Talk:White people/Archive 24

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Contemporary populations

This section seems a little confused and mixed up. There's no delineations between entries that are talking about unambiguously "white" populations (generally the result of colonialism), versus arguments that some peoples are descended from European populations in antiquity (though they have been in whatever non-European area they are now in for centuries, or even millennia), or occasionally ones that just seem to be arguing that the people should be considered white, particularly some recent edits from a topic-banned user. Now, I'm not suggesting that any of these shouldn't be in the article, though we do have to be wary of OR (is a statement that they are descended from speakers of proto-indo-european really evidence of anything? Language-wise, Indian languages are descended from proto-indo-european; the clue is in the 'indo' part). It would just improve the clarity to readers if these ideas weren't conflated. So, thoughts on this matter, before I get bold in machete-style? SamBC(talk) 23:49, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree about cutting out original research. But I do not think the article should simply distinguish between ambiguous an unambiguous views. It should distinguish between the views of governments, which use racial and ethnic classifications for one purpose, and acaemics, who have other purposes. And it might have to distinguish between the views of historians versus anthropologists.

We definitely cannot conflate language with race or ethnicity. Blacks, whites, and yellows can all speak German, just as there are whites who speak Semitic languages. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

The real difficulty if we use the views of governments, is that they vary. You then also need to distinguish views of scientists and social scientists from one another, confront the issue that some research conflates the two, and so on. Is it wikipedia's place to tease that all apart if no-one has done so in a reliable source? SamBC(talk) 12:05, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

No it isn't. And neither is it a Wikipedia contributor's place to use a 'machete' on the article to cut out material because it looks unclear: the subject is unclear. Race is a social construct, nothing more, nothing less. If we are going to have an article about 'white people', we can only discuss it in those terms - as an arbitrary concept which has no agreed meaning whatsoever. We can find reliable sources that state that 'group X' is considered to be white, but there is no such thing as a reliable source for an assertion that 'group Y' is white - because it is a matter of opinion, even if the opinion is widely shared. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:00, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

You misunderstand my intent (and I accept I was probably unclear and the statement very prone to misunderstanding). I didn't mean I'd be excising large chunks, I meant I'd be chopping it about and rearranging to remove the lack of clarity in context. SamBC(talk) 22:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

This is transparent bias. Some sources hold that race is a social construct, an entirely arbitrary shared delusion that in no way corresponds to anything in the real world. Other sources would at least tentatively suggest that perhaps there is a real genetic divide between Turks and the Indo-European speaking historically Christian people of Europe, such that "white people" exist as an identifiable group, within which gene flow has occurred to a greater extent than without. Of course all of this is a matter of opinion. And it is the opinion of reliable sources which counts. 195.191.66.227 (talk) 16:28, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

While it would be appropriate to cover the idea that there's a defined (or at least defineable) genetic group, though the idea that it is nearly coterminous with largely christian and indo-european speaking groups would probably be considered a fringe theory. SamBC(talk) 22:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually it's cutting edge mainstream genetics that variation is highly correlated with ethnic and linguistic groups. In the absence of any data and an informed analyis for these specific populations (the situation in which "social construct" theory is formed), the default hypothesis is that there will be a distinct "white race" composed of Indo European speaking historically Christian (a significant gene flow barrier) Europeans. I don't know of any papers which treat this explicitly. This blog runs an analyis on some data and finds a major discontinuity between Greece and Turkey, with native Cypriots closest to the boundary but still clustering with Europeans. 92.27.75.109 (talk) 12:14, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

SamBC asks, "Is it wikipedia's place to tease that all apart if no-one has done so in a reliable source?" Sam, you misunderstand my point. My point is that reliable sources themselves express views, and we must definitely provide views in context. It is not original research for an article to correctly attribute a particular view e.g. to say that source x represents the view of a particular government, and source y represents the view of scientists, and source z represents the views of a social movement. In some areas, there will be great agreement among sources and we can say so. In other areas, there will be great disagreement among sources and again, we can say so. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

So would you agree that the section in question is unclear and lists countries and groups without being clear which of these concepts is being invoked? Especially with the fact the title refers to 'European' without clarity as to how this compares to the article topic, instead inviting conflation of the two (sets of) ideas? SamBC(talk) 22:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

What I wish we had in that section was data on the percentage of "white people" in other countries, plus an explanation of how "white people" is being defined by the source. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Whoever took out Middle East, and some of the asian text, put it back

I am filing that as vandalism, as everything was cited, etc. Put it back within 24 hours, and I won't. Whoever has done it, put it back. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Metalman59 (talk • contribs) 21:20, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

"Filing something as vandalism" doesn't mean anything here unless you can expalain the rationale, if it isn't apparent. OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 21:23, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Lol, I'll be more specific. I mean, whoever vandalized Afghanistan and pakistan, and all of the middle east except for israel. This is vandalism as all of the works were cited, and everything was reliable. Someone just deleted all of the work. Please undo what you have done, whoever has done it! --Metalman59 21:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Metalman59 (talk • contribs)

the speakers of Proto-Indo-European languages (originating from somewhere in Eastern Europe, Anatolia or Central Asia) heavily mixed with the local populations. It is important to remember that Europe, the Middle East and South Asia were populated before the Proto-Indo-Europeans began to migrate. While some Persians or Afghans may look "European" or "White", your assertion is certainly false for millions of Middle Easterners. Tobby72 (talk) 11:43, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's a few reasons... the section is headed "European"; speakers of proto-indo-european are not, by definition, necessarily either white or European - note the 'indo' part of the name; the sources did not clearly support the statements made, requiring either simple assumptions or outright WP:OR to be considered substantiation. SamBC(talk) 14:17, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

@Sambc. Everything was cited properly, and nothing was put to doubt. The article is not headed european, but Caucasion. Your views aren't keeping this article neutral, and I will have to file you for vandalism if you don't revert the article. My rationale being that you seem to only want to put your pov of white as european in the article. The US census states middle easterns as white, and everything, and the website was cited properly. Please revert.--Metalman59 22:41, 29 November 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Metalman59 (talk • contribs)

It's already mentioned in the US section see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people#United_States btw, Middle Easterners do not identify themselves as "Whites". [1]. Tobby72 (talk) 02:12, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

That is a sweeping generalisation to base on a single US-based source. Where is your evidence for Middle Easterners who actually live in the Middle East? And BTW, your opinion on who looks 'white' is utterly irrelevant, and correlations between language and 'race' are highly questionable. We don't base articles on the opinions of random contributors. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:20, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I absolutely agree with you, the correlations between language (Indo-European) and 'race' are highly questionable, and that's the reason why we have reverted user who is banned from the topic. I don't know if Middle Easterners who live in the Middle East identify themselves as "whites" (can't find any news stories, statistics, census data, or polls done there). But the fact is that many Americans of Arab, Persian or Afghan ancestry don't identify with the white race classification in the U.S. Census [2], [3], [4], and many Americans and Europeans probably don't consider them white either, see Airport racial profiling in the United States [5], [6]. Slrubenstein: " I do see a problem with other editors who clearly come here to push their own POV (white = European, white = non-European) and wish every section of the article to express their own POV" ... Please assume good faith on the part of other editors unless there is specific evidence of bad faith. Tobby72 (talk) 17:41, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

"Clearly" means there is evidence, so I am glad you agree with me. As to your beliefs about race, well as you now they do not belong in an article. I haven't met any Americans who think Arabs are not white, but if you have I take your word for it. I know Jews who do not consider themselves white although they are classified as white by the US government too. But now we are just going back to Andy's point which I have already concurred with. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:16, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to rewrite the article, so there is no need to be uncivil. The Arab population has heterogeneous ethnic origins (Haratin, Druze, Copts, Bedouin, Baggara etc) [7], much like Brazilians. But if the US Census Bureau classifies Arab Americans as white, if they are generally viewed and treated like white, then they are white. Period. Tobby72 (talk) 15:11, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I haven't dug up more evidence, but is there really evidence that Arabic people are generally considered white? I mean, it surely goes beyond what's normal in the US? Unless the conversation shifted contexts without me noticing... SamBC(talk) 17:07, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

"Arabic" is a kind of language, not a kind of person. Let us know when you have dug up more evidence. Regardless, we have to comply with NPOV which means including all significant views, even if we didn't know about them until we learned it from an encyclopedia article. 17:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The section heading determines the context of what's in that section - and that says European. If it should be something else, we can talk about that, but I note that you've returned to tendentious editing in a topic area you have a voluntary ban from, so... for the benefit of everyone else, the things cited were about genetic evidence showing common ancestry with European populations; if those things were to be mentioned at all, they really ought to be clearly distinguished from the main thrust of the section, which seems to be colonial populations of one sort or another. SamBC(talk) 10:06, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Andy and Sam are right. Sam is right that one section of the article discusses recent European imigration to other countries and the section should do just what the section says it does. But the article in general is just about "white people" and this is a vague term that has varying definitions. Many people certainly consider people of Middle Eastern descent white. We have verifiable sources for this. The earlier sections of this article correctly make this point.

