginary OR issue: [8] by the meditator. KarenAER 00:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree with the idea that this article is primarily about phenotype. It is primarily about the concept of "white race" and its history. This may have been clearer when the article was actually titled White race, and perhaps the article should be moved back to that or another clearer title.

In general I do not think massive deletion is good, but the primary articles for skin color and genetics are Human skin color, Genetic history of Europe, Recent single-origin hypothesis, etc., and contributions on these subjects should go there. The article about "white race" should have links to those articles, but note that science is not the same as sociology, which is what the "white race" idea is. --JWB 00:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Blond and red hair is almost exclusive to whites. So are blue and green eyes. This "almost exlusivity" makes it a white trait or at least it should be mentioned here. Currently there is an undue weight to sociological issues. KarenAER 14:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

no, JWB, this article is not primarily about historical notions of a "white race". Otherwise, it would be called "white race". The fact of the matter is that there is no historical scientific term "white race". You have to be aware that "race" only came to be used in a strict anthropological sense from the mid 1800s. The correct term is Caucasian race, which included sub-types such as the East Baltic race or the Dinaric race. "White race" may have been in popular use, but unless used synonymously with "Caucasian race", it had no rigorous validity. To say that the concept of a "white race" emerged from the 1600s is very misleading, since the term "race" had an entirely different meaning then.

Wikipedia clearly needs an article discussing the 'white skin' phenotype. If this isn't that article, which is it? We can always resort to WP:SS, but at present, I see no other place where this topic would be more at home. Clearly, this article has to take care not to focus on Europeans too much. Its scope extends to Europe, Central Asia, SW Asia and North Africa. Now if treatment of SW Asia or N Africa is missing, the proper course is to extend coverage, not to just blank the material we already have. Conversely, the main article treating " the concept of 'white race' and its history" is Whiteness studies dab (𒁳) 10:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

What is the picture of the Pakistani girl doing in the article

Although she might be anthropologically Caucasian the word "White" generally refers to people of European descent. A picture of another Pakistani Kalash woman who might be her close relative: http://i1.trekearth.com/photos/52130/kalash.jpg Not exactly White.

At least in the UK Pakistanis are not included to the definition of "White" in common usage.

The example is controversial and should be replaced.

MoritzB 03:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Human Genome Variation

I'm not touching this article but if someone wishes to include the following and decide on what basis one qualifies for 'white people' status then all is good -

There are five basic groups of human in genetic terms:

• Eurasians
• South East Asians
• Native Americans/North Asia
• Sub-Saharan Africans
• Australian Aborigines

Eurasians are futher divided into four distinguishable genetic groups:

• Aryan Indian/ Middle East
• Caucasus (Slavs)
• South European (Greco-Roman and Phonecian)
• North European (British/Irish/Germans/Basques/Scandanavians)

Typically British people (and one would assume the same for Americans or Australians who are descended from British/Irish) are 65% North European - 35% South European. However 'North European' does not mean the Vikings/Germans from around 1000AD however since it is clear that there were incursions into Britain from Scandanavia before the Romans arrives and even in Neolithic times.

However a significant proportion of 'white' people will have genetic influences from one of the other four groups, a single sub-saharan african ancestor will contribute as much as 8% of your total genetic material.

Genetic make-up is basically a combination of the influences of the previous twelve generations.

References

• http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817 - Myths of British Ancestry
• The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story by Stephen Oppenheimer ISBN-13:978-0-78671-890-0
• Trace Your Roots with DNA: Use Your DNA to Complete Your Family Tree by Megan Smolenyak & Ann Turner ISBN:1-59486-006-8
• http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1454.html - Not Race but Human Genome Variation

RichardColgate 23:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Your post is irrelevant to defining white people and it seems you are asking editors to use OR.----^DarkTea 00:12, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

These divisions are highly controversial. I don't mean that in a politically correct way but in terms of genetics. You can't really say Slavs are a distinct genetic group from North Europeans when (besides the point that many Slavs ARE N.Europeans) the genetic makeup of Norway and Iceland resembles some "Slavic" countries more than it does England and Germany. These divisions are established for statistical purposes and carry very little worth in terms of actual distinctions. Genetics research is in its infancy and all the little things are only being worked out now. A Briton can be in the same haplogroup as an Indian but that doesn't mean that they are of the same ethnicity. JRWalko 00:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, but since I have quoted references I think it is a little harsh to call it original research. I also fail to see how 'whiteness' can be determined by anything other than genetics, where you come from would seem to be irrelevant to your skin colour, though I accept that the general groups listed above are vague and historical rather than accounting for recent movements in populations.RichardColgate 04:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

It is a special type of original research called WP:SYN.----^DarkTea 04:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Richard, suggest you read Genetic history of Europe and related articles then consider contributing there. While a brief summary of genetics may be appropriate in the race (as a social phenomenon) articles, the main discussion of genetics is in the genetics articles.

If you are interested in who "qualifies for 'white people' status", the answer has been rather complicated and differs by place and time, and is often different from what you might expect from genetics. This social history of race is what this article is primarily about.

Unfortunately I think your summary above is a little too pat and not that accurate. Division of humans into five races is somewhat arbitrary and a reasonable case can be made for every number from one through six and higher; in fact at Race#Race as lineage you can see the specific divisions for N=1 through 6 in one study. Same with the division of Caucasoids into categories roughly corresponding to the earlier ideas of Nordic race, Alpine race and Mediterranean race plus an Extra-European Caucasoid category whose existence is very debatable as you can see at the talk page there. Saying that genetic influences go back exactly twelve generations is extremely arbitrary. Sub-Saharan DNA admixture in Europe is still imperfect but I do not see a number of 8% emerging from it.

Oppenheimer is interesting but not all researchers share his views. His studies and conclusions should be mentioned as data points along with and on a par with other studies.--JWB 07:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

There are no genetics that are intrinsic to whiteness. Whatever genetics Europeans have they are mostly non-concordant with whiteness and are more accidents of geography, and randomness. Muntuwandi 12:19, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Unbacked claim. KarenAER 00:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

To me the issue seems to be that this term has widely different meanings in different cultures and seeing as most editors here are members of the anglosphere we are inherently skewed in our perception of this issue. I don't think this term has ever been an attribute of actual color. There were plenty "blacks" who had a lighter complexion than "white" Americans for example yet they weren't historically considered white Americans. Similarly in European cultures a "white" person from Saudi Arabia would hardly be considered as "white" as say Danish people as we have seen in events there in recent years. The great challenge of this article is that it has to reflect not only the definition in many countries but also in many times. I agree with RichardColgate that genetics should be incorporated though IMHO it should be in a different article altogether. I think this article should be shortened as there will never be a concensus as to what it exactly means and instead an article such as Europeans should incorporate genetic data on "white people" in the European sense of the word. JRWalko 18:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

At present the only genetics that has a case to be included is the information on genes that code for light skin. All other genetics are non-concordant with whiteness, meaning that though these traits may be found at high frequencies amongst Europeans (eg rhesus negative), one does not have to be white to have those specific genes. Any mention of mitochondrial haplogroups is irrelevant because mitochondrial DNA has no effect on phenotype or physical appearance.Muntuwandi 20:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a quite stupid thing to say. These Albino Africans certainly dont look white [9], [10],[11].So it's clear that whiteness is NOT just about skin colour. KarenAER 00:26, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, DONT VANDALIZE MY EDITS...KarenAER 14:25, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

there was a case involving KarenAER at Wikipedia:Suspected sock puppets/Lukas19.Muntuwandi 02:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, actually for KarenAE, and KarenAER is an obvious second account - I guess there was a password forgotten or something. The Behnam 18:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to add on, the references listed above are also secondary if not tertiary references, filtered through a chunk of societal prejudices. The groupings described here derive from specific cluster samples of we discussed before. The systemic problems listed above apply, but also the datasets used (a collection of ¨long term stable¨local populations with no pretense of comprehensive coverage) do not suffice for the ¨There are five basic groups of human in genetic terms¨ generalization. And genetic grouping is specifically discounted by experts in the field, physical anthropologists. What we're talking about here is statistically recurrent clusters in noncoding DNA microsatellite locations. Please let the discussion stay in Race and genetics and Genetic history of Europe--Carwil 02:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

KarenAER discuss proposed changes first. some of the edits you are making are clearly aimed at offending others so I have removed them.

I have removed your unsourced addition and the pic you added without consensus. How come these are offensive? I think you are just trolling. Please stop...KarenAER 15:17, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

An Iranian photo

I was thinking of adding:

File:Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,.jpg

Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran

Some say Iranians are white, while others disagree that he is white or Iranians are white in general, I was thinking that that photo should be added to the section about the light skin issue, where this Ayatollah can be used as an example of the light skin=white arguement.

While he seems white enough to illustrate this issue, we can't just add this right now without committing original research. Do you have any reliable sources discussing this issue? I don't doubt that there exists some controversy over the whiteness of Iranians as I've noticed it myself, but we can't just add it because we think it illustrates the controversy well. However, if a source discussing the controversy specifically cited Khamenei in this context we may be justified in including a picture to illustrate this. Of course, we'll need the textual content first so let's keep an eye out for reliable sources discussing this issue. Someone once told me about an essay or something about this subject so I'll see if I can find something like that. Thanks for bringing up this issue on the talk page. The Behnam 04:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

The same thing with the Kalash people too - although many of them look White (more specifically Eastern European), but this article's users won't accept it. However, I guess that Iranians are considered Caucasians rather than White because they're not of European ancestry, and that a lot have black or dari brown hair with olive skin. How about the many Hispanics and Mediterreanean people that have have similar complexion too? --203.15.122.35 09:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

WHAT IS THIS SUPPOSED TO MEAN???

