Re: racist vs racialist?

Tristan wrote:
>Doug Dee wrote:
>
>>In a message dated 12/10/2002 9:27:05 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>>kesuari@YAHOO.COM.AU writes:
>>
>>>Is there a better term than 'White' to describe us erm... White people?
>>>We aren't very white (you'd be better off calling me red (even during
>>>Winter II; it's not sunburn :P)),
>>
>>I'm told that the Australian aborigines call (or used to call) people
>>of European extraction "red."  (Perhaps a lot of them got sunburned.)
>>Can you confirm that?
>
>I've never heard of that before. I've also heard that when they first
>saw white people (I think we're talking about the Dutch explorers who
>landed in what was to become Western Australia), they decided they were
>ghosts. Which leads me to wonder: what is it about ghosts that (a)
>they're always pale and (b) even cultures as diverse as Australian
>Indigenous and European have them?
For the second, I'd suggest it's largely because "ghost" is quite vaguely
defined concept.

                                                            Andreas

_________________________________________________________________
Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail