Also, what meaning is given to calling someone "Asian". It's a vast continent. What does a Mongolian have in common with a Pakistani, besides being human? Europe is just smaller, and it doesn't have a major desert separating populations like Africa does. But it's notable to consider how the British Isles have had their own ethnic struggles amongst the English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish, just in that little small area. There was certainly a time when they didn't all consider themselves to belong to the same race.

Who has some specific references for when the categories of 'white', 'black', 'yellow', and 'red' were constructed and became common? Also, when were the Irish not considered 'white' and by whom? When were the French or Greeks or Jews (like, Russian Jews) not considered 'white' and by whom?

the English, Welsh, Irish and Scottish, just in that little small area. — Marchesk

Or consider the long history of ethnic conflicts in Palestine which is even smaller and littler. Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, Samaritans, Judeans, Israelites, etc. Twelve tribes of tiny Israel?

How about, people have considered themselves and others to belong to varying groups over time — Marchesk

Here we see the motte and bailey technique of the postmodernist on display. Make provocative claims when skirmishing at first, such as "being white is a social construction," and when challenged, retreat back into safety by making an utterly banal and unchallengeable point. People have considered themselves and others to belong to varying groups over time? Gee whiz, you don't say! Next you'll be telling me that people have dressed differently over time! But see, that wouldn't prove that cotton, silk, or wool are "social constructions."

You can't get away with making a prima facie absurd claim like "being white is socially constructed" as if it were self-evident. The "better way of saying it," as you put it, is in fact not a way of saying it at all. It's to say something completely different. So pick one and stick to it.

Good questions. Wiki claims it was late 17th century for the term modern use of white, but I suppose you would want a more substantial source.

You can't get away with making a prima facie absurd claim like "being white is socially constructed" as if it were self-evident. The "better way of saying it," as you put it, is in fact not a way of saying it at all. It's to say something completely different. So pick one and stick to it. — Thorongil

The point is that people in Europe didn't consider themselves to be white before a certain point. They considered themselves to be in other categories, usually associated with their homeland, culture, language and religion.

What is the counter argument to this obvious observation? That Europeans were white before they considered themselves to be white? Based on what? Their lighter skin color compared to certain populations in other parts of the world?

Let's ask a different question. What is the usefulness in calling an entire continent of people "white" or "black" or whatever? What role does it serve?

The point is that people in Europe didn't consider themselves to be white before a certain point. — Marchesk

Nonsense. Are you honestly going to tell me that ancient Europeans failed to notice their own skin tone? If not, then by "white" you mean something other than "white," in which case you ought to use different vocabulary so as to avoid equivocating.

Nonsense. Are you honestly going to tell me that ancient Europeans failed to notice the similarity in their skin tones? If not, then by "white" you mean something other than "white," in which case you ought to use different vocabulary so as to avoid equivocating. — Thorongil

You mean like "pink" or "tan" or even light brown? I'm sure people have always noticed differences. A red headed, freckled person who burns easily in the sun can look significantly different from someone else of the same ethnicity. So can a tall skinny person compared to someone stocky. So how do we go about grouping regarding difference? Do you think the Vikings considered themselves kin with Italians?

You're assuming that all Europeans would have agreed that they belong in some common group based on relatively lighter skin color than people from different geographic locations, despite all the regional differences amongst various European groups throughout history.

What would make a Spaniard or Italian more white than an Arab to a Northern or Eastern European? Is it because the Arabs have to cross a sea?

Their lighter skin color compared to certain populations in other parts of the world? — Marchesk

Yes. You're catching on.

What is the usefulness in calling an entire continent of people "white" or "black" or whatever? What role does it serve? — Marchesk

Not much. It's just a very generalized descriptive fact. I'm with Morgan Freeman:

Do you think the Vikings considered themselves kin with Italians? — Marchesk

No, but they would have noticed that the Italians had a similar complexion to themselves, one noticeably lighter than their Moorish friends, for example.

However, later classicists have responded that Snowden's work unnecessarily reduced all forms of racism to its peculiarly American version based on skin color and others markers of non-white identity. Thus, Benjamin Isaac (2004) and Denise McCoskey (2012) contend that the ancient Greeks and Romans did hold proto-racist views that applied to other groups which today might be considered white. Isaac persuasively argues that these views must be considered proto-racist: although they were formed without the aid of a modern race concept grounded in ideas of deterministic biology (2004, 5), they nevertheless resembled modern racism by attributing “to groups of people common characteristics considered to be unalterable because they are determined by external factors or heredity” (2004, 38).

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/race/#HisConRac

You ever read Edward Said's Orientalism? Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth?

Or how about this. Leopold II's letter to missionaries:
http://www.fafich.ufmg.br/~luarnaut/Letter%20Leopold%20II%20to%20Colonial%20Missionaries.pdf

Postmodernism alert!

Is that like abstract expressionism?

Is it like we're discussing a Jackson Pollock?


How deep does the humour run in the dribbles of paint on canvas?

comeuppance

I was shocked to see you use this word. Are you from that part of the world, or did you know someone from those parts?


(I come from there and even I would never use that phrase)

I was shocked to see you use this word. Are you from that part of the world, or did you know someone from those parts? — Punshhh

There was a Simpsons episode with Homer saying he was going to avoid his comeuppance. May have been when he became a food critic.

Thanks, it's seems it was adopted by early Americans(U.S. citizens(God this is a minefied)). I always thought it was a Yorkshire dialect word, because my gran used it a lot, and she barely travelled outside the county of Yorkshire, well except when she went to Bognor Regis.

Maybe, the word travelled back over the pond, because folk over here thought it was one of their words.

and saying which were their favorites. — The Great Whatever

For me, it's the McChicken. The best fast food sandwich.

How is "beneficial to interests" different from meeting one's preferences with respect to interests? — Terrapin Station

I have explained this multiple times now. I don't know why it isn't getting through to you. Let's be honest, you already know the difference, and behind all of this posturing, you know that I'm right.

For the last time, one's preferences obviously don't have to be beneficial to one's interests.

Now, stop this, because it is beginning to look like trolling.

(And how are one's interests not just preferences?) — Terrapin Station

You must enjoy me repeating myself. Because they're different. Those words mean different things, and they can, and do in fact, refer to different things in some cases, which aren't difficult to discover, and which you yourself can discover from thinking about your own experience. If you tell me that you've never experienced anything you like which wasn't in your best interests, then frankly you are full of crap.

Also, aren't you conflating "best for one's interests" and "best interests"? And then within that, you're pretending that a preference for meeting interests isn't a preference. — Terrapin Station

No.

Let's be honest, you already know the difference, and behind all of this posturing, you know that I'm right. — Sapientia

So I'm just being dishonest to aggravate you or something in your view?

So I'm just being dishonest to aggravate you or something in your view? — Terrapin Station

I suspect you of willful ignorance. You are clinging to your position, even if it means accepting falsehoods, which, perhaps deep down, you know to be falsehoods.

So now you're positing unconscious beliefs too?

What do you think the motivation for "willful ignorance" would be?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism

I will just quietly say: I'm so excited! And I think I like it! I'm about to lose control and I think I like it! Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
okay, I am likely done
for today
maybe
(Y)

Btw: Positive Unintended Consequences of Trump being elected
Sales of Rosary Prayer Beads and Mala Prayer beads are flying off the shelf! I may not have a free moment away from my jewelry bench for the next four years!

On election night, I lost my entire family. My fiance, who I've been working for 7 years to clear the way to finally get married is now probably barred from entering the US. Most of my family are Trump supporters, so they essentially pushed for me to be shipped off to a concentration camp, so I won't be seeing them for Thanksgiving or Christmas, obviously. Only my daughters are not Trump supporters, but they are mixed-race, so life is going to get really bad for them.

Muslim Ban Statement Disappears From Trump Website

And the backtracking begins. I guess that quote of Trump saying he'd lie his way into the White House was accurate.

So much for Crooked Clinton. It's Dishonest Donald.

Note: criticising the lying, not the reversal.

This is just wrong. People were aware of ethnic differences since there have been ethnic differences, and had labels for them. Ancient literature mentions them in some detail. And they were aware that there were wider ethnic conglomerates that were more similar to each other than other ethnic conglomerates (and so in the Bible you have Samaritans versus Judeans, which are juxtaposed against the far more distant Kushites).

As for the 'no one is really white' thing, give me a break, that has to be disingenuous.

↪Bitter Crank You ever read Edward Said's Orientalism? Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth?

Or how about this. Leopold II's letter to missionaries:
http://www.fafich.ufmg.br/~luarnaut/Letter%20Leopold%20II%20to%20Colonial%20Missionaries.pdf — discoii

No, I haven't read either of those books (could've, should've, would've). Why do you ask? Did I inadvertently step on a sore toe?

(I do know something about who the two people are, and I have read bits and pieces about them.)

Good questions. Wiki claims it was late 17th century for the term modern use of white, but I suppose you would want a more substantial source. — Marchesk

I've been reading that "white" as a racial term has a short history for a couple of decades now, and hadn't checked any references.

I did a quick (separate) search of "white" and "racial" in the OED (on-line) and found that "white" as we apply it to race does indeed have a relatively short history. ("White" describing a color of course goes back to Old English and further.) "Racial" has a shorter history.

Google Ngram charts words by the frequency of their appearance in texts which are part of their corpus of printed books (it's big). Here is a result.

Note that in 1800, the incidence of the two terms (black race and white race) was extremely low. The term "black race" was used for 200 years at about the same, fairly low rate, while the term "white race" was much higher and fluctuating.

Of course, just because Chaucer, Spencer, or Shakespeare didn't describe any characters as "white" doesn't mean there wasn't an appreciation of differences that we would call "racial" prior to the 19th century. In the eponymous play, Othello (1604) is described as “the Moor” (I.i.57), “the thick-lips” (I.i.66), “an old black ram” (I.i.88), and “a Barbary horse” (I.i.113)."

Making racial distinctions doesn't make sense where there is little regular inter-racial contact. Americans are predictably indifferent to the ethnic (dis)similarities of central African or Siberian peoples, because we have no regular contact with peoples from these areas bearing differences. In reverse, the residents of Central Africa or Siberia would likely have little awareness of differences between the Ojibwa and Navaho Indian peoples, or Incas and Aztecs.

Scientific classification probably had a role in highlighting racial differences and similarities.

This is just wrong. People were aware of ethnic differences since there have been ethnic differences, and had labels for them. — The Great Whatever

I never said people weren't aware of ethnic differences. I said people considered themselves and others to belong to different groups over time, depending on the criteria. And being white is relatively recent. It's origin is the justification of colonialism and slavery. The idea of being white is the idea that you're skin color determines your status in society, and if your skin color is dark enough, you deserve to be a slave, or have less rights.

Nice! Thanks.