I do not see a problem with Andy or Sam, but I do see a problem with other editors who clearly come here to push their own POV (white = European, white = non-European) and wish every section of the article to express their own POV. This is not an argument over who is really white, this is an article over our NPOV policy and how it applies to this article. Let's just stick to the NPOV issues. We do not have to get into arguments with POV-pushers about the definition of white, we just have to insist that they comply with our NPOV policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:22, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to change lower section to European-origin post-colonial populations

I don’t really want to get that involved with this page, but may I propose that the whole “European-descended peoples” section be either greatly reduced to those areas of colonial settlement by Europeans in the Americas, Australia, Africa and Siberia, or just completely taken out? I feel like the whole section just causes POV wars (over whether white=European, as we see above, and other issues). Yes, I was the one who removed the Middle East section. I did so because the Middle East in particular is a very contentious area, and I think its best that we not take any side on it at all… I’ll go further to use race in the Middle East and Mediterranean as an example of the bizarre conundrum. Most scholarly literature places most Middle Easterners, North Africans and certain Mediterranean groups (Italians or Greeks, for example) together. All have generally “Caucasoid” facial features with skin that was on average considerably darker than that of more northerly Europeans. For the most part this Mediterranean/Middle Eastern appearance was considered one type of Caucasoid, a group also including Europeans. For the most part this classification continued until the modern day (I mentioned Jared Diamond, there are many other examples as well, including the US Census). However, when identity politics come in, funny things happen, and different groups frantically try to affirm that Middle Easterners are either definitely white or definitely not white generally for other (perhaps subconscious) reasons. For example, here are some claims I have heard (and some I have heard of), based on who makes them, and what lies behind those claims (sometimes explicit, sometimes not):
An Arab American who is very proud of their Arab heritage: Arabs are non-white, and are victims of internalized self-repression and have deceived themselves into thinking they are white in order to fit into American society. In fact they are victims of racial profiling, but because they are viewed as whites, they are denied this consideration. [this is obviously a well-intentioned attempt to draw more attention to discrimination of Middle Eastern Americans by making parallels to African Americans, but if this is taken seriously, that Arabs are a different race, doesn’t that mean Italians and Greeks aren’t white either? My friend’s dark-skinned Italian father who has a large beard was once given problems at an airport]
An Armenian: The Middle East, the cradle of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, should not be separated from Europe, especially for often “European-looking” Lebanese and Armenians [I note how special attention was drawn to Middle Eastern Christians here, but not to the Turks or Kurds, who aren’t noticeably darker, if not lighter, than Armenians and Lebanese]
“Euro-nationalist” who believes in Europe’s Christian heritage: Middle Easterners, especially Muslim Middle-Easterners cannot possibly be white, and neither are Albanians or Bosniaks, despite being European peoples [but Muslim].
Russian race slang: identifies not only Middle Easterners and North Africans, but also Mediterranean Europeans, Caucasians (I mean inhabitants of the Caucasus) and certain Central Asians (those that aren’t Mongoloid) as for “black”. As for those who are called “black” in English (sub-Saharan Africans), they get much more insulting names that don’t need posting here. [I find it quite ironic that Caucasians, who gave the Caucasian race its name, somehow aren’t white now…]
A secular Israeli Jew, an Ashkenazi but a rather dark one: Middle Easterners are white, and any attempt to say they aren’t is anti-Semitism. (I infer, if used by Europeans, to demean Jews by saying they are inferior; if used by Arabs combined with these Arabs also saying that Israeli Jews are white, racist against Jews by denying them their Middle Eastern heritage and labeling them as European colonizers)
An African American who deeply abhors the actions by Sudan in Darfur: All Arabs, Middle Eastern or not are by definition are white. Sudan is therefore committing racist, white supremacist genocide [and by the way I agreed with their view on the conflict, but I didn’t think it was necessary to incessantly point out the whiteness of Arabs, especially since many Sudanese Arabs infact intermingled with black Africans in the past…].
Sorry this post is super long, but some ending thoughts: yes its true many Middle Easterners are dark-skinned (if we compare them to Swedes, not really if we compare them to Greeks, and certainly not if we compare them to Somalis). Like all peoples, they are heterogenous- there are blond Kurds and Palestinians (Bashar al-Assad is one well-known Syrian with blue eyes) swarthy Germans, and its far from impossible from finding an Arab of lighter than an Englishman. On the other hand, you could also probably find a Arab (a Yemeni, perhaps) who is darker than the Somalis on the other side of the Red Sea. That being said, whether white is limited to European-origin groups is controversial, and it really depends on its usage and context. Wikipedia shouldn’t take any stance on this issue. This doesn’t only apply to the Middle East, but also potentially to Central Asia (where the ‘native’ population is mixed and hard to place) as well as North Africa (which has similar issues to the Middle East). The section at the bottom should only be for European post-colonial groups- as there isn’t any controversy over these… it’ll be better for all of us.
(wow, how’d I get a post this long…well I hope you guys read it all…)--Yalens (talk) 01:38, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Well said, that was a very nice explanation. The only thing is, could you somehow put it into the article? I mean, that would be a very nice contribution, and would not be out of place. I am on a topic ban, so I cannot write it, but your explanation would help tremendously. --Metalman59 18:40, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I have no intention of adding anything I stated above to the article itself. What I'm arguing for is that Wikipedia be neutral on the question of whether white=European, and therefore, (for example) in the bottom section where it talks about whites outside their "home region", thepage should only talk about post-colonial European-origin populations, and completely leave out of the section the "fuzzy areas", which have either historically been mixed or whose inhabitants' identification is debated. --Yalens (talk) 22:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it might not be appropriate to use modern titles like "European" when discussing historic migrations from a long time ago, as descriptors like this can encourage bias and have different emotional connotations for different groups. I think that if this article is to approach the subject of which people are white, then it should be based on more objective measures such as discussion of gene mutations after the separation of the M and N mtDNA haplogroups. Questions such as whether "white=European" should only be part of descriptions of the history of specific social constructions. ie. Describing viewpoints such as the examples above (if properly sourced) might be appropriate in the article, but the article itself shouldn't define "white people" in this sort of way.Anonymous watcher (talk) 11:34, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Race is a social construct. There are no 'objective measures'. Our article shouldn't attempt to 'define' it at all. Also, mitochondrial DNA (being inherited only on the direct maternal line) tells us little about a persons genetic makeup anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:34, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Just to clarify - I never mentioned "objective measures" of "race". However mtDNA measurements are in a sense objective as one possible way of forming general subsets within the human population (eg. for theorizing about early human migration) as they are a well-defined thing in that a person can be said to either be in a haplogroup or not, which does mean something as long as all the relevant provisos are considered (Similar to how the subset of all people over 160cm tall can be considered more well-defined than the subset of people described as being tall).Anonymous watcher (talk) 14:52, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Adding all that to the article would be OR. It's based on Yalens's own experience. It might be possible to get something similar, properly sourced, but it will be a fair amount of research and would be hard to establish the NPOV of. That said, some of the points would help to enhance the NPOV of the article, IF they could be sorted out properly. That aside, though, it's far more the point that those points should guide us in the editing and structuring of the article. I'm on the fence between a few thoughts, and haven't got time to sort them out, however. SamBC(talk) 14:17, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Article has very serious mistakes

Just look at the section for Puerto Rico and then read this article:

...................... See: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/09/30/latino.native.american/index.html?hpt=hp_bn2

From there I cut and pasted this:

But Maynard had long been taught that Taíno Indians, the indigenous people of Puerto Rico, were "gone, dead and buried" for centuries, decimated by Spaniards who arrived on the island in the 16th century.

and this:

Four years ago, Maynard heard about the work of Dr. Juan Carlos Martinez Cruzado, a geneticist from the University of Puerto Rico. In an island-wide genetic study, he found that at least 61.1% of those surveyed had mitochondrial DNA of indigenous origin. .........................

