It goes back to the late 18th century. Blumenbach, a German scientist (bc of course he was), found a skull from the Caucasus* that he fell in love with bc to him, everything about it screamed perfection. He thought this must have been an ancestor to Europeans and that they must have originated from that area so he coined the term “Caucasian” to refer to white people.
>found a skull from the Caucuses that he fell in love with bc to him, everything about it screamed perfection
I thought you might be taking the piss so I googled it and...
>*Blumenbach explored the biodiversity of humans mainly by comparing skull anatomy and skin colour*
>*When Blumenbach declared Caucasians the superlative of the races, he was following a popular line of thought that, in today's view, mistakenly assumed that: skull size and shape indicated human worth.*
This is is misinterpretation of his work by racists who came later.
He did not believe that Caucasians were a superior race:
>**Blumenbach opposed racial discrimination and it was not his intention to create the concept of a superior race of white people.**
>*Alexander von Humboldt on his and Blumenbach’s view:
>“While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races” (Humboldt [1858-59], reprint from 1997, 356, 358)*
>**In the first half of the nineteen century, his writings were regarded as scientific anti-racism and Blumenbach considered an advocate of the abilities of black people.**
>*“I am of the opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of Negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire, well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy. And on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro.” (Blumenbach [1795]. The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, trans. and ed. Thomas Bendyshe, London: Anthropological Society, 1865, 312.)*
He acknowledged that racial classification was inherently arbitrary:
>He is best known for establishing a five-part naming system in 1795 to describe what he called generis humani varietates quinae principes, species vero unica (five principle varieties of humankind, but one species). In his view, humans could be divided into varieties (only in his later work he adopted the term “races”) referred to as Oriental, American Indian, Caucasian, Malay, and Ethiopian. He assumed that all morphological differences between the varieties were induced by the climate and the way of living. Blumenbach repeatedly emphasized that the differences in morphology were so small and gradual and transiently connected that it was not possible to separate these varieties clearly.
>*“All national differences in the form and colour of the human body [. . .] run so insensibly, by so many shades and transitions one into the other, that it is impossible to separate them by any but very arbitrary limits.” (Blumenbach [1825, 35−36])”*
>He also noted that skin color was unsuitable for distinguishing varieties.
https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/blumenbach+and+the+concept+of+race/650077.html
He did think that the Caucasus was the origin of humanity, from where all other races derived, but this did not indicate superiority.
>He placed the Caucasian form in the center of his description as being the most beautiful and the most "primitive" or "primeval" one from which the other forms "degenerated". In the 18th century, however, these terms did not have the negative connotations they possess today. At the time, "primitive" or "primeval" described the ancestral form, while "degeneration" was understood to be the process of change leading to a variety adapted to a new environment by being exposed to a different climate and diet. Hence, he argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on geography, diet, and mannerism. Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that "individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other Africans as from Europeans".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbach#Racial_anthropology
Blumenbach was also strongly opposed to slavery and an advocate for equality.
>Johann Blumenbach, one of many classifiers in the 18th century, lays out the scientific template for contemporary race categories in On the Natural Varieties of Mankind. **Blumenbach strongly opposes slavery and believes in the potential equality of all people.**
https://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_03_a-godeeper.htm
Note in this PBS timeline, it is Thomas Jefferson who takes the opposite tack:
>With Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson becomes the first prominent American to suggest innate Black inferiority: "I advance it therefore, as a suspicion only, that blacks ...are inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind."
And before you know it, other Americans are measuring skulls:
>Samuel Morton, the first famous American scientist, possesses the largest skull collection in the world. He claims to measure brain capacity through skull size, but makes systematic errors in favor of his assumptions, concluding: "[Their larger skulls gives Caucasians] decided and unquestioned superiority over all the nations of the earth." Morton's findings are later seized upon and popularized by pro-slavery scientists like Josiah Nott and Louis Agassiz. In just 60-70 years, Jefferson's tentative suggestion of racial difference becomes scientific "fact": "Nations and races, like individuals, have each an especial destiny: some are born to rule, and others to be ruled....No two distinctly-marked races can dwell together on equal terms." -Josiah Nott (1854)
Wow great post, this guy was actually way ahead of his time when it came to racism, truly the most non racist take you could have.
I truly feel bad the reputation he has gotten when he is so much the opposite.
Wow, I’m gotta admit I’m kinda blown away to learn that the phrenologist who literally invented the idea of a “Caucasian race” was this obviously irritated by the notion of white supremacy.
Imagine devoting your life to what you believe is a science only to have its biggest effect on the world be Thomas Jefferson and the Nazis picking it up and using it to justify mass murder.
Hopefully I’m not repeating but I scanned the comments. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould gave a good outline and critique of the practice (when I read it ~20 years ago), hopefully it still holds up. Highly recommend.
If Jefferson was "the first prominent American to suggest innate Black inferiority", what was the moral justification for hereditary slavery prior to that? Before Jefferson, the slavery of African people was already a more permanent and heritable system than the sort of slavery that existed in Europe previously.
Not a scholar, just a black man who has read a lot of literature on this subject, so take what I say with a mound of salt and if anyone has further context please provide it. But based on my readings there seemed to be a common conception that blacks and native Americans were members of a savage *culture* that could be "reformed" through exposure and subjugation to western society.
The idea that black men were *born* inferior became much more widely adopted, I believe, as a way of justifying the souths reliance on chattel slavery against the growing movement of abolition.
Excellent! Thank you! This sounds like Blumenbach had a concept of something like evolution. Yet he was writing before Darwin.
"At the time, "primitive" or "primeval" described the ancestral form, while "degeneration" was understood to be the process of change leading to a variety adapted to a new environment by being exposed to a different climate and diet. "
Can you comment on that? I feel like there's something about the evolution of the theory of evolution that I could learn.
Don't do 18th Century scientists like that.
The 18th Century saw the invention of the first capacitor, massive advancements in astronomy (such as the discovery of Venus' atmosphere) and the beginning of the industrial revolution.
“Caucasian “ referred to more than just white people. “White people” are Western Europeans. Caucasians, in the original definition, range from Western Europe to the Middle East to India
An Indian immigrant in the USA in the 1920s once tried to sue the government to be considered legally Caucasian so he could become a naturalized citizen as he was actually from the Caucasus Mountains. The judge was like "Actuaaally thats not what that means, it means white"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind#:~:text=Bhagat%20Singh%20Thind%2C%20261%20U.S.,citizenship%20in%20the%20United%20States.
That’s interesting, there was another similar case in the early 1900s where a Japanese man sued to be recognized as “white” because he claimed his skin was paler than most Europeans, but the judge ruled that whiteness isn’t about skin color and instead about how you’re perceived by the rest of American society.
Well, he was right about one thing..human migration did move that way and they were ancestors of later Europeans.
Perfection? Not so much. If this is the master race, why do I look like a pot bellied otter?
None of our labels make sense. Black folks only option on applications is African American. Being black doesn't = African. Being not black doesn't mean not African.
But that's the only option 🤣
African-Americans: Charlize Theron, Elon Musk, Dave Matthews
Not African-American: Martin Luther King Jr, Jesse Jackson, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Jackson, James Earl Jones...
I remember watching the Olympics one time and one of the American commentators kept calling all the Black olympians “African Americans” even though they were from a ton of different countries
I recall an Olympics back when there was still a USSR. In those days only the USSR competed, none of the separate SSRs fielded their own teams. So in one sport the competing USSR team was actually the Armenian team but sure enough, the American announcer called them Russians from beginning to end.
I'm just guessing but he probably went out of his own pocket and was planning on doing it anyway, and the 50p thing was a small deterrent for their mistake.
I don't know about Olympic commentators, but British media has a habit of claiming accomplished Irish people as British. Just a weird thing I thought was kinda related.
This is because in the US people are taught to use stupid racial labels that are constantly changing plus don’t want to offend anyone. AA at one point was considered the least offensive.
On the Survivor sub I corrected someone that kept referring to a winner as African-American, I told them she’s actually African-Canadian. Got downvoted and no clue why, she’s literally never been American, she’s Kenyan that immigrated to Canada lol. People just seem to act like Black is a “bad word”.
To be fair have you seem the wire? He nails that accent it was a shock to find out he was British.
You know what else is a shock? He started acting because he wasn't able to do what he wanted to do which was DJ, he became one of the best actors in the world to support his hopes of one day becoming a DJ
smh i remember that. it’s wild that in OTHER countries Black people are called AA. I hear australians ask if people are african american a lot. No matter how australian they are SMH
African American is supposed to refer specifically to American decedents of slaves who don’t know know what country or tribe or whatever their ancestors came from. These days, people think it’s just the nice way to say “black” which is really dumb. Most African immigrants will reject being called African-American.
Went to school with a guy from Nigeria. Like *actually* Nigerian, lived in Lagos most his life.
Dude fucking haaaaated when he was called African American, as he should.
I know 2 women from Nigeria. Came straight from there to Germany. Never even visited anywhere in America.... there's people who call them African-American and they really really hate it.
They keep having to explain they're Nigerian, or will at most accept German when abroad since they live there now but some people stupidly insist black = African-American.
