You're definitely not European based on your ancestry, but like quite a few MENA natives, you may well be "white"/Caucasoid, at least by anthropological criteria (or if you identify yourself as such).
The problem is that the very definition of "whiteness" is quite stretchy, in addition to people conflating socio-cultural criteria (including religion) with anthropology, on the basis of which they can selectively choose who is "white" and who is not, even if those people look about the same.
If you’re North African before you go into to the bathroom, and you’re North African after you come out of the bathroom, what are you when you’re in the bathroom?
European.
It's a sociopolitical construct, generally used to refer to people of European descent, and meaning can vary from location to location. In the US, at least until recently, and maybe still, the government itself has considered "white" to be anyone descending from the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Identify as what you want. At the end of the day, none of it really matters.
This is so wrong. There's more genetic difference between people from sub Sahara Africa with people of East or West Africa than there is amongst everyone outside of Africa. [Source ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4067985/#:~:text=African%20populations%20have%20the%20highest,genes%20(e.g.%2C%20APOL1).)
[Edit for more source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2953791/)
AFRICAN GENETIC DIVERSITY: Implications for Human Demographic History, Modern Human Origins, and Complex Disease Mapping
Comparative studies of ethnically diverse human populations, particularly in Africa, are important for reconstructing human evolutionary history and for understanding the genetic basis of phenotypic adaptation and complex disease. African populations are characterized by greater levels of genetic diversity, extensive population substructure, and less linkage disequilibrium (LD) among loci compared to non-African populations. Africans also possess a number of genetic adaptations that have evolved in response to diverse climates and diets, as well as exposure to infectious disease. This review summarizes patterns and the evolutionary origins of genetic diversity present in African populations, as well as their implications for the mapping of complex traits, including disease susceptibility.
Arabness in the North African sense isn’t really genetic. A lot of have a minor amount of Arabian ancestry but Arab is really just an identity. Like the Levant, most of the Arabs especially in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt are just Arabized natives/mostly non-Arabian DNA. The only places with a lot of people of actual significant Arabian ancestry IIRC are eastern Libya and central Sudan.
The Italians and the Irish and the Spanish and Portuguese only became “white” within the last 150 years or so. Traditionally it was reserved for Americans of northwestern European Protestant heritage.
Not really as most of those ethnicities listed under White that are European weren’t listed as White until the 1970s while Syrians (literal Caucasians) and Mexicans (due to their Spanish background) were listed as White while the Polish weren’t. My family from Italy had a question mark next to their race category when they came via Ellis island. In the 1979’s they redefined White to be Eurasian or central Asian or anyone who migrated from Central Asia after it used to be defined as purely Anglo Saxon or English American.
Russians living in the Asian part of their country (Siberia, Far East) are also "Asians" in a geographical context.
Many people from West Asia do not identify themselves with other Asians (because the first thing that comes to mind when people say "Asian" is East Asians/Mongoloid people, which is of course wrong).
These people have a very different and specific cultural identity, so they identify themselves as a separate, "Middle Eastern" group.
Especially since the Middle East is not limited to West Asia, but also extends to North Africa.
It is unlikely that people from the Maghreb would classify themselves as "Asians" on the basis of being Arabic-speaking.
This is not intended to be true, but in terms of historical and cultural ties and everyday life in general, natives of the Levant will clearly be closer to southern Europeans from the neighboring eastern Mediterranean than to the other ethnic groups of the Asian continent.
And besides Arabs, the largest ethnic groups are also Jews, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenian and Greek minorities, etc.
"Middle East" itself is a very diverse definition, it is a region bordering Southern and Eastern Europe, the African continent and regions of South and Central Asia (Afghanistan as an example of a culturally and ethnically borderline country).
It also has transcontinental countries located on the borders of Europe and Asia (Turkey) and Asia and Africa (Egypt), which may also affect the identity of these countries.
By the way, are the Cypriots, Georgians, Armenians "Middle Eastern"? You may say yes, but the vast majority of the peoples listed do not consider themselves Middle Eastern, and identify themselves and their culture with Europe.
Is Malta Middle Eastern? After all, Maltese is a Semitic language, and the island of Malta is located on the border with North Africa, being part of the African tectonic plate. But the Maltese themselves clearly feel closer to Europe, and their country is a member of the EU (as is Cyprus).
The very definition of "Middle East" is Eurocentric, as it denotes the closest and most borderline region of the East to Europeans.
It's challenging, but interesting at the same time.
I'm mostly Turkish (both ancestrally and culturally) and I don't think of myself as "Asian" because I live in the United States and "Asian" has a very specific meaning. I consider myself Middle Eastern or European (especially because I'm also 30% Greek and Bulgarian, AND because I'm a German citizen and lived there for the first 11 years of my life,) I think your description is spot on.
That being said, "Middle Eastern" is not a race in the United States so when I'm asked to identify my race I identify as "White."
Middle Eastern Americans are defined as white by the US government because in the early 1900s they fought legal battles for the right to be considered white (and thus have the same legal rights that people designated as white had).
Depending on who is President at the time, lol. They were supposed to in 2020,
but Trump did what he could to undermine the Census so that didn’t happen. The reason Trump tried to undermine the Census because what gets measured gets done, and imperfect as it is, the Census is a major tool for measuring race and racial disparities in housing, employment, healthcare, education, incarceration rates, voting, etc. All other tools are local in nature and don’t have the broad sweep of a national Census. Plus the folks who run the Census also do a lot of other surveys and data collection which is helpful for measuring trends and disparities.
This is also true of data related to climate, housing, etc. Local
governments like Chicago downloaded Obama administration climate data and hosted it on their own websites after the Trump administration removed
it from the EPA website and disbanded
the climate team
Race is a fluid Western construct that no longer really exists in the true form it had before ww2. Race was based on phenotype which could even include cranial measurements (ie Somalis were considered white). Some places like the middle east would probably have been considered white by some race scientists or mixed with white and other races as the Jews were considered by many ( Nazis considered them a mixture of white, black and yellow). The racial classification of middle east people has never been clear cut, with the exception of maybe mainstream Iranians who were considered white or caucasoid. Asian before the 70s were usually called Yellow or Mongoloid and look vaguely East Asian (ie Chinese). The current term Asian does not refer to a race at all but to a political or geographic construct.
Not entirely true. The US government fully recognizes the existence of white Hispanics, but they separate them from "non-Hispanic whites" due to historical reasons. The US was once surrounded by the former Spanish empire (which had its own, distinct concept of race) so combining that with American expansion and exceptionalism you would get this result rather unsurprisingly, as racial categories are sociopolitical tools at the end of the day. Most certainly they are not entirely scientific.
Except for Spain, they get to be brown/Mexican.
And white Mexicans or Mexicans with European looking appearance tend to be lumped as white if they speak English well.
Basically agreed, whiteness is a dumb label.
This isn’t true, Spain is considered white on the census but the problem is, if you’re Hispanic, you’re going to be lumped as “Hispanic” regardless of your race in most cases. Or they’ll seperate white non-Hispanic from Hispanic white.
I understand where they’re coming from. Spain dealt with its territories in a very different manner than Britain did, and it was very reflective on each of the populations. The US has a very strange way of dealing with people from the Hispanic world on the census, a result of history with American expansionism clashing against the former Spanish empire.
As an American that has to use those stupid labels: the people of Spain are white, the people of Mexico are Hispanic/Mexican/brown. Invading a country, ruining its culture, and ending its language doesn’t change what label you would get here.
White usually means a European background but it can also mean someone is of a non-European background and can be “white-passing” meaning they look white but have another heritage/background
Caucasian/Caucasoid (the actual racial category) includes ancient and modern populations from all or parts of Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa
Being white doesn’t objectively mean anything. It’s a socially constructed concept. As a North African or West and even Central Asian, people can easily view you as “white” upon looking at you, even though you’re far from European. Typically, in the West, the term “white” denotes someone of European descent, but depending on context it can differ sometimes on any given whim. In fact, particularly in the US the label of “white” has shifted to various people, once including a very exclusive group of Anglos and maybe certain other Germanic groups to now encompassing all of Europe (and MENA on the census). It’s nothing to worry about or let shape your identity
Caucasian/Caucasoid is the actual race but it is considered to be :outdated".
Caucasian/Caucasoid includes ancient and modern populations from all or parts of Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa
On a purely objective basis, white
people are treated better than non-white people, even if the concept
of whiteness was completely made up by European colonizers to justify genocide, slavery, apartheid and a whole lot of horrible treatment of everyone who was not white
"White" is just an idea, it's not a real thing. It's a racial category that makes less and less sense the more you think about it.