The majority of the people of Puerto Rico are mainly mixed. Mixed people are the majority in the Americas, probably even in the United States. It is a shame that people continue ignoring or denying their own blood. John. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.202.64 (talk) 01:51, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Commons category: How come missing?

Please add the {{Commons category|White people}}

to the article. 31.210.177.165 (talk)

I would say to you that WP:NOTFORUM. And to know to read scholarly books and common word usage between majority of people and its scholars. as it would be as much as word that exists as "lulzy" exists in the popular internet meme based community. meaning, the word is made up and dont exist. since dictionaries that fail to record what the majority of scholars and non scholars usagage of words is used and not just some slang that "lulzy" is(and yes that word does appear in a dictionary in some countries, it certainly is not common on avarage and certainly not scholar, so no it does not exists but rather is more akin to a popular psuedo intelligent neogolism)such you doing psuedo intelligent made up word that dont exist acording to grammar based language. You also lost the argument. so yes there is no reason to support your way of putting things into the article for balance — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.138.3.9 (talk) 10:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

File:Eduardo Ravelo.jpg Nominated for Deletion

An image used in this article, File:Eduardo Ravelo.jpg, has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Deletion requests January 2012 What should I do? Don't panic; a discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. This gives you an opportunity to contest the deletion, although please review Commons guidelines before doing so. If the image is non-free then you may need to upload it to Wikipedia (Commons does not allow fair use) If the image isn't freely licensed and there is no fair use rationale then it cannot be uploaded or used. To take part in any discussion, or to review a more detailed deletion rationale please visit the relevant image page (File:Eduardo Ravelo.jpg) This is Bot placed notification, another user has nominated/tagged the image --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 16:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

White people

This is highly racist, please use the proper term. This is not acceptable.--60.242.71.160 (talk) 08:33, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

And what would that be? Sub-melanistic personages? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. (confirmed honkey) 21:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, its Caucasian, or just European, that's the correct term, not sub-melan, whatever. Now your being prejudiced and racist, i think.140.198.45.63 (talk) 01:45, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

There is no 'proper term' here. 'Race' is a social construct, as is 'white', Caucasian', or 'European' (or 'Europe, come to that). AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:26, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Does the poster who says using "white" rather than "Caucasian" know where the term "Caucasian" comes from? Please read the separate article Caucasian race. It comes from 19th century German race theorist Meiner who divided the world into two racial groups: Caucasian and "beautiful" vs. Mongoloid and "ugly." He asserted that there was a mythical land of the most beautiful, light-skinned people in the world in the Caucuses, from which all Caucasians originated. He asserted that Jews, even Ashkenazim that today we'd regard as "white," are Mongoloid, whereas Tartars, some of whom may not be regarded as "white" today, are Caucasian.

This is not to argue that "white" is any more meaningful or better a term as "Caucasian," but that the term has its own unique and difficult history separate from that of the term "white." It's also to illustrate that neither of these terms have refer to any objective set of criteria or any objective categories. This is why both white people and Caucasian race have two separate articles.--Scyldscefing (talk) 21:11, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm white European and I find the term "caucasian" to be insulting and inaccurate. It is not a proper term at all, but based on dodgy Victorian pseudo-science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.77.148.225 (talk) 02:32, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, 'white' isn't particularly accurate (or meaningful) either. And where 'Europe' ends is highly contentious. Of course, to Victorian Britons, 'Europe' was abroad anyway. Come to think of it, this is true for some contemporary Brits too. The whole thing is subjective...

Now defeated by your own arguments, the factual matter is there is proper terms. non-race is a emotional fabrication. and social construct is a emotioanl fabrication aswell ;) so its kinda ironic here. its mostly that wikipedia has its own section on women, anti-semitism and racism shows that unless its fabricated, its an obersvation that jews,women and other white groups and non white women and jews arent fabricated by the majority of the scientific community. since unless you can find an old and advanced source that says that racism dont exist or discrinimation dont exists, then you will have a hard trouble against that, since you cant be racist and discrinimate against something that dont exist now can you? thats Doublethink and contradiction right there — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.138.3.88 (talk) 17:39, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

See WP:NOTFORUM. And use a dictionary... AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:47, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I honestly cannot understand most of what you're saying, aside from the claim that some objective standard for "whiteness" exists. The article clearly documents the origins of the concept of whiteness and its evolving and changing meaning. There is no objective test for "whiteness," "Caucasianess," or "race" nor anything even approaching a set of objective criteria that define them. As for the existence of racism, all racism means is that races exist as social constructs in the same way that "rich" vs. "poor" or "aristocrat" vs. "commoner" exist as social constructs. And like any other social constructs, they can be used as the basis for prejudice and bigotry. Just because such social constructs have a huge degree of significance in terms of how people are perceived or treated.

Now again, what does this have to do with the wikipedia articles? Again, as I said above: "white" and "Caucasian" are not necessarily interchangeable, even though more recently these terms have come closer to meaning the same thing. Still, they have very different histories and are still used in some places and contexts to mean different things. They refer to nothing objective, aside from what society at any point takes them to commonly mean. This is why these terms deserve separate articles, and dealing with them in separately should not be taken as offensive to anyone, anymore than having an article on the word "negro" should be offensive to African-Americans.--Scyldscefing (talk) 21:11, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Ref moved here for work

I've removed the following here for work to bring into compliance with WP:NOENG:

<ref name="geografia.fflch.usp.br">Argentina, como Chile y Uruguay, su población está formada casi exclusivamente por una población blanca procedente del sur de Europa – más del 90 por 100 -, españoles e italianos en su mayoría, además de algunas minorías de judíos, levantinos (sirios, libaneses, armenios) y centroeuropeos, alemanes en su mayoría, llegados sobre todo después de 1800, oscilando los aborígenes entre el uno y el siete por ciento (E. García Zarza, 1992, 19).</ref>

This was cited in two places in the article, apparently to support the following assertions in the Chile section:

• Other studies found a white majority measured at 64% to 90% of the Chilean population.
• 52.7%-90% of the population according to estimates and racial self-identification surveys.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:46, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Wrong interpretation of the source: "University of Chile"

1) The source: The study University of Chile used as blood donors at 150 persons San Jose Hospital in Santiago de Chile. That is, is very biased, and although that serves to demonstrate segregation between social groups and that no significant differences with the "Hispanics" in America, does not state that these data are indicators of genetic contributions relating to European and Indigenous ancestors of the Chilean population.--Ccrazymann (talk) 17:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

What about the Neanderthals?

THIS IS NOT A RACISM! It's an important question: Were they "White" ? Böri (talk) 14:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Possibly, but they are not people as defined for the purposes of this article. It's a "race" concept within Homo Sapiens. Paul B (talk) 14:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

within Homo Sapiens: but now, they call them "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis" Böri (talk) 09:31, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

It's irrelevant to this article, which is about modern peoples. If you want to discuss the skin pigmentation of Neanderthals then do so on Talk:Neanderthal. Paul B (talk) 10:08, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

"Caucasian race"

Use of the term "Caucasian race" as a secondary name for "White people" is not accurate, as there are people of color that are classified as Caucasians. As stated in the article of the same name, "Historically, the term has been used to describe many peoples [...], without regard necessarily to skin tone." --Valce Talk 03:58, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

I fixed it. FonsScientiae (talk) 14:30, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

White is not equal to European

This article continuously confuses the terms and definitions of 'white' and 'European'. Not every white people is European, and not every European is white. FonsScientiae (talk) 14:34, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree... this page should be more neutral. It should present the various applications of it, but not take a stance. White as a race has many meanings, including all light-skinned peoples, relatively lighter skinned peoples, Europeans or native West Eurasions+North Africans (i.e. not including, say, Kalmyks, who aren't native). It's use depends on the speaker and the context, and the page should say that. Even the notion that "white=European" is by far the most accepted definition is highly questionable- if it was then, for example, in the highly race-conscious United States, the presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader (who is completely Middle Eastern) would take on a completely different meaning. It's not so simple as "White=European, period" , that's just misleading, and it brings down the quality of the page. --Yalens (talk) 03:04, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I and, I believe many people outside the US, don't think about 'white' as a "race" (whatever that means), it's just a skin color. In my country, for example, light skinned Japanese and Chinese people are often referred to as 'white' when compared to other dark skinned people; and 'white' and 'black' only used to describe relative skin color. FonsScientiae (talk) 16:34, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

No Pictures of White People?