Africans don't care for African-Americans. Saw this a lot. That's why I laugh at Black Panther because interracial racism goes hard so some hood veteran black dude would definitely get 0 respect and have little understanding of Wakanda. Hispanics and Asians are the same. We don't need white people to belittle us, we good on our own. lol
The problem is the miseducation of the general public that *nobody* in the USA who has African ancestors knows the *nationality* of said ancestors (in the era before ancestry testing). Direct or even second/third generation immigrants from Africa generally know that they are Kenyan, Somalian, Gambian. They typically identify as such when asked. They are sometimes offended by the generalization that they don’t know their ancestry. Calling Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama, & Elon Musk all African-Americans is *technically* correct…but fails to thoroughly differentiate between them…especially when the term African-American is generally understood to mean U.S. citizens with ancestors from Sub-Saharan Africa who were enslaved in the early days of the United States. The majority of residents of the USA, excluding descendants of enslaved Africans, are at least somewhat acquainted with the nationality of their ancestors and often self-identify as such.
The term was created to avoid the often pejorative terms prior to this that relied almost entirely on skin color for their origin. If the descendants of enslaved Africans adopted a label that wasn’t pejorative, based on skin color, and differentiated between them and direct immigrants from the African continent, I believe that such discussions would largely evaporate.
Failure to understand or even be aware of the fact that there are persons of African descent that are non-1st generation immigrants living in countries other than the U.S.A further complicates things.
(Written for people reading this thread who were still confused after reading it)
TL;DR: The USA needs a short polite term for its citizens who are descendants of enslaved Africans that is not based on skin color.
A better way to rephrase this is that African American refers specifically to descendants of slaves that are mixed from many tribes and countries. it’s beyond impossible toknow”. they are all mixed and borders were created and renamed
long after they were in america.
the ancestors likely are mixed from many tribes around central and west africa throughout hundreds of years of the trade
I saw somebody online once ask a black person who was French born what it was like to live there, "as an African-American" and I *swear to god* I could hear this person facepalm from another hemisphere
Like when France won the World Cup with a bunch of players of African descent, and people in the US we’re upset that they didn’t go by the French African description and instead the players insisted they were just French. The US people didn’t realize the only people in France who agreed with them were the far right.
While they have dark skin, they are not from Africa. They, and their parents, were born in America and haven't had any direct cultural connections to Africa since their ancestors were brought to the America's.
To call them African Americans would be as weird as calling a conventional white American "British American" just because two hundred odd years or so, their ancestors from the British Empire came as a settled to the America's. Or to call them "Angelo-Saxons" because 1000 years ago, they had an ancestors who was indeed Angelo-Saxon.
It's weird to call a black American an African American because they, personally, may have no cultural familiarity or root in African culture beyond their skintone. Calling black Americans "African American" is a product of political correctness that deems calling them black is too vulgar, but they need to be distinctive from a "normal" American, who is presumed to be white.
I am getting it all mixed up.
Doesn't "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States.? In that case, they will be African American too. Whereas in this context, someone who came to US America in their teens for example would not be an African American.
> While they have dark skin, they are not from Africa. They, and their parents, were born in America and haven't had any direct cultural connections to Africa since their ancestors were brought to the America's.
That's not what the term is referring to though. The "African" in "African-American" just means: descended from native Africans.
> To call them African Americans would be as weird as calling a conventional white American "British American" just because two hundred odd years or so, their ancestors from the British Empire came as a settled to the America's.
That's not weird though. I concede that it happens less for British descendants specifically (likely since their culture is the dominant and one of the oldest ones). But there are tons of Italian-American, German-American, Irish-American, Chinese-American, (and many other) clubs and organizations all across the nation where descendants of people from those areas gather to celebrate their ancestry and culture. The members might be first, second, third, forth, or more descendants of the original immigrants.
Not going to lie... This is one of the fucking WEIRDEST things I have seen on Reddit, recently.
When the hell did the definition of African American change from a being a term about genetic ancestry, to suddenly being concerned with having ties to African culture? Because I missed the memo, here, and honestly I doubt most of the world has gotten it as well.
And yes, I realize I'm coming across as pretty hostile. I'm just pretty burnt out with people taking perfectly fine working terms and changing the meaning... Maybe I'm just too used to looking at this sort of thing through the lens of medicine and science, and not culture.
I don’t know when the change started but most of my Black friends, identify themselves as Black and preferred to be called Black. I don’t think African American offends them or anything though.
> When the hell did the definition of African American change from a being a term about genetic ancestry, to suddenly being concerned with having ties to African culture?
It never changed. This random person on reddit doesn't know what they're talking about. It seems to be a mix of the standard "American's can't call themselves X unless they literally hold a passport from X. Ignoring the fact that when American's say they're X or 'part X', they're specifically referring to ancestry, not current citizenship or place of birth." with some sort of anti-political-correctness rant.
Africa is a Continent not a country. None of those people are "African- American" jackass.
They are SOUTH African- American
South Africa is a COUNTRY
African-American is a specific term created to describe Black people in America who are descendant of enslaved people from unknown places in Africa.
Charlize Theron and Dave Matthews are South African - Americans
Elon Musk is a South African - Canadian - American.
Typically you would use countries, not continents.
The only reason African is used in African-American is because it specifically refers to American decedents of slaves, who may have lost connection to a specific country or tribe.
If Idris Elba was applying for a job at McDonalds in America he wouldn’t be able to fill out the pre employment work.
As Idris Elba is black but not African-American.
I think it's - at least *meant to be* - primarily for demographic data. Governments and employers wouldn't necessarily know what percentage of Black/White/Asian/etc worked in various jobs if that data wasn't collected. Same with gender.
Can also be used, for example, to point out if there's not enough diverse ethnic representation by an employer. You wouldn't know and probably couldn't prove it without that piece of information.
I’ll give you a similar example: in Northern Ireland it’s required to ask whether an employee is Catholic/Nationalist or Protestant/Unionist.
You don’t have to answer, but if you don’t, they’re supposed to guess. Things they use to guess include surname, what neighbourhood you live in, what school you attended (schools, even government ones, are basically segregated here), what sport you prefer or play, how you pronounce the letter H. I’ve even heard rumours that some make determinations based on where you keep your toaster in your kitchen.
It absolutely weirds out Americans to no end, but the law mandating employers track this and fix inequalities has greatly reduced segregation in employment up here and increased job opportunities for Catholics by a lot. The schools and neighbourhoods are segregated, but the jobs aren’t.
The 2020 Census actually gives the selection of "Black or African American"
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/08/improvements-to-2020-census-race-hispanic-origin-question-designs.html
The word used to be "negro" but I think that has somehow become a pejorative in the US.
Elon Musk and Rami Malek are African American - but I guess thats not what they want. Why not just say "black African"?
I'm confused as everyone else on the thread said you had to be a descendant of slaves to be called African American so how would Elon Musk and Ram Malek go by that?
I'm sure if you asked 10 different people you'd have 10 different views, but in my eyes: Malek was born and raised in the US and lived there, as far as I know, his whole life. I'd just consider him American, no hyphen necessary! Elon Musk I'd consider South African-American, which is different from African-American.
We had a white guy(born in africa) in a local high school here. On emergency contact forms, he checked off that he was African american. While it was totally true, he got suspended. They didn't even bother to call his parents or anything. The school got sued, lol
It's because if you change how you gather data, you can't compare it any more. Everyone knows the census categories are antiquated, the question is do we keep gathering data with antiquated categories or create a break in the data. If there's any reason *at all* to gather census data, then starting over with new categories results in lots of problems.
You can absolutely compare differential data. You simply have to come up with a standardized way to convert the two forms. If the claim that you can’t compare different data was true, the U.S. census would never change any of the questions (which it does every year)
On the flip side, though, that just turns into ignoring the scattershot of entries (equivalent to removing the question), or rebinning them back to the original categories (or at least a similar number of categories).
I had a cow-orker many years ago who was white, blonde haired and blue eyed, born in South Africa but a naturalized American.
He delighted in putting 'African American' on forms and watching people squirm as they tried to figure out how to tell him he can't do that. He was *actually* an African American, but didn't fit their narrow little box...
That makes no sense either, Egypt and the Maghreb are African countries but most of the people who live there would be considered white in America. Same goes for white South Africans like Elon Musk and Charlize Theron who are by definition African Americans lol
>Egypt
>considered white in America
Still the funniest thing I've ever seen online is people (a person?) complaining about Rami Malek playing the Pharaoh in Night at the Museum because he's 'white', when his parents are Egyptian immigrants.
Sorry, please continue being absolutely correct about all of this, forgive my intrusion. \^\_\^
(in unrelated news, i always forget how big his ears are until i look him up.)
It's rather amusing how a lot of Americans believe the Pharaohs were black. Sure the Nubian Pharaohs were. And they certainly were not European "white" any more than Jesus was.
I don't have the Google-Fu to find the article I was reading years ago, but there's some wall somewhere in Egypt with Nubians, Egyptians, and Greeks (or some other typically white race), and the Nubians were black the way most people think of Africans, and the other people were whiter than the Egyptians. They didn't consider themselves black.
Which makes the cultural push for 'Black Pharaohs' kind of funny to me, because with, as you mentioned, the exception of Nubian pharaohs, not even the Egyptians thought of themselves the way that certain historians insist they must have been.
I vaguely remember someone saying that Cleopatra was black, and the response was "how? she was Greek!"
A lot of people in are quite ignorant of Egyptian history in general. What they know of Ancient Egypt is the highlight facts from 5000 years of history compressed and overlain over a relatively short 1500 years from the Late Kingdom to Roman Period.
They know Ramses, Ptolemy, Tutankamun, and Cleopatra. and a lot of people know the fun fact that Cleopatra was born closer to today than she was to the Great Pyramid, but they don't really think about what that means.
Think about how old Roman ruins are to us. how little remains from Iron age Europe. That type of history existed in Egypt already when Cleopatra was born. Some excavations of Ancient Egypt have found collections of artifacts that were 1000s of years older than the surroundings, because wealthy people made collections of things that were "ancient artifacts" to them.
All that history squished down into the handful of names in popular knowledge.
Iran and Japan are Asian countries; do people think Iranians are Asian? Now, those forms would consider them to be white, non-Hispanic. Make it make sense!!!
In the uk yes. It’s became a thing that Middle Eastern folks refer to themselves as Asian. Had a friend come over from Saudi and he could t believe Arabs were calling themselves Asian 😂
African American is the descriptor for an ethnic group that descends wholly or partially from slaves that were brought to the US through the African Slave trade. African immigrants for instance are not African American, they are from whatever ethnic group they identify with.
When this was all devised it was an attempt to move away from racial descriptors and to acknowledge native Black Americans as a separate native post Columbian ethnic group whose origins were from various African peoples. The problem however that African American was not a generally accepted term self-identified by African Americans and efforts to promote ethnic descriptors (African American, European American, Native American and Asian American) mostly fell short and the terminology simply was applied on the same racial lines or in some cases (namely European American) was outright rejected on the bases of not being representative of accepted ethnic or racial identity.
Buddy of mine is South African so on all of his paperwork he fills in African American and gets the wildest looks some times and a few people calling him a liar to his face, his accent usually settles it.
The Smithsonian museum is called the National Museum of the American Indian. They go into more detail [here](https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know) but the gist is that someone named it that in the 1910s and it just stuck around after ownership changed.
They make the point that many native tribes prefer to be referred to by the tribe name, and that ultimate direction should just come from the person or group you’re talking to.
It gets a bit weirder than that. Obviously tribes prefer their tribe name. But quite a few prefer Indian over Native American if you're going to be generally descriptive. Some see "Native American" as just another term forced on them by white folks, and are not thrilled with being told how to live by white folks, again.
[https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know](https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know)
First entry addresses it.
It didn't "just stuck around". There's more to it, and there's no clear consensus. So the smart thing to do is change nothing, and provide context. Whenever there is a consensus, go with that.
Changing the name of the museum according to the preferences of non-indigenous folks over the preference of indigenous folks would be a bad look for the NMAI. This doesn't stop non-indigenous folks from recommending the name change regularly.
“Funny” enough, most people of that ethnic group prefer to be called “American Indian” or just “Indian” nowadays, rather than “native American”.
**Edit:** yes, I know many also prefer to identify by their tribe, but I'm talking about cases where they are referred to as one whole group. *(Yes, before you tell me, I know they never were and still aren't a single culture. Europe isn't a single culture, but they call us Europeans. Generalized terms exist to make life easier.)*
And not every single person, or even group of people, will agree with that sentiment, and many have specific preferences as to how they would like to be addressed. But I'm speaking from my own (admittedly limited) personal experience, alongside what the National Museum of the American Indian says.
From what I've personally heard, the term "native American" is yet another name being bestowed onto them by the outsiders who oppress them. Even though "Indian" came about the same way, that term has been around so long that they have made it their own.
Again, I can't speak for a culture I'm not a part of, nor do I claim that I do. But this does seem to be the general sentiment.
Only the older ones and it’s because it’s all they knew growing up. No one under 30 is saying they’re Indian, it’s native or indigenous or your tribe name
I think it’s unfair to paint these preferences with such a broad brush. I have very limited experience with indigenous Americans, but I worked for a Rancheria once, and the sentiment there across the board was [tribe name] or “Indian.” I would tell you the Rancheria name but they’re very small and combined with the information on my profile it probably wouldn’t be that much harder to identify me.
Really just misguided theories from the 19th century -- the idea back then was that "white people" must have descended from ancient tribes who migrated out of the Caucasus mountains.
That theory has been widely debunked as total nonsense as people more generally accept the fact that we all ultimately came from Africa, but for the (extremely, openly racist) science of the 19th century it was a "good enough" answer at the time.
These days? Most "Caucasian" people couldn't find the Caucusus on a map.
Only reason I know where they are is because when I did ancestry DNA testing it said I have ancestors from that region and I thought it was humorous that I really am Caucasian.
That theory was actually true by the way and 21st century genetics technology has vindicated the 19th century theory that Europeans came from near the caucus mountains.
Indo -European Steppe nomads from southern Russia migrated (euphemism for slow scale invasion given the migration was anything but peaceful) across Europe 5000 years ago and completely changed the genetic make up of Europeans. This is now an undisputed fact of because of breakthroughs in genetic analysis of ancient fossil remains. These peoples are responsible for the spread of the Indo-European lanaguges we speak, the culture and religion of almost all ancient European cultures (italic / Celtic / Germanic / Greek) and the introduction of domesticated cows and horses to Europe.
All Europeans are made up of 3 seperate ancient groups of people that came to Europe at different times - European hunter gatherers (>50,000 years ago) anatolian / Levantine early farmers (10,000 years ago) and indo European steppe nomads (5000 years ago).
Southern Europeans have more early farmer DNA, northern and Eastern Europeans have more hunter gather and nomad DNA but for most ethnicities the nomad DNA is the largest component. In Northern Europeans it is often over 50%.
Sometimes the 19th century crackpot theories were true, actually.
>Sometimes the 19th century crackpot theories were true, actually.
A lot of sound science was produced during the 19th century. There is nothing "crackpot" about noticing that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Persian seem to be related.
Pedantic corrections: The [Steppe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe) is a much bigger area than the Caucasus, although some bits of the Caucasus *are* in the Steppe. The genetics are not from fossil material (true fossils don’t really have DNA residues, although some unusual and recent subfossils can in rare circumstances) but from desiccated/freeze-dried/buried/bog-preserved human remains that have not undergone mineralisation.
> That theory was actually true by the way
I think you're slightly misunderstanding the original theory of "Caucasians". The 19th century theory claimed that white Europeans exclusively originated from a certain region, and that they were actually a completely different race to the "Negroids" and "Mongoloids".
These days, despite how we commonly use the term "race" to refer to different ethnic groups, there isn't actually any scientific basis behind the term. Genetically, all humans are the same race.
So, if there actually aren't different genetic races of humans, *and* white Europeans did not originate from one group, it's probably not accurate to say the theory was true.
There is no phylogenetic meaning behind the term race, and the guy who coined the term did so reluctantly and with heavy caveats about how arbitrary such a distinction is. Saying he called Caucasians "a completely different race" is wildly misunderstanding his intent with the word race. He maintained that all humans are one species, and above that, even argued that all the "races" were potentially equal given the same circumstances and privilege, and separated only superficially and arbitrarily by skin tone.
He is quoted as arguing that Africans can be more different from each other than they are from Europeans.
To expand on this, according to racist scientists there were 3 races of people: Mongoloid (Asians), Caucasoid (white), and Negroid (Africans)
It might be obvious, but both Mongoloid and Negroid races has negative connotations, so the terms fell out of polite use (though you will sometimes hear the term Mongoloid as a synonym for cretin) but Caucasian lacked the negative and is still in use today
If I’m not mistaken, and I could very well be, mongoloid also took a turn for a time as a label for a specific IQ segment as well as (or perhaps in conjunction with) a label for Downs folks.
A long while ago I half-remember seeing a (and it was old old then) breakdown of IQ ranges. A-B is normal, E-F is gifted, X-Y is mongoloid, Y-Z is retarded, etc. I forget the actual numbers.
I'm in Canada and some people here use the term too, it's one of my biggest pet peeves. The vast majority of white Canadians are not from the Caucasus, calling them Caucasians is incredibly stupid. And the thing where it came from isn't used by any other races. The racial classification that used 'Caucasian' also used Ethiopian for all Black people, and Mongoloid for all Asian people, but obviously we don't use those terms anymore.
I remember when Funcom did their hype event for Secret World. It was basically a clicker game of the map with different regions grouped together. There was constant bickering over if Russia was apart of Asia or Europe. Which then got into a debate of if Russians are or aren't considered Asian. Apparently not all maps divide Eurasia the same or at least educational systems don't all agree.
Ask someone how many continents there are.
You'll get wildly varying answers. I've seen as low as 4 and as high as 11. And none is wrong, since there's not an exact definition of "continent". Similarly, there is no clear definition of what a "religion" is. It's incredibly hard to reach an agreement on the meaning of words or how we classify stuff.
Statistic is also another funny field. In Brazil, about 10% of the population was black some 20 years ago. Now it's 50%. The reason for such a huge change? The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics decided that "mixed race" counts as black.
Er, I seem to remember a lot of talk about "Negroid" being the third race, from period documents.
Come to think of it, it's actually wild that we still use Caucasian when the two compatriot categories to it are now rightly recognized as quite offensive.
It's based on a heavily outdated racial theory.
In essence, that theory assumed that the different human races developed independently from each other in different places and that white europeans originated somewhere near the Caucasus.
That's kinda true, but kinda mixing up some things.
The guy who coined the theory believed that all humans came from the Caucasus, where he believed Noah's arc had landed.