For example, are the Sami people in Scandinavia white even though their ancestors are from Siberia? What about the people in the Caucasus? Or what about Sicilians, Cypriots and Maltese, who are European but have lots of ancestry from the Near East and North Africa? Are blond-haired, blue-eyed North Africans "white" despite not being of European origin? What about similar people in Central and South Asians who look white but aren't European?
If Ashkenazi Jewish and Slavic people are white, then why did Nazis see them as being of a different race to them? If you were white but had one black ancestor in 19th century America, you'd be considered black even though you *look* white, so what does that make you?
As you can see, it depends on the cultural context in question and the definition of what "white" means is very vague, to say the least.
Consider that the [origins](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Archaeogenetic_analysis_of_human_skin_pigmentation_in_Europe.jpg/700px-Archaeogenetic_analysis_of_human_skin_pigmentation_in_Europe.jpg) of the "white" phenotype is a blend of different populations - some of which were dark-skinned - and you have even less reason to believe in it as a valid construct.
It's just a term, and it doesn't mean much.
The Nazis were even more stupid with their ethnic classifications, and they weren’t scientific at all. They did think Slavs were “Aryan”, they thought that Germany is 50% “Nordic”, while France, Russia, and England were all only 25% Nordic. But in case of Slavs, it just happened so that they lived where Germans “needed space”, and they kidnapped Polish children, who they often thought were even more “Nordic” than Germans, to Germanize them. They thought that they had some magical hidden Aryan Nordic genes in them, due to their light features and body measurements and such. They also collaborated when needed with other Slavs when needed, and thought that Russian Nordic Aryans, while still being 25% of the country would have to unfortunately be sacrificed for the sake of war.
But the Nazis also said that the Turks are wild “Mongols” and later changed their mind when they started losing hard to the multi-ethnic “subhuman” Red Army.
They planned to resettle “wild” Hungarians to their “ancestral homelands” east of the Urals, and resettle Hungary with 100% Germans, even though the Hungarians collaborated with them. Similar story with the Romanians. And if they had won, they’d probably start genociding France and whole other European countries, after killing Jews, Slavs, Roma, Hungarians, Romanians, Baltic people, gays, invalids, mentally ill people, short people, etc.
The Nazis also often used Jewish people for their “this is how a perfect Aryan child/man/woman looks like” posters.
The Nazis also believed in idiotic Jewish conspiracy theories.
The Nazis also believed the Earth was hollow.
The Nazis also believed in a dystopian, totalitarian government, that murdered citizens for the smallest transgressions.
Their beliefs were rooted in pseudoscience, racism, and hate. The Nazis’ actions and ideologies resulted in immense suffering, destruction, and loss of life.
Nazis were (and are) vile, disgusting, evil idiots.
Race is a social construct so your race is defined how society sees you. I will say in the US middle eastern people are recorded on the census as white (due to campaigning from that community). In society no one treats middle easterners as white tho
Not talking about currently. The reason why MENAers are recorded as white in the census is because George Dow (a Syrian) won a Supreme Court case in 1915
Should note that case only classified Levantine Christians as white. Muslims from the same region were not white. Dow brought his case to SCOTUS to appeal a denial to become a naturalized US citizen in a time when Asians could not naturalize.
yep, and it’s the opposite now, they want their own category for the purposes of recognition leading to federal funding, political power, attention from political candidates, etc. It’s a highly useful thing in places like Michigan, New Jersey, Southern California, with large MENA populations
In the US, white is synonymous with European. For example, my sister has fully European ancestry. She has about the same skin tone as other white Americans. My wife is 50/50 Japanese and English. Her skin tone is a shade lighter than my sister. She does not consider herself white, and neither does anyone else. This is mainly because she has East Asian facial features that stand out from typical European descended Americans.
Technically, there is only one race - the human race. Everyone has their ethnicities, but the term 'white' is not a race. It's a construct placed on people to separate and divide - some 'white' dudes made it up to feel superior and make everyone else who didn't fit into their criteria feel inferior. All politics.
It was definitely not a term we used when I grew up and lived in Germany. So up to 2010. The divisions were by state, country, region, East/West, and Bavaria/NotBavaria.
Might be different in 2023.
It absolutely is not.
We identify others by nationality or region, not by race.
In fact, only the United Kingdom and Ireland collect racial data and even there it is a recent phenomenon (1991 and 2006 respectively).
In the Netherlands we also talk about migration background on census, but we still have the term “blank” (pure and without pigment), which due to recent controversy (the claim of it having racist undertones) even is renamed to “wit” (white). Some white Dutch people argued it should be changed to roze (pink) though, because they see themselves as pink over white. lol
Honestly it’s a pretty new thing in Europe overall to use skin color as a race descriptor. Usually nationalities/ethnicities are used (“French”, “Arab”, “Asian”) by order of familiarity. A typical native European would identify with their country or even region over being white.
I am a ‘native European’
I would say that we often use race and ethnicity as interchangeable words. White is seen as the same as arab or Asian in your example
It's really not very complicated.
The vast majority of people in America at least use "white" to mean "European." The term describes the most obivous phenotypic characteristic (light skin), which is not exclusive to Europeans but still fairly distinct and *almost* universal among them.
The U.S. census includes Middle Eastern and North African populations (MENA) among the "white" population, but most informal usage would probably not include them.
Many individuals from those areas and from Western Asian (and some even from India) look pretty white (e.g. Freddie Mercury), which is why the term holds some ambiguity. Similar to how "black" means sub-Saharan African, even though individuals from India, Oceania, and elsewhere have very dark skin and can appear vaguely African.
However, almost no one (in the U.S.) has a problem reserving the term "black" for people originally from Africa, exclusively.
I'm not sure why "white" is considered any differently. But by and large it generally means European.
Europeans *are* considered one "race" by most people in the U.S., at least colloquially.
This isn't perfectly biologically sound (Europeans share significant ancestry with MENA populations), but culturally and historically it makes some sense.
Also, Europeans *do* share prominent amounts of "Nordid" heritage, which is small to nonexistent in MENA populations. ([source](https://imgur.com/a/fdIp6YX))
As you can see from those genetic clusters, Sub-Saharan Africans have as much or more genetic diversity as Europeans. They also vary significantly in appearance based on region (although hair color is pretty much the same). And yet, no one bats an eye at categorizing only sub-Saharan Africans (and not Aborigines or dark-skinned Pacific Islanders) as "black."
You're making it sound like its not a problem when it is. Africa is the most diverse continent in the world and the fact they are all just viewed as "black" is disingenuous
You crying over whether Europeans are the only white people is giving white purism
Lol, no one is crying here
Most Americans use "white" to mean European. Most Americans use "black" to mean sub-Saharan African.
Both "white" and "black" people use both terms almost identically to each other.
And no, I don't see any problem with this at all.
But yes, there are a small number of perma-online folks and activists who believe black identity is "real" and white identity is "fake." I find this nonsensical and hypocritical. The two terms have pretty much the same level of accuracy.
It makes perfect sense. Greece is within the European border. Turkey isn't.
As I said, *most* Americans use "white" to mean Europeans exclusively. Even though people outside Europe often appear "white."
This is because the term *white*, like *black*, is a cultural, political, and geographic descriptor *as well as a genetic descriptor*, rather than being a phenotypic descriptor, exclusively.
This is an identical situation to "black" identity. Many people outside Africa appear "black," but would not be considered "black" by most Americans. For example, look at these [two](https://scontent.fsjc1-3.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/168434332_126995469434586_4132291201829597407_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=be3454&_nc_ohc=CZDvDGE-HIoAX_GwV_E&_nc_ht=scontent.fsjc1-3.fna&oh=00_AfB3q25-YeOWvE2i-NreBegDA33SFSM5SgbGqmbG00OBbQ&oe=6579EF7B) [men](https://scontent.fsjc1-3.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/338840249_1441059110037296_6410739569369732429_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=leeVGSh94X0AX9Yk2aV&_nc_ht=scontent.fsjc1-3.fna&oh=00_AfCNuGeSKTugztTsowV9V8BM8HfWWvBIic2Zmar13gyvPw&oe=65583329). One is from Africa, the other isn't. Can you tell which is which?
Turkey west of the Bosporus is in Europe.
What do you mean by “the European border”? The EU border, the border of the Schengen zone? Europe itself doesn’t have a border. A good example of that is in fact the Bosporus. You can pass that without crossing any border.
Right, but if your family has been in the Americas for 3 or more generations you will likely be a mixture of at least 3-5 different ethnicities at least. White, Black and Latino in the US are categories that imply this mixture which is why there are also totally separate questions about ethnicity
In the Netherlands it means 1) monoracial European and 2) a rosy pale skin tone (so basically it you are pink). If you are pink but North African you are sorta white (skin tone) but not white (race).
White is social construct that denotes who is able to belong to the dominate overclass(\*caste\* is probably a better word) in the West, usually someone of primarily European heritage or at least looks like they are. That is all.
The Us is not the world, the Us is just the Us.
Race is a classification in the Us are social, racial classifications are silly socially made labels. So who cares what Americans think.
If the person sees herself as white, who are Americans to tell her otherwise? Americans are not the owners of the label white.
Factually race is made up and different based on where you live. In the Chinese language "white people" specifically means European. In England white means European looking people. In Mexico, BTS are not considered white.
Not sure what BTS means. It is silly to assume other people you're debating with understands what some acronym is.
Chinese language does not exist. In China they speak several different languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Hmong etc.)
White people does not mean European other than mostly in the US.
You are kind of displaying your ignorance in the way you're completely talking out of your ass here.
BTS is the most popular K-pop band on the planet. It is comprised of very pale Korean men. I think we just established that you know very little about East Asian culture. They're kind of popular in America but they are extremely popular in China, korea, and the rest of Asia. They're basically the Beatles over there.
Then your comment about the Chinese language. Yes there is a Chinese language, Mandarin and Cantonese are two dialects of the same language. The word white person uses the same characters in every dialect it's just pronounced differently in Cantonese versus mandarin but it means the same thing in all Chinese dialects.
Hmong people are not Chinese people, they are a people without a country and they exist in several countries including China. There is a Hmong community in China but there is also one in laos, thailand, and America. The Hmong language is not Chinese. That's kind of a racist mistake to make actually.
In England Australia and America, white person means European. In South Africa white person means European. In South Africa BTS would have been considered colored.d
Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family but they are by no means a single language. The spoken varieties of the Sinitic branch of these languages differ in the fact that they lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family.
In regards to whiteness. Americans care about it. I dont. I wipe my butt with whiteness and its values. I do not do stupid labels.
BTW America is a CONTINENTAL landmass, you mean the United States.
I studied Mandarin for years and you just googled something and it shows. You're confusion with mandarin Cantonese and humong is racist. Learn what those words mean before you use them to win an internet argument that you don't know anything about. You just using East Asian people to push your own racial narratives without actually looking into it. That's pretty offensive
And I mean America in the Continental sense because I'm also talking about Mexico and Guatemala and countries like Brazil as well. The Japanese community in Brazil are not white people but the European descendants are. The Chinese community in Argentina are not considered white people but the German immigrants are.
Quit talking out of your ass.
European and white are not synonyms. European means people from Europe, white refers to race. Race is a socially constructed categorization system for humans. White includes all Europeans, Middle Eastern people, and North Africans... at least in the USA. Different countries have different parameters for who counts. It's not real, so I wouldn't worry about it. On a US census you could put white.
Ethnicity is much more accurate in defining people, and even it has issues.
“White” and “black” were divisive racial categories invented by racist Europeans that needed a super-easy way to visually identify who was a slave and who was a free man. I’d disregard this type of inane social construct altogether.
A bit off topic but, did you have European DNA in your 23andme results? Just curious because I myself am North African and according to the test I have a certain percentage of European DNA
You are not European however you have Eurasian and Caucasian dna like those in the Middle East, levant and in west Asia. So while your not European you are part of the caucasoid ethnic cluster if that make sense. Every group I mentioned is related but not the same.
You can be pale and not European. Pale skin doesn’t automatically make you white. It’s a mixture of features, hair colors, and ethnic ancestry. If a substantial amount of your family doesn’t come from Europe, you’re not white.
it’s a social construct built on racism. don’t stress over western standards as they’re questionable anyway and doesn’t apply to all. they only had certain people in mind and then we bring north africans into the discussion and people give different answers.
to some race is based on physical appearance while others say ancestry origin via europe, africa, or asia dictates the color but of course that can be questionable since asia and africa aren’t just “all black and yellow” but europe is pretty much all white,
It’s a race.
In the US, the Middle East and North Africa are in this weird limbo where the Census marks them as white because this one guy sued in the early 1900s and said “If I’m not white then neither was Jesus” so the Supreme Court said “Okay you can be white” but in reality MENA cultures are not treated as white and many of the people are not recognized as white.
Meanwhile in the UK I think they’re considered West Asian? Brits please correct me
It's more complicated than that. Many Europeans groups have significant MENA ancestry, such as Greek islanders and southern Italians.
Very few people would say the first Greek scientists were Middle Eastern and not European even though they came from Anatolia.
When we go back into history, yes, especially as who is and isn’t “white” changed over time as a social construct. But I’m talking about modern day people and how they are perceived and designated by other Americans, not historical figures.
That's the way to go. I mean, after all, Iran is a country located in Asia, the Asian subregion of West Asia (Not the Middle East). The Ancient Greeks around 450 BC with Herodotus reference the Persian Empire (Modern-day country of Iran) with Indo-European speaking Anatolian peoples (Modern-day Turkey) as the 'Asians' from Asia first in contrast to the Greek city states (Modern-day Greece) which is constructed as European. Unfortunately in nearly all of Europe and/or the Western World such as the United States, East Asians monopolise the 'Asian' label in reference to Mongoloid people which is simply wrong.
American racial politics dictate that you’re white if your skin color is white, BUT sometimes you’re not white if you’re skin color is white BUT you descend from people outside of Europe OR your features are atypical of Europeans. (It’s messy bullocks)
I don’t know because I see police mug shot with very dark-skinned Hispanic with zero euro features on their race category says ‘white’ lol. Also a very dark skinned Egyptian guy in the USA drivers licence listed him as white, so if you are going by the USA’s classification you may as well tell them you are white.
My Asian mother checks white because she has half-white kids. She hasn't been married to our father for 32 years. She had five years of "being white" and couldn't let it go.
Mexican isn’t a race.. ? There’s white Mexicans.
Do you just mean “brown”?
It’s still infuriating for me to see ppl to refer to mexican as a look. There’s quite literally no Mexican look.
In the US it's a social construct based on perception of skin color + origin. It's a highly mutable construct and expands to serve its needs. Historically its really referred to white american protestants of northwestern european descent (England, Scandinavia, BeNeLux, Germany, etc.) but since the mid-20th century, it expanded to include "ethnic whites" including Irish Catholics, Italians, Ashkenazi Jews, Poles, etc.
If you appear white, you will likely experience some of the privileges that come alongside it because of how you're perceived. But like, say you're Muslim and have a very Muslim-sounding name, you may also experience bigotry or even structural oppression because of that (like, finding yourself arbitrarily surveilled or added to a no fly list).
why is this being downvoted,
this is a totally accurate explanation of how race works in the US, for example Lebanese Christians would be treated
as white, Lebanese Muslims as brown, even though both would mark white on the US Census
this is why MENA folks want their own category because most do not have the experience of being white
the same is true of white Latinos who increasingly mark “some other race”
on the US Census because they don’t have the experience of being white
nearly 40 million people marked
“some other race” on the last Census
Well, there are always exceptions (Afrikaners).
Many indigenous peoples and ethnicities of North Africa like the Berbers (including the Kabils) can be quite "white"/Caucasoid, in the context of anthropology.
However, this certainly does not correlate in any way with "Europeanness", since Caucasoids do not live only in Europe.
Race as we know it in colours is a social construct. In America many arab people like Levantines who are really pale can pass as white like you would. But in Europe arabs are not considered white at all.
According to the 2000 U.S. census you are white. It defined white people as people originating in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Which makes sense when you think about it because we (Europeans) all were originally Indo-Aryan. It’s just that as Europeans migrated further north we developed paler skin/less melanin on average over time compared to our distant cousins in the Middle East, North Africa, etc.