The articles of every other race has a collage of faces of recognizable or famous examplesof that race. Why not in this article?Thelostrealist513 (talk) 01:10, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the main reason was disputes over what faces to include. Formerip (talk) 01:29, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Name change

Ever since I knew, I never thought about 'black' or 'white' as terms for "race"; in the part of world where I grew up and live, concepts of race are seldom used and almost never in confusion with skin color. When I started editing human skin related articles I found it strange that there was article for olive skin but no articles for black and white (by which most people colloquially refer to dark and light skin). Reliable sources support that the terms 'black' and 'white' are used for people who have dark-coloured skin and light-coloured skin and that they are encyclopedic topics and global terms. (Black: 1: "any human group having dark-coloured skin" , 2: "various population groups having dark pigmentation of the skin" , 3: "any of various dark-skinned peoples"; [4]: "having skin of a dark color"; White: 5: "having light-coloured skin", 6: "marked by slight pigmentation of the skin"7: "having little skin pigmentation")
Clearly, these articles deal with another topic, race, which is (in some parts of the world) also referred to as 'black' and 'white' (I still have to see a reliable source defining it so), even if the terms are independent of skin color. I realize that some of you may find the words 'black' and 'white' offensive for describing skin color, just as i find black and white offensive for description of "human races"; because of this, and because terms 'black' and 'white' are very often used to describe skin color , as synonyms for dark and light skin, (as shown above) disambiguation is necessary for these terms. Different meanings of the same words, ’black’ and ’white’ will have to redirect either to the neutral human skin color article or to the racial classification article.
As for what exact new name we should use for the racial articles doesn’t matter as far as it makes the distinction between skin color and concept of race. I can image titles like "black (racial classification)", or "black people (racial classification)" but I'm really indifferent towards the titles and you are welcomed to propose better names. FonsScientiae (talk) 14:49, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, the article is clearly US or Anglo-centric...--Yalens (talk) 02:25, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on direction of article

Editors on this page are invited to participate in/weigh-in on whether or not this article and its companion black people wikipage are intended for the discussion of the race-based "white" and "black" social categories/constructs, respectively, or whether they are soley meant to discuss skin color. Whatever consensus is reached there could have implications on the entire future direction of both articles, so participation is strongly encouraged. Soupforone (talk) 21:39, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment I believe the wording of the description is not neutral and doesn't show accurately the other point of view. First, I never meant solely skin color. The Black people article (which has been the origin of much of the discussion) has always included the racial social/cultural implications of skin color. But it's possible to talk about skin color without racial connotations (like with hair color) . Secondly, the History and Geography category is not the right category of the discussion: the articles are not about historical terms, but present, everyday meanings of the expressions "black" and "white".
Anywaay, I agree and I would encourage and appreciate anyone to add to the conversation from a neutral perspective. You can find most of the previous discussion in the Black people article talk page/direction and previous versions in the history ([8]).

I would add that you cannot talk about "black race" or "white race" as global terms as these are social constructs (as you said) and social constructs differ in meaning depending on society. "Black race" in the United States is not the same concept as it is in Australia (where black used to describe skin color and can mean both indigenous Australians or African Australians, and where racial classification is nonexistent) or in France (where people aren't classified as being member of the "black race" or "white race" as there is no meaning of the terms). And as I told you, we can't write the definition of what the "black race" means in the United States in the lede of the 'Black people' article as that would make it Geographically biased and unduly weighted.
Secondly, dictionaries explain the definitions in terms for skin color. (The Oxford Dictionary: "any human group having dark-coloured skin, especially of African or Australian Aboriginal ancestry".(1) Merriam-Webster: "of or relating to any of various population groups having dark pigmentation of the skin"(2)). You also seem to ignore the facts and references that tell that people in Oceania and India are called black depending on their skin color. "Dark skin", "black skin", "white skin", and "light skin" are all redirects to these articles. I don't think people who search for these terms are looking for concepts of race.
And yes, in some societies skin color is associated with social constructs of race. Under the culture sections of the articles country-specific definitions and terms are given and there's nothing wrong with that, but don't try to force your country-specific definition of what the term means into the lede in a not country-specific article. Create an article for 'black people/white people in the United States' if you want (but there are already articles for Black Americans and White Americans). FonsScientiae (talk) 18:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

While true to an extent, your suggestion that "white people" and "black people" as race-based social categories/constructs differ from area to area is somewhat beside the point and a little overstated. The authorities in France indeed officially do not collect ethnographic information on its residents. However, this political decision is a source of controversy within that country, and it does not negate the fact that most locals there still recognize "white", "black" and other 'races' at the pedestrian level. Whether such distinctions do in fact exist biologically is another matter; but they're certainly there in a social sense. I'm also not sure where you got the idea that racial classification is nonexistent in Australia since the country effectively had a White Australia policy for over half a century. This racial policy intentionally restricted non-'white'/European immigration, and was in practice mainly aimed at East Asians (many of whom actually have skin as light as or sometimes lighter than the average European).

"White skin" and "Black skin" redirect to this article and the "Black people" article, respectively, for the same reason that White race and Black race redirect to those same respective wikipages: they are terms of relevance.

Moreover, the definitions you cite are just a few of many. That same Merriam Webster link alone, for example, also equates "black" with being "swarthy" and "having dark skin, hair, and eyes", using the "Black Irish" as an example. It further cites a considerably more restricted, United States-centric alternative definition of "black" that focuses on African-Americans: "of or relating to the African-American people or their culture <black literature>".

Historically, the dominant (though not only) definition of "black people", as held by both white and black people in America and Europe alike, was as a synonym for "Negroid": "In America, as in Europe, when white or black people thought, wrote, or spoke of black people, meaning the black race, they meant the people who were understood to be Negroes; that is, people with "Negroid" features, such as black skin, kinky hair, broad noses, thick lips, and rounded behinds. Racism was involved here, to which even precursor Black historians acceded." [9]

WP:WEIGHT states that articles should cite views in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. The idea that Australian Aborigines or Dravidians, among others, are "black people" is - though certainly in circulation as a meme in some quarters - definitely not prominent. This was made clear on the fringe noticeboard discussion.

What was also made clear in that conversation is that the white people and black people articles were originally meant to discuss the race-based "white" and "black" social categories/constructs. One need only look at the Category:Race (human classification) featured on both articles to see that this is indeed the case. Soupforone (talk) 21:35, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

""wrong analogy"" I believe the complete argument is roaming around one man's ideology of terming Dravidians as "black people" I believe we should talk particular to India and not go to Australia , US or any other country for any anology as the word "Dravidian" is only represented in India,

First of all Indian society was deferentiated by crude caste system and not by there skin tone unlike other countries. there has never existed in society or religously or any other kind of manner deferentiating dravidians in India as black , terming them blacks will give wrong notion to the researchers of wiki articles who would confuse the term to the "black people" in general.

If dravidians are being termed black due to there slight black tone , why not people form indonesia, singapore , brazil , .. it makes no sence to have blackness scale for skin tone to term a ethnicity as "Black people" . I think the whole idea has to be dropped as India never had or is having any racial descrimination pertaining to skin tone. Shrikanthv (talk) 13:40, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

What they do in France is recognize or identify by skin color. Racial categorization in the United States Census at least to the same degree is controversial.(1)
None of the dictionary definitions you mentioned define "black" as a race, but as the dark skin color. Some define it as "African-American" but that again is a US-specific term.
You're quotation of that book may have been right in the past but the usage of the term has changed. But stating that (nowadays) whenever someone labels another person as "black" or "white" what she implies is her race, is a statement from a racial viewpoint.
The term "black" is most often associated with Indigenous Australians (who themselves embraced the term) as African immigration is quite a recent phenomenon in Australia and even today is to a small degree. Tamils are often refer to themselves as black (e.g. "Black Tigers") in India and referred as by others. It is not a coincidence someone months ago requested for the inclusion of Indians in the article. If something different exists outside the US it isn't necessarily fringe or meme.
What the article was intended to be about is not relevant, as today and in a broader global scope the terms mean something else (as dictionaries define: the dark skin color).
Shrikanthv, you are right, India hasn't had racial discrimination to a high extent based on skin color. That's why their inclusion in a race-based article is not appropriate. Still, labels are used there too to differentiate people on their phenotype, just like you differentiate 'blonds' from 'brunettes'. And that's why skin color in India means skin color, and not "race". FonsScientiae (talk) 17:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

As for finding a solution to the situation given I can imagine 3 directions:

• Splitting the article into two different ones: a, Black/White (race) b, Black/White (skin color)
• Splitting the article: a, Black people b, Black people as a historical term (and/or Black people in the United States)
• Removing the country specific edits from the lede and going towards a global direction (seems unlikely) FonsScientiae (talk) 17:29, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

There are various problems with your argument, but the main one is overlooking the fact that the term "black people" has for the most part been considered as essentially a synonym for "Negroid". This is true of both so-called black and white communities in the Americas and Europe alike; the link I produced earlier makes this clear. By contrast, none of the passages you picked out address what is or has historically been the most common global usage of the term "black people". They just give a few alternative modern definitions, some of which actually contradict each other (for instance, "Black Irish" vs. "of or relating to the African-American people or their culture"). Here again are the most common meanings of the social terms "black" and "white" when applied to human groups: "Knowability of racial categories is one of the myths of race. Racial categories have been taught as if the categories Negroid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid had scientific bases. Today, the scientific terminology has changed to "Black," "White" and "Asian". Social categories of race have grown to include "ethnic" racial groupings, including what is usually referred to as "Hispanic." But what of Pacific Islanders? Are they a racial group or an ethnic group? And what of South Asians? Undoubtedly our categories expand to serve social and political needs." [10]

Three different editors now have indicated that: 1) This article and/or its companion black people wikipage are on race-based social categories/constructs. 2) While in some circles the term "black people" may include far-flung groups like Dravidians or Australian Aborigines, this is not the term's predominant usage globally. On this point, Paul B on the fringe noticeboard discussion wrote that "More recently some African-American writers have tried to construct a model of an "African diaspora", which includes any people deemed "black", in their view: which fact somehow makes them part of an African diaspora (even though everyonme is part of an Afican diaspora; if you are going to argue that people who happen to be dark skinned in Australia or India are part of it, you may as well argue that Norwegians are part of it)". Similarly, Shrikanthv has indicated above that "If dravidians are being termed black due to there slight black tone , why not people form indonesia, singapore , brazil , .. it makes no sence to have blackness scale for skin tone to term a ethnicity as "Black people"".

While the options you've just presented are appreciated, they aren't particularly necessary since a Color terminology for race article already exists for that purpose. Please now give other editors a chance to share their view/comment as per the process. We're almost at a rough consensus, but I'd still like to hear more opinions. Soupforone (talk) 21:06, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. This discussion seems to be mostly about the Black people article. So why is on this talk page? Formerip (talk) 01:31, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

The dispute is over the direction/purpose of both the white people article and its companion black people wikipage. It started on the black people page but naturally drifted and gathered momentum here, where an rfc was eventually listed for a broader consensus. Soupforone (talk) 08:53, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't know either why you had to redirect the conversation from the Black people article as it had started there. Anyway, I'm going to cut my response short. Wikipedia (luckily) doesn't rely on what you or I think. Wikipedia relies on up-to-date reliable sources. The sources almost equivocally say that "black" is the dark-colored skin or the dark pigmentation of the skin ("belonging to or denoting any human group having dark-coloured skin" Oxford; "of or relating to any of various population groups having dark pigmentation of the skin" Merriam-Webster; "a member of any of various dark-skinned peoples", "pertaining or belonging to any of the various populations characterized by dark skin pigmentation" Dictionary.com: 3.a, 21.a) This is obviously the present usage of the terms (not the historical ones). They don't say it actually means something called "race" which is independent of skin color. No, they say dark skin color. (and I'm just continue to ignore when you talk about African Americans. This article is not about Americans.) FonsScientiae (talk) 09:57, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• Being "white" is not about skincolor, but about race (i.e. it is a socially constructed group of people perceived to belong to a "white" racial group in a specific place and time). This kind of racial thinking is particularly common in the US, which is why the article will necessarily become biased towards US definitions and views. Dictionaries are not suitable for defining complex topics like this.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 12:19, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
• White people and black people are Primarily social constructs I wholly agree with Maunus, with the addition that racial thinking is particularly prominent in some other places. White people details the development of the social construct, whose status depended on national origin, ineligibility for slavery, ancestry, and other criteria over time. This concept was well-developed before the creation of scientific racism, but clearly informed the definition of the Caucasian race. Biological attributes rarely allow people to be re-classified across these lines: darker-skinned European descendants in the United States remain "white," while lighter-skinned Mexicans and Brazilians are often "not white," at least to many. Similarly, albino Africans are not reclassified as not "black" and South Asians are categorized with a single social status in the Americas regardless of their variety of skin colors.

Separate white skin and black skin from these articles — For these reasons, and because human skin color is a notable and encyclopedic topic on its own, these terms should not link to the social categories but to [a] page[s] discssing the biological phenotype.--Carwil (talk) 14:45, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Great points Maunus and Carwil. Seems most here agree that these two pages are intended for the discussion of the race-based social constructs "white people" and "black people". Given this, it does make sense to separate "white skin" and "black skin" from these articles. Re-directs of these terms to the main human skin color article on the biological phenotype indeed should cover it. Soupforone (talk) 20:07, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree Carwill. White skin and black skin, as phenotypes, are clearly encyclopedic topics and they should be separated from these articles. During history many things, including ethnicity, skin color, and religion has been racialized; still, Soupforone, you don't put the racism template and the racial definition in a particular country e.g. of Semitic race in the Semitic people article's lede (as you did in Black people). The race aspect of a biological phenotype is a subsection of the topic and not vica versa.
The two articles, especially the black people article, currently resemble Wiki:Synth because they talk about two different topics, skin color and race. There are sections about the evolution of skin color (I added the current form of it: Black people#Evolution of dark skin) but if the articles are about racial terms, they should rather include history of the racial terms (as the white people article correctly does), not the evolution of biological phenotypes. The first sentence in the white people article is again about skin color. Similar dictionary definitions of 'black' was added by me to the black people article but for some reason those got reverted, claiming the article wasn't about skin color. I also added most parts of the geographic section in a belief that these articles were about skin color; but I strongly doubt that black Australians, Oceanians, or African blacks could be considered the same race in a racial classification.

Please undo all my edits which I made in the belief that the articles were about biological skin color. As suggested, I'm going to create articles solely for phenotypes. Soupforone, I see your points, the main confusion was my belief that these articles were not about race. But this confusion was not unfounded. Several links redirect here from pages which are not about race, e.g. Human skin color, Von Luschan's chromatic scale, and many sources define the two terms in everyday usage as dark and light shades of skin color (the definitions which I have been familiar with). Thus name change for the articles is necessary, which indicates that these articles are about social and historical definitions of "race" for averting confusion and further disagreement. I maintain my proposal to move the articles to titles of "black (race)", "black race" or "black people (as a race)". The same applies to other articles based on Color terminology for race: Brown people, Bronze race, Red people, and Yellow people. FonsScientiae (talk) 11:37, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you may have misunderstood some of what Caril wrote. He said that "because human skin color is a notable and encyclopedic topic on its own, these terms should not link to the social categories but to [a] page[s] discssing the biological phenotype", and mentioned the human skin color article as just that page.

There is no objective thing as "white skin", "black skin", "yellow skin" or "brown skin". All humans have melanocytes or melanin producing cells, and of a comparable amount. Skin color in humans varies mainly based on the quantity of melanin in the epidermis or outermost skin layer, which is controlled by various genes. These genes often come in different versions or alleles, which in turn are often not geographically distributed as one might perhaps expect. For instance, most of the 'brown'-skinned peoples in North Africa, the Horn of Africa and South Asia possess an allelic variant that is typically found in the lighter-skinned populations in the Near East and Europe. East Asians, though frequently as light-skinned as Europeans, generally have their own specific variants. The dark-skinned peoples of Oceania likewise possess different alleles than most of the populations in Sub-Saharan Africa.

