White people
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The term "white people" (also "whites" or "white race") has been defined as "being a member of a group or race characterized by light pigmentation of the skin" and "to a human group having light-coloured skin, especially of European ancestry." [1][2]
The term white people functions as a color terminology for race;[3] one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context.[4][5]
Physical appearance
Although there is no single universal definition of whiteness, some traits that are associated with Europeans are associated with whites. The most notable trait describing people who identify as white is light skin. People who are white lack epicanthic folds[6]. Other physical features sometimes associated with white people include a variety of hair and eye colors.
Light skin
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/Light_skin_colors.jpg/300px-Light_skin_colors.jpg)
White people are archetypically distinguished by lighter skin, and in general, Europeans have lighter skin (as measured by population average skin reflectance read by spectrophotometer) than other ethnic groups. [7] While all mean values of skin reflectance of non-European populations are lower than Europeans, some European and non-European populations overlap in lightness of skin,[8] as noted by the Supreme Court of the United States, which stated in a 1923 lawsuit over whiteness that the "swarthy brunette[s] ... are darker than some of the lighter hued persons of the brown or yellow races".[9]
Humans have pigment cells, which contain pigment granules called melanosomes. In people of European descent, the melanosomes are fewer, smaller, and lighter than those from people of African ancestry, while the melanosomes of East Asians show intermediate properties.[10]The melanosomes are located in the top layer of skin known as the epidermis. In actuality the epidermis of light skined people is not actually white. The underlying layers of collagen and adipose tissue are white. Collagen and adipose tissue are white in people of all races. In lightly pigmented people , the epidermis is an almost transparent layer of film. Consequently the epidermis allows the underlying white tissues to become visible[11]. Blood vessels interlaced between the adipose tissue produce the pale pink color associated with light skin. Pigments known as Carotenes found in the fat produce a more yellow effect. In darker skinned people the epidermis is filled with melanosomes that obscure the underlying layers.[12][13][14]
Most mammals have a thick layer of body hair that protects the skin from the sun's rays and also keeps the body warm at night. Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives to humans. Since they have light skin covered by hair, scientist believe that the common ancestor humans share with the chimpanzee would have been the same[15]. Only a few mammals have lost their hair for a variety of reasons, these include aquatic mammals, hippopotami and Naked mole rats[16]. As human evolution progressed, brain size increased[17]. The increase in brain power would have required a finer thermoregulatory system since the brain consumes large amounts of energy and is very sensitive to heat. As a result humans evolved more sweat glands, especially on the face.[17] For effective evaporation from these sweat glands the loss of body hair was necessary.[17] Though naked skin is advantageous for thermoregulation, it exposes the epidermis to destructive levels of UV radiation that can cause sunburn, skin cancer and birth defects resulting from the destruction of the essential vitamin B folate.[17] Consequently natural selection favored increased levels of melanin in the skin and humans lost their light skin.[17]
The skin of albinos is similar to Europeans and East Asians in that it is depigmented relative to other populations. However in whites and East Asians the enzymes that produce melanin are still active and produce relatively small amounts of melanin to provide some coloration to the skin. With albinos, the enzyme that produces melanin is defective, thus they produce virtually no melanin resulting in the palest skin of all humans[18]. Since melanin protects the skin from the UV radiation, albinos have no natural protection and their skin is vulnerable to sunlight that can be tolerated by other light skinned peoples. Furthermore in the presence of more intense levels of UV radiation from the sun, the skin cells of whites and East Asians are able to produce additional amounts of melanin to tan the skin to a darker complexion, providing extra protection, while albinos lack the ability to tan.[19][20] Albinism is very rare. For example, one person in 17,000 in the U.S.A. has some type of albinism. [21]
Origins of light skin
Skin color is a quantitative trait in that it is varies continuously on a gradient from dark to light, as it is a polygenic trait, under the influence of several genes. Many of these genes have yet to be identified, however two genes are known that do contribute to skin color.[citation needed] They are the MC1R and the SLC24A5 genes.[15]