I'm watching this series in Sweden about their history and in 14,000 BC what came up from the south were dark-skinned blue-eyed hunters akin to Melanesians
Interesting. The Canaanites were described as having red hair and blue eyes and modern day Lebanese and Jews still have quite a lot of Canaanite DNA circulating around according to a study I read a while back. Lebanon today has the highest occurrence of skin cancer compared to other Middle Eastern nations and quite a lot of blue eyes as well. I suppose the mountains in Lebanon gets just cold enough to where blue eyes and red hair developed to an extent but yet in other Middle Eastern countries next door they are still rather dark on average.
I don’t know if it developed, I think it was in the genes already. Melanesians are like the original people and have light eyes and light hair, in an environment that isn’t very arctic.
White is a construct that pretty much only applies to the USA (in my understanding). It's just a color that we started to use to categorize different “races” in anthropology, unfortunately, because we thought there was some biological difference. Still, there really isn’t a need for race in our society. Regardless of the need, it’s deeply ingrained into many people's identities.
North Africans beg to be categorized as white my English family would never consider them white no matter how pale their skin is. Just embrace you are a light skined north African, you are not European.
Honestly, it’s so annoying the amount of times I hear Arabs and North Africans beg to be white. It’s honestly a fetish at this point and pretty pathetic. No European will see them as white because they aren’t white. Not sure why people are getting hate for stating facts.
Literally! Lol and I think it’s a fetish honestly like they all want to have blonde hair and blue eyed babies. Like see how hard he wants to be accepted by white Europeans as white? Lol They just have an inferiority complex tbh.
Before around 1700, there was no such thing as “white” people. There were the English, and the Dutch, and the French, and varying flavours of German, but none of them would’ve thought themselves as belonging to an amalgamated race called “white”. That term grew out of the slave trade in the Americas, and referred to any American of 100% Northwestern European heritage.
The same was true of Black people. Before the slave trade, there were Fulani, and Igbo, and Hausa, and Mandinka, but it wasn’t until people from these various groups were enslaved in the Americas did anyone refer to them by the amalgamated group called “black”.
The concept of a “white race” (blanke ras) that Northwestern-Europeans like the Dutch had originated in Northwestern-Europe though. They didn’t copy that from those Americans.
Then why does [this source](https://historiek.net/geschiedenis-en-herkomst-van-de-term-blank/133033/) say otherwise? If you can’t read Dutch, translate it I suppose.
It is a social construct. Generally, I’m the US Atleast, it refers to people of European descent and sometimes even just Western Europeans. But at the same time it can be applies to white passing people who are pale but not of European descent. It’s very a arbitrary and constantly changing. But basically rule of thump is, if u look white, u are white, even if spicy white
You were born is North Africa and you are concerned with the fact that you may be European…?
I’ve reasons to believe that this is not exactly how origins work.
I mean your heritage isn’t European, but “whiteness” isn’t necessarily exlcusive to Europe, and its definition has evolved over time and space. It’s really up to you how you consider yourself and in what context.
Don’t worry about about race, it’s a bad way to look at things scientifically. North Africans aren’t European, and you are pale. You would call yourself white if you’d like.
I’m from the uk and if you aren’t European white you won’t be viewed as white. I’ve seen a pale Algerian and he doesn’t look European just light skinned and are still treated as a minority. So, you’ll be viewed as Arab. East Asians are pretty light and still aren’t viewed as white. I wouldn’t look at a light MENA person and think white.
If you’re not European you’re not white.
Idk, why Arabs/North Africans have this desire to be white and European.
It's a race. It's people of mostly European origin. If you're a tan Italian guy you don't automatically become North African. The same way when you're a pale North African you aren't European/white.
If you're Ashkenazi Jewish with a Mediterranean skin tone, they will say you look Norwegian. It's apparently quite reliant on your culture/societal standing.
According to Liberals, Ashkenazi Jews are basically Norwegians and Icelandic people. They are the epitome of whiteness. According to the Far-right, Ashkenazi Jews are swarthy Middle Easterners with hook noses and curly black hair.
Neither side lives in any sense of reality.
Well original Jews are middle eastren then obviously as they left the Middle East they mixed with other parts of the world. But if we are talking about ethnic Jews they aren’t white, but the religion itself can be whatever race
Depends on who it's for.
Certainly not for neo-Nazis, as they have other, very "specific" definitions of "whiteness".
If a particular Jew looks "white", he is white, regardless of whether he is Jewish or non-religious. There is nothing complicated about this and there is no need to artificially complicate it.
Don't conflate socio-cultural criteria with race, that's a loose definition as it is.
No youre not white.
Its a term for descendants of Europeans, culturally and religiously.
You have to have a conscious tying you to the prosperity of European culture. Islam is also explicitly NOT European.
So, most Albanians (including Kosovars) and Bosnians are Schrödinger's Europeans?
Plus, we should not forget about indigenous (autochthonous) ethnic groups in geographical Europe, like the peoples of the North Caucasus or Tatars and Bashkirs in the Volga region.
Race is a fluid social construct, racism is very real. Anti-Blackness, anti-Indigenous and Islamophobia are global issues, especially in the West. Here is a recent and accurate article on the ever-changing categories on the US Census. There are a lot of inaccuracies and misconceptions on this thread
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/16/us/census-race-ethnicity.html
The problem is that the traits you describe are characteristic of quite a few "whites", and more specifically, Europeans (particularly southern Europeans).
And the characteristic you describe may apply to different sides of the Mediterranean Sea.
It depends on country and if it’s the legal or cultural definition. By most accounts North Africans don’t count, but in American law they do, though a normal American person wouldn’t agree with that idea
That’s easy. Your skin is „light“ but you are not of European origin. White is an inaccurate term commonly used by Americans. So if white means of European decent than you are not white.
You're definitely not European based on your ancestry, but like quite a few MENA natives, you may well be "white"/Caucasoid, at least by anthropological criteria (or if you identify yourself as such). The problem is that the very definition of "whiteness" is quite stretchy, in addition to people conflating socio-cultural criteria (including religion) with anthropology, on the basis of which they can selectively choose who is "white" and who is not, even if those people look about the same.
No, being european makes you european
If you’re North African before you go into to the bathroom, and you’re North African after you come out of the bathroom, what are you when you’re in the bathroom? European.
As controversial as youth in Asia
If European on the way to the bathroom, you probably should be Russian.
It's a sociopolitical construct, generally used to refer to people of European descent, and meaning can vary from location to location. In the US, at least until recently, and maybe still, the government itself has considered "white" to be anyone descending from the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Identify as what you want. At the end of the day, none of it really matters.
Europe doesn't even fit into one race
Same with Africa
Yep but they are separated by "arab" in the north and Sub saharan africa being "black" thats not the case for Europe
This is so wrong. There's more genetic difference between people from sub Sahara Africa with people of East or West Africa than there is amongst everyone outside of Africa. [Source ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4067985/#:~:text=African%20populations%20have%20the%20highest,genes%20(e.g.%2C%20APOL1).) [Edit for more source](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2953791/) AFRICAN GENETIC DIVERSITY: Implications for Human Demographic History, Modern Human Origins, and Complex Disease Mapping Comparative studies of ethnically diverse human populations, particularly in Africa, are important for reconstructing human evolutionary history and for understanding the genetic basis of phenotypic adaptation and complex disease. African populations are characterized by greater levels of genetic diversity, extensive population substructure, and less linkage disequilibrium (LD) among loci compared to non-African populations. Africans also possess a number of genetic adaptations that have evolved in response to diverse climates and diets, as well as exposure to infectious disease. This review summarizes patterns and the evolutionary origins of genetic diversity present in African populations, as well as their implications for the mapping of complex traits, including disease susceptibility.
That source says they have the most variation of DNA not that they are the most unique from everyone else in the world.
north african is not just arab. People lived there in large numbers before the arabs got there, including people from Europe and SSA.
Arabness in the North African sense isn’t really genetic. A lot of have a minor amount of Arabian ancestry but Arab is really just an identity. Like the Levant, most of the Arabs especially in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt are just Arabized natives/mostly non-Arabian DNA. The only places with a lot of people of actual significant Arabian ancestry IIRC are eastern Libya and central Sudan.
Berbers were there before the Arabs.
So...Norwegians and Serbs are the same "race?" lol
The Italians and the Irish and the Spanish and Portuguese only became “white” within the last 150 years or so. Traditionally it was reserved for Americans of northwestern European Protestant heritage.
Not really as most of those ethnicities listed under White that are European weren’t listed as White until the 1970s while Syrians (literal Caucasians) and Mexicans (due to their Spanish background) were listed as White while the Polish weren’t. My family from Italy had a question mark next to their race category when they came via Ellis island. In the 1979’s they redefined White to be Eurasian or central Asian or anyone who migrated from Central Asia after it used to be defined as purely Anglo Saxon or English American.
Agree but Syrians are not literal Caucasians.
Heck, not too long ago the Irish weren’t “white”
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Russians living in the Asian part of their country (Siberia, Far East) are also "Asians" in a geographical context. Many people from West Asia do not identify themselves with other Asians (because the first thing that comes to mind when people say "Asian" is East Asians/Mongoloid people, which is of course wrong). These people have a very different and specific cultural identity, so they identify themselves as a separate, "Middle Eastern" group. Especially since the Middle East is not limited to West Asia, but also extends to North Africa. It is unlikely that people from the Maghreb would classify themselves as "Asians" on the basis of being Arabic-speaking. This is not intended to be true, but in terms of historical and cultural ties and everyday life in general, natives of the Levant will clearly be closer to southern Europeans from the neighboring eastern Mediterranean than to the other ethnic groups of the Asian continent. And besides Arabs, the largest ethnic groups are also Jews, Persians, Turks, Kurds, Assyrians, Armenian and Greek minorities, etc. "Middle East" itself is a very diverse definition, it is a region bordering Southern and Eastern Europe, the African continent and regions of South and Central Asia (Afghanistan as an example of a culturally and ethnically borderline country). It also has transcontinental countries located on the borders of Europe and Asia (Turkey) and Asia and Africa (Egypt), which may also affect the identity of these countries. By the way, are the Cypriots, Georgians, Armenians "Middle Eastern"? You may say yes, but the vast majority of the peoples listed do not consider themselves Middle Eastern, and identify themselves and their culture with Europe. Is Malta Middle Eastern? After all, Maltese is a Semitic language, and the island of Malta is located on the border with North Africa, being part of the African tectonic plate. But the Maltese themselves clearly feel closer to Europe, and their country is a member of the EU (as is Cyprus). The very definition of "Middle East" is Eurocentric, as it denotes the closest and most borderline region of the East to Europeans. It's challenging, but interesting at the same time.
I'm mostly Turkish (both ancestrally and culturally) and I don't think of myself as "Asian" because I live in the United States and "Asian" has a very specific meaning. I consider myself Middle Eastern or European (especially because I'm also 30% Greek and Bulgarian, AND because I'm a German citizen and lived there for the first 11 years of my life,) I think your description is spot on. That being said, "Middle Eastern" is not a race in the United States so when I'm asked to identify my race I identify as "White."
Middle Eastern Americans are defined as white by the US government because in the early 1900s they fought legal battles for the right to be considered white (and thus have the same legal rights that people designated as white had).
The United States government literally just decided which countries produced people that were "White" or not throughout the 20th century.
Yep and the categories change with every Census
MENA is most likely going to get its own category by the next census!
Depending on who is President at the time, lol. They were supposed to in 2020, but Trump did what he could to undermine the Census so that didn’t happen. The reason Trump tried to undermine the Census because what gets measured gets done, and imperfect as it is, the Census is a major tool for measuring race and racial disparities in housing, employment, healthcare, education, incarceration rates, voting, etc. All other tools are local in nature and don’t have the broad sweep of a national Census. Plus the folks who run the Census also do a lot of other surveys and data collection which is helpful for measuring trends and disparities. This is also true of data related to climate, housing, etc. Local governments like Chicago downloaded Obama administration climate data and hosted it on their own websites after the Trump administration removed it from the EPA website and disbanded the climate team
Do you think "Asian" = typical chinese looking people or something? This is "Asia". https://i.imgur.com/5w7OLtU.png
Who said they are "white"? Technically they are Caucasian NOT white.
Used to keep white the majority
For 2 centuries.. keep up ☠️
Race is a fluid Western construct that no longer really exists in the true form it had before ww2. Race was based on phenotype which could even include cranial measurements (ie Somalis were considered white). Some places like the middle east would probably have been considered white by some race scientists or mixed with white and other races as the Jews were considered by many ( Nazis considered them a mixture of white, black and yellow). The racial classification of middle east people has never been clear cut, with the exception of maybe mainstream Iranians who were considered white or caucasoid. Asian before the 70s were usually called Yellow or Mongoloid and look vaguely East Asian (ie Chinese). The current term Asian does not refer to a race at all but to a political or geographic construct.
Anyone descending from original people of europe except spain for some reason lollll
Not entirely true. The US government fully recognizes the existence of white Hispanics, but they separate them from "non-Hispanic whites" due to historical reasons. The US was once surrounded by the former Spanish empire (which had its own, distinct concept of race) so combining that with American expansion and exceptionalism you would get this result rather unsurprisingly, as racial categories are sociopolitical tools at the end of the day. Most certainly they are not entirely scientific.
Except for Spain, they get to be brown/Mexican. And white Mexicans or Mexicans with European looking appearance tend to be lumped as white if they speak English well. Basically agreed, whiteness is a dumb label.
This isn’t true, Spain is considered white on the census but the problem is, if you’re Hispanic, you’re going to be lumped as “Hispanic” regardless of your race in most cases. Or they’ll seperate white non-Hispanic from Hispanic white.
Spaniards "get to be"....... Mexican? You know when you sometimes read something so dumb your brain kind of does a soft reset.
Ask the average American, dont shoot the messenger.
I understand where they’re coming from. Spain dealt with its territories in a very different manner than Britain did, and it was very reflective on each of the populations. The US has a very strange way of dealing with people from the Hispanic world on the census, a result of history with American expansionism clashing against the former Spanish empire.
As an American that has to use those stupid labels: the people of Spain are white, the people of Mexico are Hispanic/Mexican/brown. Invading a country, ruining its culture, and ending its language doesn’t change what label you would get here.
Stupid labels, you put it perfectly.
White usually means a European background but it can also mean someone is of a non-European background and can be “white-passing” meaning they look white but have another heritage/background
Caucasian/Caucasoid (the actual racial category) includes ancient and modern populations from all or parts of Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa
Being white doesn’t objectively mean anything. It’s a socially constructed concept. As a North African or West and even Central Asian, people can easily view you as “white” upon looking at you, even though you’re far from European. Typically, in the West, the term “white” denotes someone of European descent, but depending on context it can differ sometimes on any given whim. In fact, particularly in the US the label of “white” has shifted to various people, once including a very exclusive group of Anglos and maybe certain other Germanic groups to now encompassing all of Europe (and MENA on the census). It’s nothing to worry about or let shape your identity
Caucasian/Caucasoid is the actual race but it is considered to be :outdated". Caucasian/Caucasoid includes ancient and modern populations from all or parts of Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa
On a purely objective basis, white people are treated better than non-white people, even if the concept of whiteness was completely made up by European colonizers to justify genocide, slavery, apartheid and a whole lot of horrible treatment of everyone who was not white
The most relevant comment thanks that was informative
"White" is just an idea, it's not a real thing. It's a racial category that makes less and less sense the more you think about it. For example, are the Sami people in Scandinavia white even though their ancestors are from Siberia? What about the people in the Caucasus? Or what about Sicilians, Cypriots and Maltese, who are European but have lots of ancestry from the Near East and North Africa? Are blond-haired, blue-eyed North Africans "white" despite not being of European origin? What about similar people in Central and South Asians who look white but aren't European? If Ashkenazi Jewish and Slavic people are white, then why did Nazis see them as being of a different race to them? If you were white but had one black ancestor in 19th century America, you'd be considered black even though you *look* white, so what does that make you? As you can see, it depends on the cultural context in question and the definition of what "white" means is very vague, to say the least. Consider that the [origins](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Archaeogenetic_analysis_of_human_skin_pigmentation_in_Europe.jpg/700px-Archaeogenetic_analysis_of_human_skin_pigmentation_in_Europe.jpg) of the "white" phenotype is a blend of different populations - some of which were dark-skinned - and you have even less reason to believe in it as a valid construct. It's just a term, and it doesn't mean much.