To complicate matters further, the appearance of human skin color is also affected by other factors, often not directly related to genetics. For example, the presence of the pigment carotene in one's diet, which is found in many vegetables, can give human skin a yellowish tone if consumed regularly. The thickness of the overlying tissues also affects the appearance of skin color, but little else. Peoples in various parts of the world, but especially in East Asia, sometimes have something called a sacral spot near the base of the spine, which appears to be bluish-grey in hue because the melanin there is concentrated in a deeper skin layer than usual (being in the dermis rather than the epidermis). The area is of course not literally bluish-grey; it just looks like it is because there is more overlying tissue. Similarly, oilier skin often appears more brownish in tone since oil increases the transparency of the outer skin layers; drier skin has the opposite effect, giving a more 'greyish' appearance. More 'pinkish' skin tones principally come from a combination of lower melanin production and thinner epidermal layers, which makes the red blood vessels near the skin's surface more visible. For this reason, newborns in general tend to be of a reddish color since melanin production is lower at that stage in their development and since the nervous mechanisms that control blood circulation at the skin's surface aren't yet functioning. This is also why people often look more 'red' or 'pink' after exfoliation or chemical peel treatments. In short, skin color is a rather complicated, technical topic that is best addressed in the one human skin color biological article. Soupforone (talk) 20:58, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I was talking about the social descriptions of skin color, how people describe each other as black and white (dark or light skinned), not the science of it, and not about race. People describe others, or themselves, by their skin color, where black means dark skinned, and white means light skinned (apparently not in your racialized society). This is the same what dictionaries define, but you seem to keep ignoring that. These descriptions of skin color are not equal to "races".
Actually, the concept of "Black people" as race is not as international as British and American people think. In France, there are many shades between "white" and "black" even in the (French West Indian) vocabulary (métis, quarteron, octavon). Moreover, contrarily to the fundamentally racist societies originally part of the British colonial empire, where racially mixed couples have always been considered as an abomination and every drop of African blood makes anyone "Black", there are many French (there is a similar situation in Portugal and in several Central and South American societies) people with African ancestry who are not considered as "black". FonsScientiae (talk) 13:15, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

My previous post was clearly a reference to the actual biology of human skin coloration, not about whatever it is you're responding to. And I posted that because you actually seemed to believe that there are such distinct things as "white skin", "black skin", "yellow skin" or "brown skin", enough to warrant separate skin color articles for these terms from the main human skin color wikipage. There aren't. There's just variation in skin color-controlling alleles, melanin production, skin density, food substances, etc. which collectively determine the appearance of skin coloration in all humans. These determining factors also often do not jibe with expected so-called 'racial' variation, as shown. Soupforone (talk) 20:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I know what your previous post was about. I never talked about separate articles for exact biological human skin colors, but social description for it, which by the way much more common than race-based descriptions (this does not include yellow, which is clearly a racist and offensive term). Red hair is not actually red, still it is called red and have it's own article. FonsScientiae (talk) 10:26, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I see you went ahead and basically copied and pasted a lot of the material that you added to the black people and white people articles and have been arguing for here to two new fork pages: White (skin color) and Black (skin color). This is despite the consensus that the social constructs "white" and "black" are independent of skin color and that they are to be discussed on the white people and black people articles, respectively. The actual biology of human skin coloration is to be dealt with separately on the extant human skin color article. It doesn't matter if you substitute the term "race" with "social description"; it's still the same skin color-based classification scheme that you've been arguing for all along. Please respect the process and let it run its course. Whatever the community as a whole decides at the end of it is what shall be implemented. Soupforone (talk) 19:22, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, the two articles created are copyright violations per Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia. Secondly, in my opinion anything about black/white skin color that does not come under racial context comes under biological context and hence should be left to the article Human skin color. Thirdly, the scope of the article Black (skin color) is supposed to be only skin color, but the article describes about races in the section Indigenous populations. --Anbu121 (talk me) 19:52, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

That's exactly the situation. Soupforone (talk) 19:55, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Stop this racist madness going on! Do you seriously believe that every man in this planet ever called 'black' or 'white' was because of her imaginary race? Exactly what talked about race on the 'Black (skin color)' article? It explicitly said in the Indigenous populations section that the name owes more to skin color than to ethology and everything was well sourced. There are thousands of reasons why 'black people' and 'white people' articles could be deleted, still I leave you alone. Soupfrone, I don't know whether to consider your behavior of writing to a bunch of user's talk page promoting your views of the issue canvassing, but actually what is your problem with the creation of 'dark skin', 'light skin' articles (other than your obsession with 'race')? So far both Carwil and Maunus (on his talk page) stated that black/dark skin and white/light skin are separate from black and white as racial categories. FonsScientiae (talk) 12:22, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Every editor I contacted was already part of the general discussion, so nothing doing there. All editors here have likewise made it clear that the "black" and "white" racial categories/social constructs are independent of and should be separated from the actual biology of human skin coloration, which is already discussed on the human skin color article. The fact that the fork page you created was speedily deleted should also tell you something about its level of appropriateness given the existing consensus and general website policy. Soupforone (talk) 20:16, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

While I don't feel as much of a crisis about the issue as expressed here, I want reaffirm that Human skin color seems to be the best place to talk about "white skin" and "black skin." It's very hard to mentally separate our (social) categories of people from the assigned color. Indeed, the term "black skin" refers to a range of browns precisely because of social status. Similarly, some people with deep tan skin are regarded as having "tanned white skin" while others are regarded as having (untanned) "brown skin" (and that distinction varies by geographic location as well). I would strongly suggest developing human skin color with added specifics about different parts of the color range well before creating any new pages, reserving new pages for the possibility that information gets overly detailed there, per WP:SUMMARY.--Carwil (talk) 20:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying your opinion Carwil, I will develop the human skin color page as you suggested and create companion articles if that feels necessary. I see that some of you find the words 'black' and 'white' offensive for describing skin color, so I believe 'dark skin' and 'light skin' would be better subtitles/titles for the skin color related articles. But as terms 'black' and 'white' are very often used to describe skin color, as synonyms for dark and light, disambiguation is needed for these terms. I would note that the deletion of the other articles were based on spurious reason: Wikipedia's content is freely licenced, so quoting even large portions of text verbatim from another Wikipedia article cannot be a copyright violation. Because of this I will appeal at WP:DRV.
I consider this discussion closed as we seem to reached consensus regarding the scope of the original Rfc: this article and the companion article (black people) has the sole purpose of discussing racial concepts and thus shouldn't include skin pigmentation evolution and geographic distribution, which is in the scope of the human skin color article.
The only thing left to discuss is name change for the articles for the above mentioned reasons; for this I will open a new section. FonsScientiae (talk) 10:36, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The consensus is: 1) the white people and black people articles are set aside for discussion of the "white" and "black" social constructs, and 2) the human skin color article is set aside for discussion of the biology and range of human skin coloration.

Carwil's added caveat on "reserving new pages for the possibility that information gets overly detailed there, per WP:SUMMARY" makes sense should the human skin color page get too large and perhaps eventually require splitting. According to WP:SIZERULE, that typically applies to pages that are over 100 kB. The human skin color article is only 65 kB at the time of writing and already has a few associated subtopics (melanin and sun tanning). It thus has a long way to go in that regard, which is perhaps why Carwil recommended instead developing the article. WP:SUMMARY also cautions "to avoid a POV fork (that is, a split that results in the original article or the spinoff violating NPOV policy), a difference in approach between the summary and the spinoff, etc.". So any spinoff that is created in the future will still have to be consistent in approach with the main human skin color article. Soupforone (talk) 20:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, and emphasizing that white people and black people are for discussion for 'black' and 'white' as social concepts of race. FonsScientiae (talk) 08:25, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the article has HUGE problems with MAJOR claims without any reference and need to be removed. I believe this article is the least encyclopedic I've seen on Wikipedia and seems to really be about skin color and not a social construct.--Amadscientist (talk) 23:56, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

• Comment The Black people page has a section on cultures. Why is there no such section on this page? Could the fact that the culture section for Black people links to regional / social groupings / religious cultrues be an indication that the slippage from skin colour to assumed cultural traits is incorrect. OR can we add a culture to this White people page? Just because it is the 'default', everyday, and assumed culture for many (most?) editiors and thus not a subject of an external other to be subject to analysis, does not mean it does not exist.-- Cooper ⁴²_{(Talk)(Contr)} 13:35, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
• Comment I support the arguments in favour of emphasizing the racial concepts of "white". AshLey ^Msg 13:07, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Fuzzy regions (again)