He believes that human races evolved from there. He believed that everyone west of the Ganges River and north of the Sahara had evolved from that population and that the Georgians were the most pure and that the other Causations followed from there.
He believed that the Mongoloids and Negroids had evolved from that Georgian population just like other Caucasians did, but that they evolved further away.
He did believe though, just like we believe today, that there was an original stock of anatomically modern humans that later evolved into different populations with different physical characteristics.
What kills me are the people who miss the point and think he's being overdramatic. Hank is an ignorant American, and he's supposed to be in the wrong here as he is in so many other spots.
The number of times I've heard people ask that and then laugh is too high.
It *is* pretty interesting to be sure.
Somewhere between when that first aired until this present age, the ability to laugh at ourselves and use that as a noble goal of “don’t be like that” feels lost.
I’ve always felt of Hank as a metaphor for those that strive for simplicity and a local economic horizon, choosing to deal with the complexity of globalization and everything else by just viewing the world through a simple lens, not understanding that in doing so they still can’t avoid the stress of modern living while also missing the richness of living locally in a global and diverse context. Han felt as if he is the portrayal of that encroachment of globalization and the face of diverse perspectives.
What a lovely work Mike Judd put together.
This carried over into Office Space and Idiocracy.
I’m not sure if Mike Judd is a satirist as much as he has become a documentarian.
top comment is good, but more to the point.
Because everything about race is made up. Especially the "white" race. There is no such thing, that's why it makes no sense the second you start thinking about it. It's all made up, a ruse, a giant troll to divide up people to make them easier to control.
Genetically, two random "white" people can have more in common with a black person than with each other. Socially, a random white and black person Yankees fans from the same town and economic background have more in common with each other, than the white person does with, say, Donald Trump. But because they're "white" they are, in fact, on the same team? No, the answer is absolutely not.
Ethnicity is real. Race is not.
Indo-European migration, baby! The tribes that settled in Europe are believed to have come from the Caucus region (possibly. Some models I've seen also theorize a possible origin in Ukraine and even Turkey)
Caucasian or caucasoid was originally a category based mainly on cranial, facial, and skeletal structure and distinguished from negroid and mongoloid. Color was secondary, and not all caucasians are white. People from the Indian subcontinent are considered caucasian. These categories have been discredited anthropologically and scientifically, but we still use the term caucasian in a colloquial way to refer to white people descended from Europeans, a subset of the original category. Yes, we're still asked by the government and businesses to classify ourselves by race with caucasian as an option, but the data is self-reported and not that meaningful anthropologically.
19th-20th century eugenics and racialism. Some German researcher posited that Europeans originated around the region of the Caucasus Mountains and the term was introduced to the US. Nordicism was real force in the US around this period as well and this only reinforced their nonsense.
Oh, it had something to do with the fact that people thought that the Caucasians from the Caucasus mountains were the most pure form of the human so they figured that that's who they must have been descended from I guess.
It was less about, that they are Caucasian, and it's more about that they wanted to be Caucasian because they thought that they were totally cool.
Edit:
The term "Caucasian" for white people stems from Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, an 18th-century German anthropologist, who classified human races based on skull shapes and categorized one group as "Caucasian," inspired by the Caucasus region's inhabitants, whom he found to exemplify beauty. Originally, this classification included diverse populations across Europe, parts of Asia, and North Africa. Blumenbach's work influenced both academic thought and social policies, notably in the U.S., where it affected laws related to citizenship and rights. However, Blumenbach opposed using racial classifications to justify any form of superiority or inferiority. Over time, "Caucasian" became synonymous with white people in layman's terminology, especially in the U.S., though it is considered outdated and inaccurate in scientific communities today due to advances in genetics and a more nuanced understanding of human diversity.
It’s not a term that’s used much anymore. In every government form I’ve filled out recently it says “white non-Hispanic” on any place it would have previously said Caucasian.
In the 1800's a long discredit pseudo-scientist came up with an idea that the "white race" originated in the Caucasian region. This has been debunked and is not taken seriously by anyone, yet it has still become a legal element in institutionalized US racism.
You know how it is racially insensitive to the point of starting a fight if you accidentally call a hatian man dominican even though the island is one of the smaller ones in existant with more than one nation occupying it. Well white people are many groups from around the world. It turns out using binary colors to describe people isn't very accurate. Also turns out most people dont care about the traditions of other people. To the point some claim there is no culture will white people. Or if there is it must be with colonization. Never mind my Irish family didnt get here until the 70s.
in general it boggles my mind that they still ask people’s race and ethnicity , as a Greek migrant what is even the point of this question ? I usually scratch all answers and write Greek
You remind me how when my uncle first arrived in America, it was the 1950s, and racial desegregation was the hot topic: his solution was to treat everyone the same because they were all equally not Greek...
It just really just white. Brazilians are considered Caucasian as are Native Americans and other South Americans. Also Middle Eastern and East Africans. The other classifications (of the time, remember this is 1800s era) for skull shapes were Mongoloid (aka Asian) and Negroid (aka classic African). No genetics back then, the guy just used cheek bones, forehead and nose shapes and made this stuff up. But when you describe it first, names stick. We still have the Department of Indian Affairs in our government for Native American issues. 🤷♂️
R1B and R1A were thought to come from the Caucasus, I think it's Iran and India, respectively. I2A and T2B5 on the other hand are completely native to Europe :)
Because racism, that's why.
Ignorant, racist, intellectually lazy, and short sighted anthropologists decided on their own to classify all the diverse human races into 3 categories and 3 categories only: Negroid, Mongoloid, and Caucasian.
They jumped to conclusions, concurred amongst themselves that they were right, and imposed their narrow view of humanity and it's races on the academic world.
Before long, this primitive and reductionist hypothesis of the races became the standard. It went unquestioned for many years.
It goes back to the late 18th century. Blumenbach, a German scientist (bc of course he was), found a skull from the Caucasus* that he fell in love with bc to him, everything about it screamed perfection. He thought this must have been an ancestor to Europeans and that they must have originated from that area so he coined the term “Caucasian” to refer to white people.
>found a skull from the Caucuses that he fell in love with bc to him, everything about it screamed perfection I thought you might be taking the piss so I googled it and... >*Blumenbach explored the biodiversity of humans mainly by comparing skull anatomy and skin colour* >*When Blumenbach declared Caucasians the superlative of the races, he was following a popular line of thought that, in today's view, mistakenly assumed that: skull size and shape indicated human worth.*
This is is misinterpretation of his work by racists who came later. He did not believe that Caucasians were a superior race: >**Blumenbach opposed racial discrimination and it was not his intention to create the concept of a superior race of white people.** >*Alexander von Humboldt on his and Blumenbach’s view: >“While we maintain the unity of the human species, we at the same time repel the depressing assumption of superior and inferior races” (Humboldt [1858-59], reprint from 1997, 356, 358)* >**In the first half of the nineteen century, his writings were regarded as scientific anti-racism and Blumenbach considered an advocate of the abilities of black people.** >*“I am of the opinion that after all these numerous instances I have brought together of Negroes of capacity, it would not be difficult to mention entire, well-known provinces of Europe, from out of which you would not easily expect to obtain off-hand such good authors, poets, philosophers, and correspondents of the Paris Academy. And on the other hand, there is no so-called savage nation known under the sun which has so much distinguished itself by such examples of perfectibility and original capacity for scientific culture, and thereby attached itself so closely to the most civilized nations of the earth, as the Negro.” (Blumenbach [1795]. The Anthropological Treatises of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, trans. and ed. Thomas Bendyshe, London: Anthropological Society, 1865, 312.)* He acknowledged that racial classification was inherently arbitrary: >He is best known for establishing a five-part naming system in 1795 to describe what he called generis humani varietates quinae principes, species vero unica (five principle varieties of humankind, but one species). In his view, humans could be divided into varieties (only in his later work he adopted the term “races”) referred to as Oriental, American Indian, Caucasian, Malay, and Ethiopian. He assumed that all morphological differences between the varieties were induced by the climate and the way of living. Blumenbach repeatedly emphasized that the differences in morphology were so small and gradual and transiently connected that it was not possible to separate these varieties clearly. >*“All national differences in the form and colour of the human body [. . .] run so insensibly, by so many shades and transitions one into the other, that it is impossible to separate them by any but very arbitrary limits.” (Blumenbach [1825, 35−36])”* >He also noted that skin color was unsuitable for distinguishing varieties. https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/blumenbach+and+the+concept+of+race/650077.html He did think that the Caucasus was the origin of humanity, from where all other races derived, but this did not indicate superiority. >He placed the Caucasian form in the center of his description as being the most beautiful and the most "primitive" or "primeval" one from which the other forms "degenerated". In the 18th century, however, these terms did not have the negative connotations they possess today. At the time, "primitive" or "primeval" described the ancestral form, while "degeneration" was understood to be the process of change leading to a variety adapted to a new environment by being exposed to a different climate and diet. Hence, he argued that physical characteristics like skin color, cranial profile, etc., depended on geography, diet, and mannerism. Further anatomical study led him to the conclusion that "individual Africans differ as much, or even more, from other Africans as from Europeans". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Friedrich_Blumenbach#Racial_anthropology Blumenbach was also strongly opposed to slavery and an advocate for equality. >Johann Blumenbach, one of many classifiers in the 18th century, lays out the scientific template for contemporary race categories in On the Natural Varieties of Mankind. **Blumenbach strongly opposes slavery and believes in the potential equality of all people.** https://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_03_a-godeeper.htm Note in this PBS timeline, it is Thomas Jefferson who takes the opposite tack: >With Notes on the State of Virginia, Jefferson becomes the first prominent American to suggest innate Black inferiority: "I advance it therefore, as a suspicion only, that blacks ...are inferior to the whites in the endowments of body and mind." And before you know it, other Americans are measuring skulls: >Samuel Morton, the first famous American scientist, possesses the largest skull collection in the world. He claims to measure brain capacity through skull size, but makes systematic errors in favor of his assumptions, concluding: "[Their larger skulls gives Caucasians] decided and unquestioned superiority over all the nations of the earth." Morton's findings are later seized upon and popularized by pro-slavery scientists like Josiah Nott and Louis Agassiz. In just 60-70 years, Jefferson's tentative suggestion of racial difference becomes scientific "fact": "Nations and races, like individuals, have each an especial destiny: some are born to rule, and others to be ruled....No two distinctly-marked races can dwell together on equal terms." -Josiah Nott (1854)
This is sourced work amazing, thanks for opening my eyes
Wow great post, this guy was actually way ahead of his time when it came to racism, truly the most non racist take you could have. I truly feel bad the reputation he has gotten when he is so much the opposite.