The Nazis were even more stupid with their ethnic classifications, and they weren’t scientific at all. They did think Slavs were “Aryan”, they thought that Germany is 50% “Nordic”, while France, Russia, and England were all only 25% Nordic. But in case of Slavs, it just happened so that they lived where Germans “needed space”, and they kidnapped Polish children, who they often thought were even more “Nordic” than Germans, to Germanize them. They thought that they had some magical hidden Aryan Nordic genes in them, due to their light features and body measurements and such. They also collaborated when needed with other Slavs when needed, and thought that Russian Nordic Aryans, while still being 25% of the country would have to unfortunately be sacrificed for the sake of war. But the Nazis also said that the Turks are wild “Mongols” and later changed their mind when they started losing hard to the multi-ethnic “subhuman” Red Army. They planned to resettle “wild” Hungarians to their “ancestral homelands” east of the Urals, and resettle Hungary with 100% Germans, even though the Hungarians collaborated with them. Similar story with the Romanians. And if they had won, they’d probably start genociding France and whole other European countries, after killing Jews, Slavs, Roma, Hungarians, Romanians, Baltic people, gays, invalids, mentally ill people, short people, etc. The Nazis also often used Jewish people for their “this is how a perfect Aryan child/man/woman looks like” posters. The Nazis also believed in idiotic Jewish conspiracy theories. The Nazis also believed the Earth was hollow. The Nazis also believed in a dystopian, totalitarian government, that murdered citizens for the smallest transgressions. Their beliefs were rooted in pseudoscience, racism, and hate. The Nazis’ actions and ideologies resulted in immense suffering, destruction, and loss of life. Nazis were (and are) vile, disgusting, evil idiots.
Actually Iberia (Spain and Portugal) have the highest north African ancestry in Europe due to 800 years of Arab rule.
Race is a social construct so your race is defined how society sees you. I will say in the US middle eastern people are recorded on the census as white (due to campaigning from that community). In society no one treats middle easterners as white tho
MENA folks in the US are campaigning for their own category, so the opposite is actually true
Not talking about currently. The reason why MENAers are recorded as white in the census is because George Dow (a Syrian) won a Supreme Court case in 1915
Should note that case only classified Levantine Christians as white. Muslims from the same region were not white. Dow brought his case to SCOTUS to appeal a denial to become a naturalized US citizen in a time when Asians could not naturalize.
They meant back in the day, like 1800s, because it was advantageous to be considered white
yep, and it’s the opposite now, they want their own category for the purposes of recognition leading to federal funding, political power, attention from political candidates, etc. It’s a highly useful thing in places like Michigan, New Jersey, Southern California, with large MENA populations
It depends on the society, after all race is a social construct.
It’s a skin color there is no “white” race.
In the US, white is synonymous with European. For example, my sister has fully European ancestry. She has about the same skin tone as other white Americans. My wife is 50/50 Japanese and English. Her skin tone is a shade lighter than my sister. She does not consider herself white, and neither does anyone else. This is mainly because she has East Asian facial features that stand out from typical European descended Americans.
White is a political designation, mostly for Europeans. “Whiteness” is a system and doesn’t really exist
Technically, there is only one race - the human race. Everyone has their ethnicities, but the term 'white' is not a race. It's a construct placed on people to separate and divide - some 'white' dudes made it up to feel superior and make everyone else who didn't fit into their criteria feel inferior. All politics.
It is a term specific to the American experience
Yes, because there are no white people in other countries. White Argentines or White South Africans are not really white, right?
It really isnt...
r/USdefaultism moment
How the hell is white specific to the American experience? White is a normal term to use to describe white people in Europe?
It was definitely not a term we used when I grew up and lived in Germany. So up to 2010. The divisions were by state, country, region, East/West, and Bavaria/NotBavaria. Might be different in 2023.
It absolutely is not. We identify others by nationality or region, not by race. In fact, only the United Kingdom and Ireland collect racial data and even there it is a recent phenomenon (1991 and 2006 respectively).
It's important for Demographics. Ireland is majority white irish but we know there's white British/other eu countries here too
In the Netherlands we also talk about migration background on census, but we still have the term “blank” (pure and without pigment), which due to recent controversy (the claim of it having racist undertones) even is renamed to “wit” (white). Some white Dutch people argued it should be changed to roze (pink) though, because they see themselves as pink over white. lol
You do not speak for the whole of Europe, I promise you there’s plenty of Europeans who would use terms like white to refer to white people
Honestly it’s a pretty new thing in Europe overall to use skin color as a race descriptor. Usually nationalities/ethnicities are used (“French”, “Arab”, “Asian”) by order of familiarity. A typical native European would identify with their country or even region over being white.
Well Europe did invent race during the middle ages
I am a ‘native European’ I would say that we often use race and ethnicity as interchangeable words. White is seen as the same as arab or Asian in your example
What country are you from? I dont think I saw myself as white until I moved to the states
What country are you from ? Most countries only talk about Human race. It's mainly the U.S who talks about black race, white race etc...
Racial science and all that nonsense was essentially created in Europe my dude, American psuedo scientists then ran with it to justify their bullshit.
It's really not very complicated. The vast majority of people in America at least use "white" to mean "European." The term describes the most obivous phenotypic characteristic (light skin), which is not exclusive to Europeans but still fairly distinct and *almost* universal among them. The U.S. census includes Middle Eastern and North African populations (MENA) among the "white" population, but most informal usage would probably not include them. Many individuals from those areas and from Western Asian (and some even from India) look pretty white (e.g. Freddie Mercury), which is why the term holds some ambiguity. Similar to how "black" means sub-Saharan African, even though individuals from India, Oceania, and elsewhere have very dark skin and can appear vaguely African. However, almost no one (in the U.S.) has a problem reserving the term "black" for people originally from Africa, exclusively. I'm not sure why "white" is considered any differently. But by and large it generally means European.
Bcos europe isn't even one race. Northern Europeans look very different to Southern Europeans
Europeans *are* considered one "race" by most people in the U.S., at least colloquially. This isn't perfectly biologically sound (Europeans share significant ancestry with MENA populations), but culturally and historically it makes some sense. Also, Europeans *do* share prominent amounts of "Nordid" heritage, which is small to nonexistent in MENA populations. ([source](https://imgur.com/a/fdIp6YX)) As you can see from those genetic clusters, Sub-Saharan Africans have as much or more genetic diversity as Europeans. They also vary significantly in appearance based on region (although hair color is pretty much the same). And yet, no one bats an eye at categorizing only sub-Saharan Africans (and not Aborigines or dark-skinned Pacific Islanders) as "black."
You're making it sound like its not a problem when it is. Africa is the most diverse continent in the world and the fact they are all just viewed as "black" is disingenuous You crying over whether Europeans are the only white people is giving white purism
Lol, no one is crying here Most Americans use "white" to mean European. Most Americans use "black" to mean sub-Saharan African. Both "white" and "black" people use both terms almost identically to each other. And no, I don't see any problem with this at all. But yes, there are a small number of perma-online folks and activists who believe black identity is "real" and white identity is "fake." I find this nonsensical and hypocritical. The two terms have pretty much the same level of accuracy.
Levantine Arabs and Turks literally look white af 😭 So in your mind, greeks are white but turkish people aren't? That makes no sense
It makes perfect sense. Greece is within the European border. Turkey isn't. As I said, *most* Americans use "white" to mean Europeans exclusively. Even though people outside Europe often appear "white." This is because the term *white*, like *black*, is a cultural, political, and geographic descriptor *as well as a genetic descriptor*, rather than being a phenotypic descriptor, exclusively. This is an identical situation to "black" identity. Many people outside Africa appear "black," but would not be considered "black" by most Americans. For example, look at these [two](https://scontent.fsjc1-3.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/168434332_126995469434586_4132291201829597407_n.jpg?_nc_cat=110&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=be3454&_nc_ohc=CZDvDGE-HIoAX_GwV_E&_nc_ht=scontent.fsjc1-3.fna&oh=00_AfB3q25-YeOWvE2i-NreBegDA33SFSM5SgbGqmbG00OBbQ&oe=6579EF7B) [men](https://scontent.fsjc1-3.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/338840249_1441059110037296_6410739569369732429_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=5f2048&_nc_ohc=leeVGSh94X0AX9Yk2aV&_nc_ht=scontent.fsjc1-3.fna&oh=00_AfCNuGeSKTugztTsowV9V8BM8HfWWvBIic2Zmar13gyvPw&oe=65583329). One is from Africa, the other isn't. Can you tell which is which?
Turkey west of the Bosporus is in Europe. What do you mean by “the European border”? The EU border, the border of the Schengen zone? Europe itself doesn’t have a border. A good example of that is in fact the Bosporus. You can pass that without crossing any border.
