Re: OT Academia (was Re: Dr. Gunn)

In a message dated 07/08/2002 08.48.40 PM, kesuari@YAHOO.COM.AU writes:

> [. . .] Although people often
>call all the Indigenous people of Australia 'Koorie' when trying to be
>politically correct, but the Koorie are just a group from South-Eastern
>Australia somewhere. Or a name for the entire culture in South-Eastern
>Australia, can't remember. The only thing I know about their names for
>White people is that the first time they saw white people, they thought
>we were ghosts. Although I would've thought ghosts be dark-skinned if
>they were the ghosts of Aborigines.
    Hmm, some of the first Cantonese to encounter "White-skinned", Pigment-
Impaired Folk thought these so-call "Caucasians" were ghosts, too... amongst
other rather nasty observations (i.e. overall socio-cultural arrogance/racial
superiority complex, hairiness, big noses, absolutely ridiculous attire,
gross eating habits with a meat-heavy diet, body odor, dubious concepts of
personal space, privacy and property, etc.)

    BTW I am skeptical of racial categories like "White" and "Caucasian"...
these classifications have always been rather conveniently flexible
::recalling the intensity and prevalence of both British and American WASP
prejudice against the Jews, Irish and Italians in the late 19th and early
20th centuries::

    I will go so far to say that the idea of a "White Race" is _perhaps_ a
myth. And one that should probably be discarded.
    Do "of European ancestry" or "Eurogen" sound like reasonable alternatives
in order to describe ancestral origins/biocultural background (instead of
so-call "racial categories")?

Hanuman Zhang, Sinogen and sympathetic supporter of the Beige Race Liberation
Front and their tongue-firmly-in-cheek struggle to have a
"Beige/Multi-Racial" category in/on US census polls and all other public
documents

~§~

    "To live is to scrounge, taking what you can in order to survive. So,
since living is scrounging, the result of our efforts is to amass a pile of
rubbish."
                            - Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi, China, 4th Century BCE

    "The most beautiful order is a heap of sweepings piled up at random."
                            - Heraclitus, Greece, 5th Century BCE

Ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione.
    [Latin > "Art is the imitation of Nature in her manner of operation."]

" jinsei to iu mono wa, kinchou na geijyutsu to ieru deshou "
    [Japanese > "one can probably say that 'life' is a precious artform"]

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