Can somebody explain to me why I'm called 'Caucasian'?

L

Lotus49

Emperor
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
Messages
1,941
I don't get it. I know precisely where the Caucasus/Caucasia region is, and I have no blood from that area whatsoever. My ancestral background is best/simply summed up as follows:

3/8 German
1/8 Lithuanian
1/4 French
3/16 Scottish
1/16 Native American

I even know the exact areas (Koblenz, Kaunas, Alsace-Lorraine, Shetland Islands, Cherokee tribe central-west Arkansas, etc.) they came from, and how long (many centuries) they were there before they left - in the case of the Europeans. In all cases there's no one from anywhere near the Caucasus. What am I, Armenian now or something? I play in the band System Of A Down? Or maybe I'm Georgian? I'm Stalin's distant cousin, eh? Perhaps I'm Azerbaijani - that must be where I get this great tan I have. :rolleyes: Who comes up with this stuff? Make me understand this BS...
 
Caucasian (in the US) is a just another term for white person. It does not mean you're from the Caucasus mountains. The person who came up with it probably died a hundred years ago but I'm sure someone will post a wiki article about him.

OK. Bring on the next dumb race/ethnicity thread.
 
Its the Idea that all of the white skinned races came from or beyond the Caucasian Mountain range to begin with. Turkish people are also considered to be Caucasian too.
 
Because it's shorter than "person lacking in melanin who oppress all the beautiful brown people while raping the natural world".
 
Wikipedia to the RESCUE!!!!!!

Wiki said:
The term "Caucasian" originated as one of the racial categories developed in the 19th century by people studying craniology. It was derived from the region of the Caucasus mountains[6]. The 18th century German philosopher Christoph Meiners first named the concept of the Caucasian race[7], but the term was more widely popularized in the 19th c. under the name "Varietas Caucasia" by the German scientist and naturalist, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) who "borrowed the name Caucasian" from Meiners.[8] Blumenbach based the classification of the Caucasian race primarily on skull features, which Blumenbach claimed were optimized by the Caucasian peoples,[9] particularly a single skull from the Caucasia which resembled German skulls.[10] It was from this similarity that he conjectured Europeans having arisen in the Caucasia.[10] Blumenbach wrote about the "primeval"[7] Caucasian race which he believed was "the oldest race of man"[7] and the "first variety of humankind"[7].

Caucasian variety - I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind[11]

In 1915, French diplomat and man of letters Arthur de Gobineau popularized ideas about race: "I must say, once and for all, that I understand by white men the members of those races which are also called Caucasian[12]... [these] white races... had their first settlement in the Caucasus."[12]

The Caucasus was historically an area of fascination for Europeans. Myths of the Caucasus featured Prometheus and Jason and the Argonauts.[13] Greek mythology considered women from the Caucasus to have magical powers.[7], such as Medea of Jason and the Argonauts fame. In Greek mythology, this area was thought of as a kind of hell since Zeus imprisoned many Titans who opposed him (e.g. Prometheus) there. In this sense, these Titans were banished outside the civilized world to an area inhabited by Colchians. The Greeks considered them barbaric.[14]
Click to expand...
 
wait? Does this mean next time someone calls me Caucasian, I can flip out?

I'm 100% Irish with I guess some African too. ... yea.
 
If a white person was born in south africa and moved to the USA would it be ok to call that person an african-american?
 
fishjie said:
can someone explain why we even have these PC labels? they are annoying. i see a white guy, im gonna call him a white guy. i see a black guy, im gonna call him black. so simple.
Click to expand...

Well, t o be honest, I'm of the opinion that african american, or perhaps a term akin to it, is a reasonable term for the ethnicity of those who are the descendents of american slaves and those who identify with the culture thereof.
 
well they are not really african. they were descended from african slaves centuries ago. why not call them black americans? or just plain black? black people are not gonna get offended if you call them black. just like a white guy is not gonna get angry if you call him white. if i were white, i'd be pretty peeved if people kept calling me caucasian btw.
 
