White people

"Whites" redirects here. For other uses, see White (disambiguation).

File:Woman redhead natural portait.jpg

American white woman with red hair and blue eyes

File:French man suit portrait.jpg

French white man

File:Austrian female blonde whole.jpg

Austrian white woman with blond hair

In basic English usage, White people (also white race or whites) "relates to a human group having light-coloured skin, especially of European ancestry."

The term has been applied with varying degrees of formality and consistency in many disciplines. Such disciplines include sociology, political science, medicine, human languages, cultural analysis, and legal analysis.

Even though the natural sciences have been used in the past to justify varying treatments based on racial background, race today is largely considered a sociological construct, the definition of which is subject to change as society evolves. The definition of whiteness has varied in different time periods and locations. However, some groups, such as the Germanic people, are consistently labeled as white.. The definition of whiteness has had implications for topics such as national identity, consanguinity, public policy, religion, population statistics, racial segregation, affirmative action, eugenics, racial marginalization and racial quotas.

History of the term

The term Black has been used to describe sub-Saharan Africans since ancient history. The origin of the term white in terms of race and ethnicity is somewhat unclear. One early use of the term appears in the Amherst Papyri, which were scrolls written in ancient Ptolemaic Greek. It contains the use of Black and White in reference to human skin color.

Few of the early classifications of race were disassociated from the social and political views of the time. In 1758, Linneaus proposed what he considered to be natural taxonomic categories of the human species. He distinguished between Homo sapiens afer and Homo sapiens europaeus and later added four geographical subdivisions of humans: white Europeans, red Americans, yellow Asians and black Africans. Although Linnaeus intended an objective classification, he used both biological and cultural data in his subdivision descriptions. In 1775, Blumenbach categorized humans into five 'races', which largely corresponded with Linnaeus's classifications except for the addition of Oceanians (whom he called 'Malay')

Subsequently Immanuel Kant in Von den verschiedenen Rassen den Menschen (About The Different Races of Men - 1775) uses weiß (white).

According to Gregory Jay, Professor of English in University of Wisconsin,

Before the age of exploration, group differences were largely based on language, religion, and geography. The word "race" referred rather loosely to a population group that shared a language, customs, social behaviors, and other cultural characteristics -- as in the French race or the Russian race or the Spanish race (differences we might now call "ethnic" rather than "racial").

He goes on to say:

...the European had always reacted a bit hysterically to the differences of skin color and facial structure between themselves and the populations encountered in Africa, Asia, and the Americas (see, for example, Shakespeare's dramatization of racial conflict in Othello and The Tempest). Beginning in the 1500s, Europeans began to develop what became known as "scientific racism," the attempt to construct a biological rather than cultural definition of race. Biological races were said to predict and determine the cultural traits of peoples, so that cultural differences could be "explained" on a "scientific" basis. ... Whiteness, then, emerged as what we now call a "pan-ethnic" category, as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single "race," especially so as to distinguish them from people with whom they had very particular legal and political relations — Africans, Asians, American Indians

Social and physical perceptions of white

See also: Race, Social interpretations of race, and Race and multilocus allele clusters

In many countries, such as the United States, the definition of white has changed over the years.

United States

Main article: White American

David R. Roediger argues that the construction of the white race in the United States was in direct effort to mentally distance slaveowners from slaves. By the 18th century, white had become well established as a racial term. In the United States, confusion over the designation white or Caucasian is considerable, due partly to the introduction of the term Hispanic in the 1980 United States Census.

The 2000 United States Census, speaking of race categories, states, "They generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country. They do not conform to any biological, anthropological or genetic criteria."

Nevertheless, recent research indicates that self-described race is a near-perfect indicator of an individual's genetic profile, at least in the United States. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified 4 genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States, and were able to correctly assign individuals to groups that correspond with their self-described race ("white", "African American", "East Asian", or "Hispanic") for all but five individuals (an error rate of 0.14%). They conclude that ancient ancestry, which correlates tightly with self-described race and not current residence, is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population. . Critiquing this line of thinking, molecular anthropologist Jonathan Marks notes that the races themselves are "an assertion of qualitative geographical distinctions ... [which] is not natural, not objective, not value-neutral, not scientific, and not being inferred from the data." Further, the use of genetic markers is "subtly redefining race yet again" by "a very careful look at the very small amount of genetic variation that has a major geographical component." This requires a prior, social decision on who is which race causing "an epistemological problem" of circular reasoning because this selection is not genetic, but cultural.