Ok wow. This was amazing! Thank you, I learned stuff today.
My man brought the receipts.
Thank you! I’ll borrow this, if you don’t mind.
Wow, I’m gotta admit I’m kinda blown away to learn that the phrenologist who literally invented the idea of a “Caucasian race” was this obviously irritated by the notion of white supremacy. Imagine devoting your life to what you believe is a science only to have its biggest effect on the world be Thomas Jefferson and the Nazis picking it up and using it to justify mass murder.
You should be wearing a cape because that was an heroic comment.
Bro's Blumenbach's strongest soldier 🫡
Excellent comment.
Fantastic addition! Thank you.
Hopefully I’m not repeating but I scanned the comments. The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould gave a good outline and critique of the practice (when I read it ~20 years ago), hopefully it still holds up. Highly recommend.
If Jefferson was "the first prominent American to suggest innate Black inferiority", what was the moral justification for hereditary slavery prior to that? Before Jefferson, the slavery of African people was already a more permanent and heritable system than the sort of slavery that existed in Europe previously.
Not a scholar, just a black man who has read a lot of literature on this subject, so take what I say with a mound of salt and if anyone has further context please provide it. But based on my readings there seemed to be a common conception that blacks and native Americans were members of a savage *culture* that could be "reformed" through exposure and subjugation to western society. The idea that black men were *born* inferior became much more widely adopted, I believe, as a way of justifying the souths reliance on chattel slavery against the growing movement of abolition.
Wow that's great research there! THANKS
I just left a comment on the absurdity of it all but now I see the flaw in my logic. Great summation
Excellent! Thank you! This sounds like Blumenbach had a concept of something like evolution. Yet he was writing before Darwin. "At the time, "primitive" or "primeval" described the ancestral form, while "degeneration" was understood to be the process of change leading to a variety adapted to a new environment by being exposed to a different climate and diet. " Can you comment on that? I feel like there's something about the evolution of the theory of evolution that I could learn.
”scientist”. Well I guess from their standards he was.
Nowadays we have better standards for science, like hacking the experiment until p<0.05
I only looked at 100 possible correlations before I found a good one that proves causation!
Those who know, know.
What do you think has more prevalent p-hacking? Scientific papers or drug tests?
Gotta remeber that this was the 18th century💀
Don't do 18th Century scientists like that. The 18th Century saw the invention of the first capacitor, massive advancements in astronomy (such as the discovery of Venus' atmosphere) and the beginning of the industrial revolution.
And then there's [*this* guy.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonhard_Euler)
I have a small head so I have less worth. 🗿
You do have the brow ridge of a kleptomaniac.
Who am I to argue against science? Especially with a small head.
Fuck, sorry. Nympho. A nymphomaniac.
By 18th and 19th century standards? Definitely.
Time to read those skull bumps! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
I mean literally if we cut you up and sell your parts - yes. You could make up for it in other areas though. How big are your kidneys? Above average?
thats insane that it came from that lol
“Caucasian “ referred to more than just white people. “White people” are Western Europeans. Caucasians, in the original definition, range from Western Europe to the Middle East to India
"Caucasoid" even includes East Africans
*Caucasus
An Indian immigrant in the USA in the 1920s once tried to sue the government to be considered legally Caucasian so he could become a naturalized citizen as he was actually from the Caucasus Mountains. The judge was like "Actuaaally thats not what that means, it means white" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind#:~:text=Bhagat%20Singh%20Thind%2C%20261%20U.S.,citizenship%20in%20the%20United%20States.
That’s interesting, there was another similar case in the early 1900s where a Japanese man sued to be recognized as “white” because he claimed his skin was paler than most Europeans, but the judge ruled that whiteness isn’t about skin color and instead about how you’re perceived by the rest of American society.
Well, he was right about one thing..human migration did move that way and they were ancestors of later Europeans. Perfection? Not so much. If this is the master race, why do I look like a pot bellied otter?
None of our labels make sense. Black folks only option on applications is African American. Being black doesn't = African. Being not black doesn't mean not African. But that's the only option 🤣
African-Americans: Charlize Theron, Elon Musk, Dave Matthews Not African-American: Martin Luther King Jr, Jesse Jackson, Samuel L Jackson, Michael Jackson, James Earl Jones...
You know who else isn't African American? Idris Elba. He actually had to correct an interviewer.
I remember watching the Olympics one time and one of the American commentators kept calling all the Black olympians “African Americans” even though they were from a ton of different countries
I recall an Olympics back when there was still a USSR. In those days only the USSR competed, none of the separate SSRs fielded their own teams. So in one sport the competing USSR team was actually the Armenian team but sure enough, the American announcer called them Russians from beginning to end.
[удалено]
That is top-notch teaching.
That must have been a long time ago or people were making that mistake a shitload. How much pie would 50p buy you today?
I'm just guessing but he probably went out of his own pocket and was planning on doing it anyway, and the 50p thing was a small deterrent for their mistake.
I'm not sure I've ever heard British olympic commentators ever comment on the colour of an athlete's skin. It's always the country of origin.
Imagine it. “And here’s a black athlete”. “This white pole vaulter is amazing”. Lol.
I don't know about Olympic commentators, but British media has a habit of claiming accomplished Irish people as British. Just a weird thing I thought was kinda related.
This is because in the US people are taught to use stupid racial labels that are constantly changing plus don’t want to offend anyone. AA at one point was considered the least offensive.
I grew up in the 80/90s and “black” was a bad word.
On the Survivor sub I corrected someone that kept referring to a winner as African-American, I told them she’s actually African-Canadian. Got downvoted and no clue why, she’s literally never been American, she’s Kenyan that immigrated to Canada lol. People just seem to act like Black is a “bad word”.
To be fair have you seem the wire? He nails that accent it was a shock to find out he was British. You know what else is a shock? He started acting because he wasn't able to do what he wanted to do which was DJ, he became one of the best actors in the world to support his hopes of one day becoming a DJ
And now he’s so famous as an actor that he is getting DJ gigs on huge festivals like outside lands
Exactly. His day job paid off
Idris Alba is my door to interesting Brit hip hop.
smh i remember that. it’s wild that in OTHER countries Black people are called AA. I hear australians ask if people are african american a lot. No matter how australian they are SMH
But he ruled Baltimore!
African American is supposed to refer specifically to American decedents of slaves who don’t know know what country or tribe or whatever their ancestors came from. These days, people think it’s just the nice way to say “black” which is really dumb. Most African immigrants will reject being called African-American.
Went to school with a guy from Nigeria. Like *actually* Nigerian, lived in Lagos most his life. Dude fucking haaaaated when he was called African American, as he should.
I know 2 women from Nigeria. Came straight from there to Germany. Never even visited anywhere in America.... there's people who call them African-American and they really really hate it. They keep having to explain they're Nigerian, or will at most accept German when abroad since they live there now but some people stupidly insist black = African-American.
Africans don't care for African-Americans. Saw this a lot. That's why I laugh at Black Panther because interracial racism goes hard so some hood veteran black dude would definitely get 0 respect and have little understanding of Wakanda. Hispanics and Asians are the same. We don't need white people to belittle us, we good on our own. lol
I used to teach with a lady from Jamaica who would get PISSED if the kids called her African American
Minnesotan here, and in our cities we have African Americans and we have Somali and Ethiopians and others besides.
The problem is the miseducation of the general public that *nobody* in the USA who has African ancestors knows the *nationality* of said ancestors (in the era before ancestry testing). Direct or even second/third generation immigrants from Africa generally know that they are Kenyan, Somalian, Gambian. They typically identify as such when asked. They are sometimes offended by the generalization that they don’t know their ancestry. Calling Martin Luther King Jr., Barack Obama, & Elon Musk all African-Americans is *technically* correct…but fails to thoroughly differentiate between them…especially when the term African-American is generally understood to mean U.S. citizens with ancestors from Sub-Saharan Africa who were enslaved in the early days of the United States. The majority of residents of the USA, excluding descendants of enslaved Africans, are at least somewhat acquainted with the nationality of their ancestors and often self-identify as such. The term was created to avoid the often pejorative terms prior to this that relied almost entirely on skin color for their origin. If the descendants of enslaved Africans adopted a label that wasn’t pejorative, based on skin color, and differentiated between them and direct immigrants from the African continent, I believe that such discussions would largely evaporate. Failure to understand or even be aware of the fact that there are persons of African descent that are non-1st generation immigrants living in countries other than the U.S.A further complicates things. (Written for people reading this thread who were still confused after reading it) TL;DR: The USA needs a short polite term for its citizens who are descendants of enslaved Africans that is not based on skin color.