"Although differences in skin color between southern Europeans and Moors were nearly nonexistent and on occasion, religious conversion was described figuratively as a change in skin color."

--Carlon 23:03, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

There was a big difference between southern Europeans and Moors Manic Hispanic 00:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Photos

There are 29 Photos in the Black People article and only two here, one of an old lady and one of a cave drawing or something. Am going to add some in. --Hayden5650 00:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

you have a point and I have been thinking about the same thing as well. In all fairness more photos are required. However there was an active debate which several editors indicated that there should be no photos at all. The biggest issue is that whiteness and blackness are constructed differently. In general white people do not view themselves as white but more as the neutral race, whereas society has made blacks very conscious of their race. Consequently society is more comfortable discussing blackness than it is whiteness. For example the author of this book once requested some of

The Race Game consisting of a single, but powerful rule:

For the next seven days, she [the white woman] must use the ascriptive term white whenever she mentioned the name of one of her Euro-American cohorts. She must say, for instance, ‘my white husband, Phil,’or ‘my white friend Julie,’ ‘my lovely white child Jackie.’ . . . I guaranteed her that if she did this for a week and then met me for lunch, I could answer her questions using terms she would understand.

It was so incredibly easy for the white woman to use Black as a racial designator, but she failed to use the term white to describe herself and her friends. Describing the disappointing outcome, Thandeka notes, “We never had lunch together again. Apparently my suggestion made her uncomfortable.” race game

Muntuwandi 01:48, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is silly. Genetically, white skin is the anomaly. I grant you that all this has lots of sociological implications, which should be all means be discussed. But this is also the article on the white skin phenotype. Why this reluctance to discuss the phenotype and the underlying genetics? People refuse to even show pictures of people of that phenotype? Discussion of correlation of other phenotypes (like eye or hair colour) is effectively suppressed with some political hand-waving. This won't do at all. This article needs to discuss both, the straightforward facts of genetics and distribution, and the socio-political history of the construct. dab (𒁳) 00:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah this article is pathetic. PC libs run it to the point you can't even show pictures of white people in a WHITE PEOPLE article. Manic Hispanic 00:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the situation correctly. But if it is really a matter of "political correctness" to show no images here (why??) that's truly laughable. This article needs the detached treatment of population genetics restored. Its topic is Eurasian genetic history, not US history. dab (𒁳) 00:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• This is absurd. I'm adding back the picture of the white family. There is no one in the world who can dispute that this is a photo of white people. --JW1805 (Talk) 01:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with genetics being included because that is discordant with whiteness. For example sub-saharan mtDNA is found all over Europe, but that does not make the people with African haplogroups any less white. The only genetics that is relevant to whiteness is that which causes light skin.

with regard to pictures, care must be taken, otherwise every editor will try to include their favorite supermodel or pornstar, and the article will look more like a tabloid than discussing the concept of whiteness.Muntuwandi 01:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That's why a generic picture of a white family is completely appropriate. Who the heck is that old woman, anyway? --JW1805 (Talk) 02:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the why the cave painting is relevant? Did it occur to anyone that perhaps the figures were "darker than animals" because they only had two colors of paint? We're not going to use the colors in a cave painting as a basis for a scientific approach to who's who, are we?

Agreed, it's not relevent (and probably original research...they look the same shade to me.) --JW1805 (Talk) 03:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The subject is origins of light skin, the two important questions is when and where. Nobody knows for sure so scientists have to use indirect methods such as prehistoric art.Muntuwandi 06:00, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that the picture of the black Europeans in the cave painting should be in the article because the POV that Europeans at that time were black is attributed to a Frank Sweet, a reliable source historian. I don't think that the family picture should be in the article because the POV that they're white is not sourced.----^DarkTea 06:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Why don't we just cut the PC bollocks, everyone knows what a white person is. The family pic is good. Here are some examples of white people: George Bush, Tony Blair, Bill Gates, Beethoven, Darwin, Jefferson, Newton, Ford, Queen Elizabeth, Kaiser Wilhelm, Adolf Hitler, John Howard, Don Brash, Bill English, Ernest Rutherford. Need I go on? We hardly need genetic evidence to prove the difference between them and the likes of Rodney King, Condy Rice, Emperor Hirohito, Pol Pot, Aussie Aboriginals, OJ Simpson et cetera et cetera. So why not have a picture of people who we all know are white? --Hayden5650 06:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

File:LA2-Blitz-0263Cauc.JPG

portrait gallery of what were considered Caucasoid types in the 1930s. We don't necessarily call these "Caucasoid" anymore, and much less a "race", but the gallery still covers accurately what we consider "white people".

Template:2000 Race US Census map

Compare the geographic range covered by the gallery above with the current definition of "White" origins for purposes of the US census.

I don't think the "white family" image is a very good choice. Of course it's an image showing white people, but seeing the very large corpus of images to choose from, I am sure we can do better. What we need is a selection of a few portraits showing the range of Eurasian plus North African ethnicities that are considered "white". We need at the very least an European portrait, a Berber one, and a Central Asian one. dab (𒁳) 10:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

We need to focus on White Americans and White British, as that is the majority of people who read the English Wiki. I mean, how many people look at Yasser Arafat and think, 'Yasser, the white man'??

Just because we are whites of western European descent doesn't mean we have to overcompensate on the correctness by pretending we are not the majority.

The last thing we need is a page full of North Africans and Eurasians. The further east you go, the skin begins to change tone and the eyes begin to increase in curvature. This is best illustrated in Romanian people.

Let's have the bulk of photos representing White British and White American, with a couple of the fringes of white society, including some from the western-most Soviet Union. --Hayden5650 10:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

No. It doesn't matter who reads the article, what matters is what our reliable sources define the article to be about. I propose the following criteria for image choice:

• identifiable ethnicity. The image source must give the region of origin of the person depicted, not just generic "white".
• aesthetic portrait, not just a random snapshot.
• historical images should be preferred, but they have the disadvantage of being b/w. Ideal are early colour photographs
• avoid famous people
• White Americans have their own article. They are not ideal for this one, since their 'ethnicity of origin' can rarely be determined

possibilities matching these criteria I can find are are: Image:Armeniangirl.jpg (two Armenian girls); Image:0000233523-004.jpg (Georgian girl); Image:Persian local woman.jpg (Persian girl); Image:Palestinian girl in Qalqiliya.jpg (Palestinian girl). I am sure we can find many others. The aim should be to present at least four images, covering Europe, Central Asia, North Africa and the Near East. The problem seems indeed to be that white people are somehow not considered "ethnic", and uploaders are often content to just describe the image as "blond man" or similar, without stating region of origin. dab (𒁳) 11:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Why oh why can't we just have normal, everyday white people? Why do we have to have Arabs and pakis and armenians? Why not English and Scottish and German and Dutch, the real white people! --Hayden5650 11:48, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Hayden5650, your argument borders on racism. The reasons for saying NO! to your rethorical question are so many as to question your encyclopedic intent. The Ogre 11:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This whole argument is a liberal joke and I'm not losing my account over it. Night ya'll --Hayden5650 11:54, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

indeed, Hayden, you are not helping. Certainly we can have an image of a Scotsman or Dutch, as one example of white ethicity, but your racialist innuendos are certainly not productive for this article. dab (𒁳) 11:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Please don't use that ridiculous US census grouping as a reliable source, the history of those categories in the US makes the US Census Bureau nearly worthless as a source on this issue. It's fine when discussing the US perspective but not the world view. Not so long ago if you put Irish on the US census you wouldn't be counted as "white" and suddenly you can put down "Sudanese" you're counted as a white person? And I partially agree with Hayden on this one, instead of showing images of people who clearly represent the vast majority of white people some editors here feel the need to find some one guy that looks white in Pakistan. We might as well start add Asians to this article, after all their skin color isn't very different. JRWalko 15:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I was part of the original image dispute that led to an attempted "no images" rule. The problem we encountered derives from the poor definition of the concept of "white people." Some editors advocated a very specific set of people he seemed to feel were "exemplary" whites. This selection focused upon Nordic & Germanic regions but inexplicably excluded Ashkenazi Jews, and of course excluded non-Europeans. I proposed adding Benjamin Netanyahu (of Lithuanian descent) and to a lesser extent, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia as a possible 'southern' white. Lukas19 couldn't tolerate having Netanyahu pictured (for some reason), so we ended up removing all of the pictures. As the conflict illustrated, Wikipedians, not reliable sources, were using their personal opinions to determine who is white and should be pictured - that is OR. It seems that this is again the case here. The Behnam 17:07, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

European genetic history

This is not concordant with white genetic history. Many of the haplogroups of Europeans are shared by non-whites. And many whites have non-european haplogroups. haplogroups are not concordant with physical appearance, it is for this reason I believe European genetics should not be in this article but should be in the article European genetic history.Muntuwandi 11:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

neither is European genetic history a strict subtopic of this article, nor is this article a strict subtopic of European genetic history, but their are overlapping and should hence be mutually linked. dab (𒁳) 11:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Exactly! The Ogre 11:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

this has little to do with whiteness. In fact it is original research to imply that. there is no such thing as a white haplogroup. for all we know some of the haplogroups that spread into Europe were by europeans who were still black. Early cro-magnons fossils show they had long legs and short trunks and narrow bodies like east african nilotics such as the Maasai. this is indication they were still black because this type of body is adapted to hotter regions. After several thousands of years the cro-magnons evolved shorter legs and longer trunks. Some authors suggest that whiteness may have fully arisen only in the last 11,000 at the end of the holocene. It is thus wrong and original research to ascribe 40,000 years of genetic history to white people when several thousands of years Europeans were black. http://www.nerc.ac.uk/publications/planetearth/2006/summer/sum06-skeleton.pdf Muntuwandi 12:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Parting note, remember that Northern Middle and Southern white europeans look very different, so we definately need pics showing the differences between Swedish, Germanic and Italian peoples. The faces of each look very different, especially the shape of the nose, hardness/softness of facial features and variations in color. --Hayden5650 12:18, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

And with regards to that ridiculous blonde picture, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard finding a pic of a white person with blonde hair! There's hardly such a shortage that we must resort to the odd Negro that has blonde hair --Hayden5650 12:22, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That is just to show that blondness is not concordant with whiteness. You do not have to be white to be blonde. That is why those sections were removed.Muntuwandi 12:25, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This article isn't about proving whether or not you have to be white to be blonde. As I said earilier, the article Black People has 29 pics, so we certainly don't need even more of them spilling into here. --Hayden5650 12:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Why not the races are not discrete non-overlapping entities.Muntuwandi 12:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you referring to halfcasts? Come on man, we all know what a white man is, why can't we just say it? --Hayden5650 12:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

As expected from a buddy of Nordic_Crusader. Muntuwandi 12:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

guys, can you cut the edit-warring, I am trying to improve this article. Muntuwandi, it is not "original research" to state that hair colour is de facto correlated to skin colour, it is "research": of course we need to cite reliable sources discussing the topic. My involvement here is due precisely because I came here because I wanted some references discussing this correlation. I didn't find what I was looking for, but discovered that it was buried in the edit history. Obviously, there can be stray mutations towards blond hair in non-white populations. But these are exceptional, and surely shouldn't be discussed here, but on blonde hair. That said, can Hayden5650 please restrain himself from annoying other editors with his racialist nonsense. This should be a detached discussion of academic literature on the topic. We are not here to prove or disprove anything, but to report on scholarly debate. Krimpet (talk · contribs), I consider this protection somewhat premature. Don't lock down the article after two or three reverts. Often things smoothen out after half an hour or so of confrontation. And we have WP:3RR to take care of individual trouble-makers. dab (𒁳) 13:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I felt no editors were trying to seek a consensus and were just steamrolling edits from the past. Most of this controversial material was being advocated for by User:Lukas19 who has since been blocked for promoting Nordicism. There has already been extensive discussion on the use of genetics and the conclusion is that genetics is non concordant with whiteness.

You can see how sub-consciously powerful eurocentric bias is. Dbachman why do you assume that when a black has white hair it is a stray mutation. It is most likely the other way round. The fact that people in the south pacific and Europeans have blonde hair is indicative that blonde hair genes were already in the ancestral population in Africa prior to the dispersal of humans. Both Australian Aboriginals and Melanesians have blonde hair. Since they are considered the first migrants out of Africa it says alot. Cavalli-Sforza states that the vast majority of genetic polymorphisms arose in the millions of years of human evolution prior to the dispersal of humans 50,000 years ago. Most of these polymorphisms came to differ in frequency by drift or selection. What this entails is that though new mutations have been occuring such as the RH-, most polymorphisms only differ in frequency between the "races". Muntuwandi 13:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, I am not interested in disputes between Nordicist and Afrocentric editors. I am only interested in references to academic studies. The sources I cite below show that light hair has been selected for together with light skin in mesolithic Europe. This has happened nowhere else. If you can produce a source for your claim that

"The fact that people in the south pacific and Europeans have blonde hair is indicative that blonde hair genes were already in the ancestral population in Africa prior to the dispersal of humans"

you are welcome to quote it, but in itself it doesn't appeal to me as very straightforward. But even if it was, this frankly wouldn't change anything about the mesolithic scenario. This isn't about blond hair in the South Pacific, this is about light skin, the sexual selection that led to light skin, and the features that co-evolved with this process. dab (𒁳) 14:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Both-Aborigines-and-Europeans-Rooted-in-Africa-54225.shtml Muntuwandi 14:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

This is the problem with the article, there are several people who are white and do not have blond hair and there are people who are non-white who do have blond hair. This is why equating whiteness with blondeness from a taxonomic perspective is flawed. Australian Aboriginals are very much related to Europeans. Both groups are members of haplogroup N. This haplogroup is not found significantly in South east Asia or even in Melanesia which are all haplogroup M. Already you can see that both aboriginals and Europeans have straight and sometimes blonde hair. *Mitochondrial footsteps of the Old World human colonization: A single origin, several dispersal hypothesis

• [12]