Since early humans would have been barely clothed or naked, any mutation that produced lighter skin color would have been a severe disadvantage to those living under the hot African sun.[15] For example light skinned individuals exposed to strong sunlight have lower levels of vitamin B folate, which essential for a healthy pregnancy. Folate deficiencies are known to cause birth defects, hence lighter skinned humans would have had less reproductive success. Light skinned individuals living in the tropics in places such as Australia have some of the highest rates of skin cancer. Together with sunburn, the combined effects would have made light skin a liability.[citation needed]
When humans left Africa 50,000 years ago for less sun intensive regions of the world, the selective pressure on lighter skin would have been relaxed and different versions of the genes such as MC1R would increase in frequency. Hence a greater variety of skin colors are found outside Africa[22]. Lighter skin colors may have been advantageous at lower latitudes since they allow greater penetration of the sun's UV radiation, a requirement for vitamin D synthesis. This may have further increased the adaptive value of the gene.[15]
According to a 2006 study, lighter pigmentation observed in Europeans and East Asians is due to independent genetic mutations in at least three loci. They concluded that light pigmentation in Europeans is at least partially due to the effects of positive directional and/or sexual selection. According to the study, the results also strongly suggest that Europeans and East Asians have evolved light skin independently and via distinct genetic mechanisms.[23] Mixed race individuals of Afro-European descent with the European version of gene had skin color that was 25-38% lighter than mixed race individuals without the gene based on the melanin index[24][25][26][27]. It should be noted that scientists have identified at least 100 other genes associated with pigment processing but whose function is not yet fully understood. It is most likely that many of these genes were already present in the ancestral population in Africa prior to their dispersal. Though African populations are relatively dark, according to a recent study they possess greater diversity in skin complexion than all other populations. This is evidence that many of the genes for lighter skin are already present in Africa. When humans migrated out of Africa, the lighter skin causing alleles may have accumulated in one population, either by genetic drift, natural selection, sexual selection or a combination of these effects. Since their effects are additive it is possible light skin could arise over several generations without any new mutations taking place[28][25].
A historian suggested that Europeans may have retained their dark skin until as early as 13,000 years ago. This is based on Magdelanian cave art in which the painters depict hunters as darker than the animals hunted.[29]. Other scientists speculated that white skin mutation arose between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. [30]
Census and social definitions in different regions
Definitions of white have changed over the years, including the official definitions used in many countries, such as the United States and Brazil.[31] Some defied official regulations through the phenomenon of "passing", many of them becoming white people, either temporarily or permanently. Through the mid- to late 20th century, numerous countries had formal legal standards or procedures defining racial categories (see cleanliness of blood, apartheid in South Africa, hypodescent). However, as critiques of racism, scientific arguments against the existence of race, and international prohibitions on state racial discrimination arose, a trend towards self-identification of racial status arose. Below are some census definitions of white, which may differ from the social definition of white within the same country. The social definition has also been added where possible.
Australia
From the late 19th century through 1973, the Government of Australia restricted all permanent immigration to the country by non-Europeans under the White Australia policy, which was enabled by the Immigration Restriction Act 1901,[32] but not formally codified. Immigration inspectors were empowered to ask immigrants to take dictation from any European language as a test for admittance, a test used in practice to exclude people from Asia, South America, Europe and Africa depending on the political climate. Under the policy, large numbers of Portuguese, Italian, Greek, South Slavic, German, Dutch and Polish immigrants were admitted following World War II, assimilating into the country's Anglo-Celtic population.[33] Immigration is no longer restricted to White people.
Brazil
Brazil's definition of whiteness is premised on racial mixture rather than hypodescent, producing a range of historical categories for race. As a term, white is more broadly applied than in North America.
Recent censuses in Brazil are conducted on the basis of self-identification. In the 2000 census, 53% of Brazilians (approximately 90 million people in 2000; around 100 million as of 2006) were white and 39% pardo or multiracial Brazilians. White is applied as a term to people of European, Jewish and Arab descent. The census shows a trend of fewer Brazilians of African descent (blacks and pardos) identifying as white people as their social status increases.[34]
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). [35]
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, African, Filipino, Latin American, Southeast Asian, Arab, West Asian, Japanese or Korean were included in the visible minority population.[36] A separate census question on "cultural or ethnic origin" (question 17) does not refer to skin colour.[37]
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".[38] Statistics Norway considers Asia as including Turkey.[39]
United Kingdom
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.[40][41] Socially, in the UK white usually refers only to people of native British and European origin.[42] Even Turkey, which is on the periphery of Europe is seen as a non-white country.[43]
United States
The current U.S. Census definition includes white "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.[44] The U.S. Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation also categorizes white "people having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa through racial categories used in the UCR Program adopted from the Statistical Policy Handbook (1978) and published by the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards, U.S. Department of Commerce.[45]
Raj Bhopal, MD, and Liam Donaldson MD, of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, have criticized the broad inclusion as “white” in contemporary classifications such as those used by the US Census and British Census. In summarizing the qualities of most of the terms for nonminority populations in race, ethnicity and health research in US and UK found that white "in practice, refers to people of European origin with pale complexions". The authors concluded that white people are a heterogenous group for the purpose of many studies. They also recommended that "white" as an epidemiological classification (for purposes of health research) be abandoned primarily because of its heterogeneity. [46]
The cultural boundaries separating Caucasian Americans from other racial or ethnic categories are contested and always changing. Among those not considered White at some time in American history have been the Irish, Germans, Ashkenazi Jews, Italians, Spaniards, Slavs, Greeks and other Mediterranean peoples.[47] Studies have found that Arab American teenagers may sometimes construct identities that distinguish themselves from "white society."[48]
Professor David R. Roediger of the University of Illinois, suggests that the construction of the white race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves.[49] By the 18th century, white had become well established as a racial term. The process of officially being defined as white by law often came about in court disputes over pursuit of citizenship. The Immigration Act of 1790 offered naturalization only to "any alien, being a free white person". In at least 52 cases, people denied the status of white by immigration officials sued in court for status as white people. By 1923, courts had vindicated a "common-knowledge" standard, concluding that "scientific evidence" was incoherent. Legal scholar John Tehranian argues that in reality this was a "performance-based" standard, relating to religious practices, education, intermarriage and a community's role in the United States.[50]
Relations with blacks
The one drop rule is a historical term in the United States that holds that a person with any trace of non-white ancestry (however small or invisible) cannot be considered white. The one drop rule is virtually unique to the United States[51]. The one drop rule created a bifurcated system of either black or either white regardless of a person's physical appearance. This contrasts with the more flexible social structures present in Latin America where there are no clear cut divisions between the various ethnicities. [52]
During the transatlantic slave trade approximately 600,000 africans were brought to the United States[53]. Today there are 37 million African Americans[54]. The first Africans arrived on what is now the United states in 1619[55]. As a result of close to four hundred years of living alongside whites the majority of African Americans have white admixture. Due to "passing for white" many white people also have African ancestry[56]. Despite the shared ancestry that blacks and whites have in the US, the one drop rule has served to polarize the US into two racial groups. According to recent studies white americans rank non-americans as closer in social distance to them than their fellow black citizens[57].
However many are questioning the legitimacy of the one drop rule. Debra Dickerson writes:
"easily one-third of blacks have white DNA" she wonders why, in light of this, so much of the focus on tracing ancestry in the black community has focused on finding a link back to a region in Africa. She holds that in ignoring their white ancestors African Americans are denying their fully articulated multi-racial identities.[58]
The peculiarity of the one drop rule is illustrated with the case of Mariah Carey. Prior to revealing her ethnic background in 1992, many people thought she was white. A a music critic referred to her as "another White girl trying to sing Black."[59]. In an interview with Larry King Mariah said despite her physical appearance and the fact the she was raised primarily by her white mother she does not feel that she is white because of the effects of the one drop rule[60].
Genetics and other population
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![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Neighbor-joining_Tree.svg/350px-Neighbor-joining_Tree.svg.png)
A recent American study indicates that self-described race or ethnicity is a near-perfect indicator of an individual's membership in one of four genetic clusters within the population. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified four genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States. After recruiting people in specific racial categories and excluding people who identified as other categories, they were able to correctly assign individuals to groups that correspond with their self-described race or ethnicity (white, African American, East Asian or Hispanic) for all but five individuals (an error rate of 0.14%). They concluded that "ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population."[62].
Tang et al. state that "From the genetic perspective, Hispanics generally represent a differential mixture of European, Native American, and African ancestry, with the proportionate mix typically depending on country of origin. Our sample was from a single location in Texas and was composed of Mexican Americans."[63] Mexican-Americans are generally European and Native American.[64] In genetic studies, local populations of African Americans have an estimated European admixture of 10.6% to 22.5%.[65] A National Human Genome Research Institute study stated, "In a survey of college students who self-identified as 'white' in a northeastern U.S. university, around 30% were estimated to have less than 90% European ancestry." [66]
The Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group of the National Human Genome Research Institute, located in Bethesda, Maryland, notes that "although genetic analyses of large numbers of loci can produce estimates of the percentage of a person’s ancestors coming from various continental populations (Shriver et al. 2003; Bamshad et al. 2004), these estimates may assume a false distinctiveness of the parental populations, since human groups have exchanged mates from local to continental scales throughout history (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994; Hoerder 2002)."[66]
Africa | Oceania | East Asia | Europe | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Oceania | 24.7 | |||
East Asia | 20.6 | 10 | ||
Europe | 16.6 | 13.5 | 9.7 | |
America | 22.6 | 14.6 | 8.9 | 9.5 |
A study by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza of the Stanford University, School of Medicine, using 120 blood polymorphisms provides information on genetic relatedness of the various continental populations[67]. Genetic distance is a measure used to quantify the genetic differences between two populations. It is based on the principle that two populations that share similar frequencies of a trait are more closely related than populations that have more divergent frequencies of a trait. In its simplest form it is the difference in frequencies of a particular trait between two populations. For example the frequency of RH negative individuals is 50.4% among Basques is 41.2% in France and 41.1 in England. Thus the genetic difference between the Basques and French is 9.2% and the genetic difference between the French and the English is 0.1%for the RH negative trait. Averaged over several traits this can give the overall genetic relatedness of various populations[68].
According to the study all non African populations are more closely related to each other than to Africans. This is consistent with the view that all non-Africans are descended from a single population that lived in Africa. What is interesting is the two most genetically divergent groups are those that are defined as Black, that is Africans and Oceanians with a genetic distance of 24.7. Cavalli contends that if evolution of the races had proceeded independently without race mixing then the minimum genetic distance to Africa should at least be 24.7 as with Australia. The most striking discovery is that the shortest genetic distance from Africa is to Europe at 16.6. This is counterintuitive since blacks and whites have the most divergent skin colors. Cavalli contends that the only reason for this short distance is significant gene exchange between Africa and Europe. [69][68]
Nevertheless, The amount of black admixture in Europe today is low[citation needed]. It ranges from a few percent in Iberia to almost nil around the Baltic.[70] It seems to show a decreasing cline from the southwest to the northeast, which corresponds with the areas most affected by the African slave trade[citation needed].
According to a summary study by Pereira et al. 2005, sub-Saharan mtDNA L haplogroups were found at rates of 3.83% in Iberians (Portuguese and Spanish), 2.86% in Sardinians, 2.38% in Albanians, 1% in the British, 0.94% in Sicilians, 0.62% in a German-Danish sample.
Sub-Saharan African Y-chromosomes are much less common in Europe, for the reasons discussed above[citation needed]. However, Haplogroups E(xE3b) and Haplogroup A spread to Europe due to migrations from Northeast Africa, rather than the slave trade. Haplotype A has been detected in Portugal (3%), Spain (0.42%), Germany (2%), Austria (0.78%), France (2.5% in a very small sample), Italy (0.45%), Sardinia (1.6%) and Greece (0.27%)[citation needed]. By contrast, North Africans have about 5% paternal West African admixture,[71] and are about of 75% paternal East African descent[72]
Haplogroups are branches on the tree of early human migrations and genetic evolution. Haplogroups are defined by genetic mutations or "markers" found in Y chromosome and mtDNA testing.[73] The examination of population differences within Europe using mitochondrial or Y chromosome haplogroups has been particularly useful in tracing part of the routes of migration and populating of Europe, but these haplogroups do not provide strong inferences on population genetic structure. [74]
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. (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).[75][76]
mtDNA Haplogroup N1a while presently rare (.18%-.3%) occurred in as many as 25% of Neolithic Europeans and has subsequently been absorbed into the current populations [77][78].
Y chromosome markers
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Bauchet_European_clusters.png/400px-Bauchet_European_clusters.png)
There are three major haplogroups which account for most of Europe's present-day population.
- Haplogroup R1b has it's highest frequencies on the Atlantic coast of Europe from Spain to Scotland.
- Haplogroup I is common across central Europe and up into Scandinavia.
- Haplogroup R1a is common in eastern, central and northern Europe.[79] [80] [81]
The most common haplogroup in Europe is R1b.[82] [83] Each haplogroup also have subclades. [84] R1a and R1b are subclades of Haplogroup R (Y-DNA) [85] Two main subgroups of Haplogroup I (Y-DNA) are I-M253/I-M307/I-P30/I-P40 which has highest frequency in Scandinavia, Iceland, and northwest Europe. The other is I-S31 which includes I-P37.2, which is the most common form in the Balkans and Sardinia, and I-S23/I-S30/I-S32/I-S33, which reaches its highest frequency along the northwest coast of continental Europe.[86]
A little later, around 4,500 years ago, Haplogroup N3 began moving across from west of the Ural mountains. Haplogroup N3 follows closely the spread of the Finno-Ugric languages.[79]
European population substructure
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/European_population_substructure.png/500px-European_population_substructure.png)
In 2006, a study by 9 scientists made an analysis comparing different individuals from European ancestry groups. They concluded that "there is a consistent and reproducible distinction between “northern” and “southern” European population groups" [87]
While above scientists claimed that the people of British Isles cluster with Northern Europeans Stephen Oppenheimer stated: "By far the majority of male gene types in the British Isles derive from Iberia (Spain and Portugal)" [88]
Bryan Sykes, also stated that "The genetic evidence shows that a large proportion of Irish Celts, on both the male and female side, did arrive from Iberia at or the same time as farming reached the Isles" [89]
A recent genetic piece of research from 2007, claims: "The Spanish and Basque groups are the furthest away from other continental groups, which is consistent with the suggestions that the Iberian peninsula holds the most ancient European genetic ancestry". The same study also found "several significant axes of stratification, most prominently in a North-Southeastern trend but also along an East-West axis." They also confirmed English and Irish cluster with Northern Europeans such as Germans and Poles while some Basque and Italian individuals also clustered with Northern Europeans. Despite these stratifications, they also said: "there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world." [90]
History of the term
The definition of white people has varied in different time periods and locations. Any definition has implications for areas as diverse as national identity, consanguinity, public policy, religion, population statistics, racial segregation, affirmative action, eugenics, racial marginalization and racial quotas. The term has been applied with varying degrees of formality and consistency in many disciplines. Such disciplines include sociology, political science, genetics, biology, medicine, biomedicine, human languages, cultural analysis, and legal analysis.
Ancient Greece and Rome used the term white as one description of skin color. Its light appearance was distinguished, for example, in a comparison of white-skinned Persian soldiers from the sun-tanned skin of Greek troops in Xenophon's Agesilaus.[91] One early use of the term appears in the Amherst Papyri, which were scrolls written in ancient Ptolemaic Greek. It contained the use of black and white in reference to human skin color.[92] In an analysis of the rise of the term, classicist James Dee found that, "the Greeks and Romans do not describe themselves as "white people" —or as anything else because they had no regular word in their color vocabulary for themselves—and we can see that the concept of a distinct 'white race' was not present in the ancient world."[93]
Assignment of positive and negative connotations of white and black date to the classical period in a number of European languages, but these differences were not applied to skin color per se. 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.[94]
The term white race or white people entered dictionaries of the major European languages in the 1600s.[94] Winthrop Jordan, author of Black Over White, argues that race emerged with the inherited status of slavery. He says the shift from Christian, free, and English to white happened in approximately 1680.[95] Theodore W. Allen notes in The Invention of the White Race that white identity emerged in the colonies with slavery, and says that "seventeenth-century commentator, Morgan Godwyn, found it necessary to explain to the English at home that, in Barbados, 'white' was 'the general name for Europeans."[96] White quickly became a legal category, encoded in a variety of laws and conferring different status.
In 1758, Carolus Linnaeus proposed what he considered to be natural taxonomic categories of the human species. He distinguished between Homo sapiens afer and Homo sapiens europaeus, and he later added four geographical subdivisions of humans: white Europeans, red Americans, yellow Asians and black Africans. Although Linnaeus intended them as objective classifications, he used both taxonomical and cultural data in his subdivision descriptions. [97]
In 1775, Blumenbach categorized humans into five races, which largely corresponded with Linnaeus' classifications, except for the addition of Oceanians (whom he called Malay).[97] Immanuel Kant used the term weiß (white) in Von den verschiedenen Rassen den Menschen (About The Different Races of Men - 1775).
According to Gregory Jay, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee,
Before the age of exploration, group differences were largely based on language, religion, and geography. ...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 ... 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"...[5]
Gallery
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Scottish ancestry
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Russian athlete Anna Kournikova
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Iranian leader Mohammad Khatami
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Polish athelete Katarzyna Skowronska
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Greek singer Elli Kokkinou
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Welsh businessman Howard Stringer
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Chechen singer Makka Sagaipova
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Turkish] athelete Fatih Tekke
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Basque politician Juan José Ibarretxe
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Georgian singer Sopho Khalvashi
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Irish actor Colin Farrell
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Italian actress Monica Bellucci
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French politician Ségolène Royal
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Czech politician Vaclav Havel
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Brazilian (German ancestry) model Gisele Bündchen
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Iraqi leader Nouri al-Maliki
See also
- Angry white male
- First white child
- Genetic history of Europe
- Caucasian race
- Human skin color
- White African
- White American
- Stereotypes of White Americans and Europeans
- White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
- White Australia policy
- White flight
- White guilt
- White Hispanic
- White Latin American
- White male
- White nationalism
- White pride
- White privilege (sociology)
- White separatism
- Whiteness studies
- White supremacy
- Whiteness studies
Footnotes
- ^ White, from Merriam-Webster online.
