Re: racist vs racialist?

On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 01:26:48AM +1100, Tristan wrote:

> Is there a better term than 'White' to describe us erm... White people?
> We aren't very white
Well, most black people (um, using the "ancestrally from Africa" definition,
not the "Australian indigenous" definition, although I imagine it would
apply there as well) are more brown than black.  Color terms in general
are not going to express well what is actually a place-of-origin distinction.

> come from Caucasia, but they come from all over Europe. European implies
> that we're from Europe, but I would be a foreigner wherever you put me
> in Europe; my culture &c. belong in Australia.
But then you say:

> preferring Asian chicks (or, more specifically, East Asian chicks, and,
> if you're anything like me, the ones from China/Japan/Korea-type area of
> Vietnam and other more southerly areas).
So if they live in Australia, for example, or America, how can you call them
Asian chicks?  They're no more Asian than you are European.

Basically, place-of-ancestral-origin is the *only* way to communicate racial
distinctions.  All other words just map back onto that.  We do, however,
need a way to distinguish place-of-ancestral-origin from place-of-personal-
origin and culture-one-belongs-to.

Amanda

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