Bill3000 said:
Well, t o be honest, I'm of the opinion that african american, or perhaps a term akin to it, is a reasonable term for the ethnicity of those who are the descendents of american slaves and those who identify with the culture thereof.
Click to expand...
I prefer the term slave-Americans.
 
fishjie said:
can someone explain why we even have these PC labels? they are annoying. i see a white guy, im gonna call him a white guy. i see a black guy, im gonna call him black. so simple.
Click to expand...
We have them, because:

a) Some think they will fix the problem if they just call it differently.

b) Some think that the problem exists because some words will victimize the target of _______ discrimination, therefore they must be changed.

c) It exists because of the way some people “debate” issues. If your “opponent” says something that might be construed as having any negative motivation, you simply say that he is "bad person". That way you can “win” your debate with emotions, since nobody will want to listen what “the bad guy” has to say. It is very effective tactic for those who are not aware of it. To combat this tactic, people stop using all Non-PC words.

If I would call black person in US by some word that is derived from Latin word for black (nigrum) I would be crucified.
 
Do you call yourself caucasian?
 
AL_DA_GREAT said:
the terms white and caucasian are to broad, Turks and middle eastern peoplecan say they are white caucasian. The proper term for a European is aryan.
Click to expand...

Funnily enough Iranians and related Iranic people think they are Aryan as well. In fact the word Iran is derived from their old name 'Aryan'.
 
Bill3000 said:
Wikipedia to the RESCUE!!!!!!

Originally Posted by Wiki
The term "Caucasian" originated as one of the racial categories developed in the 19th century by people studying craniology. It was derived from the region of the Caucasus mountains[6]. The 18th century German philosopher Christoph Meiners first named the concept of the Caucasian race[7], but the term was more widely popularized in the 19th c. under the name "Varietas Caucasia" by the German scientist and naturalist, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) who "borrowed the name Caucasian" from Meiners.[8] Blumenbach based the classification of the Caucasian race primarily on skull features, which Blumenbach claimed were optimized by the Caucasian peoples,[9] particularly a single skull from the Caucasia which resembled German skulls.[10] It was from this similarity that he conjectured Europeans having arisen in the Caucasia.[10] Blumenbach wrote about the "primeval"[7] Caucasian race which he believed was "the oldest race of man"[7] and the "first variety of humankind"[7].

Caucasian variety - I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind[11]

In 1915, French diplomat and man of letters Arthur de Gobineau popularized ideas about race: "I must say, once and for all, that I understand by white men the members of those races which are also called Caucasian[12]... [these] white races... had their first settlement in the Caucasus."[12]

The Caucasus was historically an area of fascination for Europeans. Myths of the Caucasus featured Prometheus and Jason and the Argonauts.[13] Greek mythology considered women from the Caucasus to have magical powers.[7], such as Medea of Jason and the Argonauts fame. In Greek mythology, this area was thought of as a kind of hell since Zeus imprisoned many Titans who opposed him (e.g. Prometheus) there. In this sense, these Titans were banished outside the civilized world to an area inhabited by Colchians. The Greeks considered them barbaric.[14]
Click to expand...
Weird article...

The anatomist Blumenbach didn't nick "Caucasian" from the historical theories of his Göttingen professorial collegue Cristoph Meiners. Meiners nicked it of Blumenbach.
(Blumenbach, "De generis humani varietate nativa" 1775, Meiners, "Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit" 1785)

Gobineau died in 1883. He published his huge, turgid "Essai sur l'inégalié des raçes humaines" already in 1853. Judging by the Wiki-reference, some minor writing on his part was translated into English in 1915, which is why the author of the article thinks he said that in 1915, indicating the author is clueless who the man actually was. (Or, as is often the case with surprisingly many English speaking historians, the rest of the world simply doesn't count.)

Gobineaus "Essay" was published in English in the US already in the 1850's, explicitly "to make a war-machine against the Negrophiles", as one of the translators personally told Gobineau in Paris. It's the one making the first absolutely explicit connection between "Aryan" and "Germanic". Any reference in it to "Caucasians" is incidental compared with the monomanic frenzy with which he plugged the idea of these Germanic Aryans as the creater of all civilisation, the "natural aristocracy" of all human societies.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom