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White Latin American

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This article creates an ehtnic group out of a synthesis of statistical artefacts, and should be deleted per WP:OR WP:SYNTH, WP:NEOLOGISM and merged/redirected to Demographics of Latin America or Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. The precedent was set in the deletion discussion of White Argentine where it was shown that there is no such group except as a statistical artefact of census data. The same holds for this group, indeed for some countries it is not even that - for example Mexico has not included race in its censuses since 1921 - that means that there osn't even reliabel statistical information about any group called "white" for that country and indeed the literature on race (e.g. Nutini and Isaac 2009) stress that racial categories are completely fluent and situational, and mostly correlates with class and certain folk definitions that are not consistently applied.

There is no body of literature that considers "white people" in Latin America to form a coherent whol about which it is possible to make general statements. Rather the literature on race in Latin America always states that there is wide variability about what being "white" means in different latin american countries. The only source that supports this usage is A source by a minor Mexcian sociologists Francsico Lizcano who openly admits that his usage of "etnia" for racial groupins is non-standard - and then of course the CIA worldfact book which just analyses demographics in all countries according to American racial categories, but has no scientific credibility. The fact that the term has been "occasionally used" does not mean that this justifies an article about the subject, especially not in the face of an ample literature that testifies to the non-existence of the concept as a valid group.

The article also has the OR, POV problem that it uses a very narrow folk definition of "white" which stresses genetics, descent and phenotype - ignoring the vast literaturew showing that in most of Latin America the main correlate of being White is social status and that classification into the "white" depends more on economic than on biological heritage.

It also incidentally violates WP:EGRS through its picture cavalcade by attributing people to the category "White" based solely on their appearance or others evaluation of it.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:09, 20 April 2011 (UTC) ·Maunus·ƛ· 13:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions. -- -- Favonian (talk) 14:05, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Latin America-related deletion discussions. -- Favonian (talk) 14:08, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This article covers a significant proportion of Latin America's population. Here some reasons:

1) Afro Latin Americans and Amerindian Americans already have their own articles, so it is fair that Euro-descendants have it too.

2) There are several countries in the region that conduct ethnic/racial censuses or surveys with categories that allow people to identify themselves as White/Branco/Blanco. The existance of official figures on this matter already justify an article about it. The countries with racial censuses/studies are:

3) In the cases of countries which do not conduct racial/ethnic censuses, there are international sources that provide fair estimates. The CIA Factbook and Encyclopaedia Britannica are well reputed sources, among others. In the case of Argentina, for example, I have at least five sources that confirm that at least 80% of its population is European/White: World Statesmen.org: Argentina Argentina: People: Ethnic Groups. Composición Étnica de las Tres Áreas Culturales del Continente Americano al Comienzo del Siglo XXI by Francisco Lizcano Fernández. page 218, UAEM (2005). Ethnic Groups Worldwide: A Ready Reference Handbook. by David Levinson. Page 313. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1998. ISBN 1573560197 World Fact File. Dorling Kindersley Books Limited, London.

4) Lizcano Fernández's work Composición Étnica de las Tres Áreas Culturales del Continente Americano al Comienzo del Siglo XXI is always misvalued. Whether you like it or not, the man is an eminence in its field, and his work was published by a well-reputed university. You are intitled to dislike his work or conclussions, but that does not diminish the value of the study.

5) There are other studies that deal on how many Latin Americans self-identify as "Whites". For example this survey named ECoSocial done in 2007. I provide links for both versions in Spanish and Portuguese: Etnia, condiciones de vida y discriminación. (Spanish) and EcoSocial 2007 (Portugués)

6) Recently I found this article: Whiteness in Latin America: Measurement and Meaning in National Censuses (1850-1950) written by Mara Loveman. Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Vol. 95-2, 2009. I planned to add her conclusions to the article, but I was bussy and had no time to do it. I think that further studies on the matter of Whiteness in Latin America exist: they have to be found and add to the article.

7) If what bothers detractors of this article is the template of "ethnic group", I may agree in its removal and replacement by another template that suits the content of the article. I also may agree in a name change to "Latin Americans of European descent".

The way I see it, there are plenty of sources to back up the existance of White people in Latin America, and to assess very fairly its demographic importance. This article surely needs improvement, but by no means it should be deleted.--Pablozeta (talk) 16:50, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is arguing that there ar enot people who identify as white in Latin America - what is debated is whether they can be meaningfully treated as a single group. None of your sources show this to be the case.Your statements that some individual countries have white groups in their censuses or in the national demographic classification cannot be used to justofy the larger concept. Whether or not "African Latin Americans" and "American indians" have pages is firstly irrelevant for the merits of this article, secondly wikipedia has no such concept as "fair" - but operates only on what can be showe in sources. "Fair estimates" from the Factbook may be enough to provide circumstantial mention within an article - it is by no means enough to show notability of a subject and the factbook do in anycase never treats latin american whites as a single group but only as demographic segments within single latin american countries. The Lizcano source is fringe and uses the concept in a non-standard way - and even admits to do so - he is by no means eminent in his field and the Universtiy of Toluca where he works is a minor state university within Mexico and has no international credentials to speak of. Your source number six is the closest thing to a passable source that you have produced, but it treats the ways in whiuch Whiteness is different among Latin American nations and does not at all pretend to establish the unity of "white latin americans" as a single group. ·Maunus·ƛ· 18:12, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. As Maunus notes, this is OR/SYNTH and violates WP:BLP policy. Frankly, Wikipedia would be well rid of racist nonsense like this in any case - it is pushing a POV based on nothing but discredited 'science' and on a systematic misinterpretation of ethnicity - it is an insult to the people of Latin America that their identity should be presented in such a way by a group of contributors clearly intent on ignoring the complexities of Latin America, and instead painting a picture of racial distinctness and superiority. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:47, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep From their statements it is clear that Maunus and AndyTheGrump see this as as poll on whether there exists a race of White Latin Americans. Consistent with their long-term POVs against race as a biological concept they therefore wish to delete this article. That is irrelevant since it is clear that the concept exists as an important social phenomenon in many Latin American nations. Similarly, Maunus spent a great deal of effort in trying to convince others to get Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/White American (2nd nomination) deleted. Which is even more absurd, that many people identify as white American is beyond doubt and the concept is obviously important. This is similar.Miradre (talk) 18:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The fcat that there exist groups that identify as white in individual latin american countries does not mean that the larger grouping is justified. Note that policy based arguments surely will be than ad hominem arguments. On that note maybe I should note that Miradre is a Single Purpose Account dedicated to pushing a pro-White Nationalist viewpoint across a wide range of articles. ·Maunus·ƛ· 18:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 40: / Line 40: @@
 *'''Delete'''. As Maunus notes, this is OR/SYNTH and violates WP:BLP policy. Frankly, Wikipedia would be well rid of racist nonsense like this in any case - it is pushing a POV based on nothing but discredited 'science' and on a systematic misinterpretation of ethnicity - it is an insult to the people of Latin America that their identity should be presented in such a way by a group of contributors clearly intent on ignoring the complexities of Latin America, and instead painting a picture of racial distinctness and superiority. [[User:AndyTheGrump|AndyTheGrump]] ([[User talk:AndyTheGrump|talk]]) 17:47, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 *'''Keep''' From their statements it is clear that Maunus and AndyTheGrump see this as as poll on whether there exists a ''race'' of  White Latin Americans. Consistent with their long-term POVs against race as a biological concept they therefore wish to delete this article. That is irrelevant since it is clear that the concept exists as an important social phenomenon in many Latin American nations. Similarly, Maunus spent a great deal of effort in trying to convince others to get [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/White American (2nd nomination)]] deleted. Which is even more absurd, that many people identify as white American is beyond doubt and the concept is obviously important. This is similar.[[User:Miradre|Miradre]] ([[User talk:Miradre|talk]]) 18:53, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
+:*The fcat that there exist groups that identify as white in individual latin american countries does not mean that the larger grouping is justified. Note that policy based arguments surely will be than ad hominem arguments. On that note maybe I should note that Miradre is a Single Purpose Account dedicated to pushing a pro-White Nationalist viewpoint across a wide range of articles. [[User:Maunus|·Maunus·<span class="Unicode">ƛ</span>·]] 18:59, 20 April 2011 (UTC)