It should be noted, though, that racial admixture is important among US ethnic groups. For example, the above used article states that from the genetic perspective, Hispanics generally represent a differential mixture of European, Native American and African ancestry, and that the sample used was of a single location in Texas and was composed of Mexican Americans. As to African Americans, it also states that this group has an estimated White admixture of 10%-20%, while many whites also have some degree of non-White admixture.[15]

The United States Census parameters for race give national origin a racial value. This can be confusing in regards to people of Middle Eastern Americans and North African American who are grouped together by law with White Americans. The U.S. Census assumes that all Jewish Americans are white, but this is not the case. For example, by responding "Israeli" in the U.S. Census, a person will be categorized as white, even though not all Israelis are of European descent (Ashkenazi or Sephardi); they may be Jews of Ethiopian (Beta Israel), Middle Eastern (Mizrahi), Yemenite (Teimani, considered by some a Mizrahi subgroup), or Indian descent (see Jewish ethnic divisions for more information on Jewish ethnic diversity), or may instead be Israeli Arabs or Druze (who may or may not identify themselves as Arabs).

Canada

In the results of Statistics Canada's 2001 Canadian Census, white is one category in the population groups data variable, derived from data collected in question 19 (the results of this question are also used to derive the visible minority groups variable).

In the 1995 Employment Equity Act, '"members of visible minorities" means persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour'. In the 2001 Census, persons who marked-in Chinese, South Asian, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Southeast Asian, Arab, West Asian, Japanese or Korean were included in the visible minority population.

A separate census question on "cultural or ethnic origin" (question 17) does not refer to skin colour.

Norway

According to the Norwegian Social Science Data Service, white is a possible answer to ethnic/people group category question. After Norwegians, Sami, Kvens and other Nordics, it is mentioned as white/European. Other categories are Asian, Black/African/Caribbean and "other". Statistics Norway considers the Asian category to include Turkish people.

United Kingdom and Ireland

In the UK, the Office for National Statistics uses the term White as an ethnic category. The terms White British, White Irish and White Other are used. White British includes Welsh, English and Scottish peoples, as well as residents of Northern Ireland who identify as British. The category White Other includes all white people not from the British Isles. In the UK white usually refers only to people of European origin.

The term Black Irish does not refer to people with black skin, but instead to hair color and eye color. The term White Irish is not used in the UK in contrast with Black Irish; it refers to the ethnically Irish immigrant population in Britain. [16] British surnames such as White, Whitlock, Whited and Whitehead also trace their origins to blonde or white hair color.[17]

Australia

Although the definition of white is always opinion-based in Australia, it primarily pertains to what the word `literally' means, that is `white skinned'. In Australian society, it refers to people of Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Celtic, Germanic and Slavic descent, sometimes excluding people from the Balkans, and Mediterranean basin. George Clooney for example, even though he is ethnically identified as an Irish American, would probably be questioned about his ethnicity in Australia because he is not literally `white-skinned'. Patrick Stewart would be considered Visible ethnic minority in Australia due to his Semitic shaped nose. In Australia, if a person does not look perfectly pasty and dolichocephalic, then they are not considered `white'.

The Immigration Restriction Act was a key part of a legislative package passed by Australia's federal parliament in 1901. The goal of the act was to exclude all non-European migrants. It enacted a law that was the cornerstone of the country's White Australia policy.

Physical Traits

Main article: Human physical appearance

Template:Biasutti skin color map Although there is no single universal definition of White, given the relationship between Whites and Europeans, as discussed in above sections, some traits which are associated with Europeans are associated with Whites.

Most humans have only one hair color and one eye color. Europeans are a big exception: their hair is black but also brown, flaxen, golden, or red; their eyes are brown but also blue, gray, hazel, or green. This diversity reaches a maximum in an area centered on the East Baltic and covering northern and eastern Europe. If we move outward, to the south and east, we see a rapid return to the human norm: hair becomes uniformly black and eyes uniformly brown.

Human hair and eye color is unusually diverse in northern and eastern Europe. The many alleles involved (at least seven for hair color) and their independent origin over a short span of evolutionary time indicate some kind of selection. Sexual selection is particularly indicated because it is known to favor color traits and color polymorphisms. In addition, hair and eye color is most diverse in what used to be, when first peopled by hunter-gatherers, a unique ecozone of low-latitude continental tundra. This type of environment skews the operational sex ratio (OSR) of hunter-gatherers toward a male shortage in two ways: (1) men have to hunt highly mobile and spatially concentrated herbivores over longer distances, with no alternate food sources in case of failure, the result being more deaths among young men; (2) women have fewer opportunities for food gathering and thus require more male provisioning, the result being less polygyny. These two factors combine to leave more women than men unmated at any one time. Such an OSR imbalance would have increased the pressures of sexual selection on early European women, one possible outcome being an unusual complex of color traits: hair- and eye-color diversity and, possibly, extreme skin depigmentation.

Hair Color

Light hair distribution map
of indigenous populations

according to
anthropologist
Peter Frost

1-19%
light color hair

no light color hair

20-49%
light color hair

50-79%
light colored
hair

80%+
light
colored hair

Main article: Hair color

There is considerable variety in the hair color of whites.

Blond

Main article: Blonde

Blond hair is a relatively rare human phenotype, occurring in 1.7 to 2% of the world population with the majority of natural blondes being white.

Blond hair is genetically associated with lighter eye color such as blue, green, or light brown and with pale, often freckled, skin tones. It ranges from nearly white (platinum blond, tow-haired) to a dark golden blond. Strawberry blond is a rare type: a mixture of blond and red hair. Blondness is a recessive gene. Blond hair has more phaeomelanin than eumelanin but has less than red hair. Natural blondes have the thinnest strand of hair but have more hair on their heads than others, with an average of 140,000 hairs.

Lighter hair colors occur naturally in humans of all ethnicities, as rare mutations , but at such low rates that it is hardly noticeable in most populations, or is only found in children. In certain European populations, however, the occurrence of blond hair is more frequent, and often remains throughout adulthood, leading to misinterpretation that blondness is a European trait. Based on recent genetic information, it is probable that humans with blond hair became distinctly numerous in Europe about 11,000 to 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. Before then, Europeans had dark brown hair and dark eyes, which is predominant in the rest of the world.

Red Hair

Main article: Red hair

Red hair (also referred to as auburn, ginger, or titian) is a hair color that varies from a deep red through to bright copper. It is characterized by high levels of the reddish pigment pheomelanin and relatively low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. People with red hair are often referred to as redheads.

Red is an uncommon hair color among humans, found mainly in Northern and Western European populations (and descendants of these populations), although it occurs in low frequencies throughout other parts of Europe and Asia. Red hair appears to be caused by a recessive gene on chromosome 16 which causes a mutation of the MC1R protein. It is associated with fair skin color, freckles, and sensitivity to ultraviolet light. Cultural reactions have varied from ridicule to admiration, with a common stereotype being the “fiery-tempered redhead”.

Eye Colour

Light Eye Color Distribution Map
of indigenous populations

according to
anthropologist
Peter Frost

1-19% light
eye color

no light
eye color

20-49% light
eye color

50-79%
light colored
eyes

80%+
light
colored eyes

Main article: Eye color

Those with non-European ancestry generally have darker eyes and less variability in eye color than those of European descent. For example between 60 and 70 percent of the Norwegian population have blue eyes.

This varies to a great extent by ethnic group. Germanic populations tend to have a high incidence of blue and green eyes. Mixed populations tend to show gray, hazel, light brown and amber, while populations with predominant dark hair tend to have brown or black eyes.

Eye color is inherited on a number of genes which leads to considerable diversity. Not all eye colors that are described as blue or green are precisely the same on close examination. There are variations in hue, clarity, the ring, texture and other features.

Light Skin

Main article: Human skin color

Research indicates that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe where there is less sunlight available, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races. Relatively light-skinned people are found among many ethnic groups, like Asians who owe their relatively light skin to different mutations. Reduced melanin in white skinned people also reduces scarring.

The advantage of light skin is that it does not block sunlight as effectively, leading to increased production of vitamin D₃, necessary for calcium absorption and bone growth. The lighter skin of women may result from the higher calcium needs of women during pregnancy and lactation. The reduced blockage of sunlight can be a disadvantage as people with lighter skin are more prone to sunburn and skin cancer caused by repeated exposure to the sun.

Genetic Traits

Most common of all haplogroups among European peoples is R1b Y-DNA haplogroup, which, like R1a, is said to have emerged around 10,000 BC. Generously exhibited in western European males, and thus within North American population groups, this haplogroup is represented most frequently in southern England, as well as among the Spanish and Portuguese. In fact, some western European regions (the Iberian peninsula, Basque Country and Ireland) contain R1b males at frequencies as high as 90%. About mtDNA (Mitochondrial DNA), according to University of Oulu Library (Finland):

Classical polymorphic markers (i.e. blood groups, protein electromorphs and HLA antigenes) have suggested that Europe is a genetically homogeneous continent with a few outliers such as the Saami, Sardinians, Icelanders and Basques (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1993, Piazza 1993). The analysis of mtDNA sequences has also shown a high degree of homogeneity among European populations, and the genetic distances have been found to be much smaller than between populations on other continents, especially Africa (Comas et al. 1997). The mtDNA haplogroups of Europeans are surveyed by using a combination of data from RFLP analysis of the coding region and sequencing of the hypervariable segment I. About 99% of European mtDNAs fall into one of ten haplogroups: H, I, J, K, M, T, U, V, W or X (Torroni et al. 1996a). Each of these is defined by certain relatively ancient and stable polymorphic sites located in the coding region (Torroni et al. 1996a).......Haplogroup H, which is defined by the absence of a AluI site at bp 7025, is the most prevalent, comprising half of all Europeans (Torroni et al. 1996a, Richards et al. 1998)......Six of the European haplogroups (H, I, J, K, T and W) are essentially confined to European populations (Torroni et al. 1994, 1996a), and probably originated after the ancestral Caucasoids became genetically separated from the ancestors of the modern Africans and Asians.

Culture

See also: Western culture

Several definitions of the Western world

Western culture or Western civilization is a term used to refer to the cultures of the people of European origin and their descendants. Although there is no single universal definition of White, given the relationship between Whites and Europeans, as discussed in above sections, we can say that most Whites are associated with Western Culture.

Western culture or Western civilization is a term which comprises the broad heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs (such as religious beliefs) and specific artifacts and technologies as shared within the Western sphere of influence. The term "Western" is often used in contrast to Asian, African, or Arab nations.

See also

Ancient Italic peoples Anglo-Saxons Balts Blond Caucasian American Caucasian peoples Caucasian race Caucasoid race Celt European American Germanic peoples Human skin colour Indigenous peoples Kalasha of Chitral

Nordic theory Pashtun Race Race (historical definitions) Slavic peoples White American White Australia policy White British White nationalism White Power White pride White separatism White supremacy Whiteness studies

Further reading

• Thomas A. Guglielmo, White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945, 2003, ISBN 0-19-515543-2
• Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race, Harvard, 1999, ISBN 0-674-95191-3.
• Frank W. Sweet, Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule, Backintyme, 2005, ISBN 0-939479-23-0.
• Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-91825-1.
• Karen Brodkin, How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America, Rutgers, 1999, ISBN 0-8135-2590-X.
• Neil Foley, The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997)
• Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race, 2 vols. (London: Verso, 1994)
• Thomas F. Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America, New ed. (New York: Oxford University, 1997)
• Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1996)
• Audrey Smedley, Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 1999).
• "The United Independent Compensatory Code/System/Concept" A textbook/workbook for thought, speech and/or action for victims of racism (White supremacy) Neely Fuller Jr. 1984
• Alfredo Tryferis, "Separated by a Common Language: The Strange Case of the White Hispanic," The Raw Story, http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/tryferis/hispanic.htm

External links

• Legally white Precedents of legal opinions and judgments authored by US courts in whiteness cases filed by non-Europeans
• Not Quite White: Race Classification and the Arab American Experience, by the Arab American Institute
• Scientists Find DNA Change That Accounts for White Skin