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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 83.231.19.157 (talk) at 12:21, 6 August 2008 (→‎Removal of the Gallery). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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There is ONE opinion for no image

Every other editor wants an image. A consensus has clearly been reached. Therefore, it is included. [1]EgraS (talk) 23:26, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can see no consensus to have this image. Indeed your statement is bizarre, there are three editors against an image and two in favour in the section you post to, yet you claim that there is consensus for an image and only a single editor against. Take a look Ramdrake and PaulBC dissent from having an image, and Paul and Fercho want an image, if you include my dissent as well, it means a majority against an image. The problem has always been that there has never been a consensus to have any specific image. Indeed it always gets to the point where every little group wants to include an image of someone from their region. Having a gallery didn't help this situation. So it was decided to have a gallery over at the commons. Not only are you incorrect to claim that only one editor disagrees with you, you are incorrect that there is a consensus for an image, a consensus is not the same as a slim majority. I suggest that if you want to seek a consensus then the place to start is with making some suggestions for images to be included, at least we need two images, one of a man and one of a woman. Preferably this should not be a "beauty contest", we are not only looking for "attractive young people", neither should we include famous people. On problem is that no image can reflect what a "white person" looks like, because the term "white person" is subjective and has different meanings depending upon context. The point is this though, if you want to get consensus around an image or two, then post the image here and ask people to comment upon it's acceptability. If there is a clear majority for an image then we can post it on the article page. If you provide several examples of appropriate images, then people are at liberty to discuss the relative pros and cons of any given image. I warn you though, this has in the past been a very difficult process. I have no problem with opening it up again, hopefully it'll be easier this time, but let's do it properly. There is no consensus for the image you included in the article, let's see if we can get some consensus for an image before including it in the article shall we? Alun (talk) 08:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That image clearly illustrated features of the white race such as light skin color so clearly written in the article. It is irritating that there are many pictures for every other race, but not white people. EgraS (talk) 09:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Really? For a start I don't know what "features" are associated with the white "race", this article deliberately avoids typological observations. Light skin may something white people always have, but there are also many peoples who have light skin colour who may not be considered "white" under certain circumstances. This article is not about a typographic classification, and who is or is not considered white is socially constructed, with different societies having different norms for identifying "white people". Besides the bloke is wearing sunglasses, so you can't even see his eyes. How is that clearly illustrating these features? Furthermore you claim above that there is a consensus in favour of the inclusion of an image, something I see no evidence of. Now you are not even making this claim. As far as I can see you just want to spread the image of this pretty boy around as many articles as possible with little justification. I assume you are also 69.107.76.201 from Texas? Alun (talk) 09:43, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that picture was especially good because it doesnt show eye color. Almost all white people do have white skin, but not all white people have the stereotypical blue/green eyes. Also, your reasoning doesnt appear to make sense. Non-white may have white skin, but that doesn't mean you can't include a picture because it depicts white skin. For example, would you take away photos from the Raccoon article because animals other than raccoons have fur? EgraS (talk) 10:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So you're saying that the picture is good because it shows the typical features of a "white" person, while it's also good because it masks a good portion of the person's face? You don't even attempt to address what these typical features are. The torso is not displayed, only the head, and even then the sunglasses obscure a great portion of the face, not just the eyes. Essentially you are saying "this person is white because he has light coloured skin". Well we could include pictures of a lot of people who would not be considered "white" under certain circumstances even though they too have light coloured skin and even though they have a significant degree of European ancestry. You also claim that masking his eyes is good because we don't want to show blue eye colour as a "white" trait, but one could argue the same for his hair colour, the majority of European people do not have blond hair, and yet we have a picture of someone with blond hair. Why the sensitivity about eye colour but not an equal sensitivity about hair colour? Besides the issue is one of consensus. Let's get consensus for a specific photograph (or possibly two, a man and a woman) and then include them. Whiteness is a social construction, and it is not a universal monolith, different societies have different concepts of how a "white" person is identified. Take a look at the older version of the article when it contained a gallery here for some ideas. Alun (talk) 10:46, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just to clarify, I didn't anywhere state that we shouldn't include a picture of a person with light coloured skin "because it depicts white skin". What I said was that many people who do have light coloured skin, who also have a significant degree of European ancestry (indeed a majority of European ancestry in some cases) would not be considered "white" in many societies. This is not the same thing. This is part of the problem though, what are the criteria for considering someone "white"? So far you seem to be saying that it's only light skin colour, but you also freely admit that many people with light skin colour are often not considered "white". So what are the additional criteria for being "white"? Are they universal across different societies and cultures? Can you provide evidence that they are? I think the article currently shows clearly that different societies and cultures have very different ideas about the criteria for identifying a "white person". No single individual picture can meet all of these criteria. In the past this has lead to the inclusion of a gallery, but this gallery in and of itself became a very contentious issue. The problems we had before were not about the inclusion or otherwise of pictures, so much as the difficulty in agreeing what pictures are representative of a "white person". In many ways it's a shame because there are images in the Black people article that have a consensus, but it's been more difficult here. Besides we do actually have a gallery at the commons so it's a really easy matter for any visitor to this article to go to the commons and view these images. Alun (talk) 07:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

the opposition to having images in this article is ridiculous, and frankly disruptive. The Black people article has eight or nine images, no problem. The Asian people has an image of Tuvans for some reason. Why not. It could also have a bunch of image of other groups. This hysterical fear of showing images of "whites" is irrational. Yes, there is a link to commons:White people. Then what the hell prevents us from selecting a few good images from that category like we would for every other article on Wikipedia? I am sorry, but if this strange refusal to treat this article on the same footing as others, I will have to insist to tag it with {{NPOV}} until a reasonable selection of images is possible without all these bizarre obstruction tactics. dab (𒁳) 11:08, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The inclusion or otherwise of images is not a POV issue. How is the Asian people similar to the white people article? Asian people are from Asia, it's a geographically defined region and not a "race", there is no geographically defined "white" region. Wikipedia is full of systemic bias, take a look at Human and see how many images of "white people" are there compared to images of people from other groups. Looking there one would come to the conclusion that about 90% of all Humans are "white" and that all art, culture and science is produced by this "white" group. It's absurd to claim that this hugely overrepresented group on Wikipedia somehow lacks enough images. The term "white" is very problematic, I don't personally have a problem with having images, I'd like to see images in this article just as there are images on the Black people article, but no one wants to start a serious discussion regarding which images should be included in the article, and when images are discussed there is always some bias in favour of blond, blue eyed Europeans (surprise surprise), as if they are the only "white people", and it has become something of a "beauty contest" in the past. I don't have a problem with a gallery as long as there is plenty of variation, including people from the near East, north African and south and central Asia, as well as Europeans, white has a lot of different meanings depending on context. If you've ever seen the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour you'll know that Maz Jobrani, an Iranian, describes himself to the audience as as "white like you", implying that he does not consider his Arab colleagues (Ahmed Ahmed, Aron Kader, Dean Obeidallah) "white" (Iranian = Aryan = white, you see), but of course Arab people would be considered "white" if "Caucasian" is considered a synonym for "white". It's so contextualised that it's hard to get a handle on. Therefore the only way to make a gallery work is to use the most inclusivist concept of "white" we can find. Even then I don't think it'll be very easy, but I'm prepared to give it a shot. Alun (talk) 11:51, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't oppose an inclusive gallery such as Alun is suggesting either; however, I would be very concerned that it would become a magnet for drive-by trolls and racists. This is the very reason that first brought us to the conclusion that it was better off not to have images in the article.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two options spring to mind, either a gallery or a collage of images as seen in some articles. One way to start the process is to have a sort of "nominating" period, where editors can nominate pictures for inclusion in the article. Then we close the nominating process, decide how many pictures we want to include, and have a vote, with the top pictures being included in the article. We may have to have some sort of handicapping system, in order to ensure a good heterogeneous and inclusive set of images, for example putting a cap on the proportion of images representing any given "phenotype", so we don't end up with 20 or so images all showing an idealised blond blue eyed northern European, but that shouldn't be a problem. Here's some random pics, please add, remove or discuss. Alun (talk) 19:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems very odd to have 3 Jews (all secular), two Arabs, and no non-Jewish Central Europeans. And are the Sami at all widely considered "white"? I thought the aboriginal circumpolar peoples were generally not so considered. - Jmabel | Talk 19:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i think so far this collage is fantastic it has a great regional diversity of white people--Wikiscribe (talk) 21:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Re the remarks about blondness above: certainly there should be at least one clearly blond person (yes, most white people are not blond, but equally clearly blonds are pretty much necessarily white) and at least one redhead (possibly a Circassian?). - Jmabel | Talk 22:00, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

the prez of finland is redhead--Wikiscribe (talk) 22:19, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, not that it is important in this case, but there is a significant population of blonde people among the Australian Aborigenes (western Australia).--Ramdrake (talk) 22:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not wanting to start the polemic from scrach, are there credible sources for each one of these individuals that they are perceived as white in some context (namely their's). Is king Mohammed VI of Morocco seen as white in Morocco (I believe his father's mother was caled "the black one" in the country, by the way)? Does that category even has any pertinence there? I wonder. The Ogre (talk) 11:13, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article definitely needs pictures so a no to the removal from me. --Zero g (talk) 13:04, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We should include Papa Doc Duvalier - he had at least one drop of white blood. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:17, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

to avoid further delays in adding pictures to this article, just add a new picture there are enough white people in the world ,so do to the justified concerns raised by an editor and do to the constant fillibuster mode of some other editors which shall remain nameless, i just added a new picture of somebody else from the north african region,now lets just add the collage to the freaking article and see if it flys this is no longer waiting for a consenus it has become a fillibuster i have been patient with this weighted in from time to time but this is out of hand now--Wikiscribe (talk) 13:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i am seeking a consenus to add an indian to the gallery being they can be classified as white also, and the removal of a european maybe either the prez of finland or the sami women being they are 2 northern europeans

i would like to add indian actress Aishwarya Rai--Wikiscribe (talk) 21:42, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aishwarya's parents do not look white.----DarkTea© 22:09, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What does the fact that you personally believe they do not "look white" have to do with it? I don't know what it means to "look white". Whiteness is a social construct, and sometimes it is a legal status, but it means very different things in different contexts. As Wikiscribe points out some legal concepts of "white" include people from the Indian subcontinent as "white". We have decided to have the most liberal interpretation of "white" that we can for the gallery, and we can show that under the US census at certain points in history people from subcontinental India were considered "white". I'm not personally sure what or who constitutes "white" or a "white person", and I suspect that the gallery, or indeed any image is really a red herring, but we decided to give it a go as there was quite a lot of complaint that there were no images at all in the article. I'll support the inclusion of Aishwarya Rai. Alun (talk) 12:17, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i support her inclusion also of course but did not want to force the issue if i no other editor came along and supported it--Wikiscribe (talk) 14:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

well i guess with that picture there would never be a consenus--Wikiscribe (talk) 22:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The gallery is missing someone from South America. CenterofGravity (talk) 19:26, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And from the Caribbean. I will add Papa Doc Duvalier [2] Slrubenstein | Talk 21:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Sami woman is considered white because Samis are an indigenious people but they inhabit the far north of the Scandanavian Countries

"Racial group"

In the lead User:Ramdrake changed "an ostensible racial group of human beings" to "a racial group of human beings" with the edit summary "Removed word which had no business there". I was the person who originally inserted the word, and I quite disagree.