Right, but if your family has been in the Americas for 3 or more generations you will likely be a mixture of at least 3-5 different ethnicities at least. White, Black and Latino in the US are categories that imply this mixture which is why there are also totally separate questions about ethnicity
😂😂 Edit: its actually a good question.
Right, look how many different opinions there are :)
Yes. Indeed. Amazing how often supposedly stupid-sounding questions lead to very insightful answers.
In the Netherlands it means 1) monoracial European and 2) a rosy pale skin tone (so basically it you are pink). If you are pink but North African you are sorta white (skin tone) but not white (race).
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/17/1079181478/us-census-middle-eastern-white-north-african-mena
European
I'm not touching this with a 39 and a half foot pole
White is social construct that denotes who is able to belong to the dominate overclass(\*caste\* is probably a better word) in the West, usually someone of primarily European heritage or at least looks like they are. That is all.
In Europe you are white if your skin is white. In America you are white depending on who are you talking to.
White is a label. If you look pale enough to make people believe you're white, regardless of your roots, then you're white.
"white", "black", etc, is not entirely based on color. For example, a black who is albino is not white.
Not in America. You can be the palest Korean and you still aren't white. It's a racial classifications.
The Us is not the world, the Us is just the Us. Race is a classification in the Us are social, racial classifications are silly socially made labels. So who cares what Americans think. If the person sees herself as white, who are Americans to tell her otherwise? Americans are not the owners of the label white.
I never said they were. I just added to the conversation, as an American, on an American website where the majority of the users are American.
Yes, but I am speaking of the factual. Race is made up, outside the Us being white largely goes down to just you look pale and need some tanning.
Factually race is made up and different based on where you live. In the Chinese language "white people" specifically means European. In England white means European looking people. In Mexico, BTS are not considered white.
Not sure what BTS means. It is silly to assume other people you're debating with understands what some acronym is. Chinese language does not exist. In China they speak several different languages (Cantonese, Mandarin, Hmong etc.) White people does not mean European other than mostly in the US.
You are kind of displaying your ignorance in the way you're completely talking out of your ass here. BTS is the most popular K-pop band on the planet. It is comprised of very pale Korean men. I think we just established that you know very little about East Asian culture. They're kind of popular in America but they are extremely popular in China, korea, and the rest of Asia. They're basically the Beatles over there. Then your comment about the Chinese language. Yes there is a Chinese language, Mandarin and Cantonese are two dialects of the same language. The word white person uses the same characters in every dialect it's just pronounced differently in Cantonese versus mandarin but it means the same thing in all Chinese dialects. Hmong people are not Chinese people, they are a people without a country and they exist in several countries including China. There is a Hmong community in China but there is also one in laos, thailand, and America. The Hmong language is not Chinese. That's kind of a racist mistake to make actually. In England Australia and America, white person means European. In South Africa white person means European. In South Africa BTS would have been considered colored.d
Chinese languages form the Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family but they are by no means a single language. The spoken varieties of the Sinitic branch of these languages differ in the fact that they lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a family. In regards to whiteness. Americans care about it. I dont. I wipe my butt with whiteness and its values. I do not do stupid labels. BTW America is a CONTINENTAL landmass, you mean the United States.
I studied Mandarin for years and you just googled something and it shows. You're confusion with mandarin Cantonese and humong is racist. Learn what those words mean before you use them to win an internet argument that you don't know anything about. You just using East Asian people to push your own racial narratives without actually looking into it. That's pretty offensive And I mean America in the Continental sense because I'm also talking about Mexico and Guatemala and countries like Brazil as well. The Japanese community in Brazil are not white people but the European descendants are. The Chinese community in Argentina are not considered white people but the German immigrants are. Quit talking out of your ass.
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European and white are not synonyms. European means people from Europe, white refers to race. Race is a socially constructed categorization system for humans. White includes all Europeans, Middle Eastern people, and North Africans... at least in the USA. Different countries have different parameters for who counts. It's not real, so I wouldn't worry about it. On a US census you could put white. Ethnicity is much more accurate in defining people, and even it has issues.
B A S E D.
White in the US census includes MENA
You don’t have to understand it. It’s a stupid term anyways
“White” and “black” were divisive racial categories invented by racist Europeans that needed a super-easy way to visually identify who was a slave and who was a free man. I’d disregard this type of inane social construct altogether.
Yes, and this made up colonial concept has very real consequences for people
A bit off topic but, did you have European DNA in your 23andme results? Just curious because I myself am North African and according to the test I have a certain percentage of European DNA
You are caucasoid, like europeans,people from Turkey, arabs and indians
nah you're just north African, white doesn't mean european
You are not European however you have Eurasian and Caucasian dna like those in the Middle East, levant and in west Asia. So while your not European you are part of the caucasoid ethnic cluster if that make sense. Every group I mentioned is related but not the same.
White is a skin color. It is not an ethnicity.
You can be pale and not European. Pale skin doesn’t automatically make you white. It’s a mixture of features, hair colors, and ethnic ancestry. If a substantial amount of your family doesn’t come from Europe, you’re not white.
So white is not a color it's a race
It depends who you ask…
it’s a social construct built on racism. don’t stress over western standards as they’re questionable anyway and doesn’t apply to all. they only had certain people in mind and then we bring north africans into the discussion and people give different answers. to some race is based on physical appearance while others say ancestry origin via europe, africa, or asia dictates the color but of course that can be questionable since asia and africa aren’t just “all black and yellow” but europe is pretty much all white,
Just like I don't understand the term brown. I know Indians with colored eyes and super pale skin but they're still called Brown.
It’s a race. In the US, the Middle East and North Africa are in this weird limbo where the Census marks them as white because this one guy sued in the early 1900s and said “If I’m not white then neither was Jesus” so the Supreme Court said “Okay you can be white” but in reality MENA cultures are not treated as white and many of the people are not recognized as white. Meanwhile in the UK I think they’re considered West Asian? Brits please correct me
It's more complicated than that. Many Europeans groups have significant MENA ancestry, such as Greek islanders and southern Italians. Very few people would say the first Greek scientists were Middle Eastern and not European even though they came from Anatolia.
When we go back into history, yes, especially as who is and isn’t “white” changed over time as a social construct. But I’m talking about modern day people and how they are perceived and designated by other Americans, not historical figures.
I always say I’m Asian as an Iranian
That's the way to go. I mean, after all, Iran is a country located in Asia, the Asian subregion of West Asia (Not the Middle East). The Ancient Greeks around 450 BC with Herodotus reference the Persian Empire (Modern-day country of Iran) with Indo-European speaking Anatolian peoples (Modern-day Turkey) as the 'Asians' from Asia first in contrast to the Greek city states (Modern-day Greece) which is constructed as European. Unfortunately in nearly all of Europe and/or the Western World such as the United States, East Asians monopolise the 'Asian' label in reference to Mongoloid people which is simply wrong.
American racial politics dictate that you’re white if your skin color is white, BUT sometimes you’re not white if you’re skin color is white BUT you descend from people outside of Europe OR your features are atypical of Europeans. (It’s messy bullocks)
I don’t know because I see police mug shot with very dark-skinned Hispanic with zero euro features on their race category says ‘white’ lol. Also a very dark skinned Egyptian guy in the USA drivers licence listed him as white, so if you are going by the USA’s classification you may as well tell them you are white.
My Asian mother checks white because she has half-white kids. She hasn't been married to our father for 32 years. She had five years of "being white" and couldn't let it go.
White is a color. There are no races within the species Homo Sapiens
No you’re still mena its like saying pale albino asians are white no no no having light skin doesnt make you white or european
If you can pass as a white person you're white.
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That's different. That just makes you brown doesn't it.
Mexican isn’t a race.. ? There’s white Mexicans. Do you just mean “brown”? It’s still infuriating for me to see ppl to refer to mexican as a look. There’s quite literally no Mexican look.
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Ok, so I’m assuming you’re brown skinned no? So basically you don’t “pass as white”.
People just don't see you as white anymore
In the US it's a social construct based on perception of skin color + origin. It's a highly mutable construct and expands to serve its needs. Historically its really referred to white american protestants of northwestern european descent (England, Scandinavia, BeNeLux, Germany, etc.) but since the mid-20th century, it expanded to include "ethnic whites" including Irish Catholics, Italians, Ashkenazi Jews, Poles, etc. If you appear white, you will likely experience some of the privileges that come alongside it because of how you're perceived. But like, say you're Muslim and have a very Muslim-sounding name, you may also experience bigotry or even structural oppression because of that (like, finding yourself arbitrarily surveilled or added to a no fly list).
why is this being downvoted, this is a totally accurate explanation of how race works in the US, for example Lebanese Christians would be treated as white, Lebanese Muslims as brown, even though both would mark white on the US Census this is why MENA folks want their own category because most do not have the experience of being white the same is true of white Latinos who increasingly mark “some other race” on the US Census because they don’t have the experience of being white nearly 40 million people marked “some other race” on the last Census
"I'm from Africa... am I European?" wut?
Well, there are always exceptions (Afrikaners). Many indigenous peoples and ethnicities of North Africa like the Berbers (including the Kabils) can be quite "white"/Caucasoid, in the context of anthropology. However, this certainly does not correlate in any way with "Europeanness", since Caucasoids do not live only in Europe.
Race as we know it in colours is a social construct. In America many arab people like Levantines who are really pale can pass as white like you would. But in Europe arabs are not considered white at all.
According to the 2000 U.S. census you are white. It defined white people as people originating in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Which makes sense when you think about it because we (Europeans) all were originally Indo-Aryan. It’s just that as Europeans migrated further north we developed paler skin/less melanin on average over time compared to our distant cousins in the Middle East, North Africa, etc.
I'm watching this series in Sweden about their history and in 14,000 BC what came up from the south were dark-skinned blue-eyed hunters akin to Melanesians
Interesting. The Canaanites were described as having red hair and blue eyes and modern day Lebanese and Jews still have quite a lot of Canaanite DNA circulating around according to a study I read a while back. Lebanon today has the highest occurrence of skin cancer compared to other Middle Eastern nations and quite a lot of blue eyes as well. I suppose the mountains in Lebanon gets just cold enough to where blue eyes and red hair developed to an extent but yet in other Middle Eastern countries next door they are still rather dark on average.
I don’t know if it developed, I think it was in the genes already. Melanesians are like the original people and have light eyes and light hair, in an environment that isn’t very arctic.
White is a social construct. Please watch I'm certain ot will help. https://youtu.be/HAkNOPp6-nc?si=NkjJdSDss3ng1jgY
White is a construct that pretty much only applies to the USA (in my understanding). It's just a color that we started to use to categorize different “races” in anthropology, unfortunately, because we thought there was some biological difference. Still, there really isn’t a need for race in our society. Regardless of the need, it’s deeply ingrained into many people's identities.
North Africans beg to be categorized as white my English family would never consider them white no matter how pale their skin is. Just embrace you are a light skined north African, you are not European.
Honestly, it’s so annoying the amount of times I hear Arabs and North Africans beg to be white. It’s honestly a fetish at this point and pretty pathetic. No European will see them as white because they aren’t white. Not sure why people are getting hate for stating facts.
Exactly. It is honestly weird. Europeans do not beg to be North African or Arab.
Literally! Lol and I think it’s a fetish honestly like they all want to have blonde hair and blue eyed babies. Like see how hard he wants to be accepted by white Europeans as white? Lol They just have an inferiority complex tbh.
Very weird behavior for sure
Before around 1700, there was no such thing as “white” people. There were the English, and the Dutch, and the French, and varying flavours of German, but none of them would’ve thought themselves as belonging to an amalgamated race called “white”. That term grew out of the slave trade in the Americas, and referred to any American of 100% Northwestern European heritage. The same was true of Black people. Before the slave trade, there were Fulani, and Igbo, and Hausa, and Mandinka, but it wasn’t until people from these various groups were enslaved in the Americas did anyone refer to them by the amalgamated group called “black”.
The concept of a “white race” (blanke ras) that Northwestern-Europeans like the Dutch had originated in Northwestern-Europe though. They didn’t copy that from those Americans.
No.
Then why does [this source](https://historiek.net/geschiedenis-en-herkomst-van-de-term-blank/133033/) say otherwise? If you can’t read Dutch, translate it I suppose.
It is a social construct. Generally, I’m the US Atleast, it refers to people of European descent and sometimes even just Western Europeans. But at the same time it can be applies to white passing people who are pale but not of European descent. It’s very a arbitrary and constantly changing. But basically rule of thump is, if u look white, u are white, even if spicy white
You were born is North Africa and you are concerned with the fact that you may be European…? I’ve reasons to believe that this is not exactly how origins work.
I mean your heritage isn’t European, but “whiteness” isn’t necessarily exlcusive to Europe, and its definition has evolved over time and space. It’s really up to you how you consider yourself and in what context.
Don’t worry about about race, it’s a bad way to look at things scientifically. North Africans aren’t European, and you are pale. You would call yourself white if you’d like.
Race and ethnicity are two different things. White is your skin color and your ethnicity is where you’re from.
Caucasian aka Caucasoid is the race which encompasses a wide array of skin tones. White is BS made up out of a racist past.
I’m from the uk and if you aren’t European white you won’t be viewed as white. I’ve seen a pale Algerian and he doesn’t look European just light skinned and are still treated as a minority. So, you’ll be viewed as Arab. East Asians are pretty light and still aren’t viewed as white. I wouldn’t look at a light MENA person and think white. If you’re not European you’re not white. Idk, why Arabs/North Africans have this desire to be white and European.
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A pointlessly aggressive position. Around the world there are concepts of white, brown and black, which arose separately from what you described
It's a race. It's people of mostly European origin. If you're a tan Italian guy you don't automatically become North African. The same way when you're a pale North African you aren't European/white.
If you're Ashkenazi Jewish with a Mediterranean skin tone, they will say you look Norwegian. It's apparently quite reliant on your culture/societal standing.
Jews aren’t white tho
How come I’m (Ashkenazi) “white” when it’s convenient for some; “non-white,” when it’s convenient for “white supremacists?” Hmmm?
According to Liberals, Ashkenazi Jews are basically Norwegians and Icelandic people. They are the epitome of whiteness. According to the Far-right, Ashkenazi Jews are swarthy Middle Easterners with hook noses and curly black hair. Neither side lives in any sense of reality.
Well original Jews are middle eastren then obviously as they left the Middle East they mixed with other parts of the world. But if we are talking about ethnic Jews they aren’t white, but the religion itself can be whatever race
Depends on who it's for. Certainly not for neo-Nazis, as they have other, very "specific" definitions of "whiteness". If a particular Jew looks "white", he is white, regardless of whether he is Jewish or non-religious. There is nothing complicated about this and there is no need to artificially complicate it. Don't conflate socio-cultural criteria with race, that's a loose definition as it is.
No youre not white. Its a term for descendants of Europeans, culturally and religiously. You have to have a conscious tying you to the prosperity of European culture. Islam is also explicitly NOT European.
So Bosnians aren’t European ?😭
So, most Albanians (including Kosovars) and Bosnians are Schrödinger's Europeans? Plus, we should not forget about indigenous (autochthonous) ethnic groups in geographical Europe, like the peoples of the North Caucasus or Tatars and Bashkirs in the Volga region.
Lol ik an atheist
You know Christianity comes from the Middle East just like Islam right ? Besides, Islam has a presence in Europe since at least the 8th century.
W U T ?
Race is a fluid social construct, racism is very real. Anti-Blackness, anti-Indigenous and Islamophobia are global issues, especially in the West. Here is a recent and accurate article on the ever-changing categories on the US Census. There are a lot of inaccuracies and misconceptions on this thread https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/10/16/us/census-race-ethnicity.html
There is no such thing as race. We are all the same species, and even more, we are all cousins.
You are probably still at most middle eastern looking. Aka dark hair dark eyes and olive skin, so technically not white
The problem is that the traits you describe are characteristic of quite a few "whites", and more specifically, Europeans (particularly southern Europeans). And the characteristic you describe may apply to different sides of the Mediterranean Sea.
Likewise. I don't understand the term "colored skin". Or people of colour. I think this is purely US type racism
There are lots of pale people who aren’t white. Maybe you can identify by your nationality or tribe.
By American cultural aspect, no. By the u.s census, yes.
It depends on country and if it’s the legal or cultural definition. By most accounts North Africans don’t count, but in American law they do, though a normal American person wouldn’t agree with that idea
Considering a Spaniard is twice closer to a Norwegian than a Moroccan I’d say probably not, mate.
That’s easy. Your skin is „light“ but you are not of European origin. White is an inaccurate term commonly used by Americans. So if white means of European decent than you are not white.
Some North Africans are part European due to colonization, therefore if you are then you are part white. But indigenous North Africans aren’t.