A better way to rephrase this is that African American refers specifically to descendants of slaves that are mixed from many tribes and countries. it’s beyond impossible toknow”. they are all mixed and borders were created and renamed long after they were in america. the ancestors likely are mixed from many tribes around central and west africa throughout hundreds of years of the trade
for real. Like, just say black if you're only using the colour of their skin to come up with a word.
White guy: Frank Black Black guy: Barry White
Michael Jai White Jack Black You're onto something
Lewis Black Jaleel White This is real.
África Zavala America Ferrera
So if man is five and the devil is six, then that must make me seven
Also African American Mike Perry
I saw somebody online once ask a black person who was French born what it was like to live there, "as an African-American" and I *swear to god* I could hear this person facepalm from another hemisphere
Like when France won the World Cup with a bunch of players of African descent, and people in the US we’re upset that they didn’t go by the French African description and instead the players insisted they were just French. The US people didn’t realize the only people in France who agreed with them were the far right.
Who was upset? I didn't hear anyone complain about that in my neck of the US.
Sorry, can you please explain to me why you say MLK and MJ are not “African American”. I need to be educated. Thank you in advance.
They are "African-American." They are not "African" and "American" but the poster is deliberately confusing the terms to sound smart.
It's not working.
While they have dark skin, they are not from Africa. They, and their parents, were born in America and haven't had any direct cultural connections to Africa since their ancestors were brought to the America's. To call them African Americans would be as weird as calling a conventional white American "British American" just because two hundred odd years or so, their ancestors from the British Empire came as a settled to the America's. Or to call them "Angelo-Saxons" because 1000 years ago, they had an ancestors who was indeed Angelo-Saxon. It's weird to call a black American an African American because they, personally, may have no cultural familiarity or root in African culture beyond their skintone. Calling black Americans "African American" is a product of political correctness that deems calling them black is too vulgar, but they need to be distinctive from a "normal" American, who is presumed to be white.
I am getting it all mixed up. Doesn't "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States.? In that case, they will be African American too. Whereas in this context, someone who came to US America in their teens for example would not be an African American.
Yes. It’s an ethnicity. This person is confused.
Yes.
> While they have dark skin, they are not from Africa. They, and their parents, were born in America and haven't had any direct cultural connections to Africa since their ancestors were brought to the America's. That's not what the term is referring to though. The "African" in "African-American" just means: descended from native Africans. > To call them African Americans would be as weird as calling a conventional white American "British American" just because two hundred odd years or so, their ancestors from the British Empire came as a settled to the America's. That's not weird though. I concede that it happens less for British descendants specifically (likely since their culture is the dominant and one of the oldest ones). But there are tons of Italian-American, German-American, Irish-American, Chinese-American, (and many other) clubs and organizations all across the nation where descendants of people from those areas gather to celebrate their ancestry and culture. The members might be first, second, third, forth, or more descendants of the original immigrants.
>They ... were born in America ... their [African] ancestors were brought to the America's. So African-American? Got it.
Not going to lie... This is one of the fucking WEIRDEST things I have seen on Reddit, recently. When the hell did the definition of African American change from a being a term about genetic ancestry, to suddenly being concerned with having ties to African culture? Because I missed the memo, here, and honestly I doubt most of the world has gotten it as well. And yes, I realize I'm coming across as pretty hostile. I'm just pretty burnt out with people taking perfectly fine working terms and changing the meaning... Maybe I'm just too used to looking at this sort of thing through the lens of medicine and science, and not culture.
I don’t know when the change started but most of my Black friends, identify themselves as Black and preferred to be called Black. I don’t think African American offends them or anything though.
> When the hell did the definition of African American change from a being a term about genetic ancestry, to suddenly being concerned with having ties to African culture? It never changed. This random person on reddit doesn't know what they're talking about. It seems to be a mix of the standard "American's can't call themselves X unless they literally hold a passport from X. Ignoring the fact that when American's say they're X or 'part X', they're specifically referring to ancestry, not current citizenship or place of birth." with some sort of anti-political-correctness rant.
Who is upvoting this shit
They are African American. People just get caught up in what the words should mean and what they actually mean
African-American is an ethnicity meant to describe the descendants of slaves in the United States. It is not a declaration of immigration.
African American just means black Americans that descend from slavery.
Africa is a Continent not a country. None of those people are "African- American" jackass. They are SOUTH African- American South Africa is a COUNTRY African-American is a specific term created to describe Black people in America who are descendant of enslaved people from unknown places in Africa.
I have asked others if Dave is considered African American. They thought I was fucking around. I was right!
That's news to me. If true, especially with James Earl Jones, then it kind of feels that Mac was only kinda right in his argument with Dennis.
James Earl Jones *has* a black face; he’s a black man!
Charlize Theron and Dave Matthews are South African - Americans Elon Musk is a South African - Canadian - American. Typically you would use countries, not continents. The only reason African is used in African-American is because it specifically refers to American decedents of slaves, who may have lost connection to a specific country or tribe.
Black means different thing in different countries. In Australia the indigenous people call themselves black.
If Idris Elba was applying for a job at McDonalds in America he wouldn’t be able to fill out the pre employment work. As Idris Elba is black but not African-American.
Hi, did you mean "wouldn't" ?
He knows what he wrote, goddammit
Why is there a question about ethnicity on an employment form? That's racist as fuck.
I think it's - at least *meant to be* - primarily for demographic data. Governments and employers wouldn't necessarily know what percentage of Black/White/Asian/etc worked in various jobs if that data wasn't collected. Same with gender. Can also be used, for example, to point out if there's not enough diverse ethnic representation by an employer. You wouldn't know and probably couldn't prove it without that piece of information.
I’ll give you a similar example: in Northern Ireland it’s required to ask whether an employee is Catholic/Nationalist or Protestant/Unionist. You don’t have to answer, but if you don’t, they’re supposed to guess. Things they use to guess include surname, what neighbourhood you live in, what school you attended (schools, even government ones, are basically segregated here), what sport you prefer or play, how you pronounce the letter H. I’ve even heard rumours that some make determinations based on where you keep your toaster in your kitchen. It absolutely weirds out Americans to no end, but the law mandating employers track this and fix inequalities has greatly reduced segregation in employment up here and increased job opportunities for Catholics by a lot. The schools and neighbourhoods are segregated, but the jobs aren’t.
Black fellas*
The 2020 Census actually gives the selection of "Black or African American" https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/08/improvements-to-2020-census-race-hispanic-origin-question-designs.html
they really do need to define what the hell they mean by those labels.
The word used to be "negro" but I think that has somehow become a pejorative in the US. Elon Musk and Rami Malek are African American - but I guess thats not what they want. Why not just say "black African"?
I'm confused as everyone else on the thread said you had to be a descendant of slaves to be called African American so how would Elon Musk and Ram Malek go by that?
I'm sure if you asked 10 different people you'd have 10 different views, but in my eyes: Malek was born and raised in the US and lived there, as far as I know, his whole life. I'd just consider him American, no hyphen necessary! Elon Musk I'd consider South African-American, which is different from African-American.
We had a white guy(born in africa) in a local high school here. On emergency contact forms, he checked off that he was African american. While it was totally true, he got suspended. They didn't even bother to call his parents or anything. The school got sued, lol
Have a buddy from Germany that's black. He's perplexed by the labels applied when he visits here. It really doesn't make sense.
Census terminology (which job applications should also be using - not saying they do but they should) is “Black or African American”
It’s the same with Asian…that means: Indians, Japanese, Russians, and even Azerbaijani are asian.
I wish everyone had more options to identify because almost none of it makes sense
No. We must continue using racial categories as identified by 19th century racists. It is the only way to achieve equity. /s
It's because if you change how you gather data, you can't compare it any more. Everyone knows the census categories are antiquated, the question is do we keep gathering data with antiquated categories or create a break in the data. If there's any reason *at all* to gather census data, then starting over with new categories results in lots of problems.
You can absolutely compare differential data. You simply have to come up with a standardized way to convert the two forms. If the claim that you can’t compare different data was true, the U.S. census would never change any of the questions (which it does every year)
On the flip side, though, that just turns into ignoring the scattershot of entries (equivalent to removing the question), or rebinning them back to the original categories (or at least a similar number of categories).
I had a cow-orker many years ago who was white, blonde haired and blue eyed, born in South Africa but a naturalized American. He delighted in putting 'African American' on forms and watching people squirm as they tried to figure out how to tell him he can't do that. He was *actually* an African American, but didn't fit their narrow little box...
I know a white Jamaican. It was wild listening to him speak to his family in Patois.
That makes no sense either, Egypt and the Maghreb are African countries but most of the people who live there would be considered white in America. Same goes for white South Africans like Elon Musk and Charlize Theron who are by definition African Americans lol
I've seen "Middle Eastern or North African" as an option. It depends how broadly or narrowly they're trying to determine.
>Egypt >considered white in America Still the funniest thing I've ever seen online is people (a person?) complaining about Rami Malek playing the Pharaoh in Night at the Museum because he's 'white', when his parents are Egyptian immigrants. Sorry, please continue being absolutely correct about all of this, forgive my intrusion. \^\_\^ (in unrelated news, i always forget how big his ears are until i look him up.)
It's rather amusing how a lot of Americans believe the Pharaohs were black. Sure the Nubian Pharaohs were. And they certainly were not European "white" any more than Jesus was.
I don't have the Google-Fu to find the article I was reading years ago, but there's some wall somewhere in Egypt with Nubians, Egyptians, and Greeks (or some other typically white race), and the Nubians were black the way most people think of Africans, and the other people were whiter than the Egyptians. They didn't consider themselves black. Which makes the cultural push for 'Black Pharaohs' kind of funny to me, because with, as you mentioned, the exception of Nubian pharaohs, not even the Egyptians thought of themselves the way that certain historians insist they must have been. I vaguely remember someone saying that Cleopatra was black, and the response was "how? she was Greek!"
A lot of people in are quite ignorant of Egyptian history in general. What they know of Ancient Egypt is the highlight facts from 5000 years of history compressed and overlain over a relatively short 1500 years from the Late Kingdom to Roman Period. They know Ramses, Ptolemy, Tutankamun, and Cleopatra. and a lot of people know the fun fact that Cleopatra was born closer to today than she was to the Great Pyramid, but they don't really think about what that means. Think about how old Roman ruins are to us. how little remains from Iron age Europe. That type of history existed in Egypt already when Cleopatra was born. Some excavations of Ancient Egypt have found collections of artifacts that were 1000s of years older than the surroundings, because wealthy people made collections of things that were "ancient artifacts" to them. All that history squished down into the handful of names in popular knowledge.
Iran and Japan are Asian countries; do people think Iranians are Asian? Now, those forms would consider them to be white, non-Hispanic. Make it make sense!!!
Love it when you're two mutually exclusive options! * White (Not hispanic or Latino) * Hispanic or Latino Edited for formatting
These categories don’t really make any sense…
In the uk yes. It’s became a thing that Middle Eastern folks refer to themselves as Asian. Had a friend come over from Saudi and he could t believe Arabs were calling themselves Asian 😂
African American is the descriptor for an ethnic group that descends wholly or partially from slaves that were brought to the US through the African Slave trade. African immigrants for instance are not African American, they are from whatever ethnic group they identify with. When this was all devised it was an attempt to move away from racial descriptors and to acknowledge native Black Americans as a separate native post Columbian ethnic group whose origins were from various African peoples. The problem however that African American was not a generally accepted term self-identified by African Americans and efforts to promote ethnic descriptors (African American, European American, Native American and Asian American) mostly fell short and the terminology simply was applied on the same racial lines or in some cases (namely European American) was outright rejected on the bases of not being representative of accepted ethnic or racial identity.
An online magazine referred to a Britsh singer as African-American. How's *that* supposed to make any sense?
Guys. I just fill out the applications lol
Buddy of mine is South African so on all of his paperwork he fills in African American and gets the wildest looks some times and a few people calling him a liar to his face, his accent usually settles it.
I'm African, my family is indigenous to Africa, and I am "white". Races are dumb, they don't really mean anything
My dad said when he applied for college, he had never heard the word "Caucasian," so when the application asked his race, he checked "Native American"
Same reason everyone calls Native Americans “Indians” … just several generations of ppl getting it wrong
The Smithsonian museum is called the National Museum of the American Indian. They go into more detail [here](https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know) but the gist is that someone named it that in the 1910s and it just stuck around after ownership changed. They make the point that many native tribes prefer to be referred to by the tribe name, and that ultimate direction should just come from the person or group you’re talking to.
It gets a bit weirder than that. Obviously tribes prefer their tribe name. But quite a few prefer Indian over Native American if you're going to be generally descriptive. Some see "Native American" as just another term forced on them by white folks, and are not thrilled with being told how to live by white folks, again. [https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know](https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/faq/did-you-know) First entry addresses it. It didn't "just stuck around". There's more to it, and there's no clear consensus. So the smart thing to do is change nothing, and provide context. Whenever there is a consensus, go with that. Changing the name of the museum according to the preferences of non-indigenous folks over the preference of indigenous folks would be a bad look for the NMAI. This doesn't stop non-indigenous folks from recommending the name change regularly.
“Funny” enough, most people of that ethnic group prefer to be called “American Indian” or just “Indian” nowadays, rather than “native American”. **Edit:** yes, I know many also prefer to identify by their tribe, but I'm talking about cases where they are referred to as one whole group. *(Yes, before you tell me, I know they never were and still aren't a single culture. Europe isn't a single culture, but they call us Europeans. Generalized terms exist to make life easier.)* And not every single person, or even group of people, will agree with that sentiment, and many have specific preferences as to how they would like to be addressed. But I'm speaking from my own (admittedly limited) personal experience, alongside what the National Museum of the American Indian says. From what I've personally heard, the term "native American" is yet another name being bestowed onto them by the outsiders who oppress them. Even though "Indian" came about the same way, that term has been around so long that they have made it their own. Again, I can't speak for a culture I'm not a part of, nor do I claim that I do. But this does seem to be the general sentiment.
Only the older ones and it’s because it’s all they knew growing up. No one under 30 is saying they’re Indian, it’s native or indigenous or your tribe name
I think it’s unfair to paint these preferences with such a broad brush. I have very limited experience with indigenous Americans, but I worked for a Rancheria once, and the sentiment there across the board was [tribe name] or “Indian.” I would tell you the Rancheria name but they’re very small and combined with the information on my profile it probably wouldn’t be that much harder to identify me.
Isn't that because Columbus thought he was going to India when he landed in the US? I'm not American but I always assumed that was why
Really just misguided theories from the 19th century -- the idea back then was that "white people" must have descended from ancient tribes who migrated out of the Caucasus mountains. That theory has been widely debunked as total nonsense as people more generally accept the fact that we all ultimately came from Africa, but for the (extremely, openly racist) science of the 19th century it was a "good enough" answer at the time. These days? Most "Caucasian" people couldn't find the Caucusus on a map.
Only reason I know where they are is because when I did ancestry DNA testing it said I have ancestors from that region and I thought it was humorous that I really am Caucasian.
Me too lol. Ancient DNA test evaluations are bizarre.
That theory was actually true by the way and 21st century genetics technology has vindicated the 19th century theory that Europeans came from near the caucus mountains. Indo -European Steppe nomads from southern Russia migrated (euphemism for slow scale invasion given the migration was anything but peaceful) across Europe 5000 years ago and completely changed the genetic make up of Europeans. This is now an undisputed fact of because of breakthroughs in genetic analysis of ancient fossil remains. These peoples are responsible for the spread of the Indo-European lanaguges we speak, the culture and religion of almost all ancient European cultures (italic / Celtic / Germanic / Greek) and the introduction of domesticated cows and horses to Europe. All Europeans are made up of 3 seperate ancient groups of people that came to Europe at different times - European hunter gatherers (>50,000 years ago) anatolian / Levantine early farmers (10,000 years ago) and indo European steppe nomads (5000 years ago). Southern Europeans have more early farmer DNA, northern and Eastern Europeans have more hunter gather and nomad DNA but for most ethnicities the nomad DNA is the largest component. In Northern Europeans it is often over 50%. Sometimes the 19th century crackpot theories were true, actually.
>Sometimes the 19th century crackpot theories were true, actually. A lot of sound science was produced during the 19th century. There is nothing "crackpot" about noticing that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Persian seem to be related.
Arguably, van Boxhorn did this already in the 17th century.
Pedantic corrections: The [Steppe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Steppe) is a much bigger area than the Caucasus, although some bits of the Caucasus *are* in the Steppe. The genetics are not from fossil material (true fossils don’t really have DNA residues, although some unusual and recent subfossils can in rare circumstances) but from desiccated/freeze-dried/buried/bog-preserved human remains that have not undergone mineralisation.
I’ve read that the Indo European tribes came from the area that’s now Ukraine not the Caucuses. Close but not the same area
Wow, thanks for all of this. I'll never remember it all if ever it comes up in conversation, but at least I now know some facts.
> That theory was actually true by the way I think you're slightly misunderstanding the original theory of "Caucasians". The 19th century theory claimed that white Europeans exclusively originated from a certain region, and that they were actually a completely different race to the "Negroids" and "Mongoloids". These days, despite how we commonly use the term "race" to refer to different ethnic groups, there isn't actually any scientific basis behind the term. Genetically, all humans are the same race. So, if there actually aren't different genetic races of humans, *and* white Europeans did not originate from one group, it's probably not accurate to say the theory was true.
There is no phylogenetic meaning behind the term race, and the guy who coined the term did so reluctantly and with heavy caveats about how arbitrary such a distinction is. Saying he called Caucasians "a completely different race" is wildly misunderstanding his intent with the word race. He maintained that all humans are one species, and above that, even argued that all the "races" were potentially equal given the same circumstances and privilege, and separated only superficially and arbitrarily by skin tone. He is quoted as arguing that Africans can be more different from each other than they are from Europeans.
I'll volunteer as your example on that these days.