Besides the fact that present-day anthropologists largely reject racial classification of human beings, the term "white" at different times and places has included or excluded the Irish, the Gypsies, the Jews (sometimes including the Ashkenazim and excluding others), most Middle Easterners (sometimes including Levantines and excluding North Africans) and Southwest Asians, the Finns, the Sami, the Southern Italians, and the Slavs (I'm sure I've left something out). Even granting the racial theory, the word pretty clearly cannot refer to a particular race. Hence "ostensible"; I'd be hesitant ever to refer to a "racial group of human beings" without adding a qualification like that.

What is the basis for "had no business there"? - Jmabel | Talk 23:36, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry,but it is not sometimes and in some places: all that information you have provided refers to the US. When you and other people like you begin to understand that the US is not the world but just an ex-European colony full of wannabes, then these types of comments will end up where they belong: in US social perceptions, the ideas of a bunch of ignorants, who happen to be one of the most mixed population in the world but who happen to think that they are white and others not. If black Americans were the elite in the US I would not be surprised to find comments stating that the Angolans are not black but the Americans are. Most people do not care about the opinions of ignorant Americans in an article that is not about Americans and their poor and sad racial complexes, although you do not have to be one of them to talk like them. If tha is the case, watch out and do not be infected with their stupidity. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.249.250 (talk) 10:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not understanding your soapbox rant completely. The U.S. does not state that it is a white country and no one else is white. The U.S. Census bureau includes many groups within the white/caucasian category such as people from Europe, the Middle East, parts of North Africa, and even parts of India. But that is just one definition. Other definitions in the world exist as to what constitutes "white". Kman543210 (talk) 10:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I assume the "rant" remark is aimed at the anonymous contributor, not at me.
FWIW, I'm pretty certain that the racial status of Slavs and especially of Jews and Gypsies (Roma) are historically much more contentious in Europe than in the U.S. I don't think I was particularly U.S.-centric in my examples. And the issue of Southern Italians is certainly a current issue in Italy, what with the Lega Nord's attitude that "Africa begins at Rome".
I stand by my statement that pretty much any racial grouping should be qualified by a word like "ostensible". I don't see anything in the anonymous remark to indicate otherwise. I assume that this anonymous remark did not come from User:Ramdrake, who I was addressing: he writes English well & knows how to punctuate. I had left a note on his user talk page right after making my remarks here, so I certainly hope to hear from him. - Jmabel | Talk 21:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Exchange copied from User talk:Ramdrake

Sorry, I thought I already answered. In my book, "ostensible" has a meaning of for show, which is different than the meaning you seem to assign to it (and which is why I found it incomprehensible initially). Maybe then an alternate epithet would work?--Ramdrake (talk) 10:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is one of this meanings, but here I intended it in its other meaning, which the Merriam-Webster gives as "being such in appearance : plausible rather than demonstrably true or real <the ostensible purpose for the trip>" which seems to me to be precisely correct. Can you suggest another word? - Jmabel | Talk 17:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

End copied exchange

May I suggest something along the lines of "variably-defined", or somesuch. In my background, I was always taught that if one uses a term which can have two different meanings, one always ran the risk of someone interpreting the word as having the other meaning, thereby causing confusion (such as the one I fell prey to). This is why I would suggest wording which can only have one meaning. Sorry if this is a compound expression, but that's the closest I could come to your intended meaning. Please don't take this the wrong way.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:24, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good thought. I'll turn that to "variously defined" to avoid the hyphen. - Jmabel | Talk 00:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I agree 110% with this. :) --Ramdrake (talk) 01:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About he soapbox rant comment, sorry but American views on this subject just look like that, they are soapbox rants by definition, like Jmabel, speaking of Jews and Slaves in Nazi Germany, who never used white versus non white, by the way, in these cases. People here continue introducing real soapbox rants like the Lega Nord now etc, naming all types of marginal and extremist organizations made up of border line people. This is ostensibly an article by imbeciles and I would bet full of personal issues, so I am out of this stinky place. Good luck with your stupidity disguised as intellectual discussion. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.231.105.211 (talk) 16:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Argentina's Amerindian Admixture

Can someone tell me what is wrong with these sourced edits?..."while up to 56% [1] have Amerindian ancestors, and some posses Afro-Argentine ancestry.[2]"

These are deleted every single time by User:Fercho85. He seems to have fun deleting many sourced edits from a great many articles. Does anyone else agree that these should be added into the article about White Argentines? The Population in the Argentines is not wholly European, as some would have you believe and studies and censuses in Argentina itslef (University of buenos Aires) say so.Cali567 (talk) 05:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.clarin.com/diario/2005/01/16/sociedad/s-03415.htm

http://coleccion.educ.ar/coleccion/CD9/contenidos/sobre/pon3/index.html

There are many studies, often contradictory, about Argentina and about the US etc. Either they are all there or none. The man. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.231.52.43 (talk) 21:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi... I'm from Argentina. The link you cite is from a very controversial study that was conducted on only 322 people, mostly from northern provinces (which are sparsely populated in comparison to the rest of country), thus the study not only used a very small sample, but failed to take population distribution into account. More serious studies put admixture at around 10-15% of the population, like this one from UNAM which puts admixture at 11% of the population. [3]. All in all, it's a very controversial topic that doesn't belong in this article, which deals with *social* and *cultural* definitions of "whiteness". That was the consensus if you take a look at the archive. --201.253.67.83 (talk) 00:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with the above anon poster (201.253.67.83) that usually these studies take into account very small sample sizes, and sometimes from only one area. Statistically, a few hundred out of millions is not a good sample size. Usually these cited tests only measure either the mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA from the mother) or the Y-DNA (from the father) and only measure one single line out of thousands of recent ancestors. One person could have had one Amerindian great, great....grandmother down the maternal line, but for all intents and purposes, that person would be predominantly of European ancestry. These DNA tests can be very misleading if not put into proper context. Kman543210 (talk) 00:25, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i am in agreence with the ip and kman about the study,and this article is about white people not there possible admixture of non caucasian ancestry there seems to be no reason to add such studies and serves no purpose, also there are studies that cite that about 30 percent of white united states americans having non caucasian admixture but nobody seem to interested in that, but there is this peculiar intrest in argentina exact background,i think in the case of this article all that matters is the census and what the people there identify themselfs as and the percentage of argentines who identify themselves as white is over welming in the 90's percentile. argentina is known for being the europe of south america--Wikiscribe (talk) 05:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about identity and not ancestry. Identity is not about whether someone has x% ancestry for one group or another, it's about how people self identify irrespective of ancestry. If we are going to claim that a great many self identified "white" Argentinians have European and/or Near Eastern ancestry, well that's fine, but it does not preclude native American ancestry either. The section about Argentina is itself contradictory, it claims, without any sources, that "White Argentines are mainly descendants of immigrants who came from Europe in the late 19th century." but then goes on to say "Censuses are conducted on the basis of self-identification.", so anyone can self identify as a "white" Argentinian in the census. If we need to discuss ancestry at all (which I personally doubt) then at least have some reliable sources that say specifically that "white" Argentinians are descended from Europeans, or is the truth that in reality "white" Argentinians believe that they are descended from Europeans? Indeed the fact is that "white" Argentinians can be descended from Europeans and indigenous native Americans, just because one is descended from Europeans, it does not indicate exclusive descent from Europeans. After all the overwhelming majority of African Americans in the USA are descended from Europeans, but it does not mean they necessarily identify as "white". Identity is not the same as ancestry, very few people know their ow ancestry more than two or three generations back in time, so what we believe about our ancestry and how it affects out identity is more important that the "facts" that we do not know about our actual ancestors. Alun (talk) 05:45, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Scientific studies that deal with genetics serve no puropse, since when? The introduction to this article includes criticism about the broad classification of white used by contemporary demographic surveys. The inclusion of the study reinforces that critique. The IP identified user is also wrong by saying that the study was done on just 322 people in the northern provinces but rather over 12,000 individuals spread across Argentina. Removing the sourced content is only diminishing the value of reasearch that was done. CenterofGravity (talk) 05:53, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree with CenterofGravity, if we are going to make bold claims about ancestry then we need to include all points of view from reliable sources. Persoanlly I'd prefer to stick to self identity rather than drag ancestry into it, but when claims of ancestry are in it we need all points of view. If the current section about Argentina only gives a single point of view about ancestry, and a different point of view exists, then we need to include that different point of view as well, that's how we ahceive neutrality. Is there some sort of controversy in Argentina about the extent of indigenous American ancestry to Argentinians? If so could someone find a source that discusses this controversy? Then we could include the controversy int he section in the article. Thanks. Alun (talk) 06:04, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
this is an idenity article demographics is what counts here not genetic background,the only thing i would suggest is that in the begining paragraph we add that many white popluations have non caucasian ancestry some how--Wikiscribe (talk) 06:16, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Demography has got nothing to do with identity, demography is the study of populations in a non-biological sense. If the article is about identity and not ancestry, then we should remove most of the section about Argentina because it currently states White Argentines are mainly descendants of immigrants who came from Europe in the late 19th century. Most of these immigrants came from Spain and Italy, as well as France, the United Kingdom and people from other European countries, among them European Jews. Others counted among the White population of Argentina came from countries of the Middle East, primarily Lebanon and Syria. We cannot make this claim about ancestry if we are talking about identity. One's ancestors are a biological and genetic fact, one's identity is a question of culture. You can't have it both ways, either you include the references to "white" Argentinians being the descendants of Europeans and include the genetics section, or you don't include either. One solution would be to say that "white" Argentinians believe they are the descendants of Europeans. But anyway it doesn't cut the mustard, just because someone is the descendant of an European, it does not mean that they are not also the descendant of a non-European and it does not necessarily make them "white". If "white" Argentinians are defined only as the descendants of Europeans and Near Eastern people, then anyone with only a single ancestor from these places can be "white", even if this ancestor was a single great-great-great-grandparent, for example. Saying that "White Argentines are mainly descendants of immigrants who came from Europe in the late 19th century." tells us precisely nothing about "white" Argentinians. Alun (talk) 06:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, the section on Argentina offers little to no encyclopedic value on the subject and omits any kind of interdisciplinarity study while the unsourced census lacks any kind of social definition. CenterofGravity (talk) 07:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


AGAIN, the Corach study was deeply flawed, as it was conducted on 322 subjects and did NOT take even population distribution into account.

I quote, from the original study [4]:

Using this criteria the laboratory from the Service of Digital Fingerprints of the Faculty of Farmacy and Biochesmistry of the University of Buenos Aires selected at random some 320 biological samples from a total of 12,000 from male unrelated individuals from nine Argentine provinces

This means only 320 samples were analized from only 9 Argentine provinces. There are 24 provinces in the country.