- ^ White, from the Compact Oxford English Dictionary.
- ^ "Referring to races by colors, such as White, Black, and Brown, tends to obscure the fact that skin color and race are not the same." Frank F. Montalvo, "Surviving Race: Skin Color and the Socialization and Acculturation of Latinas," Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 13:3, 2004.
- ^ For extensive discussion on skin color as a metaphor for race (and not just in encounter with Japan), see Rotem Kowner, "Skin as a Metaphor: Early European Racial Views on Japan, 1548–1853," Ethnohistory 51.4 (2004) 751-778. See also, Christine Ward Gailey Politics, Colonialism and the Mutable Color of South Pacific Peoples," Transforming Anthropology 5.1&2 (1994). On historical antecedents during the European medieval period, see James H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White,'?" The Classical Journal, Vol. 99, No. 2. (Dec., 2003 - Jan., 2004), p. 162ff.
- ^ a b Gregory Jay, [Who Invented White People? http://www.uwm.edu/~gjay/Whiteness/Whitenesstalk.html], 1998. Cite error: The named reference "GJay" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF RACE
- ^ Jablonski NG, Chaplin G. 2000. The evolution of skin coloration, p. 19.
- ^ American Anthropological Association, "The Human Spectrum", Race: Are we so different? website.
- ^ John Tehranian, "Performing Whiteness: Naturalization Litigation and the Construction of Racial Identity in America," The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 109, No. 4. (Jan., 2000), p. 827.
- ^ Fish gene sheds light on human skin color variation [1]
- ^ Introduction to Skin Histology
- ^ Skin Color Adaptation
- ^ [2]
- ^ The 3 skin layers: epidermis, dermis, subcutaneous fat
- ^ a b c d Why humans and their fur parted ways
- ^ [http://www.anthro.utah.edu/~rogers/pubs/Pagel-BL-270-S117.pdf A naked ape would have fewer parasites]
- ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference
jablonski
was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ [3] Skin Care: How to Save Your Skin page 13 ISBN 0766838188
- ^ The skin we're in
- ^ [4]
- ^ http://www.albinism.org/publications/what_is_albinism.html
- ^ Rana; et al. "High Polymorphism at the Human Melanocortin 1 Receptor Locus" (PDF). doi:10.1034/j.1600-0749.2000.130303.x.
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(help) - ^ Heather L. Norton, Rick A. Kittles, Esteban Parra, Paul McKeigue, Xianyun Mao, Keith Cheng, Victor A. Canfield, Daniel G. Bradley, Brian McEvoy and Mark D. Shriver (December 11, 2006) Genetic Evidence for the Convergent Evolution of Light Skin in Europeans and East Asians Oxford Journals [5]
- ^ SLC24A5, a Putative Cation Exchanger, Affects Pigmentation in Zebrafish and Humans
- ^ a b Heather L. Norton, Rick A. Kittles, Esteban Parra, Paul McKeigue, Xianyun Mao, Keith Cheng, Victor A. Canfield, Daniel G. Bradley, Brian McEvoy and Mark D. Shriver (December 11, 2006) Genetic Evidence for the Convergent Evolution of Light Skin in Europeans and East Asians Oxford Journals [6]
- ^ Lamason RL, Mohideen MA, Mest JR, Wong AC, Norton HL, Aros MC, Jurynec MJ, Mao X, Humphreville VR, Humbert JE, Sinha S, Moore JL, Jagadeeswaran P, Zhao W, Ning G, Makalowska I, McKeigue PM, O'donnell D, Kittles R, Parra EJ, Mangini NJ, Grunwald DJ, Shriver MD, Canfield VA, Cheng KC (2005). "SLC24A5, a putative cation exchanger, affects pigmentation in zebrafish and humans". Science. 310 (5755): 1782–6. PMID 16357253.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin, Washington Post
- ^ Human skin color diversity is highest in sub-Saharan African populations
- ^ Paleo etiology of skin tone
- ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501728_pf.html
- ^ Adams, J.Q. (2001). Dealing with Diversity. Chicago, IL: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company. 0-7872-8145-X.
{{cite book}}
: Unknown parameter|coauthors=
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suggested) (help) - ^ Immigration Restriction Act 1901 [7]
- ^ Stephen Castles, "The Australian Model of Immigration and Multiculturalism: Is It Applicable to Europe?," International Migration Review, Vol. 26, No. 2, Special Issue: The New Europe and International Migration. (Summer, 1992), pp. 549-567.
- ^ Gregory Rodriguez, "Brazil Separates Into Black and White," LA Times, September 3, 2006. Note that the figures belie the title.
- ^ "Groups" in Statistics Canada, Sample 20001 Census form. Statistics Canada, 2001 Census Visible Minority and Population Group User Guide
- ^ Human Resources and Social Development Canada, 2001 Employment Equity Data Report
- ^ Census 2001: 2B (Long Form)
- ^ http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/02/01/10/innvbef_en/
- ^ http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/02/01/10/innvbef_en/
- ^ Identity, Ethnicity and Identity, National Statistics online. Retrieved 03 November 2006.
- ^ Census 2001 - Ethnicity and religion in England and Wales, Ethnicity and religion. Retrieved 03 November 2001.
- ^ Kissoon, Priya. King's College of London. Asylum Seekers: National Problem or National Solution. 2005. November 7, 2006.
- ^ Turks in Europe: Why are we afraid? pg. 63 About the Foreign Policy Centre
- ^ The White Population: 2000, Census 2000 Brief C2KBR/01-4, U.S. Census Bureau, August 2001.
- ^ Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook, U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Bureau of Investigation. P. 97 (2004)
- ^ http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1509085&blobtype=pdf
- ^ John Tehranian, "Performing Whiteness: Naturalization Litigation and the Construction of Racial Identity in America," The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 109, No. 4. (Jan., 2000), pp. 825-827.
- ^ http://caliber.ucpress.net/doi/abs/10.1525/sop.2004.47.4.371
- ^ Roediger, Wages of Whiteness, 186; Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York, 1998).
- ^ John Tehranian, "Performing Whiteness: Naturalization Litigation and the Construction of Racial Identity in America," The Yale Law Journal, Vol. 109, No. 4. (Jan., 2000), pp. 817-848.
- ^ One drop of blood
- ^ The triumph of the one drop rule
- ^ Stephen D. Behrendt, David Richardson, and David Eltis, W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research, Harvard University. Based on "records for 27,233 voyages that set out to obtain slaves for the Americas". Stephen Behrendt, "Transatlantic Slave Trade", Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), ISBN 0-465-00071-1.
- ^ Census
- ^ History of slavery
- ^ The African ancestry of the White American population
- ^ The race myth page 90ISBN 0452286581 American blacks were ranked number 21 in social distance from white americans out of 30 ethnicities. et
- ^ The End of Blackness by Debra Dickerson.
- ^ Mariah Carey: 'Not another White girl trying to sing Black.'
- ^ Larry King interview with Mariah Carey
- ^ Saitou. Kyushu Museum. 2002. February 2, 2007. [8]
- ^ http://shrn.stanford.edu/workshops/revisitingrace/Risch_confound.pdf Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies
- ^ Tang et al.:"Although the genetic distance analysis suggested relative proximity to the whites in our sample, the distance was still sufficient to allow for creation of a distinct genetic cluster for this group. Again, this is likely because of the large number of markers used in our analysis."
- ^ http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-27384/Mexico Mexico :: Ethnic composition
- ^ Esteban J. Parra, Amy Marcini, Joshua Akey, Jeremy Martinson, Mark A. Batzer, Richard Cooper, Terrence Forrester, David B. Allison, Ranjan Deka, Robert E. Ferrell, Mark D. Shriver, "[http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/ParraAJHG1998.pdf Estimating African American Admixture Proportions by Use of Population- Specific Alleles]," American Journal of Human Genetics 63:1839–1851, 1998.
- ^ a b Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group, National Human Genome Research Institute, Bethesda, The Use of Racial, Ethnic, and Ancestral Categories in Human Genetics Research
- ^ [9]
- ^ a b [Genes, Peoples, and Languages By L. L. (Luigi Luca) Cavalli-Sforza ISBN 0520228731 ]
- ^ First Chapter: 'Genes, Peoples, and Languages'
- ^ Pereira et al. 2005 (view the specific data here)
- ^ Cruciani et al. 2004, Flores et al. 2004, Brion et al. 2005, Brion et al. 2004, Rosser et al. 2000, Semino et al. 2004, and DiGiacomo et al. 2003
- ^ Bosch et al. 2001 High-Resolution Analysis of Human Y-Chromosome Variation Shows a Sharp Discontinuity and Limited Gene Flow between Northwestern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula
- ^ Glossary of Genetic terms [10]
- ^ European Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations [11]
- ^ Mitochondrial DNA sequence variation in human populations, Oulu University Library (Finland)
- ^ http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514255674/html/x367.html
- ^ Haak, Wolfgang, et al. "Ancient DNA from the First European Farmers in 7500-Year-Old Neolithic Sites" Science, vol. 310, pg. 1016 (2005)
- ^ Balter, Michael "Ancient DNA Yields Clues to the Puzzle of European Origins" Science, vol. 310, pg. 964 (2005)
- ^ a b DNA Heritage [12]
- ^ Semino et al (2000), The Genetic Legacy of Paleolithic Homo sapiens sapiens in Extant Europeans, Science Vol 290
Note: Haplogroup names are different in this article. For ex: Haplogroup I is referred as M170 - ^ World Haplogroups Maps [13]
- ^ World haplogroup maps [14]
- ^ Y-chromosome DNA Haplogroups [15]
- ^ Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree 2006 [16]
- ^ Y-DNA Haplogroup R and its Subclades [17]
- ^ Y-DNA Haplogroup I and its Subclades [18]
- ^ "most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italian, Greek, Portuguese, and Spanish) have >85% membership in the “southern” population; and most northern, western, eastern, and central Europeans have >90% in the “northern” population group. Ashkenazi Jewish as well as Sephardic Jewish origin also showed >85% membership in the “southern” population, consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups." Based on this work, we have developed a core set of informative SNP markers that can control for this partition in European population structure in a variety of clinical and genetic studies." European Population Substructure: Clustering of Northern and Southern Populations [19]
- ^ On average only 30% of gene types in England derive from north-west Europe. Even without dating the earlier waves of north-west European immigration, this invalidates the Anglo-Saxon wipeout theory... ...75-95% of British Isles (genetic) matches derive from Iberia... Oppenheimer, "Origins of the British" (pages 375 and 378)
- ^ Here again, the strongest signal is a Celtic one, in the form of the clan of Oisin, which dominates the scene all over the Isles. The predominance in every part of the Isles of the Atlantic chromosome (the most frequent in the Oisin clan), with its strong affinities to Iberia, along with other matches and the evidence from the maternal side convinces me that it is from this direction that we must look for the origin of Oisin and the great majority of our Y-chromosomes. The sea routes of the Atlantic fringe conveyed both men and women to the Isles. Sykes, "Blood of the Isles" (2006), Pages 281,282,283
- ^ Measuring European Population Stratification using Microarray Genotype Data [20]
- ^ James H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White,'?" The Classical Journal, Vol. 99, No. 2. (Dec., 2003 - Jan., 2004), p. 162.
- ^ Alan Cameron, Black and White: A Note on Ancient Nicknames, The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 119, No. 1 (Spring, 1998), pp. 113-117
- ^ James H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White,'?" The Classical Journal, Vol. 99, No. 2. (Dec., 2003 - Jan., 2004), p. 163.
- ^ a b James H. Dee, "Black Odysseus, White Caesar: When Did 'White People' Become 'White,'?" The Classical Journal, Vol. 99, No. 2. (Dec., 2003 - Jan., 2004), p. 164.
- ^ Winthrop D. Jordan, The White Man's Burden, (condensed version of Black Over White), 1974, p. 52.
- ^ James Allen (1994). The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and Social Control. Verso. ISBN 086091660X.
- ^ a b Sarah A Tishkoff & Kenneth K Kidd (2004) Implications of biogeography of human populations for 'race' and medicine Nature Genetics
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- Smedley, Audrey , Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview, 1999).
- Sweet, Frank W. , Legal History of the Color Line: The Rise and Triumph of the One-Drop Rule, Backintyme, 2005, ISBN 0-939479-23-0.
- Tang, Hua., Tom Quertermous, Beatriz Rodriguez, Sharon L. R. Kardia, Xiaofeng Zhu, Andrew Brown,7 James S. Pankow,8 Michael A. Province,9 Steven C. Hunt, Eric Boerwinkle, Nicholas J. Schork, and Neil J. Risch (2005) Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies Am. J. Hum. Genet. 76:268–275.
- "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