Re: racist vs racialist?

Tristan wrote:
>
>Florian Rivoal wrote:
>
> >I, being "white" (caucasian or whatever you want to call it)
> >
>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)), and 'White', at least in English, has
>(weak) connotations of purity and the like. Caucasian implies that they
>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.
>
>'White' seems to me to be the best of a bad bunch---is there a better term?
To me, "white" and "Caucasoid"*  aren't coterminous. "Whites" are a subgroup
of "Caucasoids" characterized by, primarly, extra pale skin. Now, this may
be due to typically hearing of "whites" in the context of racial relations
in the USA, while "Caucasoids" I've mostly seen in the context of either
world-wide classifications or Asian racial distributions. But at any rate,
there's plenty of West Asians that I'd understand to be included under
"Caucasoid", but not "white".

* I've heard that this less than ideal term was introduced by a 1800s German
racial biologist who found Georgian women very attrative. Anyone know if his
is true?


                                                         Andreas

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