Then, the article states:

samples were grouped in three regions: Northeast (Salta, Formosa, Misiones, Corrientes, Chaco, Santa Fe y Entre Ríos) number of individuals (N) =102, Southwest (Chubut y Río Negro) N=100, and Center (Buenos Aires, Santa Fe y Mendoza) N=120.

Now, if you are familiar with Argentine demographics, you would know that the distribution of the population is extremely uneven; 60% of the population lives in three provinces of the Central area alone (Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Cordoba), and the rest of the country is sparsely populated in comparison. For this reason the study is flawed, as it fails to acknowledge this population distribution and gives equal importance to the north of the country (which does have a significant amerindian ancestry) as to the center. Likewise, it's very suspicious that the second most populated province in the country (Cordoba, 3 million people) was not even included in the study, neither was Tucuman, the most populated province of the northern area (900k people).

I really don't understand why we need to bring this sort of controversies to articles that deal with social and not genetic definitions. First of all, having an Amerindian chromosome does not automatically make someone non-white, 30% of white Americans have African or Native admixture but nobody is raising eyebrows about that. This is because the Amerindian contribution, in these cases, is too low to be noticeable, thus allowing people with little admixture to identify themselves as white, because for all intents and purposes, they look white!

Secondly, the majority of studies give Argentina an admixture of 10-20%, not the ludicrous percentage on the Corach study. [5] [6] [7]. This correlates perfectly with Argentine history, as the country was the second-largest recipient of immigrants in the Americas after the United States, in absolute numbers, and suffered a population jump from 2.4 million in 1880 to 11.8 million in 1930 and 20.7 million in 1960 at the end of the migratory wave, meaning the population of the country multiplied by a factor of 10 in 80 years mostly due to this European immigration. You will see that Cali567, the user that started this controversy, has been trying to include this Corach study in every article that deals with Argentine demographics while ignoring the countless others that contradict it. Just looking at his edits its obvious that this user seems to have an agenda or some sort of grudge against the country, he has spent the last weeks getting into constant disputes with argentine users for making disruptive edits. I don't want to be offensive, but people like him are one of the reasons I originally left wikipedia and closed my account.

All the article says is that "White Argentines are mainly descendants of immigrants who came from Europe in the late 19th century.", which is true. Nobody is adding genetic studies about the admixture of white Americans, the admixture of white Brazilians, Uruguayans or New Zealanders, even when some of these countries probably have an equal or higher level of admixture, so why single out Argentina?

I will try to edit the article to make it as neutral as possible and include different census definitions, but it's frustrating to see how a disruptive user relying on only one unrelated link cause such a ripple effect on the site. --201.252.75.196 (talk) 13:12, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

here read this article from national geographic about argentina it may shed some light and demographics on a census does have something to do with idenity who do you thinks fills out the census the government(no) the people, if they were not white why would they be identifying as white that does tell us about idenity

[8] --Wikiscribe (talk) 15:06, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

and i am against adding any thing about admixture to any single white population unless there is a nuetral statement stateing that all white populations may have non white admixture--Wikiscribe (talk) 15:09, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Argentine 2001 national census

For the editor that included the source to the census, may you please indicate which page or section the claim that 95% of Argentines self-identify as being white is made.

Cleanup of Uruguay

Having a problem with this section because it's not offering any details on the Uruguayan census and no social definition of whiteness according to that census. It lacks any kind of relevant information about legal standards or procedures defining racial categories within the country. Instead it's just a listing of European immigration that is non constructive to the section titled Census and social definitions in different regions. CenterofGravity (talk) 02:43, 15 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The section doesn't feature a social definition of whiteness nor a national census and only offers a listing of European and Asian immigration to a country of total population 3.4 million people does not appear relevant when a multitude of countries located in the western hemisphere have experienced the same. The section is being cleaned up with the removal of repeated text. CenterofGravity (talk) 06:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nursultan Nazarbaev?!

The Kazakhs are Mongoloid. One can't fit them even into the rather delusional definition of whites presented in the article. He isn't even part-white, since he has no notable foreign admixtures. --Humanophage (talk) 13:00, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The 2000 US Census' ancestry code listing which automatically categorizes write-in responses counts the "Kazak" #168 as a European response. The 2000 US Census classifies people with origins in any of the original people of Europe, Middle East or North Africa as being part of the white race.----DarkTea© 13:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are 11 mln Russians out of 15 mln of Kazakhstan's population, almost 60 per cent of Kazakhstan's territory belonged to Russia. But people who are called Kazakhs in Kazakhstan are Asian of mongoloid origin. They are not considered white in any way. In that case the entire Mongolia, China Viet Nam should be considered Caucasian. And please learn whats the difference between Kazakhs and RUssian Kozaks or Cossacks. Therefore, Nursulatn Nazarbayev;s pic should be deleted ASAP.

ArmenianNY, the Kazakhs aren't wholly mongoloid: they are part Mongol, part Turkic and part Northern Indian. You'd need sources establishing that Nazarbaez does or doesn't self-identify as White.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:18, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

but if we dont have sources either way more editors are against leaving him in the gallery than are for that would be you ramdrake going against a consenus--Wikiscribe (talk) 00:10, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Wikiscribe here that there were 6 people who were opposed to including him and 2 who wanted to keep him (1 was unclear). Not all of us are disputing that some Kazakhs can be categorized as white, but in this case since there it is questionable for this particular person, it would be better to find another person to replace him. Kman543210 (talk) 00:18, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I'm counting only a slight majority in favor of exclusion (3-5). And without references, excluding him is a violation of NPOV (as some of us do consider him white - and it is mentioned that some whites aren't considered white by everyone). The point here is not to put in only pictures of people everybody agrees are white, but to put in pictures showing the full extent of who can be considered white, and in this case, Nazarbaev does qualify, although conceivably as an extreme. Actually, excluding him is really saying he couldn't be considered white by anyone.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Exuse me, you want me to go to Kazakhstan to interview Nazarbayev to find out his race? He can indentify himself as afro american or pacific islander, it is his business. Race is a very vague and fluid category. He, Nazarebayev, worked for Russians, all his life he served Russians , he still is their "man", and he can even identify himself Russian. Nobody cares. If Nazarbayev calls himself white that doesnt mean that the entire Altaic turkic speaking Kazakh nation should be considered a different race apart from Chinese, Mongolian, Buryat, Kirgiz, Uyghur people. I can not understand why you are trying to impose your own POW, your own opinion in wikipedia. You are a neuroscientist who has nothing to do with anthropology, ethnography and ethnopsychology. You want to convince me, a person who is from USSR who the Kazakh people are??? Now remember for now on: Kazakhs are mongoloid turkic speaking nation, whose skin colour can be white as almost all the asian peoples' skin. Nursulatan Nazarbayev is a pure Kazakh who is considered mongoloid or according to US classification of races- Asian. And if you go on with undoing and bringin back his picture to this page I have nothing to do but to ask wikipedia moderators to intervene to stop your vandalism. I can not prove that I am not a camel. You have to prove first that Nazarbayev is white, bring your own reliable resources, proving that Kazakh people are Caucasian or indoeuropean or white.--armenianNY 23:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by ArmenianNY (talk • contribs)

Again, Kazakhs are only considered part Mongol. Most of their heritage is Turkic. Unless you want to start applying the one-drop rule to non-American people, in the case of Nazarbaez, it will take more than your POV to establish whether or not he can be considered white. Please feel free to bring this to dispute resolution if youi wish.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:05, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And yet ... I am pretty sure that Nursultan Nazarbaev is not a citizen of the United States. Is there any concevable reason US census categories would apply to him? Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The US census classified a black person as white simply because he moved to the US from Egypt, it really is quite faulty. But the fact is that there's no connection between one's race and one's citizenship. It probably sounds a little preposterous to call something a fact, but it is quite obvious to me in this case. For instance, South Africa has both white and black people, and all of them would be South Africans by nationality. Kazakhstan has white people (relatives of former Russian colonists, military personnel or scientists) and native Mongoloid population (Kazakhs and some other Central Asian Turkic minorities). Note that the Russians are not the majority there. --Humanophage (talk) 08:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The case of the black man being white is different. He was probably indigenous to Sub-Saharan Africa and the citizenship clerk or whoever forced him to be white didn't understand the US Census distinction that its definition require someone to be indigenous. He may also be who the US Census was intending to classify as white. According to the single origin model, humans are descended from a common human who was modified through adaptation to become every physical variation on the planet. This model would predict a transitional state occurring between extremes of its variation when one race is becoming another. North Africa would contain a transitional state between black and Middle Eastern. The black man may have been a white man with transitional features. I can see that his physical features resembles a Mongolian, but if your take on the issue is correct, then he must be white. If, as you say, there is a non-indigenous Slavic element in Kazakhstan and there are indigenous people that look like him, then he must be who the US Census is claiming is white. He may be a transitional Middle Eastern/Asian. If the Slavic element is indigenous and the Mongolian element is a recent descendant of Mongolia, then he would be Asian or Eurasian.-----DarkTea© 12:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The wording on the US Census is "people with origins..."; the wording is not "United States citizens with origins..".----DarkTea© 14:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that his appearance is definitely Asian. I don't know what others from Kazakhstan look like, but since there is a dispute, I would recommend that we just keep that particular picture out. I don't think it would be a big deal to find another picture to replace that one. Kman543210 (talk) 14:01, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The US census says "people with origins" because the only people who are ever included in the US census are people in the US. The US census has no authority over non-US citizens or residents. It reflects US categories and values, not universally objective categories or values. It has no applicability to Nursultan Nazarbaev. Your remark is just a disruptive edit as it adds nothing to the conversation and is unconstructive. Likewise, it doesn't matter what the guy looks like to Kman543210 or to me - Wikipedia editors do not put thir own views in articles, to do so violates our NPOV policy. The question is how does Nursultan Nazarbaev identify himself racially, if he identifies himself racially at all, or how does his government identify him racially, if it identifies its citizens racially. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with your argument that the US Census defines race so that by its own definition races only exist in the United States and by the US Census' race definition everyone who lives outside of the United States would have no race. In regards to your statement that my edit is a "disruptive edit as it adds nothing to the conversation and is unconstructive", remember to have good faith in other editors. I don't remember "[t]he question is how does Nursultan Nazarbaev identify himself racially" being a Wikipedia policy type concern. Are you saying that we must have someone make a clear statement on their racial identity before we can include them in a race article? Is this a policy-relevant demand?-----DarkTea© 14:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All articles have to comply with NPOV and V. We need a verifiable view that he is or is not a white person. For you to take a US census definition and apply that to this individual, when the US census never applied its definition to this individual, is a straightforward violation of SYNTH and NOR. I do not see why this is even an issue. I took your initial comment as good faith and explained, perhaps too briefly, why it is not relevant. You seem to persist in your claim that you can apply a definition applied in one context, to another context, when there is nothing about this approach that complies with Wikipedia policies. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think I understand. Your argument is that the combination of the US Census definition of race and a reliable source stating a specific ancestry for an individual would be a synthesis violation if the two were combined to racially classify that individual. I agree. I feel there should be no exemplary pictures of whites in a way that would constitute synthesis of sources.-----DarkTea© 14:48, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - we are in agreement. I have problems with other photos of course, and the same concern about the other contents of the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i am in favor of his removal his features are way to strongly mongoloid to be considered white ,in a gallery of white people--Wikiscribe (talk) 14:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That would violate NPOV. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:36, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
stating the obivious via pictiorial evidence, does not violate neutral point of view in trying to gain a consensus in a case or subject such as this--Wikiscribe (talk) 16:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so you think it is obvious. YOU think it is obvious. Sorry, your POV is not what Wikipedia is about. Our policies are our policies, and we do not make exceptions just to please your own point of view. My view as to whether Narzabaev are irrelevnt, as should be yours. Is there a notable view that we can find in a reliable source that identifies him as a white person? If so we can use his photo, whether you or I like it or not. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:54, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