I've deleted all the fuzzy regions bordering Europe in the bottom list. First of all, I don't see why we need to have that thing anyways, but that's beside the point. The point is that the "whiteness" of the inhabitants of those regions is often subject to context, personal opinions, and so on, and so you can't just draw a firm boundary on which groups are "white" in those regions and which aren't. European-descended= white is not universally accepted so it cannot be used. It can, however, be used in the colonial context, where "white" is used to refer to the human remnants of colonial rule, as in sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Southeast Asia and Oceania. That isn't disputed, so I left that. Wikipedia should only make statements where there is consensus on terms that are widely used in all contexts, not only in some.--Yalens (talk) 02:25, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

I object, in part, to your approach, but this is a good opportunity to discuss it. The basis of our decisions should not be to cobble together a universal white category and apply it to the world at large. Rather, we should recognize that whiteness is a category that differs from place to place (and over time). If in one particular national context (say the Southern cone of South America), Lebanese-, Syrian-, and other Arab-national peoples are white, then we link to a page that includes them. If in other places (by and large the case in the contemporary US), a definition of whiteness excludes these peoples, we link to that. Since there's no global whiteness club, we don't have to worry about which countries are in, and which are out of some overall white list (we don't have one of those on the page, thankfully). But in each case, we should refer to the local existence of a definition of white people regardless of how well it squares with other places; to not do so would be to do original reseach rather than rely on local sources.

In some places, this distinction may place so-called "potential white people" (from other perpectives) outside a local category of whiteness. Given that definitions vary, this will always be true. The clear case of this is Algeria, which you removed, but where "whiteness" as a social category referred to French immigrants, not light-skinned historical residents. ("A million and a half white Algerians of French descent, the pied-noirs, lived in the country" [11]) In my view, we should defer to such local definitions.

In other places, there may be a social distinction not described as a difference between "white" and "nonwhite" people. If so, this page has nothing to say about them. I would suggest that we make sure, on a case by case basis, that the "white" category is locally relevant before adding a place to this list.--Carwil (talk) 13:13, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that the use of the word "white" in any of these cases is heavily dependent on not only context, but also the speaker. If we have some Westerner talking about pied-noirs, who are of French colonial descent, then they are likely to call them whites, as this is the convention with most other colonial remnants. But at the same time, North Africans may often refer to themselves as white too, especially in contrast to "blacks". I've seen this even used for the Tuareg, who are generally accepted to have a "black" part to their ancestry in addition to their Berber North African origins. For example, in the words of a Tuareg refugee from Mali, Tuaregs and Arabs are "white-skinned", see here: [12]- "People started attacking anything Tuareg: They burnt houses, cars and attacked anyone with white skin - even Arabs". If we are to use local definitions as basis, then in this case it clearly doesn't really simplify it at all. I do think incorporating local definitions is a good idea, though.

And to continue on the case of Algeria, often as used by (typically more insular) Westerners, the word "white" is used not to demark complexion, but rather culture. In some peoples' view, Christian North Mediterranean French are claimed to be "white(r)", whether or not they are actually significantly lighter than their Southern neighbors or not (and often there isn't that much of a difference). Yes, Algerians are on average darker than French, but that doesn't change the fact that Algerians living in France are regularly mistaken by outsiders for native French (the Algerian French singer, Kenza Farah, for example). And among French, the factor distinguishing them is not appearance, but religion.

There is substantial original research on that section of the page as it stands right now. I have not seen a single source yet calling colonial-remnant Russians "white" in contrast to Tajiks or Turkmen (who are typically Caucasoid and bear similar skin complexions to Mediterranean Europeans). This is purely OR. I suppose this is there either because of the colonial context or the POV that white=European. The first is problematic because if we edit using that precedent, Russians living in Latvia are "white" in contrast to blond, pale Latvians. The second reflects the POV of some editors, not a consensus here or worldwide. And wikipedia should not present one POV favorably over another. --Yalens (talk) 17:42, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Another fact, I suppose of slight interest, is that Russian far-right racist slang actually calls Tajiks "black", but the term also incorporates South Caucasians, North Caucasians, Middle Easterners, and pretty much all non-Slavic/Finnic/Baltic/Germanic groups (Bulgarians are somehow considered whiter than Romanians...?). The inclusion of North Caucasians such as Circassians and Chechens in the term would suggest that hair color is the main factor, since their skin colors aren't significally darker than those of Russians, or otherwise that cultural factors may have an influence (North Caucasians being Muslim, and notably, Russian Jews are also "black" in this racist slang...).

This whole discussion is making me think more and more that we should just delete the whole bottom section as all it does is spur edit wars, feature original research and violate the neutrality policy, while adding little if anything to the page. --Yalens (talk) 18:17, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Odd...I was thinking the same thing about the top section. It makes major claims that are not sourced. So...if the top should go and the bottum should go...why not just begin AFD?--Amadscientist (talk) 01:59, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

RE: Yalens — There's nothing intrinsically wrong about a multi-site social construct including some people in one region and excluding the same people in another. It is a case for adding a bit more information to our list, enough to at least summarize such differences.

I too suspect that the Russian-Central Asian distinction is not racialized along white–nonwhite lines. If it isn't, it doesn't belong here.

I'm not sure which "top section" Amadscientist is referring to, but the "historical populations" section predates "white people" as a social construct. Further, we have a cited source above saying "we can see that the concept of a distinct 'white race' was not present in the ancient world." If no one objects, I will pull this section out in a day or two.

I think it's fair to say that White people would survive a AfD easily.--Carwil (talk) 15:31, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The majority of Central Asian people belong to the same Mongoloid race as light-skinned ("non-white") Japanese or Koreans. Kyrgyz and Kazakhs are of Mongoloid type. Although Turkmen and Uzbeks are also related to the Iranians, they display a strong Mongoloid (East Asian) racial element. Tajiks are the only Central Asian people who have strong Caucasian (Iranian) features. Tobby72 (talk) 08:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

@Tobby: Well, you're right on the Tajiks and Kyrgyz. However, Turkmen lean pretty far to the Caucasoid side, albeit with some Mongoloid influences. Uzbeks (and Uighurs) are heavily mixed and exhibit the full range from Caucasoid to Mongoloid. Kazakhs are the reverse of Turkmen- mainly Mongoloid, but with Caucasoid traits popping up here and there. In any cases, geography can be just as important than ethnicity: Turkic speakers closer to Iran tend to be more Caucasoid, while those closer to Mongolia tend to be more Mongoloid. And it's all subject to point of view, and in my experience people are more likely to focus on how Central Asians are different from their own group's appearance. If you ask a German, Uzbeks are probably "Asian" or "Mongoloid", whereas in the view of a Chinese person, they are "Caucasian" or even "kind of like Russians". And they're both right in a sense- one Uzbek could pass as a European while another could pass as an East Asian. And thus, you see how "fuzzy" Central Asia is. I'd rather not place most of the Turkic speakers in any category because its fuzzy, and as I've reiterated many times, most Central Asian Turkic peoples have some mix of both types- it'd be impossible to place Uzbeks one way or another without protests, I think... and furthermore, as for "white", the term is generally not used in Central Asia, because the differentiating factor between "races" isn't skin darkness, it's facial features. It's just fuzzy- leave it out. --Yalens (talk) 20:29, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

@Carwil: I suppose that isn't such a bad idea, but I would base it on relativity, not geography. It's really more that Algerians are "brown" when French people are around and then "white" once they're gone (not really that simple, because of the wide range among Algerians, but still...you get the point). --Yalens (talk) 20:29, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Your POV is completely irrelevant. Please provide me the reliable source to support your assertion that Uzbeks, Turkmen, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz are considered "white" Caucasians or "white people". Ethnic Russians and other Slavs are generally considered "white". Regardless of where a Russian in born, ethnic Russians (Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs) are white people of European descent. Tobby72 (talk) 12:53, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Mkay, first of all, I never said that they were universally considered white (especially not Kazakhs and Kyrgyz). Second of all, its kind of ironic that you denounce me for an alleged POV and then state your own POV rather promptly. Third of all, this completely backs up my point further: the populations in question (Uzbeks, Turkmen) are not clear enough cases, with competing views, to classify.--Yalens (talk) 13:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Population of white people in Sweden

There are no official statistics about ethnicity in Sweden, and the source to Sweden's numbers on the list imply that immigrants can't be of white decent. I therefore think Sweden should be removed from the list until a better source can be provided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nordanvind (talk • contribs) 15:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't seem to locate the figures cited - the link given is inadequate to do this, and the note to the reference clearly implies that the figure is arrived at by deducting the number of immigrants from the total population - which is not only highly dubious for the reason given above, but original research. On this basis, I agree that the data should be removed. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:16, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Since nobody else has done so, I have removed the questionable data for Sweden. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:59, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

How many white people are in the world?

Can we get an approximate amount of people identified as white living in the world as compared to other races? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.218.176.223 (talk) 14:27, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Who is going to do the identifying? Many countries (including my own, Australia) do not count people according to race or skin colour. You would do well to read the lead carefully, and think about how one could come up with the figure you seek. HiLo48 (talk) 18:24, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

"Can we"? No. And neither can anyone else. It is entirely arbitrary and subjective. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:27, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Population of White Venezuelan

I dont know why an user keep reverting this... Last year in Venezuela there were the XIV Census, where it showed for the very first time in this century the ethnicity of Venezuela, so that's why I added it. It is more reliable than the source of the "Britannica Online Encyclopedia", so why keeping reverting this into a not very accurate source? So, added an OFFICIAL SOURCE from the 2011 Venezuelan Census. The "Britannica Online Encyclopedia" is not anymore a reliable source for this case, since there is a recent and OFFICIAL result of the Venezuelan Ethnicity. The results of the Official 2011 Venezuelan Census showed that 42,2% of the population are white (of the 27,227,930 inhabitants, the source are from the Government "Instituto Nacional de Estadistica" (INE) ... and the document from that report you can find it in the pg. 14 of this link Official Census 2011 - Venezuela. Also the University of Brasilia did a research where the result was that 60,6% of the population in Venezuela were from European (white) ancestry. "O impacto das migrações na constituição genética de populações latino-americanas"

So those are more reliable source than that one from the "Britannica Online Encyclopedia", that encyclopedia didnt even do studies/research about the ethnicity in Venezuela, so why that's more reliable than the official ones?, also it's old and not very accurate --Pankoroku (talk) 06:22, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but you are speaking of coloured people in venezuela there aren't 42.2% white persons... i think there don't are even 10% because it's normal it's like in colombia or the countries around there... — Preceding unsigned comment added by HardstyleGB (talk • contribs) 00:18, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

OMG! What about Spain??

Where is Spain in your list of regions with white population?

The list you are looking at is ofOfficial census statistics identifying "white people". If there is no official statistical data, we can't include it in the list, can we? France for example isn't included either. Nor is the Netherlands,or Belgium, Denmark, Finland, The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, etc, etc... If Spain collects such data in its census, it can be included - but I strongly suspect they don't, having the sense to realise how arbitrary it is anyway. Certainly, from what I can figure out from the English-language webpages of the Instituto National de Estadística [13], they don't seem to have been data on ethnicity for the 2011 census. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:55, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

And anyway, self declared ethnicity would be a very poor indicator of skin colour. HiLo48 (talk) 22:57, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

'Skin colour' has very little to do with ethnicity. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:01, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Spain has an estimated number of 42,047,293 white people, but this is unnofficial... Perhaps there are more than 40 million white people in Spain, because including all the European inmigrants of Spain and without the population of gypsies and coloured and the other inmigrants the population of whites is about 42 million. It don't matter, a lot of other white countries don't appear there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HardstyleGB (talk • contribs) 00:20, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Is the article about "white people" or about people who want to be "white".

Unfortunately, due to the role of European populations in the New world and the kind of societies that they created, with "whites" on the top of the social ladder, there is a strong bias against other "races". It is even sad that people deny their own roots and blood. In the US, most of the population have non-European, if you like, non-White blood. Even those who call themselves white are the result of a strong ethnic intermixing, just with predominant European ancestors, but from many distinct European nations and some non-European ancestry. In Latin American the Native American background is still predominant. The myth of the extinction of the Amerindians by the Spanish is a myth supported by ignorance and diverse types of propaganda. It is a shame that the descendants of the brave Native Americans (who in many cases share ohter ancestries, manly European) feel shame of their own blood. Even in the Caribbean, where so much ignorance and simplistic scholarship has been produced on this matter, most of the population are still of substantial Native American ancestry. An encyclopeadia like this should not be used to maintain and reproduce ignorance, especially when this ignorance is the result of very racist conceptions based on a past European colonial past. I could flood this page with articles based on actual DNA research about the Americas, from Alaska to Patagonia. Here is just one example from Puerto Rico, while according to the Wiki article most people are of "white" ancestry, and not of mixed ancestry, which is the real type of population for the entire American Continent:

http://www.centrelink.org/KearnsDNA.html

[External link disabled -- my nameservers resolved centrelink.org to IP address 64.29.151.221. My antivirus software blocked access to that IP address as a potentially malicious website.] Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I feel ashamed when I see articles like this. Pipo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.203.72 (talk) 15:54, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could offer some specific suggestions regarding how you feel that this article could be improved. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 19:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

...with reliable sources please. Statements like "In the US, most of the population have non-European, if you like, non-White blood" might just attract considerable debate. HiLo48 (talk) 21:09, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Is this source reliable?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.20108/abstract;jsessionid=38B9FCCC76D60A38690DA7339093E849.d02t01?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+on+27+October+from+10%3A00-12%3A00+BST+%2805%3A00-07%3A00+EDT%29+for+essential+maintenance

Pipo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.203.72 (talk) 00:58, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

No. You're off track; read the article's lead. This isn't solely about genetics and whatnot. It's a social/cultural/etc phenomenon. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 01:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, then even if we are all half Indians we will deny it and that is fine. Let us fill articles with it. As to the US situation, I mean that the mixed category is actually the largest: almost 20 per cent of the population is Hispanic (most of mixed ancestry) about 15 per cent Black (Only white admixture ranges to up to 20 per cent on average) 1/3 of whites have non-European ancestries as well, even those who are of "pure' European origin" are the result of the admixture of multiple European ethnicities. This article should be called: Peoples who want to pass as majority white. Anyway, this is my two pence. I am not wasting any more time on this article. Pipo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.203.72 (talk) 01:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of whites in Puerto Rico have mixed ancestry, but what white means in Puerto Rico and other parts of Latin America is different that what white means in the US. A statement about white people only makes sense in the context of a specific area or culture where people generally agree upon what it means to be a white person.

Germany

Could someone capable of it please remove "Germany" from the section "Regions with significant populations"? Neither do the links given in the footnotes contain the figure "71,900,000" or say anything about skin color, nor is there official census data about ethnicity available for Germany. The only figures available (and cited in the footnotes) are concerning immigration or "migration background", with doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ethnicity. So I'm in favour of deleting Germany from that list. 93.228.64.244 (talk) 21:22, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I just saw that someone marked several countries with "original research?" and that Sweden has been excluded from that list some time ago. As I see it, the only countries that have statistics regarding ethnicity are the USA, Brazil, England, Scotland, Wales, South Africa and Venezuela. I'm not sure whether the data provided for Chile can be called "official census data". I strongly recommend to remove all other countries. 93.220.224.185 (talk) 13:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Misquoted "Physiognomica"

There is no reference to "Europeans" in the Aristotle's book, only to "women", so the quoted text is shamefully distorted in the article!

Weirdly, this statement has been on this talk page since 2010 [14], apparently never having been archived, while all around it has. It's true too. I've removed the silly addition of "Europeans" (which is palpably impossible). I'm bemused by this. Can such an obvious error have been in the article for at least three years, and why has the post pointing it out also remained here for that long? Is there some sort of time freeze? Paul B (talk) 20:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

The archive bot will only archive posts that are signed (it needs the date stamp), now that you've signed this one it will be archived in 30 days or so. As for the article itself, I can't speak for anyone else but I've only been following the page for a few months, the original poster didn't provide a ref and since it's beyond my field of knowledge I decided to leave it for someone who knows what they're talking about, like you. Tobus2 (talk) 22:26, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

It's obviously preposterous, firstly because an ancient Greek writer would not use the term "European" in that way, and secondly because a Greek would be including himself as a coward if he did. A simple Google search finds many examples of the correct quotation in no time. Paul B (talk) 11:14, 20 February 2013 (UTC)