Muntuwandi 14:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

any particular reason you are saying this? what does that have to do with the topic at hand? It is completely undisputed that the ancestors of Eurasians came Out of Africa some 80,000 years ago. This whole question of polymorphism concerns the mesolithic, about 50,000 years after the separation of Australians and Eurasians. The article you link doesn't even mention skin or hair. Can you try to stay a little bit on topic? Nobody is "equating whiteness with blondness" what are you talking about? dab (𒁳) 14:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Skin, hair and eye colour correlation

This is not the place to discuss various hair and eye colours in general. It is the place to discuss the correlation of skin colour with these. Sources relevant to this topic:

• Barsh GS (2003) What Controls Variation in Human Skin Color? PLoS Biol 1(1): e27 [13]

  The characteristic phenotype of fair skin, freckling, and carrot-red hair is associated with large amounts of pheomelanin and small amounts of eumelanin and is caused by loss-of-function alleles in a single gene, the melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) (Sturm et al. 1998; Rees 2000) However, MC1R variation has a significant effect on pigmentation only in populations where red hair and fair skin are common (Rana et al. 1999; Harding et al. 2000)

• Shriver, M.D. & Parra, E.J. Comparison of narrow-band reflectance spectroscopy and tristimulus colorimetry for measurements of skin and hair color in persons of different biological ancestry. Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 112, 17−27 (2000).[14]
• [15]

  Did sexual selection alter the appearance of Europeans in a number of ways, and not simply by diversifying hair and eye color?

  According to the sexual selection hypothesis, European skin became whiter when Europe was predominantly steppe-tundra 25,000 to 10,000 years ago. If the cause was solely natural selection to promote vitamin D synthesis, or relaxation of selection for protection from sunburn and skin cancer, the depigmentation should have begun as soon as modern humans became established in Europe, i.e., c. 40,000 BP.

• Female skin is probably at its palest in women of childbearing age and on highly adipose parts of the body, i.e., the breasts, the hips, the buttocks, and the thighs. In any event, this mark of feminity may have been targeted by sexual selection, as suggested by a cross-cultural male preference for lighter-complexioned women (Aoki, 2002; Feinman & Gill, 1978; Frost, 1988; Frost, 1994b; Frost 2005; van den Berghe & Frost, 1986). This selection is apparent in the tendency of upper classes throughout the world to appropriate the fairest-skinned women available.
• Aoki, K. (2002). Sexual selection as a cause of human skin colour variation: Darwin's hypothesis revisited. Annals of Human Biology, 29, 589-608.
• Frost, P. (2005). Fair Women, Dark Men. The Forgotten Roots of Color Prejudice. Cybereditions: Christchurch (New Zealand).
• Frost, P. (1994a). Geographic distribution of human skin colour: A selective compromise between natural selection and sexual selection? Human Evolution, 9, 141-153.

Frost, P. (1988). Human skin color: A possible relationship between its sexual dimorphism and its social perception. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 32, 38-58.

• Madrigal L and W. Kelly 2006. Human skin-color sexual dimorphism: A test of the sexual selection hypothesis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (online pub. www.interscience.wiley.com )
• Sturm, R.A. and T.N. Frudakis (2004). Eye colour: portals into pigmentation genes and ancestry. Trends in Genetics 20, 327-332.
• Sturm, R.A., R.D. Teasdale, and N.F. Box (2001). Human pigmentation genes: identification, structure and consequences of polymorphic variation. Gene, 277, 49-62.
• Frost, P. (1994). Preference for darker faces in photographs at different phases of the menstrual cycle: Preliminary assessment of evidence for a hormonal relationship, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 79, 507-514.[16]
• On the Correlation Between Hair Colour and Eye Colour in Man, by K. P. Biometrika 1904 Biometrika Trust [17]
• Jablonski NG, Chaplin G. 2000. The evolution of skin coloration.[18]
• P. Frost, Why Do Europeans Have So Many Hair and Eye Colors? [19]

  MC1R and OCA2 variability should have developed almost entirely during this time window (c. 25,000 - 10,000 BP).

• Frost, P. 2006. European hair and eye color - A case of frequency-dependent sexual selection? Evolution and Human Behavior 27:85-103

According to the 2006 Norton et al. study, light skin colour seems to have been successfully selected for paraphyletically in three unrelated instances in the Mesolithic. In one of these instances (the European one), light skin co-evloved with hair and eye colour polymorphism. This should maybe be treated in greater detail at European genetic history, but it is certainly relevant to this article as well. dab (𒁳) 13:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC) http://news.softpedia.com/news/Both-Aborigines-and-Europeans-Rooted-in-Africa-54225.shtml Muntuwandi 14:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

context? relevance? your point? dab (𒁳) 14:47, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

My point is to show that blond hair could have arose in Africa and when australians and Europeans branched off from the common source each carried a set of genes coding for blond hair. Europeans later evolved light skin, australians evolved dark skin. Hence hair color does not covary with skin color. And since this article is about white people, mainly white skin, we need to play down the hair color. Someone just reinstated this hair color I'm not sure whether it is Dbachmann or Hayden. From a social perspective yes we associate blondes with white people just because the other blonds are from australasia are relatively few. But from a taxonomic perspective it is not valid.Muntuwandi 15:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

can you cite a reliable source making that claim? Also, by the same token as saying that the "blond" gene was present in the "Out of Africa" population, the "white" gene would also have been present. It was still only selected for in the mesolithic. Whether blond hair in Australia and Europe is due to independent mutation, or a common original mutation, is a meaningful question, but not one that is relevant for this topic. Here, we are talking about processes in mesolithic Eurasia. What may or may not have happened in Australia at the same time is completely inconequential to that. I do have the impression that you are arguing against a statement that no-one has even made. dab (𒁳) 15:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

A legitimate question, which is difficult to ask, is where white skin arose. It is not impossible it arose in Africa. Cavalli-Sforza.

At most genetic loci, African populations harbor some relatively common alleles that are absent in non-African populations; however, most of the alleles that are common in non-African populations are also common in African populations. Thus, the pattern of genetic variation is one of nested subsets, such that the variation in non-African populations is a subset of the variation found in African populations.THE Microevolution

while the blond gene is not specifically mentioned the very fact that non-African alleles are a subset of African alleles indicates that it is possible for the blond gene to have arisen in Africa and it is possible that it is still in Africa in some sort of recessive form.Muntuwandi 21:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If you like, we can well state that hair colour polymorphism also appeared among Aboriginals. That's merely a parallel case. What is on-topic in this article is that skin, hair and eye colour were selected for together in the European mesolithic. Parallel cases like the Australian one may serve to put this into context as more or less normal, although nowhere else has the selection gone quite so far. P. Frost (1994) above indeed states that this selection is apparent in the tendency of upper classes throughout the world to appropriate the fairest-skinned women available -- The European mesolithic has simply pushed this trend farther than observed in any other population, it is by no means in principle unique to Europe. It appears that there would be sexual selection towards light skin everywhere, but in tropical region, this is counter-balanced by the physical disadvantages of light skin. In fact, since your Aboriginals are likewise situated at moderate latitudes, this could even be taken as independent confirmation of the general trend. I find it striking that "gentlemen prefer blondes" should be confirmed at such a fundamental anthropological level in this sense, and yes, this is relevant here, since white skin would probably never have evolved without this sexual selection bias. But if we can lift protection now, I'll be prepared to {{mergeto}} this discussion into Genetic history of Europe: a brief reference here should be sufficient. dab (𒁳) 15:46, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

• If we are going to attempt to present certain hair and eye color deviations exhibited by Europeans in the "white people" article, the sources actually need to cite these hair and eye color deviations and characteristics defining "white people," NOT just Europeans. Correlations found within European genetics may be discussed elsewhere but this remains relevant at an article about European genetics, not here, because these sources are about European genetics, not "white people." The Behnam 16:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Behnam, this is nonsense. Nobody claims "white people" are a unified group. Indeed, if you would read the article, you would note that there are at least three loci of independent (paraphyletic) origin. If you insist that every statement we make here apply to every "white" individual, we might as well delete this article. Instead, we have to address the various subgroups individually. Europeans are just one major subgroup (and of course themselves far from homogenous). Homo sapiens exhibits skin colour polymorphism., and 'white' skin is the innovation. 'White' populations exhibit hair and eye colour polymorphism. Your suggestion that this should not be mentioned here makes about as much sense as demanding that light skin should not be mentioned in human skin colour since it affects only a subset of the population. dab (𒁳) 16:36, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In trying to define a group of people such as white people we should define them based on the common characteristics of the group. For example those who are identify as black include Africans, melanesians, Australians, and African Americans. In such a situation it is pointless to discuss genetics because the diversity is huge. Many African Americans have considerable amounts of European Admixture, yet they identify as black. I have even seen some with blue or green eyes. So the defining feature of who is black is primarily dark skin the question of whether someone has frizzy or straight hair, brown eyes or a broad nose is not so relevant to blackness. Consequently trying to describe each and every feature of some people who identify as white does not define whiteness. If we decide to describe types then we might as well resurrect the Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean subraces, which is a throwback to the 19th century. Furthermore the features that are described are not unique to whites, since blond hair is found amongst melanesians, australians and albinos of all races.Muntuwandi 20:42, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Modern day scientific racism

The section on physiology and genetics is modern day scientific racism. The section implies that white physiology is fundamentally different from the physiology of other races. Do whites have a different digestive system or a different cardiovascular system. That is nonsense. Furthermore sorry to sound like a broken record but european genetics are non-cordant with race. All "european" haplogroups extend clinally even across geographic boundaries into Asia and Africa. The same with African haplogroups. No scientists has ever described Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA) as a "white haplogroup". Furthermore the haplogroups are not naturally occurring groups, these haplotypes have been artificially grouped together by scientists simply for ease of classification. Therefore you cannot conclusively identify someones race based on mitochondrial DNA since millions of whites have "African" haplogroups[20] and millions of blacks have "European" haplogroups.

