The Supreme Court in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) decided that Asian Indians were ineligible for citizenship because, though deemed "Caucasian" anthropologically, they were not white like European descendants since most laypeople did not consider them white people. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bhagat_Singh_Thind#Opinion Indians, Pakistanis, Persians, Arabs, Egyptians, Berbers, may be Caucasian according to anthropologists, but they are not white according to the common understanding of whiteness, which means light skinned Europeans. Just as an albino African is not "white", simply due to his lack of melanin. The US Census may have decided, due to reasons of political correctness and expediancy, to classify them as "white", but they are not scientists. If anything, the US Census should have added a new category for dark skinned Caucasians such as "West Asian".
Why should it matter whether an individually is technically, legally or socially considered white, black, brown or whatever? Also, nobody is white. I'm personally a variety of pale to warm pinks depending on environment and which bits of me you're looking at (steady ladies ).
there are significant legal ramifications to being considered "white". for example, you can't qualify for affirmative action if you're a "white" male, even if you clearly are a member of a group that is targeted due to their appearance. Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Arabs, Persians, Berbers are often victims of discrimination due to their appearance, but if they are legally "white", they can't legally claim they are victims of "anti-white" discrimination and get affirmative action to address that discrimination.
Seems to me that a supreme court ruling is done by jurists, not scientists and classifying them as caucasian but not eurowhite is not scientific at all.
????? Just a word: nonsense. Come to Italy. When my Indian friends comes here in summer it's impossible to distinct a tanned Italian from and Indian ... so? Am I Caucasian only in winter and autumn?
Queen Noor of Jordan was on that PBS, Gates, genome program. They explored how her ancestors in America went to court to claim they were NOT Asians and should be allowed to seek citizenship. They won. In the West, there were lots and lots of Asians from the railroad and mining industry. Late 1800's Western States got around to "expelling" their Asian population, citizens or not. Covered here, "One Thousand Pieces of Gold" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100774/ California was a State that did not to this so acquired all the Asians of the old West as it civilized. Moi r > g No
Broadly speaking, British Asians from India and Pakistan belong to Haplogroup R1a-M17 and it's a major Indo-European haplogroup that points to British Asians' genetic similarities with Eastern Europeans who share the same haplogroup. A previous study showed that upper-caste Indians (i.e. Brahmins) are genetically almost identical with Eastern Europeans, especially Hungarians. Zayn Malik of One Direction
Obama's government has done all sorts of weird things to inflate the number of recorded white people. Counting Hispanics as white in the FBI crime statistics is a weird one.
"white" is also a common origin and culture. Europeans, Indians, Arabs, Berbers, have very different cultures that originated tens of thousands of years ago. its absurd to moosh together these people into one racial-cultural group. yes folks, "white" has cultural and not just biological meanings.
Overall because it would be more accurate to define the "white" individuals as "light rose" individuals, since really white humans [like polar bears] aren't!
I never said it didn't matter, I asked why it should. Affirmative action (and the reasons it was invented) is a classic example of why percieved racial divisions shouldn't be given credence.
There isn't a singular White origin and culture though, just as there aren't for Asians, Arabs, Blacks etc. I agree that is absurd to moosh together these people in to singular groupings. It's often absurd to moosh together all the people who do happen to share a common native origin and culture. Why can't we just treat people as people?
flawed court ruling based on ignorance and racist bigotry...flawed science, anthropology no longer classifies people by colour other than as a personal descriptor....genetics has destroyed race classification, we are all the same family with a common uber grandmother...
you're a using flawed legal judgement based on scientic ignorance of that time to prove what, that racism doesn't exist?...
I prefer Colbert's approach to being completely color blind. Whenever I am shopping or at a restaurant I will sometimes run up to random old people of various races and yell out "Mom is that you?" or "Dad why did you abandon me?".
If they look "white" the reflect all the light. Optical physics tells us that what is black absorbs all the light, while what's white reflects it all ...
And northern euro, pale skinned, blue eyed, blonde haired me shares genentics with people in one of those countries...
Well hell, Light skinned Europeans aren't white either. Most are pinkish, or peach colored. And I've never once seen a black, black person either The only races that are as advertized are those pesky brown folk...they're actually brown.
ok, now you're just playing games. white doesn't literally mean "white as snow". it means europeans or western asians who have light skin, straight hair, light eyes. but the common denominator for all white people, is their light skin.
: "White" a common origin? From Whiteland? a minimum of scientific knowledge before thinking never hurts ... and read ... a book is not a pitbull ... The White culture.... I didn´t know... Now we have La Tene culture, Hallstatt culture, Franco - Cantabrian Art, the Magdalenian...et voilá... the White culture... My God.. .What a level!!!!