along with other facts that he comes from central asia where it just so happens there are large numbers of mongoloids so it would not be wierd for him to be that and i am not the only one who expressed a concern other seem to agree so it would not just be my point of view,and making coments such as i have problems with other photos in the gallery is not useful unless you present reasons why you do--Wikiscribe (talk) 17:00, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, we'd need a reliable source which states how he sees himself racially (or how he is categorized). Without it, this is just guesswork, i.e. OR. We had the same problem some time ago, and this is what led many of us to withdraw the gallery in the first place. Of course, back then, the POVs weremore egregious (anybody Muslim or from outside Europe or North America was excluded by some editors -- those editors are sicne gone).--Ramdrake (talk) 17:25, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i agree ramdrake those reasons for lack of a better term are silly because religion has nothing to do with race,but with this person in question it would not be crazy to suggest he is not even of the caucasian race that he is a possibly of another race class and we have no sources to verify one way or another would it not be prudent and just replace him with maybe another person from same continent--Wikiscribe (talk) 17:31, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Let's be clear: I'm not saying that your POV is crazy; it makes much sense. It's just not backed by reliable sources. Technically, Kazakhs are acknowledged as being a Caucasoid-Mongoloid mix. We do not know the proportions, and it is a reasonable assumption that these proportions vary from individual to individual. Although Nazarbaev's features look mongoloid, they don't look any more mongoloid to me than say, Björk's, who is Icelandic. Therefore, I'd avoid basing the inclusion or exclusion of anyone on just personal opinion (albeit that it may be shared by several editors) of what a person looks like.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:51, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay but there are no verifiable sources to suggest one race or another and his facial features suggest a strong chance to others not just me of being mongoloid, i suggest if a few more editors express this same concern as even you did and there are no reliable sources either way,that his photo be removed via a consensus unless there are sources for him being caucasian since there is reasonable doubt--Wikiscribe (talk) 18:33, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If there are even some objections to his picture being included, why not just put in another example of someone else?. I'm confused why it would be a big deal. Why, out of so many potential examples, should we include him? Even if there was not a dispute about his race, surely there should be some kind of consensus about which people to include in the article. Kman543210 (talk) 21:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i agree kman but as long as an objection of a photo is valid and that depends on the arguement one presents--Wikiscribe (talk) 21:29, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, Nazarbaev's people (the Kazakhs) are definitely at least partly "White", so he may indeed qualify. Otherwise, we will need to exclude everybody who's not "purely white" from the gallery, which is 99.9% of people who would normally socially qualify otherwise. Again, we can't judge by how a person looks. You see, to me, he looks a bit Russian-like, and I would say Russians would qualify as "whites", if you want to debate the issue based strictly on personal opinions (which will get us exactly nowhere). And, BTW, I'm not seeing a consensus to exchange the picture.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:04, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He doesn't look a bit Russian-like. He looks much more Chinese-like or Japanese-like, both of whom have light skin in some of the regions of their countries. He has epicanthus, corresponding eyebrows, a flat nose, and a round flat face. He can only potentially look similiar to those Russians who are heavily mixed with some of the native ethnicities, but then the whole point is that a mixed Russian would be Eurasian in the racial sense. Not to mention that the only reason why people would call him Russian is that they're not aware of the existence of Mongoloid ethnic minorities such as the Yakuts or the Buryats. Russian, in this case, would be as pointless from the ethnic point of view as American (white American? African-American? Asian-American?), Canadian or South African. --Humanophage (talk) 08:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


This is completely ridiculous. I count something like six middle-easterners and a Kazakh in that 'gallery'. This is common sense, guys. An article on 'white people' should include white people. If you just want to piss people off for fun, the articles will be crap. I am deleting the non-white people based on simple common sense. Feichangdao (talk) 22:14, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. There is a hypocritical double standard on the page. When a picture of Anwar Sadat was put on the black people article some time ago, several of the 'objective' editors on this page (they know who they are) quickly removed him, claiming that he should not be listed, even though his skin was dark, and his mother was Sudanese. Now these same people want to include Indians, Egyptians, Central Asiatics, etc under the 'white' label, even though they don't match what is traditionally seen as white, as noted in your definition. Sadat was not 'blek' enough for them, but under their hypocritical double standard, as long as you are 'approved' with light enough skin, you can be white. There are other dark skinned Indian actresses. How come they aren't shown? See the hypocrisy at play with these people?Larsposenaa (talk) 15:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

your comments are useless and are not helping to resovle this--Wikiscribe (talk) 22:16, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not true. Middle eastern people are not white. Pictures of middle-easterners should go in an article on middle-eastern people. Pictures of Indians, Pakistanis, or Kazakhs should go in articles on Indians or Eurasian people. This would be obvious to anyone with any common sense.Feichangdao (talk) 22:27, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You should write a letter to the U.S. Census Bureau then if you disagree with the classification of people from the Middle East being white as well as other sources that classify them as white. By many definitions, they are considered caucasian which can be synonymous with white. Kman543210 (talk) 22:32, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not beholden to the US census, is it? The census groups people for convenience. Most people would not consider Arabs to be "white" as the term is commonly used. Arabs and others simply belong in a different article.Feichangdao (talk) 22:35, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

its not only the u.s do you have any sources that science has changed racial clasifications--Wikiscribe (talk) 22:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest that people start quoting reliable sources to support their positions, rather than generalizations such as "most people would consider"? Otherwise this discussion will keep going around in circles. Also, please bear in mind that there is no single true definition of "White"; like all racial labels,it is a social construct, therefore subjective, and different people may define it differently.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree Ramdrake. The definitions used here are entirely subjective and arbitrary, and hypocritical. Several on this page rushed to remove Anwar Sadat from the Black People article even though his mother was Sudanese. But they have no problem with a light skinned actress from India as 'white.' Larsposenaa (talk) 15:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the U.S. Census Bureau is not the final say, but there are other sources that classify them as such. Remember that this about the "macro" classification of race (white, black, Asian) and not about individual ethnic groups. I agree that some would not consider them white in a social situation, but according to many of the definitions and sources used in this article, they are classified as such. Kman543210 (talk) 22:42, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, my point exactly, you stated it much better than I could.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:44, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Where does this strong opinion of yours come from that Indians, Pakistanis, Iranians, and Kazakhs should be used as some of the few examples of white people in an article titled "white people"? I continue to disagree and maintain that your position is completely ridiculous.Feichangdao (talk) 22:50, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. They want to include Indians, etc under the rubric of white because it conveys some sort of status. Fine. But how come then an Egyptian with a Sudanese mother is non black?Larsposenaa (talk) 15:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For me personally, it is not a strong opinion. The original point of this particular thread was that the picture of Nursultan Nazarbaev (Kazakh) should not be included because some of the editors thought he was Asian rather than white (and I agreed with this position as well). I can see your point, and I do not think that your position is ridiculous, so I would hope you could afford the same courtesy to other editors that have a different opinion than yours. Opinion doesn't matter as much here though, so here are 3 additional references on the definition of white/caucasian race:
American Heritage Dictionary: Of or being a human racial classification distinguished especially by very light to brown skin pigmentation and straight to wavy or curly hair, and including peoples indigenous to Europe, northern Africa, western Asia, and Indian.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary: Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of one of the traditional racial divisions of humankind, marked by fair to dark skin, straight to tightly curled hair, and light to very dark eyes, and originally inhabiting Europe, parts of North Africa, western Asia, and India.
Compact Oxford English Dictionary: Relating to a broad division of humankind covering peoples from Europe, Western Asia, parts of the Indian Subcontinent and parts of North Africa" or "white-skinned; of European origin" or "relating to the region of the Caucasus in SE Europe". Kman543210 (talk) 23:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This citation supports my position: "[t]here is a significant discrepancy between census theory and racial practice in America (Anderson, 1988). Persons who are identifiably of North African or Middle Eastern descent are not considered White by the general White population." Nancy A. Denton, Stewart Emory Tolnay, American diversity: a demographic challenge for the twenty-first century, p. 265 (SUNY Press, 2002). Feichangdao (talk) 23:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Your position has some merit. The definitions used here are hypocritical.Larsposenaa (talk) 15
52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
As stated before, we don't go by a single definition. NPOV demands that we take into account all significant viewpoints, and the fact that not all people recognize Middle Easterners and North Africans as whites is mentioned somewhere in the intro. Kman5432190 just supplied three definitions which include these people in the definition of white. Please remember that Wikipedia is about verifiability, not truth as any one particular editor sees it.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:40, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A further citation: "Jewish, Arabic, Irish, Italian, Chicano, and Hispanic people, and many people of Asian descent, often have very "white" skin, but are not considered "white" by ... media standards." Inga Muscio, Autobiography of a Blue-eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist Imperialist Society, p. 296 (Seal Press, 2005).Feichangdao (talk) 23:46, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In response to your comment, we have definitions that directly conflict. I have cited two sources which exclude middle-easterners, but I will concede that other sources do include them in the category of "white" people. Thus, we should only include pictures of whites about which there is not such a dispute.Feichangdao (talk) 23:46, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, NPOV does not "demand that we take into account all significant viewpoints." It demands "fairness, disinterestedness, factuality, and nonpartisanship." The gravamen of the NPOV policy is objectiveness, not the inclusion of disputed subject matter.Feichangdao (talk) 23:53, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As per WP:NPOV: NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. There are three very prominent sources which include North Africans and Middle Easterners in the definition of whites. That you would present a source which wants to exclude Italians and Hispanics (basically only leaving Northern Europeans as "truly white") is rather chilling. Again, I would rather exclude the gallery altogether than present a contrived view of only people whom every single biased editor will acknowledge is white.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:03, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I would exclude the gallery altogether until there is a clear definition specified. Why are dark-skinned Indian actresses excluded if Indians are supposed to be Caucasoid? Socially and culturally she would not be considered 'white' by most social or cultural definitions. Is the definition of 'white' simply light skin? If so, why don't pale Japanese qualify? The old picture from old versions of the article is the best one. Use that or exclude the gallery entirely. Larsposenaa (talk) 15:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While trying to establish objective inclusion criteria for such a silly, yet inflammatory shared fiction as race is essentially pointless, I would hasten to point out that Inga Muscio is in no way, shape, or form a reliable source on this subject. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 00:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)Feichangdao, please read over our NPOV policy carefully. In the meantime, it is clear that you so fully misundersatand it that we can ignore your comments. NPOV is precisely a framework for handling disputed material and it requires that we incloude all notable points of view; this is especially important when there are disputes. If there is a dispute we comply with NPOV by providing all sides of the dispute; to silence those sides is to violate NPOV. Slrubenstein | Talk 00:22, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If this is the case why do you people rush to remove Sadat's picture from the Black people page? Where is the "all sides point of view then?" or is it only a convenience to be invoked to support certain agendas?Larsposenaa (talk) 15:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I'm sure you're aware, I could cite sources all day that say middle-easterners are not considered white, while you could cite opposing sources. I am only arguing that an article entitled "white people" should show _prototypical_ examples of white people. It is _really_ stretching it to have a large portion of the pictures presented be Arabs. There is always dispute around the edges of any categorization, and there is always dispute about where the boundaries of an article should fall.
But to say that _all_ views should be included may go too far sometimes. In this case, Arabs are not helpfully illustrative examples of a prototypical white person. Neither would be a picture of Barack Obama, although he is half white. According to what standard would you include so many pictures of Arabs here, but exclude Obama? I simply submit that it's not a good article if it is misleading. Someone reading this might think that Arabs are generally considered "white". - that would be very misleading. Jews and Italians, etc., are usually considered white now, for the most part, so pictures of them are not so misleading or out of place.
As for ignoring my comments, willful ignorance is a silly thing. I think I present a most commonly accepted view that would improve the article.Feichangdao (talk) 18:54, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV requires that we don't limit ourselves to "prototypical" white persons. It demands that we also include people that some people would consider white, while others might not. To answer your question, Obama doesn't self-identify as white, but many, many people in Middle Eastern countries self-identify as white.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:55, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I continue to disagree. If no one seems to agree with me then the Arab gallery will unfortunately remain on the "white people" article.Feichangdao (talk) 20:40, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This article is a complete world view reliable sources cite people from these places includeing north africans and west and central asia may be considered white as editor kman has pointed out,though some people may not consider certain people white but that would be to bad ,what next mayebe we should just include only people with blue eyes and blonde or red hair as white in the article i would go one further than ramdrake and rather see the article deleted before an article turns into that sort of propaganda--Wikiscribe (talk) 00:58, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm totally cool with either removal or keeping Nursultan Nazarbayev, whether some people think he's "white" or some think he looks "too" much like he's from the far east is somewhat irrelevant. What we personally believe is unimportant, if there's a consensus one way or the other then I'll go with it. The point is that "white" means different things to different people, and it isn't always a so called "racial" designation. A reading of Alastair Bonnett's White Identities shows that "racial" whiteness is specifically a modern and western conception, and that non-modern and non-western conceptions of "white people" were not racially based."It is my contention that, although there were no white racial identities in pre-modern China, there were white identities. In other words, certain Chinese people employed the category "white" to help define which social collectivity they belonged to...Whiteness was associated with purity, sensitivity and beauty...Early encounters with Europeans do not appear to have disturbed Chinese white identities. Westerners were not interpreted as more authentically white than Chinese people. Indeed, many accounts emphasise the peculiar, ash-like, quality of the former's skins." Bonnet goes on to discuss pre-modern Middle Eastern concepts of whiteness "There is also evidence to suggest that, as in China, a white complexion was associated with membership of the social elite." A bit later he discusses the encounters of early European travellers with non-Europeans. "Accounts of early European travellers encountering "white people" in non-European lands are numerous. Thus, for example, we find, as a study by Reid (1994) shows, that 'Portugese conquistadores routinely describe their Gujerati or Arab antagonists as white, as well as Chinese and Ryukyuans.' The first European mission to the Qing area of china described the inhabitants as having a white appearance 'equal to the Europeans'." Bonnet gives many more examples, including early European settlers in the Americas describing native Americans as white. Pre modern European conceptions of white people were likewise not racialised. "..as in China and the Middle East, there existed cultural traditions in ancient and medieval Europe that valued the colour white as a symbol of purity, religious devotion and nobility. The pale complexion attributed to aristcrats (according to pre-modern European legend, pale enough to see their veins, hence the expression 'blue blood') provided a physical marker of their noble descent." Bonnet also states "some American commentators have also recently suggested that whiteness may, over time, be expanded in the United States to include certain East Asian American groups, such as Japanese Americans". All this arguing about people "looking white" or not is a red herring because it's based on the conditioning of people into their own cultural norms. We decided to have a gallery based on the widest possible interpretation of "white people" because it was the only way to be as inclusive as possible for all possible considerations of "whiteness". If we cannot meet our original criteria for inclusiveness (that we all agreed when we decided to reintroduce a gallery) by that I mean if we are going to only have a very narrow set of images, only showing Nordic people, and claim, as many 19th century anthropologists did that Irish and Mediterranean people are not "white", then I don't see the point of a gallery at all. This article (and Wikipedia) surely does not exist to push a single point of view of what "white" people are, it exists to include all possible points of view of what "white people" can be, depending upon context. Alun (talk) 18:05, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, if we include the Ginger kids, we might piss off the Eric Cartman faction. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 01:29, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, if we include the Ginger kids, we might piss off the Eric Cartman faction.

lol.. include the ginger kids. and the simpsons as well.Larsposenaa (talk) 15:52, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why lobot? 218.186.67.37 (talk) 10:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User:Yasis, Stop stalking me around the encyclopedia, stop being obtuse, and stop using IPs to evade your block. Cheers. L0b0t (talk) 13:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gallery - a commentary

Just to point out that in the short time it ha been put back in service, the gallery ha attracted the following comments and actions:

  • A user repeatedly removed the pictures of three secular Jews, twice
  • Another argued at length against the inclusion of Arab people
  • Several editors have found the features of the Kazakh "too Mongoloid"
  • One editor found Aishwarya Rai didn't qualify because her parents were "too dark"

All this in a mere 3 weeks. I'm just wondering if this will die down, and if not, if it's really worth the trouble to keep the gallery. Feedback is most welcome.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's worth it. I don't like edit wars/vandalism either, but compared to some articles, this hasn't been that bad. I think having a gallery adds a visual representation of the subject matter, and we shouldn't let it discourage us. Even whilst arguing, it may make someone think about his own ideas and preconceptions, even if it doesn't change his mind. Kman543210 (talk) 12:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am ambivalent about the gallery. My gut instinct is against images generally, but I can see the other point of view as expressed by Kman543210. I tend to think that the gallery has been quite stable considering people have strong ideas when it comes to socially constructed "races". I'd guess there's no consensus one way or the other about a gallery, it's probably evenly split between those editors opposed to a gallery and those in favour. We could always have an RfC specifically about keeping or deleting this gallery and see what the response is. Alun (talk) 12:49, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
ramdrake this is a race issue which means its a highy controversial subject matter and you dont remove things from articles because its trouble there are enough editiors watching this article and intrested in it to combat any vandalism and others severe pov of what the race is, of course there are going to be editors who come along and want just poeple of only blue eyes and blond hair features from europe only,but you dont start removeing content as a form of appeasement because some disagree there has only been one really disruptive editor trying to really force the issue and the other issues about random pictures being removed which mostly happens to be the "kazakh". also i dont think its in the best intrest of the article to have this type of revaluation every couple of weeks by regular editors such has your self it seems biased--Wikiscribe (talk) 14:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Personnally, I'm all in favor of having and keeping this gallery. However, I've found that whenever someone drops by and challenges or removes this or that picture, I end up always having to defend their inclusion. However, the reasons for including each and every current picture should be obvious to all regular editors: this is an attempt to show the full range of what can be considered white, not just the uncontroversial ones. Defending the gallery takes up time and energy, so I was wondering whether it was worth the investment. I don't see where that's biased in any way.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
well are you maybe being a little to overly concerned about some issues and are to quick to pull the trigger and start discusing removal than you would in non racial article,i mean you know very well race articles are always going to have issues,maybe all articles that have to do with race or ethnicity period should be removed from wikipedia where does it end--Wikiscribe (talk) 16:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all, but there was aprevious consensus arrived at after months of debate, which was then not to have a gallery specifically because of the type of issues explained above. This consensus was since replaced by a new consensus, which was to try out a new gallery, in the hopes that thi would be more stable, as many of the editors warring over the gallery have since left Wikipedia (or been shown the way out). I guess I'm just tired of defending the gallery. I guess I'll let it go for awhile and let someone else defend it. Not that I think I own the article or any part of it; I'm just trying to defend its neutrality by not excluding people who could reasonably be included, rather than having only people whom everybody agrees should obviously be included.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And we may have to end up defending the gallery again and again, but any picture included should be justified and a consensus should be reached for inclusion. It's possible that one of the pictures gets replaced by another through consensus, and that's fine as long as it's done in good faith and not edit warring. In defending the gallery, we shouldn't make the assumption that each and every one of those pictures is the best examples and going to stay forever. Right now, with the exception of one, we've had a good consensus to justify them, so that's a good thing. Kman543210 (talk) 22:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, I don't think there's any great opposition to the images currently included. We need to discriminate between vandalism removal of pictures against consensus and any real concern about a particular image. If an editor is serious they will come to the talk page before removal of an image, or will remove it and justify this on the talk page to initiate a broader discussion. When editors remove images, but can't even be bothered to justify this action on the talk page, then we can simply revert. Alun (talk) 04:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This gallery is some sort of joke right? There's a fair number of people on it who are very clearly not 'White', even if they have light skin. 86.163.244.239 (talk) 15:55, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The gallery needs to be deleted altogether. Aside from the considerable controversy over whom should be included, it's just not considered acceptable wikiformatting. None of our best articles have galleries tacked on at the end. Incorporate any appropriate images in the main body.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 15:25, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

aishwarya rai

the so called most beautiful woman on earth is brown and not white. indians do not self identify as whitea (maybe some pathetic race-traitors do). indians are indians, even if we would fall under the caucasoid category. probably we might have the same forefathers, but thats long ago. yes, some of you are right, the therm "white" is a social construct. as the therm brown, black, red and yellow are. But I never saw an indian calling a non-indian as one of their own. it doesnt matter what colour they would have.

so therefor I wouldnt name the therm "white" to describing a south-asian. in my sense i wouldnt even call arabs as white. but thats something else, i dont want to discuss.Asian2duracell (talk) 18:03, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

please do not WP:SOAP if you want to make this about personal views your wasteing your time , this is not your personal views and that is all you got and i am for keeping her in the gallery but if the consenus goes against me it can be removed but there has to be a consenus before removal ,so give some time for other editors to chime in--Wikiscribe (talk) 18:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
no personal opinion right,maybe its your personal opinion we have to talk about. anyway, name me one culture or society which describes indians as whites. im talking of the people now and yet, and not about people in the pre-vedic time or something.Asian2duracell (talk) 19:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, traditional anthropologists such as Coon, etc stated that Cauasian and white were the same. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.143.55.213 (talk) 11:12, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And a lot of Indians and Pakistanis are related to Europeans, it does not matter if both Asian and European racists do not like the idea.

See this haplogroup map: http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf In case you do not see well, haplotype R1a is very common both in India and Europe. If you do not know what a haplogroup is read this: http://www.dnaheritage.com/masterclass2.asp


And to finish, you never heard "Indoeuropean languages". And as far as Aishwarya Rai si concerned, she is white all right. And this is science, not personal opinions or social opinions, both pretty stupid and ignorant all too often. Jan.


well ur map of haplotypes and haplogroups only shows.. that indians are most related to each other, than to others. So what if R1a is commen in both places?... why are Haplogroups C, D, H and L allmost absent in Europe? which form the major part of South Asian Haplogroups. I dont doubt that some indians or pakistanis are related to some europeans. that might be most true in the northwestern part of the subcontinent. But that doesnt make them white. "white" as you name it is a social construct, mainly to describe europeans. Some of you might know... In asia people dont use colours to describe their origin. we use our religion, caste or ethnicity. Yes ofcourse, i've heard about the IndoEuropean languages. It's a point. But dont Native South-Americans nowadays also speak IndoEuropean Languages (Spanish/Portugese..) What makes u so sure that europeans didn't adopt these language from a small number of migrating folk? I tell you that beacause as far as i know, Sanskrit and Avestan are older than European classic languages. As we talk about Aishwarya Rai, she is SouthIndian. Native to Karnataka. And mentioned in this article to be white are only people in the Nortwestern part of SouthAsia. Karnataka is nowhere colse to the border of Pakistan. So that makes South Indians logically as "non-whites", Ain't that true? The problem some of you have is that you thing Caucasian=white (Maybe because of American race-laws). But whites are only a extreme pale version of caucasians. most Indians are an extreme dark version of caucasians. All others are in bewteen.

Im not here to divide people in races and colours. I just want to show you, that u cant put a whole ethnicity in a single race. As we are allready to much mixed, to do so. I think that Haplogroup-map shows what I want to tell you. Asian2duracell (talk) 14:29, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know anything about Aishwarya Rai, but from my understanding, even by the broadest definition of white/caucasian, not all of India is included, just parts of it. Kman543210 (talk)
I don't think Aishwarya Rai's inclusion in the gallery should taken to mean that all Indians should be considered white. As with all nationalities, some are and some aren't.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:38, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I remember this idiot Asian2Duracell when I was having an arguement with him on the Blacks page. He is a Tamil who was trying to push the point of view that "Brown People" start in Turkey and that African blood in southern Europeans should be ignored and all Europeans should be unconditionally considered `white' regardless of phenotype or colour (Romani are now established as a European race so by your logic they should be included as white). He also stated that Mediterannean Caucasoids include people from Southern Europe to India both North and South. So some Mediterraneans are `white' whilst others are `brown'? What the hell is he trying to make sense out of? I for one use `white' to identify a persons phenotype rather than their nationality and to a certain degree ancestry. I'm sure that looking at this image of Canadian Italian actor Pat Mastroianni http://www.patmeup.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/P1010052.jpg one can see a clear difference compared to the `Nordic' on the left. Aesthetcally they look quite distinctively different. Non-Europeans who look 'white' could include Bashar Al-Assad (Syrian), Princess Salma(Moroccan) and Omar Abullah (Indian) Pictured here in order. All of them look `whiter' than Mr Mastraionni, who would unconditionally be classed as `white' in almost all census definitions due to being of European Ancestry:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/middleeast-crisis/gfx/assad_cp_1562024.jpg

http://thailand.prd.go.th/60th/img_k_q/morocco.jpg

http://www.the-south-asian.com/Nov2001/omar-abdullah1.jpg

Asian2Duracell's logic: "Greeks are white, Turks are brown" Sorry mate! the two have been fighting and fucking each other for centuries, I challenge you to differentiate!


Listen the therm "white" is a social construct.like most ethnicities are. therefor i dont see a valid point in ur attempt to argue. People of the same race can belong to two different ethnicities. Like u mentioned Turks and Greeks. Turks are not considered white in Europe, maybe because of their role in Old-Europe or the Ottomon-Empire. But they aint considered white. But that doesnt make them less Caucasian. They can anyway call themself how they want to.
Gypsies are not considered "White" in Europe. And I never said anyone living in europe must be considered white. But maybe in 500 years people will call everyone "white" who lives there.... As "white" is a social construct.
As "white" is a social construct, "brown" is also one. Different people from various places who might have nothing incommon call themself brown. Like Latins in US, SouthAsians in Europe(mainly UK), SouthEastAsian in allmost any places except Asia. And even Somalis call themself "brown".... and you know why? Because they want to differ them from others. Even if they have much more incommen with ohters as they might think. I would also like to mention that the therm "brown" is a name which is, compared to "Black" or "White", quite new. People who call themself Brown usually use their ethnicity to identify themself.
So do Europeans. They call themself "White" beacuse they want to differ them from others... even though there is no clear border or never has been. There is also no racial border between NorthAfricans ans Sub-SaharanAfricans, NorthIndians and SouthIndians, EastAsians and SouthEastAsian and so on....
Noone cares if you thing Ahmed, Yasmine or Shankar look more white than Giovanni, Yelena or Simon... that doenst make them "white". Get it man, everything is just a social construct. As your name is, or your ethnicity or your religion and even your language is.
So what if Greeks and Turks fightet and fucked each others for thousends of years. Didnt Indians do the same thing? North and South? And what about EastAfricans and Arabs?....And how comes, some people still try to differ there? I dont see a fuckin valid point in ur statements.
Anyway thanks for calling me an Idiot.Asian2duracell (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]


You're welcome. The only reason why Pat Mastrionni would be classed as `white' by REAL white Europeans is that they are afraid to be slated as Nordicists if they were to categorise him otherwise. Europe is not a fortress of racial purty. Race-mixing has been taking place for centuries. On close inspection Pat Mastrionni clearly does not Aesthetically look `white', one can even see slight negroid traits in his features. Do you think the average Joe would identify him to the police as `white' if he was a criminal suspect? I doubt it. Phenotypically Bashar, Lalla and Omar do look white and that is the issue. I guess you would class a German in Brazil as nonwhite because he/she is not From Europe.

You aint good at guessing, so u rather let it be. A German livin in Brazil is still of European ancestry. Maybe in some years Brazialians start to identify them as being Brazilian rather than white, black or native. As much like other South- and CentralAmericans identify as being "Latinos" rather than what their ancestors used to be. In that case they use their language instead of their skincolour or phenotype. http://www.northernstars.ca/actorsmno/Media/mastroianni_pat_250.jpg I would say he looks quite white for me, probably not "Nordic". But more a LatinEuropean type. Noone said Europe is pure in anything. As I said before there are no clear borders, when it comes to classify humans, nowhere. We are all too much mixed. Ofcourse the three person u mentioned could be mistaken as being white or even European. But thats only valid for individuals. As a whole.. Syrians,Maroccans or Indians rarely get confused being white. Anyway sign ur post DUDE!Asian2duracell (talk) 10:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am a blond Briton. I wouldn't identify him as white as a criminal suspect. I would say he qualifies as "Visible Ethnic Minority", I would possibly mistake him for South Asian if I saw his face in Bradford or Oldham. Compared to your phenotype he may look `white', but you'd probably consider Halle Berry as `white' just because her mother is. The Police Ethnic Code/Identity Code in the UK identifies Mediterraneans as a separate category from `white'. I'm a campaigner for anthropological fact, not opinion. Southern Europeans are racially ambiguous. Some of them look `white' whilst others don't, simple as that. Same as if a person comes from Brazil, the U.S. or Even here in the U.K. WE ARE RACIALLY AMBIGUOUS! I know many Medierranean Europeans who do not consider themselves `white' and rightly so.

I don't care if ur a blond briton or a green parrot. See, u make statements out of your personal opinion. Yes he could be mistaken for being SouthAsian, but he is still visible as Caucasian. Now even you admit that people from SouthEurope to India could descend from a Mediterranean-subrace. And if the Police put the Mediterraneans into a separate category, what about the french? Are they now considered "White" or "Mediterranean"? Compared to most Arabs or other Caucasoid Asians he still looks more "white".
DUDE stopp guessing!... you dont have to think for others. If Berrys mom is white, she is half white/half black. Not single raced, as "anthropological" she is both. Dont fuckin come up with one drop rules and that shit. It's not like whites are pure in any way to claim their "whiteness".
I dont even know what the fuck we are discussing about..Asian2duracell (talk) 14:37, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tut-tut Mr Duracell! You're getting quite verbally agressive now! Perhaps because your POV is trying to dominate the subject. You consider both North and South Indians as `Brown' because as we have agreed, the north and south have fought and fucked each other for centuries, but Greeks are `white' and Turks as "brown' despite the same reason. I agree with you to a degree that `white' is a social concept and the rule of thumb is traditionally considered "all native Europeans as "white", but we have to both agree that looking at the blurred edges between different races, it can be hard to distinguish and people need to be taken on a case by case basis.


aaawww did I hurt your feelings Mr Britain?..my bad. Thats my point! There is no border between races. The greeks, as i think, were among the first to name themself "white" to distinguish between them and their persian, anatolian and other neighbours. But well I havent said that turks and greeks were different in phenotype. But I just said that "white" as a therm is a concept of European origin. There are plenty of races who have white or pale skin not just Europeans. The North and South of India are fightin and fuckin each other for millennia not just centuries. But there are still people thinkin that only people of Indo-Aryan origin can be caucasoid. As I mentioned the therm "brown" is a universal concept. Different people of diverse origin call themself Brown. Anyway usually they use their ethnicity to identify.


What we are "fucking discussing" as you've put it is my first point that I placed in the first post, that you have wanted to have things both ways, that some Mediterraneans are 'white' whilst others are 'brown", you've now shot yourself in the foot. I'm not one for pushing the POV that ALL Middle Easterners, Indians and North Africans look `white' but subjective to the individual, there are ones that do on a case by case basis. At the same time., If we dropped a dark skinned Southern European (like Mastrionni) on the streets of Cairo, Bagdad, Tehran or Lahore, I doubt he would be visibly identified as a `white' by the local population and probably would be first communicated to in their native tongues. Syria was under ancient European Empires and the Crusaders (from Britain, France Germany etc) left their genetic imprint on the population, possibly explaining why Bashar Al-Assad looks white, he could possibly claim some European heritage, the same point I made about the Brazillian German. I don't think any intelligent person, regardless of his or her ethnicity would would refer to Assad as "Brown" just because of where he comes from, nor with the Kalash of Pakistan.


there you go..what the fuck are we dissgussing about? Cause we both say quite the same. So how can we divide between races if we cant do that in a single race.. As you said, most people on earth have more than just a single-raced origin. I dont think there is enough space or time for a case-by-case analysis in our world. Thats why we catergorise people, either by race, skincolour, religion...and so on.


Nikki Bedi (from BBCs `Desi DNA') who is half English/ half Indian talks about being called a 'bloody Paki" when she was at school. Looking at her appearance here http://www.lovenikkibedi.com/Gallery/Nikki_Bedi_217_main.jpg, I doubt she would have been called that based on her appearance, but knowledge of her ethnicity, she looks more like a Brit than a Brownie and she's fully Caucasoid. There are ignorant people everywhere. In the UK, British Turks, Armenians and Gypsies are classed as "white" in the census. Most Gypsies have mixed with the British population and aesthetically many look `white'. The Identity code for the police is used mostly to describe people's appearance prior to the knowledge of their ethnicity being established. A dark looking Welshman could possibly be identified as "Mediterranean". Someone like Greta Scacchi could be prercieved as `white'. Brown is also a colour metaphor often used for Hispanics, yet there is another category "white Hispanic" for those who are of full or predominantly European ancestry. Back to sqaure one, you shouldn't complain too much if there are non-European Caucasoids in the image gallery just to illustrate broader subjective concepts of the metaphor "white".


"Paki" is just that kind of a word, like "white" is. SouthAsians of different origin (punjabi,bengali,tamils...) are categorised as "Pakis". I list them 'cause they all have a different admixture and usually a different religion(atleast in the UK). But still they are "Pakis". Im sure there are plenty of others who will be mistaken being a paki(especially WestAsians,Arabs,Latins...), but they aint, as soon as they expose their nationality. As you can see even though there is no single definition of "who is a paki" we still have there a concept. UK is not a standard for anything. In Scandinavia and Australia Turks are Asians, in CentralEurope its not allowed to categorise people into races. Brazil uses the "OneDrop-Rule" different than the US.
Anyway I'm not complaining TOO much about, non-Europeans being called white. As much as i dont care about that. My point is about Aishwarya Rai. She is a Dravidian (what ever that should mean). There was lot of discussions on other articles (i.e Black people) about that Dravidians could not be placed into the caucasoid race and now one of 'em is "white"? I'm quite sure that she has not naturally such "white" skin. But her phenotype is caucasoid as that of most Dravidians. But taking a look at her family, she has not more "Aryan" admixture than most "Dravdians".... Thats my point. We cant put people into races. There will allways be different social definitions for any human on this planet. Asian2duracell (talk) 08:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Hispanic is not a race. It just means that someone comes from a Spanish-speaking country in either Latin America or Spain. Mestizo is usually what some people think of when they think of Hispanic as a race, but hispanics can be white, black, Asian, mestizo, mulatto, etc. The majority of Latin Americans are mestizo followed by white and Amerindian. Hispanic is categorized by the U.S. Census Bureau as an ethnic group, but not a racial group. Kman543210 (talk) 02:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who can be "white"?

Lets' look at the various ways a person can be seen as racially "white".

1. European. I don't think anyone would deny that Europeans are generally considered "white".
2. Caucasian. A bit more tricky, who is considered Caucasian seems to depending on what criteria are used. This is more about the opinion of various physical anthropologists. If we take a look at Huxley's "races" map, we see that he thought that "Caucasisns" were a nonsense category, but that Caucasians are what he called Xanthochroi and Melanochroi: 'It is to the Xanthochroi and Melanochroi, taken together, that the absurd denomination of "Caucasian" is usually applied'. Huxley, T. H. "On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind" (1870) Journal of the Ethnological Society of London

File:ImprovHuxleyraces.png
Huxley's map of racial categories from On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind (1870).
  1: Bushmen
  2: Negroes
  3: Negritoes
  4: Melanochroi
  5: Australoids
  6: Xanthochroi
  7: Polynesians
  8: Mongoloids A
  8: Mongoloids B
  8: Mongoloids C
  9: Esquimaux

What's interesting about Huxley's map is that it is not apparent whether Finns would be considered Caucasian, after all they are partly xanthrochroi and partly mongoloid, whereas peoples from the Horn of Africa certainly are Caucasian in this map, because they are unambiguously melanochroi. Anyway, from Huxley we have a map that includes peoples from south Asia (including Sri Lanka) as Caucasian, and this also includes people from Ethiopia, the Arabian peninsula, the Levant and North Africa. Alistair Bonnet says of this sort of racial science, when applied to white people "The expansion of power legitimised and encouraged the developement of racial science...It was a semi-autonomous discourse, one capable of throwing up material that contradicted Europeans' attempt to claim an exclusive stake in whiteness. Many racial scientists drew upon cranial and linguistic investigations as well as, or instead of, skin colour to establish the boundaries of race. Sometimes these investigations were used to confirm that Europeans had sole claim to whitness....Nevertheless, a much stronger current of scientific research supported the theory that Europeans were but one expression of a wider racial group (termed, sometimes interchangeably, Caucasian, Aryan and white), a group that included peoples from Asia and North Africa. This tradition established itself as the more scholarly expression of racial science. Thus we find it propagated in nineteenth- and twentieth- century student texts."

Carleton Coon's "races", a different perspective to Huxley

3. Legal or state definitions. Many states have their own ways to define who belongs to which "race". The USA is the most reliable because it specifically uses the term "race", whereas many European states prefer to use the less loaded term "ethnic group", and are more likely not to define any group per se, but to allow any responded to identify as part of an ethnic group freely. In the USA it is census definitions that appear to be the most widely cited, in the 1970 census for example people from the Indian subcontinent were classified as "white".

File:800px-US Census 2000 race definitions Australia Sudan Afghan.PNG
US census 2000 map of "racial" classifications.

According to this 2000 US census definition then peoples from northern and central Asia can be considered "white" in the USA, from this map it is also clear that Nursultan Nazarbayev would be deemed white. In this census subcontinental Indian people have ceased to be "white" but are classified with people from east-Asia.

I have argued that for this article to have any meaning then we need to accept that "white" has different meanings in different contexts, but that for the gallery to work we need to accept that the most inclusive definition is the only workable one. This includes accepting that people from the subcontinent of India are sometimes considered white, than North African and Middle Eastern people are also sometimes considered white, that Ethiopian and Somali people are also sometimes considered white and that central Asian people are sometimes considered white. One thing that cannot possibly work is for all editors to reject any other conception of white than their own, that way we will never get resolution. I think that all of the sources I have used above are reliable and so I propose that we accept that our own parochial concept of whiteness do not apply globally or historically. As such we need to have a broader conception of who can be white rather than a narrow conception of who is white in our own culture/society. Can we at least accept that being "white" can mean very different things to different people? Alun (talk) 11:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Jan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.231.92.194 (talk) 13:28, 3 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This just isn't correct. I can't fathom why you say the most inclusive definition is the only 'workable' one. First, what do you mean by workable? Second, isn't it obvious that if 'workable' means the most 'correct' to the most people, and therefore the most easily maintainable, then the most workable definition is certainly not the most extremely inclusive, which some here are pushing for.
In other words, if, as you've seen here, a number of people dispute the Kazakh being in the gallery, and other examples are continually challenged, doesn't that indicate that they are on the fringe or the edge of acceptability? Your job is not to maintain an ivory-tower article in the face of clear disagreement by many editors over time... You should rather start with common sense and only keep examples that are not repeatedly challenged.
Further, it's obvious that any of these racial categorizations break down when you have racial mixture. The term 'white' simply is not intended to be used to categorize people who are mixed-race or 'brown'. The fact that some may have caucasian roots does not vitiate this fact. It is the same with nearly any categorization. So the boundary is determined by usage more than anything else, and usage of the term 'white' simply does not extend to Arabs, Indians, or Kazakhs.
The state of this page now completely fails the laugh test. I am sure that a great many readers are either flummoxed or simply chuckle at the silliness of wikipedia upon seeing this page.Feichangdao (talk) 06:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Workable means that everyone needs to accept that their personal opinions about who or what is "white" is irrelevant, workable means that we all need to accept that what we believe is not what Wikipedia publishes. Workable means that we all compromise and use images that can fit any definition of "white" from any reliable source. The gallery will be unworkablw if editors start to make claims like "only people of European appearance are white", because that is just one opinion and there are reliable sources that contradict this claim. It's based on the personal experience of the editor, it's a parochial point of view that can be easily refuted from reliable sources, as I have done. Unless editors are prepared to accept that their point of view is not the "correct" one, then I'm affraid the gallery will become unworkable. Remember Wikipedia works on verifiability not truth.
  • a number of people dispute the Kazakh being in the gallery, and other examples are continually challenged, doesn't that indicate that they are on the fringe or the edge of acceptability?
No, it means that a number of people are using their own personal ideas of what "whiteness" is rather than trying to use many varied different conceptions. We're all guilty of systemic bias sometimes.
  • Further, it's obvious that any of these racial categorizations break down when you have racial mixture. The term 'white' simply is not intended to be used to categorize people who are mixed-race or 'brown'.
Who says? Who says that we are talking about "admixture"? Who says that the individuals here are the result of so called "admixture"? There's no such thing as "pure" races. There's no such thing as "races" in a biological sense, some geneticists believe that south Eurpeans are the result of "admixture" between Middle Eastern farmers and paleolithic hunter gatherers in Europe during the neolithic, are we to leave out all southern-Europeans based on this? We are discussing a social construct, therefore who is considered "white" depends upon the society doing the considering.
  • and usage of the term 'white' simply does not extend to Arabs, Indians, or Kazakhs.
I have provided evidence that it does. You have provided nothing but personal opinion. Wikipedia does not publish the opinions of it's editors.
  • I am sure that a great many readers are either flummoxed or simply chuckle at the silliness of wikipedia upon seeing this page.
"Race" is a fundamentally silly concept.
If it is not possible for editors of this page to work together on the gallery, and accept that other concepts of whiteness exist besides their own understanding, then I can't see a future for the gallery. Wikipedia works by consensus, but also by being neutral, verified and not original thought. When editors provide evidence from reliable sources the correct response is not to claim that the evidence is wrong just because it does not support the preconceptions of some other editor. This is a contentious article, it does not help if editors refuse to acknowledge that their own opinion may not actually represent a complete and accurate presentation of academic thought on the subject. Alun (talk) 10:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I propose the gallery to be divided in 2 categories. Whites of European ancestry and non European caucasoids as `Marginal Whites". This would make more logic and everyone content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.242.172 (talk) 06:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That would at least be an improvement.Feichangdao (talk) 06:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the caption could read something along the lines of " the following people would be considered Caucasoid by anthropological definition, but may not always be percieved as " white" by Western societies due to not being of European ancestry". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.242.172 (talk) 06:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Totally disagree, you would be effectively saying "European looking" is "really white". Besides I could find evidence that some European groups are not sometimes considered "white", British anthropologists of the 19th century did not accept Irish, Welsh or all Scots people as "Nordic", and claimed that only "Nordic" people were authentically "white". A similar concept was used in the USA before the Second World War, where easter and southern Europeans were not accepted as "white", this idea significantly effected migration policy in the USA in the 1920s, limiting immigration of European Jewish, southern European and eastern European people. As I have asked before, are we to have a "Nordicist" gallery, with only certain "types" presented as "authentically" white?
are only the "Nordics" here "white"? If not, then "Alpines" and "Mediterranean" groups include Asian and North African people.

It's evident that there is no clear unambiguous definition of "white", we have several, very different concepts of how humans vary about the three continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The real rwson for no unambiguous concept is that human variation is not packaged into discrete groups or "races", but varies gradually by geography, this means that the "boundaries" between "groups" are arbitrary and largely the product of the biases of the anthropologist who decides where these "boundaries" properly should fit. None of these concepts are "correct", but all are of some utility for our discussion of what "whitness" can mean. If we are going to degenerate into claims that only certain concepts of "whiteness" are applicable to the gallery, or that only some editors are "right", whatever the sources say, then I propose that we simply dispense with the gallery as unworkable and have done with it. Alun (talk) 10:29, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

though i see your point but those are old outdated racial theory maps and bringing them up only leads to more ignorance even in the context of what your tyring to do because it makes people think that those old maps hold some sort of accurate truth as there is no such thing as the nordic race ,no such thing as alpine race and no such thing as a meditreanean race that is old nazi hat so because this is geting out of hand i am now in favor of removal of the gallery as well ,no offence but in 2008 and people are still showing those sort of maps it geting ridiclous--Wikiscribe (talk) 16:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But that's the point of showing the maps. The question is not what is "right", there is no such thing as right. The point is that no one is right, what anyone thinks is "white" depends on society, societies themselves have different conceptions of what "white" is at different periods of history. The above map is not actually a Nazi map, it is from Madison Grant's book The Passing of the Great Race, Grant was a very wealthy and very influential American, and his views were actually quite mainstream. The point is that even in the USA, at the beginning of the 20th century only "Nordic" people were considered "white". The second world war changed that idea. What I am getting at is that Grant's ideas of Nordicism are not more or less correct than any other idea of what is "white". We need to include all possibilities of what is "white", and that includeas a far greater set of people than just "Nordics" and a far greater set than just "Europeans", it also includes a far greater set than just "Caucasians". To get the whole breadth of people who can possibly be considered "white" in any contexts we need to be prepared to include people who we personally, or the society we belong to as individuals generally, might not normally consider "white". This may well include some dark skinned people from India or Africa. Unless we are able to accept that "whiteness" can have a broader concept than our own local ideas, then I can't see the gallery going anywhere. I'd like to keep it for the time being and see what the consensu is for the ideas I've outlined here. If most editors can accept a very broad conception of whiteness for the gallery, then I think we can have a consensus for keeping the good level of diversity we currently have. We could also include some people from Somalia, Ethiopia and southern India, as long as there is a consensus for as diverse a set of images as possible. Otherwise we may still have to scrap it. Alun (talk) 17:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
as i said i am 100% in favor of the removal of the gallery ramdrake was correct and im sure there will not be to much of a problem gaining a consenus for its removal--Wikiscribe (talk) 19:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I've never been in favour of having a gallery, or indeed any images. But there was a push to have some images by editors of this page, and I did think it was worth a shot, although I'm not really in favour, it's not a very big issue with me. The problem was always going to be with how people accept or reject conceptions of whiteness. It's not as straightforward as any of us personally think it is. We should probably have a proper RfC for deletion of the gallery or something. Alun (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Should we start an RfC on the subject to make it as proper as possible? Just a thought.--Ramdrake (talk) 20:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, first of all I am more than sick to see all the time the Nordicist propaganda everywhere, sometimes blatant, sometimes just probably unconscious. Alun says: Many geneticists think that Southern Europeans are a mixture of Paleolithic Europeans and Neolothic migrants from the Near East. Sorry block, but this is mainly a East-West issue, not a North-South one. In fact, Spaniards are believed by many geneticists to be the people in Europe with the most paleolithic ancestry, also called Iberian or Basque. See here:

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/21/7/1361/T03

Spain is referred to as IberiaS.

Or here:

http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf

Hope people know some geography.

In fact, the Spanish genome is the most frequent in most of Western Europe. See here:

http://www.dnatribes.com/sample-results/dnatribes-europa-sample-spanish.pdf

In case some do not get it, yes, the more intense the yellow colour in the map, the closer the genetic affinities with the Spanish, who still happen to represent best the primaeval Western Europeans. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.231.95.188 (talk) 21:32, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because of the simple fact that most Western Europeans happen to be of Spanish ancestry (Or Iberian or Basque, whatever you what to call it)

See here:http://www.dnaheritage.com/masterclass2.asp

And I could continue all day.

In short, enough with the Nordicist progaganda. The people of Northern Europe are as mixed as most other people or even more, especially the Germanic area, which along with the Balcanic area is one of the most mixed in Europe. And the people with the most Paleolithic element in them are in Spain, and as far as I know Spain is in the South of Europe. All peoples are mixed. Purity is the stupid idea of Nordicism and Nazism, today pathetic for their ignorance and for other things.

So after this explanation which I find necessary in the light of the ever-going Nordicist propaganda, I agree with the pictures, because they agree with a universal description of white people, such as they have been described by numerous anthropologists and in censuses like the US that says that white people are those coming form Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. And the US census does not hold the gavel for whiteness of course, let alone a few propagandists here. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.231.95.188 (talk) 21:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IP 83.231.95.188, you state that the evidence supports an east west cline, and this is true, I've never claimed that there is no east west cline, but it's not as imple as that, this putative neolithic migration entered Europe from the south east, and is absent from north east Europe, likewise it is more apparent in places like France and Germany than it is in places like Spain or Great Britain and Ireland, at least according to the paper you cite, it cannot be interpreted as an east-west cline when people in the north east do not show evidence of any neolithic genetic markers. There is a cline, but it's not as simple as "east-west" or "north-south". Seldin et al. claim a "north-south" cline: "Under a variety of conditions and tests, there is a consistent and reproducible distinction between “northern” and “southern” European population groups: most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Greek) have >85% membership in the “southern” population; and most northern, western, eastern, and central Europeans have >90% in the “northern” population group."[9] and Bauchet et al. claim a north-southeastern split, with Spain, Basques and Finns as outlier populations, probably due to their geographic isolation. "The results reveal the presence of several significant axes of stratification, most prominently in a northern-southeastern trend, but also along an east-west axis." [10] furthermore I'm sceptical of this "DNA tribes" stuff, any group that claims to be able to unambiguously divide Europe into discrete genetic "races" is suspicious in to me. What are their academic credentials? Where have they published in peer reviewed journals? I'm also very troubled by groups that label these arbitrary European "races" with names like "Germanic", "Celtic", "Norse". These labels are cultural and linguistic labels, they do not refer to anything like accepted population genetics concepts. You complain of nordicism, but the DNA tribes organisation (what sort of organisation is it exactly?) gives a Nordicist point of view, their "Norse" group is the Nordic "race". All Europeans groups are very similar, as are all human groups, there are a number of ways to analyse genetic data, but what influences this analysis most is how the populations are sampled. If there is bias in sample collection, then some regions will seem to be more homogeneous than others. I'm sceptical of all of these ways of dividing Europeans up, and I don't think any will stand the test of time. Finally don't confuse Y chromosomal or mtDNA data with autosomal data, these measure very different hings, Y chromosomes and mtDNA give us good information on migrations due to the way mutations accrue along the molecule, but they are very limited due to the high level of genetic drift for these molecules, they tell us little about the composition of the population of Europe in deep history because we simply do not know how drift has affected these molecules. We may be missing important information relating to migrations due to the extinction of Y chromosome haplotypes. Finally I resent being labeled a "Nordicist pov pusher". I have argued more than anyone else above that Nordicism is a nonsense concept, just as I have argued that all racial groups are arbitrary and mean very little from a genetic point of view. I said above that some geneticists have detected a north-south cline, this is true, I have provided evidence that it is true, the importance of this observation has got nothing to do with "nordicism" and everything to do with the debate over the neolithic transition. Some argue that the introduction of Farming to Europe was by cultural transition with little ingression of near Eastern peoples int Europe (Y chromosome anf mtDNA studies support this), others argue that a demic diffusion occurred during the neolithic, with a migration of near Eastern farmers into Europe bringing farming techniques with them. Autosomal analyses support this theory. If there is a north south, or north-southest cline, then this may well support a demic diffusion model. It probably also means that most Europeans have significant ancestry from the near East, what some people would call "admixture" between neolithic farmers from the near east and paleolithic hunter gatherers from Europe. It's a cline, which simply means that there is a bit more influence from the near East as one moves east and south, and a bit less as one moves north and west. Maybe it's right and maybe it's wrong, the jury is still out on demic diffusion vs cultural transition.Alun (talk) 09:40, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, as I said things seem much more complicated and admixture everywhere. Still the Spanish are among those with the highest Paleolithic element in them if not those with the highest, and Spain is in the South of Europe, and the North-East is distinctly different because of the Asian influence, as I am sure you know, and the Spanish or Iberian element is the most important in Western Europe and numerically in Europe as a whole. That said, I think that we basically agree with the definition these pictures give of white people as broad and based on reliable sources. And I know that you are not a Nordicist, but still, I am tired of the same stuff over and over again. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.231.99.88 (talk) 11:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it depends on the model you choose. Peoples from the Iberian peninsula do seem to be somewhat genetically distinct, one way to explain this is to assume that they have a lower neolithic component than other groups, but nothing is a "fact". We have several theories about the origins of European genetic diversity, but no one really knows, and one should treat all claims with extreme scepticism. Finns are genetically distinct and so are Basques, oddly Basques are distinct from other Iberian groups and they also represent a distinct language group. Some claim that it is Basque people and not other Iberian people who represent the "paleolithic" component of Europe. I'm happy to accept that one way to explain the diversity is to think that during a neolithic demic diffusion the Iberian peninsula missed out on some middle Eastern component. Of course some of the Y chromosome diversity we see in Iberia is usually explained as deriving from the neolithic. There are a lot of theories out there, some explain what we see very well, others less so well, but remember that these are theories, nothing is absolute and mostly we just do not know what happened and why. Try not to think in absolutes. Alun (talk) 12:16, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well I am not going to make this a debate about one topic which is marginal, it was just to clarify one point. Nothing else to say. I think we agree on the basic issues in spite of these comments. Jan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.231.19.157 (talk) 12:15, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nursultan Nazarbayev

Is Nazarbayev a white person? I think he is a multi-racial, or a mix between white and mongolic.--Enkiduk (talk) 04:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If we start judging who is mixed, who may be mixed, etc, we may all end up in the same lot. When does mixing start counting? One generation ago, two, five, twenty? because in fact we are all mixed. Jan.

I agree with those who suggested removal of the gallery. I suggest that there is a sufficient consensus to remove it.Feichangdao (talk) 20:15, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i mentioned it so did others i agree on the removal of the gallery--Wikiscribe (talk) 20:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove as unworkable. Alun (talk) 20:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, of course. Told you so... (just kidding!!!) --Ramdrake (talk) 20:47, 5 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, remove it completely, it is not only unworkable, but also it will always provoke endless discutions by someone saying someone else isn't white because their eyelashes are the wrong size or they were born in the wrong side of town... The Ogre (talk) 02:04, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find no reason to delete. The only reason, in my opinion, is to give in to ignorant racists who do not even know where they are. See that this happens only in this article and the beginning of the article states clearly that white, in its broad sense, includes all these people. By the way, which is the narrow sense? The one of people from Stormfront? Because even the US census has this broad sense. So, as usual, Stormfront-like ignorants and acolytes (who may not be white)influence the final decisions in this article? I find it very unhealthy. Jan.

  1. ^ http://www.clarin.com/diario/2005/01/16/sociedad/s-03415.htm
  2. ^ http://coleccion.educ.ar/coleccion/CD9/contenidos/sobre/pon3/index.html
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