My proposition is that this article should primarily focus on the social construction of whiteness and not genetics. A small mention of the genetics of light skin such as SLC24A5, but this gene only accounts for 25-38% of light skin. The other genes that are responsible for light skin have yet to be identified. Furthermore the genes for blondism as far as I know have also not been identified. Sexual selection is likely to have played a role but most of the hypothesis regarding this are entirely speculative. It is most likely that drift, and both natural and sexual selection played a role. So sexual selection should not be given undue weight. If this is something that is agreeable to other editors I am willing to request for unprotection.Muntuwandi 21:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

People with your mentality say everything is racist. There is nothing racist about science, only the way that it may be used to prove or disprove a particular point of view.

Our digestive system or cardiovascular system is not that much different to that of an ape or pig either, that is why humans can walk around with a pig's heart in their chest. Are you saying that there is no genetic difference between humans and pigs?

It is in fact your own subconscious racism that is motivating you to try and prevent information being presented. That is why if a picture of a white businessman wearing a suit was put up, you'd delete it, and why if a picture of a negro wearing rags or native costume, ie animal skins was put up, you'd delete it because the racism within you says that the business suit wearing man is better than the negro in his native garb. See this for an illustration of how beliefs and truths both influence knowledge.

Blonde hair is no more racist than brunette or red hair, all of which are produced by genetic phenotypes. The fact that the blonde phenotype is far, far more common in white people is not racist, it's just a fact, and has been long before the days of Adolf or any of your Nordicist conspiracies.

White is a gene, and is quite simply proven by the fact that two white parents produce white babies, just like negro's produce negro babies. Don't bring up albinism. This article isn't about genetic mutations and freaks of nature.

Lastly, I think all the subconscious points of view are best illustrated by the fact that every race under the sun seems to feel the need to try and claim to be white. Why do people not try to claim to be negro or oriental? Those articles certainly don't seem to have the same problems. Except for the sub-saharan negroes, who try desperately to claim North Africans as also being negro, so they can claim such inventions as the Pyramids of ancient Egypt, and all the civilisation that went with it. However, the North Africans are trying to claim ties north, not south with the white civilisation. --Hayden5650 00:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You have a lot to learn Dear Hayden. You are a racist, admit it. Be proud of it, take ownership of your ignorance. It's pretty ironic that you say to Muntuwandi that, "your own subconscious racism that is motivating you to try and prevent information being presented". It is you who is trying to put a white superior spin on everything, and you are consciously being racist, yet denying it. It's obvious by your edits. And it is not proven that two white parents produce white children, and vice versa. There have been cases where an obviously white married couple, who knew of no admixture, had a "colored" child. The husband divorced his wife thinking she had an affair, but later found out that his ancestry had a black African, it was he who held the gene for their child to be of color. Although, it's is not the norm, of course, but it can happen. The same for black folks. I've seen children of African Americans as white as Irish, but both parents where "black", well one was half white. But in America, at the time, and even now, it's considered as black. The one drop rule. You do not know for sure your or anyone else's ancestry, where the "gene" can produce an offspring with traits from an ancestor. And another thing -- the "white gene" IS a mutation. Look it up. If you could see my family, the high school biology that you seem to know, does not fit. As I learned in junior high, when we did the little chart thing of dominate genes. My family didn't fit. My parents have brown eyes, and hair, so do their parents, except one had hazel eyes, but my little sister has blonde hair and blue eyes, though she looks like my father. That did not fit in with the simplified biology chart of dominate genes of hair and eye color. It's more complicated than that. Do some real research in science, genetics and biology. - Jeeny ^Talk 03:04, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

One such famous case happened in South Africa to Sandra Laing Muntuwandi 03:16, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for that link. I remember my mother telling me the story of the "colored child" and the white parents, and the husband divorcing the mother thinking she had an affair with a "black man". I was very young, and didn't ask any questions, but believed my mum, of course. I wish she were alive today so I could ask her about the "case". I don't believe it was Sandra Laing, as I think it was in America. I found this just now about throw back to the dominate genes. In my early high school biology class I wasn't taught about the complexity, just eye and hair color. As I believe Hayden is going on. I was the only one in my biology class that the simplified chart of dominate/recessive genes didn't fit my family. It did make me want to know more, and further my education, which I did. But then, as a child, I felt like an outcast, but nothing like Sandra Laing, of course. That is so sad. I friggen hate people, sometimes. I'm sorry, I'm in one of those moods. Sheesh. - Jeeny ^Talk 04:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Throwback has probably caused many divorces in the past. Since Hayden decided to raise the issue, I've started an article on Sandra Laing.Muntuwandi 04:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)