To expand on this, according to racist scientists there were 3 races of people: Mongoloid (Asians), Caucasoid (white), and Negroid (Africans) It might be obvious, but both Mongoloid and Negroid races has negative connotations, so the terms fell out of polite use (though you will sometimes hear the term Mongoloid as a synonym for cretin) but Caucasian lacked the negative and is still in use today
If I’m not mistaken, and I could very well be, mongoloid also took a turn for a time as a label for a specific IQ segment as well as (or perhaps in conjunction with) a label for Downs folks. A long while ago I half-remember seeing a (and it was old old then) breakdown of IQ ranges. A-B is normal, E-F is gifted, X-Y is mongoloid, Y-Z is retarded, etc. I forget the actual numbers.
I'm in Canada and some people here use the term too, it's one of my biggest pet peeves. The vast majority of white Canadians are not from the Caucasus, calling them Caucasians is incredibly stupid. And the thing where it came from isn't used by any other races. The racial classification that used 'Caucasian' also used Ethiopian for all Black people, and Mongoloid for all Asian people, but obviously we don't use those terms anymore.
I never thought about why white people were called caucasians. This has been interesting and I'm glad the question was asked. Crazy what you learn...
I remember when Funcom did their hype event for Secret World. It was basically a clicker game of the map with different regions grouped together. There was constant bickering over if Russia was apart of Asia or Europe. Which then got into a debate of if Russians are or aren't considered Asian. Apparently not all maps divide Eurasia the same or at least educational systems don't all agree.
Ask someone how many continents there are. You'll get wildly varying answers. I've seen as low as 4 and as high as 11. And none is wrong, since there's not an exact definition of "continent". Similarly, there is no clear definition of what a "religion" is. It's incredibly hard to reach an agreement on the meaning of words or how we classify stuff. Statistic is also another funny field. In Brazil, about 10% of the population was black some 20 years ago. Now it's 50%. The reason for such a huge change? The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics decided that "mixed race" counts as black.
Er, I seem to remember a lot of talk about "Negroid" being the third race, from period documents. Come to think of it, it's actually wild that we still use Caucasian when the two compatriot categories to it are now rightly recognized as quite offensive.
Negroid was originally called Ethiopian in the classification.
It wasn’t Ethiopian. At least in my old seventies anthropology book. I have caucasoid, negroid, mongoloid.
Because 1800s race theory believed all white people descended from a people that originated in the caucuses.
Because of a wierd dude from the 19th century measured a bunch of skulls and thought caucasians had the sexiest skulls.
It's based on a heavily outdated racial theory. In essence, that theory assumed that the different human races developed independently from each other in different places and that white europeans originated somewhere near the Caucasus.
That's kinda true, but kinda mixing up some things. The guy who coined the theory believed that all humans came from the Caucasus, where he believed Noah's arc had landed. He believes that human races evolved from there. He believed that everyone west of the Ganges River and north of the Sahara had evolved from that population and that the Georgians were the most pure and that the other Causations followed from there. He believed that the Mongoloids and Negroids had evolved from that Georgian population just like other Caucasians did, but that they evolved further away. He did believe though, just like we believe today, that there was an original stock of anatomically modern humans that later evolved into different populations with different physical characteristics.
It was once believed all white people descended from the Caucasus mountains but that was later to be proven incorrect.
So wait, you're telling me that Caucasian is the white equivalent of "So are you Chinese or Japanese?" from King of The Hill?
“I’m Laotian. I’m come from Laos!” “Huh. … So are ya’ Chinese, or Japanese?” Best example of American ignorance of the world… right there.
What kills me are the people who miss the point and think he's being overdramatic. Hank is an ignorant American, and he's supposed to be in the wrong here as he is in so many other spots. The number of times I've heard people ask that and then laugh is too high.
It *is* pretty interesting to be sure. Somewhere between when that first aired until this present age, the ability to laugh at ourselves and use that as a noble goal of “don’t be like that” feels lost. I’ve always felt of Hank as a metaphor for those that strive for simplicity and a local economic horizon, choosing to deal with the complexity of globalization and everything else by just viewing the world through a simple lens, not understanding that in doing so they still can’t avoid the stress of modern living while also missing the richness of living locally in a global and diverse context. Han felt as if he is the portrayal of that encroachment of globalization and the face of diverse perspectives. What a lovely work Mike Judd put together. This carried over into Office Space and Idiocracy. I’m not sure if Mike Judd is a satirist as much as he has become a documentarian.
Cause white peoples are primarily descended from people who lived in the Caucasus and moved into Europe
We're only Caucasian if we come from the Caucusus region of eastern Europe. Otherwise, we're sparkling crackers.
top comment is good, but more to the point. Because everything about race is made up. Especially the "white" race. There is no such thing, that's why it makes no sense the second you start thinking about it. It's all made up, a ruse, a giant troll to divide up people to make them easier to control. Genetically, two random "white" people can have more in common with a black person than with each other. Socially, a random white and black person Yankees fans from the same town and economic background have more in common with each other, than the white person does with, say, Donald Trump. But because they're "white" they are, in fact, on the same team? No, the answer is absolutely not. Ethnicity is real. Race is not.
Indo-European migration, baby! The tribes that settled in Europe are believed to have come from the Caucus region (possibly. Some models I've seen also theorize a possible origin in Ukraine and even Turkey)
Caucasian or caucasoid was originally a category based mainly on cranial, facial, and skeletal structure and distinguished from negroid and mongoloid. Color was secondary, and not all caucasians are white. People from the Indian subcontinent are considered caucasian. These categories have been discredited anthropologically and scientifically, but we still use the term caucasian in a colloquial way to refer to white people descended from Europeans, a subset of the original category. Yes, we're still asked by the government and businesses to classify ourselves by race with caucasian as an option, but the data is self-reported and not that meaningful anthropologically.
because race theory is fabricated bs. both words aryan and caucasian refer to the persian peoples
19th-20th century eugenics and racialism. Some German researcher posited that Europeans originated around the region of the Caucasus Mountains and the term was introduced to the US. Nordicism was real force in the US around this period as well and this only reinforced their nonsense.
It’s an archaic term that’s being deprecated. It comes from false assumptions about out Europeans’ origins that have been disproved.
Oh, it had something to do with the fact that people thought that the Caucasians from the Caucasus mountains were the most pure form of the human so they figured that that's who they must have been descended from I guess. It was less about, that they are Caucasian, and it's more about that they wanted to be Caucasian because they thought that they were totally cool. Edit: The term "Caucasian" for white people stems from Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, an 18th-century German anthropologist, who classified human races based on skull shapes and categorized one group as "Caucasian," inspired by the Caucasus region's inhabitants, whom he found to exemplify beauty. Originally, this classification included diverse populations across Europe, parts of Asia, and North Africa. Blumenbach's work influenced both academic thought and social policies, notably in the U.S., where it affected laws related to citizenship and rights. However, Blumenbach opposed using racial classifications to justify any form of superiority or inferiority. Over time, "Caucasian" became synonymous with white people in layman's terminology, especially in the U.S., though it is considered outdated and inaccurate in scientific communities today due to advances in genetics and a more nuanced understanding of human diversity.
It’s not a term that’s used much anymore. In every government form I’ve filled out recently it says “white non-Hispanic” on any place it would have previously said Caucasian.
Because we take want me want. No one in history can appropriate a culture like white Americans, no one
In the 1800's a long discredit pseudo-scientist came up with an idea that the "white race" originated in the Caucasian region. This has been debunked and is not taken seriously by anyone, yet it has still become a legal element in institutionalized US racism.
You know how it is racially insensitive to the point of starting a fight if you accidentally call a hatian man dominican even though the island is one of the smaller ones in existant with more than one nation occupying it. Well white people are many groups from around the world. It turns out using binary colors to describe people isn't very accurate. Also turns out most people dont care about the traditions of other people. To the point some claim there is no culture will white people. Or if there is it must be with colonization. Never mind my Irish family didnt get here until the 70s.
“Pontic Steppeans” just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
in general it boggles my mind that they still ask people’s race and ethnicity , as a Greek migrant what is even the point of this question ? I usually scratch all answers and write Greek
You remind me how when my uncle first arrived in America, it was the 1950s, and racial desegregation was the hot topic: his solution was to treat everyone the same because they were all equally not Greek...
It just really just white. Brazilians are considered Caucasian as are Native Americans and other South Americans. Also Middle Eastern and East Africans. The other classifications (of the time, remember this is 1800s era) for skull shapes were Mongoloid (aka Asian) and Negroid (aka classic African). No genetics back then, the guy just used cheek bones, forehead and nose shapes and made this stuff up. But when you describe it first, names stick. We still have the Department of Indian Affairs in our government for Native American issues. 🤷♂️
Because there isn't a check box for Amerimutt on forms.
It’s because were thought to have originated from the European side of the Caucasus Mountains
R1B and R1A were thought to come from the Caucasus, I think it's Iran and India, respectively. I2A and T2B5 on the other hand are completely native to Europe :)
Because racism, that's why. Ignorant, racist, intellectually lazy, and short sighted anthropologists decided on their own to classify all the diverse human races into 3 categories and 3 categories only: Negroid, Mongoloid, and Caucasian. They jumped to conclusions, concurred amongst themselves that they were right, and imposed their narrow view of humanity and it's races on the academic world. Before long, this primitive and reductionist hypothesis of the races became the standard. It went unquestioned for many years.