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Talking About Race is Necessary

If we are going to talk about white people, asking what is white? is a perfectly natural and relevant question. In order to answer, we need some background info about race, so I suggest:

2 arguments against race: AAA statement and maybe dna squencing guy's opinion Explanation, what does AA statement mean? Briefly...

2 arguments for race: Leroi and a part of Edwards Brief explanation.

Conclusion, by quoting the conclusion of comprehensive nature article.

The article, currently is too empty... Thulean 19:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Currently the article is biased:

ex 1: "Whether any individual considers any other individual as white often comes down to whether the person looks white; however this is a very subjective judgement." This is not cited and how do you know every individual's opinion? Maybe some individuals have genetic considerations. Thulean 19:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Honestly I prefer to defer that discussion to the Race article.

On your "example 1", there's no real definition of white. For me it's a synonim Caucasoid, what is quite historical and coincident whith what I learned in school in the 70s: five races: white (Caucasoid), black (Negroid), yellow (Mongoloid), red (Amerindian) and olive (Australoid). This symbology is also present in the Olympic Flag, though white has been replaced by blue and olive by simple green. Of course this is just a classical Eurocentric perception of race and, as the relevant article notices, the racial symblism of the flag was clearly promoted by Nazi Germany.

Some people instead argue that "true whites" are only Europeans and some that even not all Europeans are real whites. For many surely South Asians or North Africans are not whites, but for other they are, regardless of skin shade because they are (at least mostly) Caucasoid. Some even have argued that Ethiopians are at least partly white.

There's no real consensus, much less a scientific definition. And this is not the place for such Byzantine discussions anyhow. --Sugaar 06:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thulean your comment Maybe some individuals have genetic considerations. makes no sense. Are you suggesting that some people ask for a genetic test from others before they decide if they are white or not? Obviously people decide if someone is white by the way they look. A person cannot be genetically white and so it makes no sense to say that some people might take genetic considerations into account. Alun 06:44, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

"Genetically white"... that's funny.

Still, may be was useful also to add a clear link to the article Human skin color.

You people never heard of DNA tests which tells you ancestry? If someone's ancestry is not totally European, those people might not be considered white. People will usually go for looks but the quote is definately an unsupported blanket statement, not true for *everyone*. Thulean 12:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

First DNA tests don't tell a person their ancestry, how can it tell a person the names of their ancestors? Secondly do you really know anyone who takes a DNA test before declairing themselves white, or demands one from someone else before considering them white? Thirdly how does someone determine what white is from a DNA test? I've got a degree in genetics, but I know of no DNA test that can tell a person if they will be considered white by the society they live in. Fourthly there is a Near Eastern component to the European gene pool that is thought to have spread during the neolithic, so nearly all European populations have a Near Eastern as well as an European origin, none of us is totally european except in the sense that we consider ourselves European, and where does it say that only Europeans can be white anyway? I really don't think your arguments are very well thought out. Alun 13:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

1) By ancestry, I meant continent, or region. 2) Do you know anyone who takes a DNA test to declare themselves male or female? No. Does that mean there is *no* genetic consideration in gender? 3) That's why genetics is only *part* of the equation. A part that has been completely ignored in this article. 4) Totally European is a wrong word then. However europeans have been isolated by genetic similarity: 5) Most people will consider Europeans or people of European ancestry as white. Thulean 13:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• Do you know anyone who takes a DNA test to declare themselves male or female? No.

Haven't you just made my point for me? We don't do genetic tests to determine if someone is male or female, just as we don't do them to determine if someon is white. If we make assumptions at all we do it by observation.

• genetics is only *part* of the equation.

Genetics has nothing to do with the equation. Whiteness has nothing to do with what continent one's ancestors came from, all our ancestors come from Africa after all, it is arbitrary to emphasise one period of our ancestry over another. Whiteness is a social and cultural identity, not a biological one, it also seems to be oddly exclusive.

• However europeans have been isolated by genetic similarity:

This citation doesn't claim isolation as far as I can see, indeed it claims that

The groups easiest to resolve were those that were widely separated from one another geographically. Such samples maximize the genetic variation among groups. When Bamshad and his co-workers used their 100 Alu polymorphisms to try to classify a sample of individuals from southern India into a separate group, the Indians instead had more in common with either Europeans or Asians. In other words, because India has been subject to many genetic influences from Europe and Asia, people on the subcontinent did not group into a unique cluster.

So what we are looking at is a cline, like in all genetic models. We rarely see clean genetic distinctions between populations, rather they merge into one another. This is a similar result to the one in the paper I provided.

• Most people will consider Europeans or people of European ancestry as white.

I can think of lots of British people, of British European ancesty, that would not be considered white. Colin Jackson and Kelly Holmes spring to mind. Alun 13:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Thulean said: You people never heard of DNA tests which tells you ancestry? If someone's ancestry is not totally European, those people might not be considered white.

I say: You people (and I mean: you Thulean and whoever may think like you) should learn some genetics before you start ranting. Ancestry tests can only tell you the Haplogroup of some ancestors: your purely paternal line (father, father's father, etc.) and your purely maternal line (mother, mother's mother, etc.). No DNA test (at least not the usual ones) will be able to say anything about your father's mother or your mother's father. Start bulding your genealogical tree up to some 50 generations (aprox. 1000 years) and you'll see how tiny is the fraction of the ancestry that those tests are informing you about.

I am a good example, while I don't know my exact DNA haplogroups, I'm pretty sure that my father's paternal lineage and my mother's maternal lineage are deeply rooted in the Basque Country. Hence I'm very likely to be R1b and H (or some other less common Basque haplogroups maybe). But a good deal of all other ancestors are not Basque but Spaniards or Italians. That would never be noticeable in any standard DNA test, and if these were Yoruba or Vietnamese, it would be exactly the same.

By this reasoning of you, it's likely that many Black Americans (Afro-Americans or whatever the PC term) would have to be classified as whites. Not that I care but really that's not the perception in US society.

By this reasoning of you also, in Europe we have at least several races, looking only at the Y-DNA haplogroups: Western Euros (R1b), their distant relative Indo-Europeans (R1a) (that also include a good deal of Indian and specially Pakistani, Afghan, Tajik and Kirgiz people), Balcano-Swedes (I), their relative Eastern Mediterranean (J), the Sibero-Uralics (N) and the Afro-Mediterraneans (E3b). Maybe I'm missing something... ah!: there are Germans with such rare haplogroups (among Europeans) as C (frequent among NE Asians and Austronesians, arguably a Hun legacy). How would you tell the difference between a Briton with E3b and a Sudanese with exactly the same haplogroup? How would you tell the difference between a Swede with R1a and a native of Uttar Pradesh with the same lineage?

You people (and I mean you: Thulean from anywhere but Thule, that is Iceland) must learn first what you are talking about and then, only then, make the rest waste our time. --Sugaar 14:45, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

That was really silly, Sugaar. There is no such *reasoning* that looks *only* at Y-DNA haplogroups. Autosomal DNA, mtDNA and all of their correlations is also considered. Also, Your personal attacks (nazi nick, "should learn some genetics before you start ranting") are becoming increasingly polluting. Thulean 15:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

1) No I havent. I was just pointing out that despite we base our observations about gender on looks, we also know that it has a genetic basis. So it doesnt *just* come down to looks.

Yes you have made my point for me. You are now just trying to change the question. Originally you said that people might take genetics into consideration when determining if someone is white. I said this is not true, because we do not ask someone for genetic proof of their whiteness (and anyway no such thing exists, you just made it up as far as I can tell). Likewise we do not ask people for genetic proof of their gender. We make these observations on a social and cultural level, not on a biological one. You appear to now to be saying that whenever you meet a woman you insist on genetic proof that she is a woman before you accept this. I do not believe you. Alun 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be not understanding what I say. I'm simply saying *looks* isnt the only consideration. Thulean 18:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I never said that looks was the only consideration. There are social and cultural considerations. What I am saying is that genetics/DNA are completelly irrelevant. This is because we do not identify ourselves or others as white based on genetics, we do it in social and cultural contexts. As I said before, no one asks for a DNA test to be done before they consider someone white. The way someone looks is part of it, but also cultural and social considerations are involved. What is true is that it is not biological. Alun 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

2)Ancestry is subjective. You may need not to mention Africa as well since we all evolved from single cell organisms in oceans. Or you can say our "ancestors" are the singularity state at the Big Bang. Since we are talking about white race/"race"/population/whatever, the ancestry of whole species is irrelevant.

I mentioned Africa because you mentioned that the continent of origin was important in determining whiteness. I'm just saying that the continent of origin of all humans is Africa, so your argument makes no sense. Now you seem to be saying that there was life at the big bang, which is patently absurd. Alun 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I wish you'd ask me to clarify what "I seem to be saying" because your cluelesness is ridiculous. Singularity is the beginning of everything, living or unliving, therefore I used ancestors in quotes. When we were talking about the origin of a race or population, you switched to a higher designation, which is species, so I switched to higher designations as well, to highlight your irrelevancy of pointing to Africa. Thulean 18:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

• • because your cluelesness is ridiculous.

Please refrain from personal attacks, it reflects more on you than anyone else. If I fail to fully understand what you are saying then maybe it reflects an inability on your part to express yourself clearly. You do not seem to be able to stick to a specific point. Alun 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• • Singularity is the beginning of everything, living or unliving,

No it's not, no one claims that living things began at the singularity. Matter was created then, surely, not life. Alun 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• • When we were talking about the origin of a race or population, you switched to a higher designation, which is species,

No I didn't, there is no biologically recognised designation of race, we are a single species, our species arose in Africa, it's where we're all from. This is the point, from a biological perspective there is no order lower than species. You were talking about the continental origins of people, I merely pointed out that the continental origin of all of us is Africa. It's not rocket science you know. Your comments about singularities were not comprable to mine about Africa, my comments were relevant, yours were petulent. Alun 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

3)Noones denying the ambiguities. However they do not invalidate anything. To quote:

The identification of racial origins is not a search for purity. The human species is irredeemably promiscuous. We have always seduced or coerced our neighbors even when they have a foreign look about them and we don't understand a word. If Hispanics, for example, are composed of a recent and evolving blend of European, American Indian and African genes, then the Uighurs of Central Asia can be seen as a 3,000-year-old mix of West European and East Asian genes. Even homogenous groups like native Swedes bear the genetic imprint of successive nameless migrations.

Some critics believe that these ambiguities render the very notion of race worthless. I disagree. The physical topography of our world cannot be accurately described in words. To navigate it, you need a map with elevations, contour lines and reference grids. But it is hard to talk in numbers, and so we give the world's more prominent features—the mountain ranges and plateaus and plains—names. We do so despite the inherent ambiguity of words. The Pennines of northern England are about one-tenth as high and long as the Himalayas, yet both are intelligibly described as mountain ranges.

So, too, it is with the genetic topography of our species. The billion or so of the world's people of largely European descent have a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else; they are a race. At a smaller scale, three million Basques do as well; so they are a race as well. Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences.

And the citation from the earlier source also claims:

Other studies have produced comparable results. Noah A. Rosenberg and Jonathan K. Pritchard, geneticists formerly in the laboratory of Marcus W. Feldman of Stanford University, assayed approximately 375 polymorphisms called short tandem repeats in more than 1,000 people from 52 ethnic groups in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. By looking at the varying frequencies of these polymorphisms, they were able to distinguish five different groups of people whose ancestors were typically isolated by oceans, deserts or mountains: sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans and Asians west of the Himalayas; East Asians; inhabitants of New Guinea and Melanesia; and Native Americans. They were also able to identify subgroups within each region that usually corresponded with each member's self-reported ethnicity.

I don't understand what these quotes are supposed to prove. Race is a meaningless concept in biology. It is difficult enough to come up with a universally accepted concept of species, let alone an accepted concept at the sub-species level. No one disputes that there are physical differences between peoples from different parts of the world. Most people who believe in race seem to think that races are discreet entities that are very different to each other. Biology shows us the opposite. So you found a biologist who thinks that race is a real biological phenomenon, there are probably more who disagree. Indeed the idea of race is really little more than genetic polymorphism. But the human population is so genetically homogeneous compared to other species that there is little doubt that we are all derived from a bottlneck event that happened very recently. Differences between human populations are tiny and the extent of polymorphism is very small in humans. Race is a social and cultural phenomenon, you cannot claim it is exclusively a biological one in contradiction to all biological evidence. Alun 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Whether what I or you claim is irrelevant. The point is that this issue is controversial. That's the point of quotes. However this article reflects that race and whiteness is a social concept and that's the consenssus. But there is no consenssus and thats why this article is biased. Thulean 18:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I think there is a consensus that whitness is social. You are conflating race, which is itself a disputed concept (most biologists do not accept it), with skin colour. Whitness is not synonymous with an European race, and this is whay you are saying. Your quotes about race above are about just that, the dispute as to whether race exists as a biological concept, but this article is not about race as a biological phenomenon, it's about light skin colour. I cannot help but feel that you are very confused. Maybe you are not and have a lucid understanding of this, but you are not explaining yourself well enough for me. Alun 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

4) So you are saying European ancestry is entirely irrelevant when one discusses white? Thulean 14:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm saying that there are many people of european ancestry that would not be considered white. This is the thing about the idea of whiteness it is oddly (and possibly uniquely) exclusive. I may have seven out of eight white European great-grandparents, but if I have a single Black great-grandparent and my skin colour is not seen as white then I am excluded from this category. Conversely I may have more non European ancestors than European, but if my skin colour is sufficiently light I may pass as white. So yes, in many respects where one's ancestors come from may be irrelevant. Alun 16:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

However, majority and in some definitions, all of whites have a majority European ancestry. Those "pass as white" cases seem to be a exceptions. Thulean 18:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

How do you know? This is little more than your opinion. If you take a look at the paper I posted earlier Estimating the Impact of Prehistoric Admixture on the Genome of Europeans, you will observe that in eastern Europe the majority of ancestry seems actually to be of Near Eastern origin (80% of genes), indeed even in France and Germany there seems to be a 50:50 split between genes of Near Eastern and European origin and in the British Isles we see about a 20% Near Eastern contribution. So again it depends when you draw your arbitrary deffinition of origin (and it is arbitrary). The European population's origin is African from 70,000 years ago, European population's origin is both Near Eastern and European 10,000 years ago, European population's origin is only European after about 4,000 years ago, and even then there is no exclusivity, where does Europe stop, Europeans do not form a discrete population that is reproductively excluded from others. Indeed your argument for European origins may have applied to the small paleolithic population that lived in the Iberian peninsula some 10,000 years ago, but this isolation did not last very long after the end of the glaciation, and the modern population seems to be a hybrid of this and all other populations to have expanded into Europe after the end of the glaciation. Europeans are a hybrid population with numerous origins and has arisen recently. Alun 06:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Thulean said: 3) That's why genetics is only *part* of the equation. A part that has been completely ignored in this article.

I say: The genetics of skin color is still poorly understood and involves several genes that can inhibit the expression of each other. Recently was a case in Spain of twins of totally different colors: one white and the other black. Being twins, obviously both have the same parents. It's extremely rare but it can happen. Also many of the genes involved in skin color exist among Blacks as among Whites. I think I said before but you don't seem to listen. The difference may be in other genes inhibiting or not their expression.

Thulean said: 4) Totally European is a wrong word then. However europeans have been isolated by genetic similarity: and 5) Most people will consider Europeans or people of European ancestry as white.

I say: Notice that the article says "Europeans and Asians west of the Himalayas" (that is what classical antropometry called Caucasoids), when mentioning the clearly defined groups, not "Europeans". It's not always possible to determine that adscription clearly (and really, who cares?). In any case, Europeans have not been isolated, even pure Basque or Irish samples show some "alien elements". --Sugaar 15:12, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

That was on the previous comment. On the last one, my apologies but sometimes I am rude with people who seem to have a hidden agenda. "Ranting" was maybe inappropiate but my suspicions (conviction) about your political agenda remain untouched.

Read what you quote anyhow: "Race is merely a shorthand that enables us to speak sensibly, though with no great precision, about genetic rather than cultural or political differences". It clearly says that any genetic use of the term race is very imprecise.

This quote (unsourced) is rather false: "The billion or so of the world's people of largely European descent have a set of genetic variants in common that are collectively rare in everyone else". In fact there's nothing as genetically close to an European as a West Asian (and vice versa). For a mored detailed (though not totally uncontroversial) clustering of human populations (as per Cavalli Sforza, 1996) see my colored version of his tree. --Sugaar 15:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Save your sentiment, I do not care either way. However, I see that you continue with your ad-hominems, speculating about my "agenda". I'm new to Misplaced Pages, but I'm sure there are mechanisms here to report such polluting behaviour. Thulean 15:48, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

1) What you are saying is irrelevant. Many scientists think DNA/genetics is part of the equation and their views must be represented. Besides, social and cultural considerations dont happen in vacuum. They are correlated with genetics.

Nevertheless, recent research indicates that self-described race is a near-perfect indicator of an individual's genetic profile, at least in the United States. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified 4 genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States, and were able to correctly assign individuals to groups that correspond with their self-described race (white, African American, East Asian, or Hispanic) for all but 5 individuals (an error rate of 0.14%). They conclude that ancient ancestry, which correlates tightly with self-described race and not current residence, is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population.

I'm done with this discussion. I have found enough resources that contradict your views and whether you agree with them or not, their views should be represented.

Many scientists think that DNA and genetics is part of what equation? There's no equation here. These scientists are saying that differences between people that are identifiable are detectable on a genetic level. It would be amazing if these differences that we can see with our own eyes were not identifiable on a genetic level. They make no reference to race as a biological construct. This merely indicates that certain alleles have a greater frequency in some parts of the world than others. I don't think it is saying the same thing as you at all. Try to come up with a proper taxonomic classification of human race. Alun 18:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

2) I think saying that you are clueless about what I'm saying is less of a personal insult than "If I fail to fully understand what you are saying then maybe it reflects an inability on your part to express yourself clearly."

Caling me clueless is an insult. I didn't insult you, I just said that maybe you were not expressing youself in a very clear way. It's not an insult, just a suggestion. Alun 18:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

3) From what life was created of? Matter of course. And matter was created out of singularity. Hence life was created out of singularity, very simple logic. I do not understand why it was so hard for you to understand. As I said, ask me to clarify my points before you speculate what I'm saying. You may have written a paper about genetics, but I believe your understanding of singularity is limited.

Your logic is somewhat suspect I think. Alun 18:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

4) Many scientists think race is valid. Besides we were talking about a population even if you disagree with the concept of race. The origin of Germanic population is northern Europe, despite Germanic might not mean much biologically. In this context, switching to Africa makes as much sense as switching to singularity. If we are all human, we are also all composed of matter afterall.

• Many scientists think race is valid.

Ah the old weasel words approach.

• even if you disagree with the concept of race

I don't disagree with the concept of race, I am just stating that it is not a biological phenomenon. There is no accepted biological classification (taxonomy) for human races. Therefore it is incorrect to claim that there is. Biology is a science, in science we have conventions, there is no accepted convention at the species level, it is wrong to claim that one exists on the sub-species level.Alun 18:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

5)Whitness is not just skin colour neither. Albino blacks arent white. The genetic part is clearly proven in the previous quote and must be mentioned.

What genetic part would that be? Alun 18:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

6) Which near Eastern is this? Near Eastern in historic context or modern context?

There's more than one Near East? Where's the other one? Alun 18:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

"In agreement with essentially all published literature, we took the genes in current Basque and Near Eastern populations as the best available approximation to the genes of the people inhabiting, respectively, Europe and the Near East before the Neolithic dispersals."

So Near East in the article is the Near East 4,000 years ago. I'm sure in those 4,000 year, Near East took their own immigrants. That means todays Europeans arent related with todays Near Easterns in given percentages in the research. So going too far seems impractical. Thulean 16:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

DNA samples in this article were taken from modern populations. Did you actually read it? All samples used in the paper were from modern populations. Alun 18:58, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

This is just great. I go through the trouble of digging up cites from several researchers including Cavali-Sforza and I put them in the article and they are immediately removed. Now there's a guy in the discussion page making an unsourced claim that "Many scientists think race is valid". This is insane.

How about we all agree to follow Misplaced Pages policy and use the discussion page for discussing the article, not discussing the subject?-Psychohistorian 16:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

1) The equation is that race is a complex issue. It's not biologically meaningless therefore it's not totally a social and cultural construct.

2) I told you that you are clueless about what I'm saying. It's just a more flamboyant way of saying that you do not understand me. I dont think this is a personal insult. But, maybe you are right, maybe I cant put myself clearly, as english isnt my native tongue. However, maybe you should take my advice as well and ask me to clarify my points before you speculate what I'm saying.

3) Oh? I do hope that you arent going to dispute numerous physicists who say Big Bang was the start of everything. Nor the fact that everything includes both non-living *and* living things and concepts like time.

4) Just go read the race page.

5) Some biologist use "populations", no?

6) I wasnt suggesting that they built time machines to go back in time to collect samples. Of course they used modern populations. However, this quote:

"In agreement with essentially all published literature, we took the genes in current Basque and Near Eastern populations as the best available approximation to the genes of the people inhabiting, respectively, Europe and the Near East before the Neolithic dispersals."

suggests that the Near Eastern population in the article may not represent the *current* Near Eastern population as they took the genes to the best available approximation to the genes of the people inhabiting, respectively, Europe and the Near East 4,000 years ago.

So to answer your question, the "other" Near East is the Near East 4,000 years ago. Time is a dimension as well, just like "place" dimensions. I thought that was obvious. Thulean 15:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Why is it that every time someone brings up a source which "supports" the idea that there is a genetic basis for race, when I go and actually read the article, it doesn't say that?

Are you reading these articles or are you just hoping that noone will notice? The link that you pointed to in point 1 actually states, "These clusters are also correlated with some traditional concepts of race, but the correlations are imperfect because genetic variation tends to be distributed in a continuous, overlapping fashion among populations." What that means is that the genetic evidence does not support the idea of racial categories. -Psychohistorian 15:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Uhhh? Are you just imagining what I say or do you read? I never said the article supported "racial categories." I said " The equation is that race is a complex issue. It's not biologically meaningless therefore it's not totally a social and cultural construct." And the article DOES say race isnt biologically meaningless. Thulean 17:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

And what I'm telling you is that the article you pointed to doesn't support that statement. It says that there is genetic variation across geography, but that that doesn't equate to race categories. Your confusion seems to derive from an assumption you are making that genetic variation equates to race. The article is saying that race is biologically meaningless and points out why genetic variation does not equate to race.. -Psychohistorian 17:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Direct quote from article:

Genetic variation is geographically structured, as expected from the partial isolation of human populations during much of their history. Because traditional concepts of race are in turn correlated with geography, it is inaccurate to state that race is "biologically meaningless."

Are you *reading* the article? Thulean 18:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Thulean, great arguments made and you really have to look at the crazy beliefs this guy Wobble is coming from. He admits to being a far-leftist, assmilationist and anti-racial/anti-ethnic extremist on his own page. He has this twisted view that "race" is only a social construct as if it has no natural bearing to it, whether based on genetics or physical features. I think it is very biologically meaningful Wobble if it is something widely held by most academics in the field and the idea of sub-species being used in many different animal species (eg. the great diversity in dogs). If you call race a social construct then you can equally consider the whole classification of species a social construct (which it technically is since its aspects are defined by humans and consistently challenged between scientists). This doesn't ignore the fact that genetics and other sources have shown there is significant differences between human populations (some say its minor, but less than 1% is moret han you think when there is only a 2% difference between us and chimps) that have been greatly separated by geographic distances (as well as social constraints) leading groups to primarily breed with each other (eg. clearly there has been no gene flow between the native population of Western Europe and say the peoples of North America for tens of thousdans of years, not since the first groups migrated out of Africa and into central Asia. This has evidently caused significant genetic distances between these populations. Breeding solely or primarily within the group, as well as other factors like natural selection/adaptation, founder effect and possible limited absorbtion of other very closely related sub-species (eg. Neanderthals, Homo Erectus) have also lead to the significant variation in human species which has given the various groups disinct and unique features. We could go on for a long while detailing these features distinct to each group as most people can tell. Geneticists speak of the gradual genetic variation of humans across all geographic areas, even though their own data shows steep differences between the main groups of races. Whatever the origins of the genetic diversity between human groups, the fact remains that it has developed and produced distinct features between groups (even if the variation is "small" compared to some other mammals). I'll leave this with an excerpt from just one study (The use of racial, ethnic, and ancestral categories in human genetics research -- The Race, Ethnicity, and Genetics Working Group of the National Human Genome Research Institute) on the origins of humans, displaying how there are other sources for human genetic diversity than just genetic drift or founder populations (as Wobble idiotically claims).

...Early fossils with these characteristics have been found in eastern Africa and have been dated to 160,000–200,000 years ago (White et al. 2003; McDougall et al. 2005). At that time, the population of anatomically modern humans appears to have been small and localized (Harpending et al. 1998). Much larger populations of archaic humans lived elsewhere in the Old World, including the Neandertals in Europe and an earlier species of humans, Homo erectus, in Asia (Swisher et al. 1994).

...several groups of researchers cite fossil and genetic evidence to argue for a more complex account. They contend that humans bearing modern traits emerged several times from Africa, over an extended period, and mixed with archaic humans in various parts of the world (Hawks et al. 2000; Eswaran 2002; Templeton 2002; Ziętkiewicz et al. 2003). As a result, they say, autosomal DNA from archaic human populations living outside Africa persists in modern populations, and modern populations in various parts of the world still bear some physical resemblance to the archaic populations that inhabited those regions (Wolpoff et al. 2001).

This makes sense since there are features in European and Asian populations not seen anywhere in sub-saharan African populations, even though Cavalli-Sfroza claims Africans exhibit greater genetic diversity than do populations in the rest of the world (based mainly from Y-chroms, MtDNA, though a few others have dealth with Autosomes and even one with "portions of the X-chromosome, (Kaessmann et al. 1999). The genetic variation seen outside Africa is generally a subset of the variation within Africa, a pattern that would be produced if the migrants from Africa were limited in number and carried just part of African genetic variability with them (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 2003). If this is the case, then why is so much of the great variation outside of Africa not seen within the original African populations themselves, except in only a small, isolated pocket of people (Khoi, San, etc.) in the extreme southwest of Africa that itself is quite genetically different from any of the immeditate surrounding populations ? (another blow to the theory of simply "gradual variation" and consistent, substantial "gene flow" between human populations in all areas)

69.157.120.37 13:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

New research on the X-chromosome showing some more evidence for the influence of other Homo species in human populations outside of Africa. As is stated above, many scientists also have made similar claims based on Autosomal DNA and with issues on the clarity of MtDNA and Y-Chromosome lineage evidence. 69.157.120.37 14:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. You should register a nick at Wiki and join in the debate. Your contributions may also be valuable for the race page. Thulean 18:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Currently there are 3 references in the article to the social and cultural only theory of the white people:

Whether any individual considers any other individual as white comes down to whether the person looks white; however this is a very subjective judgement.

David R. Roediger argues that the construction of the white race in the United States was in direct effort to mentally distance slaveowners from slaves.

The 2000 United States Census, speaking of race categories, states, "They generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country. They do not conform to any biological, anthropological or genetic criteria."

Therefore, the article currently ignores the genetic part which many scientists and research support. Hence the article should include this:

Nevertheless, recent research indicates that self-described race is a near-perfect indicator of an individual's genetic profile, at least in the United States. Using 326 genetic markers, Tang et al. (2005) identified 4 genetic clusters among 3,636 individuals sampled from 15 locations in the United States, and were able to correctly assign individuals to groups that correspond with their self-described race (white, African American, East Asian, or Hispanic) for all but 5 individuals (an error rate of 0.14%). They conclude that ancient ancestry, which correlates tightly with self-described race and not current residence, is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population.

It's not a race debate, it's about genetic structure. It is correlated with whites. It should be there. Psychohistorian, maybe we should start Wiki meditation methods. Thulean 17:00, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been absent from this discussion just one day or so and much has been written but little has advanced.

The question is: race is a convention, a socio-cultural construct that may or not have a genetic background (this is disputed).

The question is: this page is not on race (generic) but on an specific "race". The discussion on wether race is genetical or just conventional MUST BE on the Human race article, not here.

And the question is: Misplaced Pages is not a billboard for political agendas. But a serious encyclopedia. --Sugaar 22:26, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

NPOV does not require that all sides be presented equally. Minority POV (such as the idea that race is based on genetic categories) should not be cited while, at the same time, cutting out citations from majority POVs. As for mediation methods, I'm fine with that.-Psychohistorian 17:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The recent survey indicated that most scientists agreed with the concept of races. Refer to race page. Thulean 17:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not a source for Misplaced Pages. Which recent survey are you talking about? Looking back, I need to clarify something. I meant to write "We cannot exclude sources from majority POV if, at the same time, we are going to include sources from minority POV." -Psychohistorian 17:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The most recent survey was what I was talking about. And while wiki isnt a source for wiki, the survey in question has a source in the wiki page I mentioned. Anyways, I reported it to Mediation Cabal . Besides, "majority" POV has enough representation here. Thulean 17:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, which recent survey are you talking about? Provide a link -Psychohistorian 17:48, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Thulean, the survey in question in not important. Science doesn't work like this. Science is not democratic. Scientists do not say, OK most scientists believe this theory is true, therefore we are going to accept it. In science we use observation and experimentation. Experimentation can only ever disprove a theory, there are never any proven theories in science. When it comes to taxonomy there are various ways to classify organisms. The problem with race is that it is taxonomically impossible to classify. It is hard enough on the species level. Ideally a species is a discreet exclusively inbreeding population of organisms, there is no genetic transfer between this population and any other. This is the ideal definition of a species. Some people have tried to apply the same concepts to human races, even going so far as to claim that the human races have evolved seperately. But if this definition of race were accepted then it would mean we are seperate species, and this claim is clearly at best spurious, there is plenty of evidence of gene transfer between populations of humans, there are no discreet exclusively inbreeding races, there are no clear boundaries. But even with our perfect definition of species there is a problem, for example it is not easy to categorise Ring species, they do not fit our model for what defines a species. So what criteria are used to define a race? Because what is important here is that you need to define what you mean by a biological race. You claim to have sources that support the concept of race, if so you must provide reliable genetic and biological sources that define exactly what a race is in biological terms. This is the problem, they asked biologists to agree with or disagree with an undefined concept. I can define a species, I have done it above, it is a well understood biological concept. None of your sources can do this for race, because there is no accepted, or indeed acceptable criterion for racial classification. This is why we say therte is no biological basis for race. Now if we say that there are geographically heterogeneous distributions of polymorphisms within the global human populations, and that this has lead to genetic variability between human populations, this would be a correct statement, this does not prove race because it is not a definition of race. It is also true that the human population has a very high proportion of fixed alleles, making us geneticall very homogeneous compared to other species. Alun 07:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Thulean, just a few words. Just one of the studies that you are trying to use is nonsensical enough. It speaks of races in the US and it mentions Hispanic. Since when is Hispanic a race? Since when do Hispanics have all the same continental ancestry? That should be enough to see the quality of the studies that you mention and the people who are behind it. How can you distinguish, genetically, a Black Hispanic from a Non-Hispanic Black, an Amerindian Hispanic from a Non-Hispanic Amerindian, a White Hispanic from a Non-Hispanic White? How can you cluster together a "pure" Black Hispanic from Cuba, a "pure" Amerindian from Bolivia and a "pure" Hispanic White from Argentina?

• Ask the 12 scientists here. and it doesnt speak of races, it speaks of genetic structure. Thulean 15:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

If genetics demonstrates something is that Europeans are a hybrid population ( in fact much more than hybrid), like all populations of the world, with as much Middle Eastern as European influence, plus all the other influences. That is the only truth that can be said genetically of Europeans. There is not a distinct European race and therefore white race, isolated genetically and in terms of ancestry, as has been traditionally believed by some people and as some people continue and try to make other people believe. Veritas et Severitas 01:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Weasal words. And Middle Eastern and Near Eastern are not interchangable. Near Eastern in modern sense is different than Near East before Neolithic dispersals. Thulean 15:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Tichondrias version on Europe and diverse tendentious stuff

I continue to see Tichondrias as tendentious in his/her contributions. "Jews are not considered the same race and so on" I am deleting his contribution and watch out for this guy. His continuous attempts to try and use this article to promote Neo-Nazi ideology hiding it all behind normal contributions is disgusting.

I have already said that this article should be deleted. Some people do not agree, but then they leave the article alone and these Neonazis come back to use it as a platform for their ideology. I am cleaning up all tendentious stuff.

In fact the article is a mess. I see no solution for this article, as I am tired of repeating. I have said over and over again that unfortunately the term white to refer to people has been hijacked by Neonazis and there is no way out. Veritas et Severitas 02:31, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

You removed citations from non-racists who said the general opinion of "who is white?". By doing this, you are making the article less informative.--Dark Tichondrias 05:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Tichondrias is back and she is editing manipulatively. All her edits are mentioned as "added citacion "fixed link", when in reality she is editing ALL at will.

Thulean has also made some likely capricious edits.

I'm reverting to CONSENSUAL status quo in Nov. 4. And will ponder to ask for vandalism-related help: mediation, investigation and opinions. --Sugaar 08:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for comment

The dispute is quite complex but maybe can be defined by this:

1. The article should be limited to general description of the diffuse concept of the term "white people" and its different usages. General discusion on the validity of Human race should not be here but in the corresponding article. Excessive details on the particular usages of "white" in contexts such as the USA or others, should be in ther respective articles (i.e. White American. The article shoul not in any case be a neonazi propaganda billboard. --Sugaar 09:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

2. The article should be a continuous edit war between racist/racialist and anti-racist/anti-racialist POVs. (edit if you think you can describe better your position).

This dispute is about racial identification. I have beeen putting citations from credible non-racist sociologists about various definitions of white in different times and places, but two users feel these citations should not be in the article. First, user Sugaar claims these citations should be removed because they represent racist POVs. The reason Sugaar believes they are "racist" is because s/he identifies very adamantly as a member of the Caucasoid race, so any definition of whites which fails to acknowedge the full extent of Caucasoids is racist. Second, VeritasSevitas also feels these citations should not be in the article. At an earlier time in this article's history, VeritasSevitas was trying to define white people by genetics. For him/her genetics means race and objectivity. VeritasSevitas believes a defintion of white which is not founded on genetics is racist. They both feel this article should be deleted.--Dark Tichondrias 12:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This reminds me of an editing dispute on the Asian people article. An anonymous user kept trying to redirect the article to the Mongoloid article. They are different concepts of race, yet this anonymous user did not feel the former should exist. Eventually, they nominated the Asian people article for deletion, claiming that Asian people don't exist. It was speedykept. In a tirade, this anonymous user argued that Mongoloids are racist against themselves and should stop denying they are Mongoloid. Due to cultural/religious differences Europeans have considered Muslims, Gypsies and Jews not part of their race. This fact is not caused by a user pushing a racist POV into the article, but a user stating a cited fact about the way things are. The concept of white people is wrapped around shifting national/ethnic/religious forces. Sugaar and VeritasSevitas should work to improve the Caucasoid and genetic articles and at the same time acknowledge that other definitions of race exist. --Dark Tichondrias 12:26, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Dark T., eough is enough. The use of language to hide an agenda is very old. ¨White people are Nordic people¨, ¨Jews are not considered White¨ by whom? by Neo-Nazis of course. That disgusting ideology has no place here to define race, that most malignant of ideologies that was responsible for the death of 50 million Europeans just 60 years ago. I am not going to repeat over and over again the same things and be contributing endlessly. I have a life. Genetics and human decency kicks in the ass that ideology and people like you who insist on defining race following that ideology. Whenever I find tendencious comments trying to define race according to Nordicist/Neo-Nazi propaganda I will revert it and I hope that other decent people will do it too. Veritas et Severitas 12:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I did not know you felt that White people was equivalent to a Nordic. I have mischaracterized your views.--Dark Tichondrias 14:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I misread what you were saying. You VeritasSevitas were accusing me of equating Nordic with white people. I have never argued white people are Nordics that I can recall. If anything my sources were saying European, especially Northern European, were considered whites in the US.--Dark Tichondrias 14:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Sugaar is "he".

I dont feel adamntly of any "race". Caucasoid or white for me are just conventional terms that come from a racist history. I believe there are no races and that the term race can only be used with animal breeds such as Cocker Spaniel or Burmese cat, because they have been artificially selected as such breeds/races. Nothing of that has happened among humans. But accept that my opinion is not mainstream and accept the consensus.

I do think that the article should be a disambiguation page. But again I accept the consensus.

I want to see when Dark Tichondrias (a user who is exclussively focused on race issues, always from a her own POV) will accept consensus and stop editing on your individual POV under the guise of "minor edit". --Sugaar 13:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments

(This space is for the requested comments)

Vandalism of 72.153.229.218/LSLM and Sugaar

Deleting whole, cited sections (Population section) is vandalism. Hidden agenda accusations are ridiculous. I'm not accusing this vandals of having "destroying white race" agenda. It's equally paranoid. Concentrate on the debate, text and metarial. Thulean 12:59, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but if a duck talks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck. Veritas et Severitas 13:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I have not deleted anything. I have reverted to a previous consensuated edition of the page (there is a page history and you can see who did what and when, former versions are also stored, for the record), just before Dark Tichondrias started meddling again, totally ignoring the discussion. If anything of the intermediate edits deserve to be saved (what may be the case), I ask to be discussed on detail here.

This page has been systematically subject of attacks by anonymous and registered users with a clear racist agenda in the past and will probably be in the future. As you can find in the dicussion archives, DarkTichondrias has justified her past edits on the grounds that Stormfront and other neonazi groups think this and that. So we know who is DarkTichondrias. You haven't been so explicit but you have not denied either that you are a nazi or have a racist agenda (just thrown balls off: accusing me of being rude or whatever but never denying my suspicions).

Maybe it's an ethnic trait but I like to call things by their name and not to play word games. This may sometimes feel rude for some raised in more hypocritic cultures, I guess, but in fact I'm trying to be polite by means of being 100% honest. Can you think of better ettiquete?

If what I say happens to be false. I will apologize. But meanwhile I keep my conviction that I'm on the truth: that you two are members of some racist organization and that you are trying to make Misplaced Pages fit your ideology and serve for your political purposes. --Sugaar 13:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I have already said that my sources are non-racist sociologist sources who are honestly reporting who is considered white. They are credible sources, so I add them. Good Misplaced Pages editors try to source their contributions.--Dark Tichondrias 14:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

By reverting to that revision, you have deleted the population section. Please be careful in your future edits and refrain from personal attacks. Thulean 13:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

And Sugaar, that was my last warning to you. Next time I'm going to report you WP:RD. Thulean 14:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Please go ahead. "Report" me: you'll save me the effort of drawing administrators' attention towards this conflict and your behaviour. Thanks in advance. --Sugaar 16:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Please focus on the article, not on each other and please restrict discussion on this page to the article and not to the subject

I don't really see anything productive coming from attacking one another here or getting off on a debate in the discussion page on the subject. We need to focus on writing an article. -Psychohistorian 13:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Why do you keep changing it to "most common definition in US"? Thulean 14:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Because there are other definitions. For example, neither the Chinese definition of "white people" nor the Russian definition of "white people" applies to that statement. -Psychohistorian 14:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Chineese definition was in the past. Can you tell me if Chineese consider themselves white now? Thulean 14:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Why would it matter? You have an unsourced statement and an unsourced definition of "white people" when we have examples of other definitions existing. The end result is that we must clarify which definition we are using whenever we make a statement.-Psychohistorian 14:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

There are many unsourced meterial like ""Whether any individual considers any other individual as white often comes down to whether the person looks white; however this is a very subjective judgement."

Some of the unsourced meterials are obviously true. Thulean 14:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I welcome..wait, no, I *encourage* you to mark any statement with which you feel is unsourced and disputable. However, once reliable sources are provided, the tags will be removed.-Psychohistorian 14:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'd love to focus in the article but it's obvious that it's subject to a major dispute. While some people are discussing how to improve it, others edit it at caprice ignoring the discussion. It's obviously a matter for the Arbitration Comitee or, assuming that all parts would accept a mediation (what I doubt), for RFM. --Sugaar 16:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
• What is obvious for some is absolutely wrong for others. For me it's obvious that white refers either to people of light pigmentation (North Eurasians and even Inuits) or to Caucasoid (West and South Eurasians), depending on how you define it: as synonim of a biological subgroup of humankind (aka "race"), in which case it would be a synonim of Caucasoid, or as synonim of merely light skinned, independently of other elements, in which case it would be approximate of Northern peoples of the World (plus their offspring elsewhere). I can't accept that Saddam Hussein is not white: he would go unadverted in any "white" city (wouldn't he be so famous) and the same applies for all West Asians, whose closest relatives are Europeans. --Sugaar 16:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Population

"Currently white population is in a declining trend, i.e: either declining now or will decline if current trends dont change. This is due to the fact that most white populations have sub replacement fertility rates."

Reason/Citation:

"This is the case for all countries in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Although, USA has almost replacement fertility rate, this is due to the populations besides whites. In 2002, white American women had fertility levels significantly below replacement level which was 1.9 per woman. In American non-hispanic white women, this was 1.8 per woman. "

So Why was this removed?

"Sub-replacement fertility is a fertility rate that is not high enough to replace an area's population. In industrialized countries with low child mortality, sub-replacement fertility is below approximately 2.1 children per woman's life time. This is the case for all countries in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand."

And why did added? Thulean 17:18, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

This section is working from an a priori assumption about who is white (industrialized == white?? or European, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand == White??). Removing that, the section doesn't make sense.-Psychohistorian 17:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Maybe because it doesn't include other White peoples such as West Asians and Indians (if you take White people as Caucasoid), for example.

Maybe because this is not the article on Europe, section demographics.

Maybe because it has an implicit POV of: "white women you should have more children", less leisure and more racial patriotism. This is probably sexist.

But specially because it wasn't discussed at all. And, considering the dispute situation and that you and DT are a minority of editors, this is WP:POV pushing. --Sugaar 17:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Saying that Indians are whites isnt different than saying whites are pure Nordics. Both reflect the views of marginality. Besides, even people defining caucasoid acknowledge that it is different than white. Thulean 17:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

No. It's not marginal at all. In your provincial and/or ideological POV may be but worldwide it's probably majoritary. And we must deal not with US concepts but with worldwide views.

The real problem is that white has no biological grounds, no scientific anything and it's just and only a sociological construct. Therefore each one has his/her own view of the issue. The same person in the USA may be black and in Brazil white.

--Sugaar 18:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• I proved the USA and UK views. Now you gotta prove world views. And deleting a whole section is vandalism. Thulean 18:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Haven't you read the article? Read the section Latin America. Read the paragraph on US census. --Sugaar 20:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Even if we go by the Latin American views and accept *all* of them as white (which even they dont think so), population of South America is 522M. So most whites still live in Europe, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Besides, currently there is no source to Latin American claim. Thulean 13:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages policies that should be taken in account regarding the current dispute(s)

I suggest everybody to read/re-read the following:

• Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view (official policy)

All Misplaced Pages articles must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by a reliable source.

• Misplaced Pages:Consensus (guideline)

Misplaced Pages works by building consensus. This is done through polite discussion and negotiation, in an attempt to develop a consensus.

Consensus works best when all editors make a good faith effort to work together to accurately and appropriately describe the different views on the subject.

• Misplaced Pages:Vandalism (official policy)

Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change of content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Misplaced Pages.

Any good-faith effort to improve the encyclopedia, even if misguided or ill-considered, is not vandalism.

• Misplaced Pages:Resolving disputes (official policy)

--Sugaar 16:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Mediation

This article is to be mediated, per this case, on this subpage Talk:White people/Mediation. Anyone may participate. | AndonicO Talk 17:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Declining population?

Same issue as before. I'll delete this in about 24 hours unless someone else wants to delete it now.-Psychohistorian 18:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• (industrialized == white?? or European, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand == White??). Where does it say such assumptions? Thulean 13:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Population section

I have erased it because it assumes white=European ancestry, which is blatantly POV, against consensus and inconsistent with the rest of the article.

If such section can be adressed at all, it should consider all Caucasoid people (in my POV, of course) and should deal with the demographics of all the Americas, Europe, North africa, West and South Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Personally I believe such task is impossible to do and would anyhow cause further discussions. So it's better this way. --Sugaar 18:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Just one point. I support Suggar. If we are to speak about the white race, then only Caucasian makes sense. All other attempts to classify white people apart from Caucasians has always been part of racist propaganda and agendas and hand in hand with White Supremacy, Nordicism and Nazism and as I have more than once said, genetics kick all those people in the ass. Population groups are to the concept of race what lineage to a person or family. Proven population groups cut across continents. Caucasian is not perfect either, but at least it is not such an arbitrary concept as the concept of white that some people here insist on using. I am also fed up with the ad populum argument. A lot of people say: In this country or that country people think this, in this place people think that. That is absolutely stupid in an encyclopedia. In the first place it is questioanble that all people think the same, and in the second place, so what? In a recent program I saw how kids are being brainwashed in some extremist Muslim societies at the moment. Kids were asked what Americans and Jews were and they responded that they were like Satan, a mixture of pigs and apes. The Muslim world is inhabited by 1 billion people and views like this are unfortunately not so uncommom at the moment. So, in the article about American or Jews I am going to write that, right? It is an opinion shared by a lot of people, right? Then why not include it? Come on, stop it. I was not born yesterday. Stop using ad populum arguments that are very questionable in the frist place, many of which even the guy here with the least experience in life knows where they come from. Veritas et Severitas 23:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I believe LSLM doesnt make sense. If there is a credible source, like a poll, saying majority of muslims think this, he can say "majority of muslims think this". Other than that the analogy of a tv program and wide held opinions is silly. Besides, if white race is a social construct, then only thing that matters is the opinions of the majority of whites. Thulean 13:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

China

"In China, white people refers to a specific group of Asians - people who would not be considered white in the United States ."

This sentence is incorrect. The source doesnt say anything about *only* Bai are considered white people. So the sentence should be like:

"In China, a specific group of Asians - people who would not be considered white in the United States is also considered white."

This is still incorrect however. The article doesnt talk about a consenssus in China, it just makes a reference to a region, not whole China.

And the official designation of Bai is Bai, which means white. However it is just an assumption that official designation has any ethnical consideration. Thulean 14:02, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with changing it to "In China, a specific group of Asians - people who would not be considered white in the United States are considered white". The article is mute on whether or not this refers to a specific area or not. It is also mute on whether or not people considered white in the US are considered white in China. "However it is just an assumption that official designation has any ethical consideration". Wrong. The Bai are an ethnic group. Therefore, the label which describes them is an ethnic designation.-Psychohistorian 14:42, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• The specific area is West Yunnan region.

• The fact that their name is white doesnt mean it's given because of their skin colour:

"The Bai people favor white clothes and decorations. White in Chinese is pronounced 'Bai', so maybe this is where their name derives from." You have to find a source that this name was given because of skin colour/ethnicity reasons.

• You added it to the very beginnig of page. We dont mention the descriptions in Europe, Americas in the start but we mention China? Thulean 14:56, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

"The specific area is West Yunnan region". No, the specific region where they live is the West Yunnan region. That says nothing about the range of the use of the term.

The Bai are an ethnic group. "White people" is an ethnic designation for them. "White people" isn't a term based on skin color. If it were, albinos from Nigeria would be "white people".

Actually, I'd be very happy to put the Chinese reference lower in the article, but you insist on putting a tag in the intro for something which is sourced in the body of the article. As a result, the source needs to be moved up into the intro. -Psychohistorian 15:15, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• It's written that they call themselves "black" and "white" in west Yunnan.

• Bai is an ethnic group. However you dont know that their name has ethnic links. As I said, it might be because of their clothing or cultural traditions. Just because we call Soviet Army, Red Army, it doesnt mean that those soldiers have red skin or part of the red people. So I'm asking you to prove that the name is given because of ethnic considerations. Thulean 18:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• And agian, my point is proven here:

The Bai People hold the white color in high esteem and call themselves "Baizi", "Baini" or "Baihuo", which means white people. In 1956, of their own will they were named the Bai Nationality.

As you can see the reason they are called white does NOT have an ethnical basis. It's more like that Bai people like colour white, like communists like colour red. I'll delete your addition tomorrow unless someone else does before. Thulean 18:18, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so we've pretty much established that you don't know what "ethnic" means. You think it has to do with skin color. -Psychohistorian 18:29, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, skin colour is *one* of the considerationS. Anyways:

ethnic: 2 a : of or relating to large groups of people classed according to common racial, national, tribal, religious, linguistic, or cultural origin or background <ethnic minorities> <ethnic enclaves> b : being a member of a specified ethnic group <an ethnic German> c : of, relating to, or characteristic of ethnics <ethnic neighborhoods> <ethnic foods>

The designation of white to Bai has nothing to do with: racial, national, tribal or linguistic origins. It has to do with the fact that they like white colour. Simple. By your reasoning, if we meet green Aliens in future, we should classify environmentalist humans with them. Thulean 18:36, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

You see the words "skin color" in that definition?? Do you really believe that all these people just independently and individually decided to have a common identifier of wearing white?

Go out and take a freshman level class in anthropology. I'm sure your local community college offers one. Then, when you know what words like "tribe", "nation", "linguistics", "race", and "culture" mean, we can have an intelligent conversation.-Psychohistorian 18:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Should white people who like the colour black included in African American page?

• Furthermore, refrain from personal attacks. And try to answer to the content. I dont dismiss your views by saying "take a genetics course". Thulean 18:55, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

What I just stated was not a personal attack. There's nothing wrong with being ignorant in an area of scholarship (we all have to learn sometime). The problem only occurs when one refuses to learn. As for whether white people who like the color black should be included in the African American page, that question is what is called a non sequitur.-Psychohistorian 19:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• And I think your latest answers were just weasel words. I think it's best we continue this at meditation. Thulean 19:25, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Anything seems a personal attack for Thulean. He is wikilawyering. We must stand firm and be able to counter his "legalist" harassment. --Sugaar 16:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Thulena position

Thulean, your Nordicist bias at trying to present a definition of the white race is more than clear. Abstain from it.

1. In the first place Nordics, as you call them, if you mean by that Scandinavians, have played a minor and marginal role in European civilization, which is based on three pillars:

A)Greece. B)Rome. c)Judeo-Christianity.

2. Genetics only indicates that Scandinavia is precisely one of the least European regions in Europe. See: http://img.search.com/b/bb/300px-Cavalli-SforzaMap.jpg

As you can see, even areas outside Europe, in the Middle East, show a higher affinity with Europe than important areas in Scandinavia.

I do believe that Scandinavians are exactly as European as anyone else and that the genetic diversity among all peoples in the world is just marginal. I just hope that readers from Scandinavia are not offended. I know the place and they are among the most polite people and least racist people on earth. But some people like you need a response. So, stop trying to use information about which you have no clue and stop using this site for your Nordicist agenda, that is ludicrous in the light of 21st century knowlegede.Veritas et Severitas 19:23, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

LOL. Check out Australia. Very different colour than Europe. I think the colours represent indigenous populations. In Scandinavia, I think the blue is for Samii and Lapplanders. Thulean 19:22, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Man, your ignorance is such that I am not going to discuss with you anymore. I just hope that you leave this place alone. Veritas et Severitas 19:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

That map is somewhat obsolete. I belongs to a 1992 work and was partly overruled by Cavalli-Sforza's human populations' tree, that I read in his work of 1996 and a version of which is available at Misplaced Pages here.

The map obviously refers to indigineous populations. There's no discussion about it.

Other Cavalli-Sforza's maps published also in 1996, are the ones on the four Principal Components of the European Genome. You can find them here (disregard the arbitrary tags, such as "Neolithic" they are very disputed). These images could probably be uploaded at Misplaced Pages under free use policy, btw.

In them you can see how that Principal Component 1 (PC 1) has its highest density in Iraq. The PC 2 among Lapps, the PC 3 in the Don Basin, the PC 4 in Greece and nearby areas, and the PC 5 in the Basque Country. There's no specificity about Scandinavians or Britons... they are just "normal Europeans" of mixed ancestry. These maps do depict actual populations.

Other relevant race-related genetic images are also in the article Race: this one places Greeks and Britons side by side, this one has been heavily used to argue in favor of classical races.

There's not a single genetic study that demonstrates any specificty for Europeans, much less for Scandinavians, that, following their Y-DNA cakes (just one bit of info among others) are a very mixed and diverse bunch (in an European context, of course): Swedes are more like SE Euros and Danes more like Western Euros, with Norwegians somewhat intermediate. --Sugaar 20:43, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Will Delete Uncited Meterial

Lots of stuff on the article is uncited for a long time. I asked for citations yesterday but none were provided so I'm going to delete uncited stuff. The exception to this is Latin America because I remember some of them being cited. But the links seems to be gone from frequent edits. However I will remove this part there:

In some countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Chile etc. the majority of the population is of Spanish or other European ancestry, making them white or half white (mestizo)

because (mestizo) means mixed, not "half white". And this article is about white people, not mixed people. And Mexico's population is only 9% white Thulean 15:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Currently the reverted article violates Misplaced Pages:Verifiability as lots of unsupported claims were put back. Unless anyone provides citations, I will revert it back to my last edit. Thulean 13:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Mixed whites are whites, at least partly. There's no such thing as pure races... except maybe in horse-breeding, I guess.

The US racist principle of "one drop" is obviously unrealistic (many White Americans have mixed ancestry) and biased. It can be mentioned in the section on USA but it cannot be the principle that guides the article.

Here you can see many examples of "White Americans" that have mixed ancestry, including: Elvis Presley, Johnny Depp and Val Kilmer among others. Should they be called "mestizos" by the "one drop" rule. Maybe you thik that way but it's clear that such POV should not contaminate the article.

Here you have something interesting on skin color and how people of the same "classical sub-race" look very differently tanned depending on where they live. --Sugaar 21:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

go away thulean

go away thulean, from reading your contributions in discussion you are obviously intent on humiliating people of African ancestry by claiming they are of a more seperatr species to non african people (your statement about evidence for non homo species in the x chromosomes of europeans and not in africans). you are clearly a nordicistm aryan worshipper aswell.

the definition of white people is purely a POV, people say that europeans are white and north africans, middle easteners and central asians are not yet these four populations all share vast amounts of genetic markers ( or haplogroups ). These four populations all share anthropological similarities. they all share cultural and linguistic similarities, therefore defining white people as living in a certain continents, let alone one specific continent is impossible. Saying that white people have white skin and that people with white skin live in europe, north africa, the middle east, all of asia, indigenous americans etc in different ratios is fine. But who cares if people have white skin or not?

I am glad that other people can see Thulean´s nazi approach. I hope that some administrators can block this guy.Veritas et Severitas 21:21, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Will revert any Thulean edits

I ask the other honest editors to do the same systematically until the situation has been settled. He's abusing the participative nature of Misplaced Pages up to outrageous limits. He's POV-pushing, harassing, spamming user pages, making mischievous RFIs and angering a whole lot of good willed editors. --Sugaar 23:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I will be reverting him too. Veritas et Severitas 23:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

You have been reported to RFI: Thulean 13:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

For what? Fighting vandalism is (sadly) a part of Wikipedians' daily lifes. --Sugaar 20:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

RFI: Thulean for complex vandalism

See: Misplaced Pages:Requests for investigation

I had no choice. I ask all good willed users to pass by and give their versions of the problem and present any evidence you consider relevant. --Sugaar 23:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Thulean be reported by multiple parties in complaint to extinguish provacative his vandilisations.--Euskata 00:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for permanent protection

Since this article is a special article, one that has to do with race and attracts a lot of extremists, I request the permanent protection of this article. The edit history of this article should be enough argument in favour of this protection. Veritas et Severitas 00:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

From anonymous users you mean. I agree 100%. --Sugaar 01:03, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I two thirdly agree--Euskata 01:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

O agree to --Globe01 17:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree as well. I think I even requested protection (from new and anonymous users) for this article a long time ago, but the request was denied without much explanation. I couldn't be bothered to navigate my way through the confusing labrynth of Misplaced Pages's help section to find out how to appeal the decision. Spylab 01:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The genetic section violates WP:NOR

The genetic section on the white population violates Misplaced Pages's policy on original research, so it should be removed. The section shows that Middle Easterns and North Africans are genetically similar to Europeans. By this fact, it argues that these regions must have European ancestry. More likely it is the other way around with Europeans having Middle Eastern and North African ancestry, but this is not the point. The point is the argument implied in this section is that genetic similarity in non-European populations proves they are white. If this were not the implied argument, then the genetics of these non-Europeans would be irrelevant. The argument that white people can be determined by genetics violates Misplaced Pages:No original research because it introduces a new way of defining white people that contradicts the citations. Before they were removed, there were five citations that said white is equivalent to European ancestry.--Dark Tichondrias 10:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Please don't POV-push your viewpoints on technical grounds.

I don't feel able to discuss content until the current administrative actons are solved. We are all quite nervous about all this conflict. --Sugaar 11:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It also violated Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, since most of the section didnt have citations. And his comments about the map were his comments which was wrong and explained here Thulean 13:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC

I will not comment on you anymore. The only thing that it contradicts are your continuous attempts at trying to define white according to the most spurious ideology, that of Nazi Nordicism, which is in the 21st century, apart from immoral, ludicrous and pathetic.

And the only thing that white extremist do not like about genetics is how genetics is kicking them in the ass.Veritas et Severitas 13:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

You Veritas et Severitas have been knocking down straw men, because you have mischaraterized my sources. My citations were from credible non-Nazi, non-Nordicist sources that attempted to resolve who was considered white in different times and places.--Dark Tichondrias 13:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, sure. Veritas et Severitas 14:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

• There's no genetic section. Any (well done) genetic section could only support (if anything) the concept of Caucasoid race, never European specificity (except on the cladistic-minimalistic level).

Thank you for the protection.

I am going to make even a furhter request, that may quite exceptional. Wiki administrators could take into account the possibility of protecting permanently articles like this, that are subject to extremist agendas. I know it is not normal in Wiki, but maybe it could be considered. Additions to these articles only being allowed after much scrutiny, as I said, keeping an eye out for extremist ideologies.

I do not accept the tenet that these people want to use. They want to use the principle of democracy that rules Wiki for their own purposes. I accept this principle, of course, but certain ideologies should not be considered neutrally by anyone. Veritas et Severitas 16:57, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

PERMANENT protection? No way. Terrible idea. --Lukobe 19:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it's inviable. But the protection should remain until all disputes have been solved and tempers have cooled down. --Sugaar 20:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I guess it is not the way Wiki works, but as I said, maybe some people could start considering this fact with some articles. This one has already been done and undone several times and I guess it will always be like that, mostly with extremists having their way. Some people here may be interested in keeping an eye on it, but I doubt that any of us will have the motivation that one can always find among extremist ideologues, so I guess these articles will always be used for their agendas, which is too bad for a beautiful project like Wiki´s. Veritas et Severitas 21:10, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've followed Sugaar's edits on the basque wiki pages for some time and there's nothing extreme about what he does, I can't speak for Veritas (haven't followed his work), but comparing the three it looks like Thulean is by far the worst most extreme, he's clearly got a nazi nordicist racist agenda.--Ibarreche 21:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

You may want to comment in the ongoing WP:PAIN, WP:RFI and also in the ongoing mediation. See above.

Be careful when using certan terms. For some unexplained reason WP:Etiquette and WP:CIV specially protect certain ideologies.

As soon as this is solved, I plan to start action (essays and so on, maybe re-creating Wikipedians against Racism or something of the like) in order to push ahead to weaken these unfair limitations to free speech and defend Misplaced Pages against ideologically motivated attacks in a better form. --Sugaar 11:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Btw, it's interesting to notice that WP:NPA says:

Be aware of WikiLawyering

This policy can be a prime candidate for WikiLawyering, which can be defined as asserting a technical interpretation of the policy to override the principle it expresses. This page is frequently edited and examples and remedies that do or do not appear here may have been edited to suit one editor's perspective, but not be generally agreed to by the community. In the end, common sense is more important than the exact wording in this and other policy articles, including the examples included above.

This tactic of WikiLawyering is what Thulean has been trying to use against many good faith editors, starting with me. Therefore be cautious and try to avoid terms that can be considered personal attacks such as "nazi" (though I think it's just a descriptive and accurate term), use instead phrases such as "this user promotes a racist/white nationalist POV", etc. Which are as accurate and won't allow them lawyering so easily. --Sugaar 12:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

BIAS

This very abridged article seems to be still pushing the assertion that Middle Easterners and North Africans are generally considered as `white'. As soon as I have written comments about the `whiteness' of South Asians, many users were at the forefront to argue. Many West Asians and North Africans can be indistinguishable from South Asians and vice-versa. How is it so that they are differentiated so much??

(Please, sign your comments).

Not really. Many West Asians are indistinguishable from southern Europeans. Each time I see a documentary on Syria or Lebanon I see faces that could well be Spaniard. Genetically the closest thing to a Western Asian is European. North Africans seem to have some East African ("Ethiopid") admixture (from memory, have to document it) that makes many of them look somewhat different but they are still mostly West Eurasians genetically. India is more complex but they are still genetically much closer to Western Eurasians than to any other group.

One problem may be with the perception of race as skin tone. But skin tone is a poor approximator, as almost every "white" (except maybe some extreme cases of blondism) gets heavily tanned when usually exposed to the sun. This may have an accumulative selective effect through generations. You do see blod turks with blue eyes... but you see less often light skinned Turks. This is just a climatic adaptation and has little to do with major genetic differences.

A good reference is here. In general this site: Racial Reality, while keeping in usage the conventonal term "race" and even defending it, has a "realistic" (critic) approach to it and has loads of good demythifying info. --Sugaar 11:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Dispute

Can you answer these 2 important questions about the dispute:

• 1. What caused the dispute/edit war that led to the protection?

• 2. Would mediation be a solution to this dispute? If not, how else can the dispute be resolved?

Please answer these questions as fully as you can. --SunStar Net 11:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

My honest opinion is:

1. The POV-pushing of ideologically biased opinions by two members: Thulean (new member with only a few weeks of most polemic activity) and Dark Tichondrias (somewhat more veteran but almost equally polemic). DT was more or less kept under check but, once Thulean arrived, she started to make alleged "minor edits" that were actually POV-pushing mass edits. This put everyone very nervous and gave air to Thulean to go ahead with his legalist harassing tactics and start POV-pushing his own version too.

2. I wish mediation could solve this dispute. But I believe that the two aforementioned users don't agree with Misplaced Pages guidelines/policies as consensus/supermajority and NPOV, that's particularly clear in the case of Thulean.

The NPOV-FAQ has one moment of particular lucidity when saying that: There must surely be a point beyond which our very strong interest in being a completely open project is trumped by the interest the vast majority of our writers have, in being able to get work done without constantly having to fix the intrusions of people who do not respect our policy.

In this sense, I think the two polemic users, and specially the most aggressive one, Thulean, should be banned for at least a long period from editing any article related with Race, and specially this one. I hardly see any other solution.

Additionally, I also think this article should be permanently protected from anonymous users. Because it has a really long history of POV-pushing and vandalism attacks by non-registered users, that pre-dates this ongoing dispute. --Sugaar 12:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I never call my edits "minor edits" unless they are spelling or grammar changes. You are refering to my addition of citations from credible sources which I flag as "added citation".--Dark Tichondrias 17:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I should add. There is an ideology that started in the XVII century, but grew strong in the XVIII century and especially during the XIXth and early XXth centuries, reaching its climax in Nazi Germany. This ideology has a name, it is called Nordicism, one variant being Nazi Nordicism. Nowadays late 20th century and 21st century science (population genetics, population anthropology, genetic archaeology) has rendered all that information obsolete, information that was always loaded with political propaganda. Some users insist on using those concepts (Nazi Nordicism) in many articles, continuously, while ignoring the latest advances in the field. Those people have a clear agenda, and a very immoral and dangerous one and they have to be spotted. That satanic ideology is very active in internet and steps should be taken to prevent them from using Wiki as a platform for their agenda. That is the key issue here and a fundamental one. When people agree that using Nazi-Nordicist arguments is not valid when writing articles about race, Wiki will have made a lot of progress. And be careful with this ideology. Often they present the information and just say: well I am just being objective about an issue that is shared by a lot of people, and use the ad populum argument arbitrarily and immorally. Anyone with a minimum sensitivity to recent history should be offended to see this ideology being used over and over again in race-related articles and should put their foot down once and for all.

Since Diderot and D'Dalambert wrote the first Encyclopeadia, their aim was to combat ignorance and superstition, not to perpetuate it. If this ignorance and superstition is, besides, responsible for the most malignant of ideologies, it should be rejected even more in a place like this. Veritas et Severitas 14:50, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The debate was caused by two users Veritas et Severitas and Sugaar who want everyone to agree with the existance of the Caucasoid race, so they feel compelled to remove opposition to the acknowledgement of the Caucasoid race. They believe very strongly in the existance of the Caucasoid race and want everyone else to believe in it as well. White people and the Caucasoid race are separate concepts, yet they refuse to acknowledge this. According to the citations from sociologists, the concept of white people has changed over time. It was originally a term brought from the British isles during the time of colonization. This founding British diaspora gradually included more people in the term. This has all been cited from credible sources. On the other hand, the Caucasoid race is defined by craniofacial criteria. These are two separate concepts of race. There is more than one way to conceive race, so race has meant different things to different people.--Dark Tichondrias 16:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The accuasations raised by Sugaar and Veritas are their doublespeak argument. They know the sociological sources I have cited are credible sources who are trying to objectively determine who other people consider white, but other conceptions of race are at odds to the advocacy for the Caucasoid race. They accuse these sources of being Nazi sources. Any one only has to look at them to determine they are not Nazi sources. They feel accusing Thulean and Dark Tichondrias of being Nazis will be a sufficient argument to serve their ends. Their real argument is that the races of anthropology are the only acceptable ways to define race, but they do not argue this. This would be considered politically-incorrect, early 20th century racial realism.--Dark Tichondrias 16:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

These two accusations have been raised before.

I must protest that I don't believe in any race. I think that race=breed and can only be applied to domestic animals, where human selection has acted to create selected "pure races". I may agree that, in the usual loose (and confuse) usage of the concept "race" in humans, genetics only seem to support some clear specifity for the Caucasoid type (see Race for details) and not for Europeans as a separate group.

The issue of sources has been used to ignore consensus. There are probably sources for many opinions but many of the sources used by the POV-pushing users are biased and hold either racist or eurocentric POVs (or both), what can be accepted maybe in some cases in the articles of White American or White British but not in the global article on white people that must have a global point of view, not a US or UK centered one. --Sugaar 16:43, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

When this accusation is raised at Sugaar, he denies the existance of race, namely his advocacy for the Caucasoid race, but says the opposite when he is not under scrutiny. He says genetics proves the Caucasoid race on this edit and that White people is equivalent to the Caucasoid race on this edit.--Dark Tichondrias 17:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

The long-winded discussion on Nazism and Nordicism by Sugaar and Veritas are their attempt to divert the discussion of the issues at hand. Their argument extrapolates a Nazi agenda which is completely unfounded. Then, their sole argument is that Nazism is evil which neither User:Dark Tichondrias nor Thulean deny. In their argument, the more they talk about the evils of Nazism and Nordicism, the more they evoke a gut-feeling in outside observers. They want outside mediators to feel disgusted at Nazism and side with them in their argument from disgust without objectively looking at the sociological sources they claim to be "Nazi".--Dark Tichondrias 16:50, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• 1) First of all, I asked for citations in this version . Then I waited a day for citations and then began editing when none were provided. You should also note that most of the material, which I asked for citations, were unsupported for a long time. So they had much more time to provide sources.I made a relevant discussion section to explain myself.

• Then I started editing. See history

• Then all of my edits were reverted by Sugaar, saying "rv POV-pushing by Thulean". AFTER a long time of edit wars, he only then wrote something here, which was mostly irrelevant with regards to WP:Verifiability.

• 2) I dont know. I think simply reverting all my changes is vandalism. Thulean 17:48, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

1)We were too busy with your diversive tactics of PAINs and RFIs to pay attention to your POV-pushing activities at that moment. You did not comment that in the discussion page. We were at that point already quite tired.

2)Misplaced Pages has a very strict concept of what vandalism is. I also think that POV-pushing your ideas over consensus systematically and wikylawyering as you did against people who have never insulted you is complex vandalism and that's why I have reported you (as more peceful means were not available anymore) but I have also been informally reprehended for claiming that you are a vandal.

There's a principle of good will and a principle of consensus (or supermajority) that you systematically are ignoring. New users like you can of course commit mistakes (and even veteran ones) but you have an arrogance and the conviction that this is a war that you will have to win by any means at hand that makes it impossible to reach any agreement.

• Apart of that I want to mention that LSLM has been seriously warned by Shell Kenney, who is not taking any seutral stand. I wonder how an administrator can be recused in such processes. While other administrators like Durova have recused themselves in a push of honesty, this one is clearly favoring Thulean's lawyering tactics. Maybe with good will but I'm starting to become paranoid. --Sugaar 19:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It's clear the reason Sugaar is so set against the project of defining White Race is because he knows that Basques aren't really white people at all, they're actually descended from the same black stock as the Canary Guanacos who are themselves descended from the transatlassian negros of Morocco.--Getxo 19:58, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

This user above posted the same in my talk page, what intially made me laugh: "guanaco"! It's Guanche! Guanaco is a camelid of South America. Apart of all the other nonsense: very funny even for an act of vandalism and intended racist attack.

What I liked less was that he copied my userpage in his own, with some mockery . So I had to request an investigation on vandalism. --Sugaar 16:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I just realized that I had left unanswered the last comments by DT. I insist I don't like racialist approaches to humankind, this doesn't mean that I am unaware of the diversity of our species (pretty small anyhow) and that you can maybe use population genetics to promote racialist ideas. It is only in this sense that I do see certain (limited) specifity for what traditionally has been called Caucasoid "race", that I prefer to term "type" and not "race". But this can be only be a relative term.

What I reject is that there's a clear specifity to Europeans, specially when compared with West Asians (Middle Easterners in colloquial terms). The specificity of Europeans can only be cladistic (gradual) and in this sense the more specific among Europeans are, if any, "isolate" Atlantic peoples such as Basques or Irish, not Scandinavians that show little or no genetic specificty they rather show diversity, what is also great, maybe even better than "purity"). This is actually a very silly and somewhat delicate subject anyhow.

Comment This is a fallacious slippery slope argument. Sugaar wants to argue that since there is no clear distinction of physical type or genetic makeup at the European border, Middle Easterns and North Africans are undeniably white too. By extension, blacks and Asians would also be white due to a clear division of physical type. Sugaar would have us believe that location cannot be used to define race. The argument is irrelevant since the concept of the white race is not based on physical type like the Caucasoid race, but on identity. In the sense of identity, Europe can be used as a clear anchor for an identity.--Dark Tichondrias 23:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

My first choice was to make White People a disambiguation page with links to Caucasoid race, Europeans, White American, etc. I really don't see the need for this article, specially as it is so fiercely disputed. At this moment I want to propose again that idea that was rejected some weeks ago before the current dispute began.

The problem of racism/nordicism that LSLM and others like myself have raised is highly relevant: it is a POV, furthermore it is pseudoscience and part of an ideological campaign. If genetics deny the specificty of Europeans or Nordics, this particular POV of whiteness can only be defended from the sociological side: some people, particularly in Anglo-Saxon countries, and also and specially those with white supremacist ideas, think that white is equivalent to European. I've visited Stromfront.org just once or twice (out of curiosity) and got the clear impression that these people have a consensus that all "white" (European) people should be treated equally but that does not apply for "non-whites" (non-Europeans, including Turks, for instance, who have almost the same genetic makeup as Greeks). This is obviously a political POV of them and now I see it being pushed into Misplaced Pages, an open site that has a clear NPOV policy.

comment I have a POV and it is centered on citations to make good Misplaced Pages articles. The NPOV policy is about including all points of view where there are multiple points of view on an issue. Your accusations that Dark Tichondrias and Thulean have a POV and are "POV pushers" is meaningless. Yes, I have a POV. It is called using citations to write good articles. My citations say that white people is not a synonymous concept with Caucasoid, but instead has varied in different times and places. You have a POV too, but yours is not based on citations that you have found. Your POV is that only the Caucasoid race should be on Misplaced Pages. Due to this POV, you feel it necessary to forcibly inject the content of the Caucasoid article into this one, banishing the concept of the white race and replacing it with the Caucasoid race. In this effort, you have not adhered to policy, but have removed citations from credible sociological sources which talked about who people consider white.--Dark Tichondrias 00:04, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

DT used Stromfront arguments to defend earlier her own edits in my talk page (she did not read the userboxes, it seems). She said:

The European Liberation Front and Stormfront do not consider non-Europeans to be white. These are partially based in Europe, so I do not think that Europeans consider Middle Easterners or South Asians white. Your opinion Sugaar that your race is Caucasoid may not reflect the majority view Europeans hold. Southern Europe may have a higher proportion of people who identify as Caucasoid because Southern Europeans are the darker colored Europeans. For them, the physical difference of Middle Easterners and South Asians may not seem as drastic, since many can pass for one another. This could skew your perception of how many other Europeans identify their race as White (European).--Dark Tichondrias 17:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

(Cannot find the diff - it should be there though. Anyhow, it's also in the archive 5 of this discussion).

Comment These were not the sources I used. These are racial supremacist sites. I just read these to get an idea of who white people consider to be fellow white people. This was at the very beginning before I went to find reliable sources for this article. The sources I used were sociological sources that claimed most people in the US today think White is equivalent to European ancestry. Other sources were specific to colonial America where mostly Anglos were considered white. Other sources claimed that the white identity was tied with the idea of European culture.--Dark Tichondrias 23:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Obviously the European Liberation Front (first time I heard on them) and Stromfront, better known but not for their objectivity nor their NPOV nor their good intentions, can't be the main reference for this article. They may be mentioned maybe in a separate section or just linked to the corresponding article (White nationalism or whatever).

Comment I never used them as a reference. Do not imply I used them as a citation.--Dark Tichondrias 23:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Also the comment evidences the Nordicist POV of DT.

En fin. --Sugaar 22:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Those were not my numerous citations from credible sociological sources. I just read those websites to get an inkling of who was considered white, but I never used them as sources. You must be forgetting that I never used them as a citation for the article Sugaar.--Dark Tichondrias 23:06, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I would like to remind everyone involved that Misplaced Pages does not allow original research. Also, thanks for keeping things much more civil in the last few commenst than they had been prior. JoshuaZ 23:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but Misplaced Pages also requires a neutral point of view. The lack of source of obviously correct paragraphs have been used, not to search for the lackings sources, but to remove informative material that contradicted the editor's POV against consensus (and against NPOV). This is obviously an ill-faithed misuse of WP:OR.

For instance the lack of source has been used to delete the whole section on Latin America's whiteness criteria, when surely a tertiary source such as this Misplaced Pages does provide sufficient documentation in the articles on Brazil, etc. I know that Misplaced Pages is not the ideal source for itself but it's still better than no source or POV.

It's also clear that certain users have a lot of documentation on certain biased theories and that they use them selectively to promote their POVs and defeat NPOV policy of Misplaced Pages.

Sometimes different policies can be used against each other, what can be a fault of the redaction of such policies (no hierarchy among them) or, more likely, it's part of an ill-faithed attempt to manipulate Misplaced Pages in favor of certain POVs, using other auxiliar policies such as civility and OR, as pretext. --Sugaar 09:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

On this one I don't know what to say. It's out of place and I don't know if it is pro-WASP, ant-WASP or just a divagation. I'm fixing the header. It's already very messy around here. --Sugaar 16:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually less than 7% of the US population is really WASP; 77% is White however. I think the term WASP is often used in an Anthropological incorrect manner. Currently there are (with few exceptions) no discriminatory guildeines differentiating among different European ethnic groups: Anglo Saxon, Saxon or Jute. But mdr is correct in stating that the usage of the term WASP does vary. I do not, however, hold a hight opinion of that "Whites are being marginalized" theory. Anyways... SignatureNow under review! 18:49, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the dispute section needs no further comment.

Well, I can say it louder, but not clearer. I hope that good-will administrators can read the dispute section and see the kind of people who are continuously participating in this and other race-related articles. Maybe this is going to finally convince them that race-related articles need a special protection, probably permanent. Veritas et Severitas 15:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

This is an attempt to positively re-construct the article according to NPOV policy on content.

• Definition: there's no consensual/universal definition of "white". Therefore the following should be mentioned (at least):

1. White as Caucasoid (anthropometric/genetic approach)
2. White as Western Eurasians (including North Africans) (US census and other official definitions)
3. White as European/European ancestry only (UK census??, some white nationalist groups)
4. White as skin tone (some Latin American census, cultural concepts in India, in the other extreme: Nordicist theories)
5. White people (Bai) of China (this was well documented but somehow erased)

• Delimitations: there's no consensual/universal delimitation of whiteness:

1. One drop rule (traditional US segregationist approach: all that is not purely "white" is something else)
2. The other one drop principle (Latin America: all that is minimally "white" is fully or partly white)
3. etc. (there are surely other theories)

• History of the concept of whiteness. This was deleted too in the edit war. It is nevertheless a rather modern concept associated to European overseas expansion, though it can also be argued that it is rooted in Ancient Near Eastern/Mediterranean contacts with black people in Nubia and beyond. This section is very important.

• Genetics, phenetics, variability and visibility (exposed areas are normally darker) of pygmentation. This is very important because many percieve whiteness as matter of skin tone. Summarily exposed and linking to relevant articles when they exist.

1. Blondisms (as a subset of extreme whiteness traits)

All this should be summarized on top.

Then local/regional sections, not too extensive, should adress the basics in each country/region and link to the respective articles/sections when they exist.

It is as important to mention where official/semi-official criteria exist as well and where there's no such criteria. Many countries have an anti-racialist policy in census and do not ask for "race" at all, considering it somehow an obsolete and dangerous matter.

There should be no generical demographics, distribution or simmilar sections, because the very borders of whiteness are unclear and disputed and therefore such sections could tend to promote certain POVs.--Sugaar 09:51, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

"#White as Caucasoid (anthropometric/genetic approach)" I think a review of the anthropological data is a good idea, but it needs to be an unbiased review and the fact is that the overwhelming majority of anthropological research points out that race has no objective existence.

I suggest a slightly different approach. I suggest that we first contain the dispute to as small a section of the article as possible. So, the breakdown would be

1. Genetics evidence for/against the existence of white people as an objective group (including discussing skin color)
2. Constructions of 'white people' in social policy
   1. In the US (history of the term from the founding of the country, including Jim Crow laws, segregation, the whitening of German, Irish, Jews, etc., affirmative action, and so forth)
   2. In Great Britain and Europe (again focusing on the historical evolution of the term, Orientalism, and "Dark Africa")
   3. China (mentioning the Bai and how they've come to be called white people)
   4. Latin America (the evolution of the 'other one drop rule')

-Psychohistorian 12:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

• Definition:

1) First of all, you have to find who uses whites and caucasoids interchangeably. Any reliable source?

2) Does US Cencus use whites and caucasians interchangeably? Does it accepted by majority of Americans? Most Americans wouldnt accept Iraqis and most Mid Easterners as white, IMO.

3) This is the definition of Oxford English Dictionary and therefore must be prioritized. English terms are defined by English dictionaries and Oxford Dictionary is the most reputable dictionary on the planet, IMO.

4) Ok. But they should be mentioned in sub sections.

5) Ok, but you also have to give background info of why they are called Bai.

So I'm ready to include the former definition at the top but dictionary definition must also be included at the top. See

• Delimitations

Ok. Maybe we can create a Delimitations section.

• Ok. However, if we are going to include concept history, we also have to include genetic history. White skin is tightly corrolated with white people in many people's opinions I'm sure. So we have to include origins of white skin. See

• Maybe we can start this section with the origin of white skin?

1. Ok.

These should be higher than country sections but the extreme top should be reserved to:

"White people (also white race or whites) is an informal label given to a segment of the human population based on inconsistently-applied characteristics such as ethnicity, country of origin, skin tone, language, and religion as discussed below.

In this context, Oxford English Dictionary defines white as:

relating to a human group having light-coloured skin, especially of European ancestry.

The designation has social, cultural, political, scientific, and legal implications such as on a nation's census, anti-miscegenation laws, racial segregation, affirmative action, eugenics, racial marginalization, racial quotas, medicine, and ancestry."

• There should be a population section. It's perfectly natural that a people article include population section. Saying:

"If we apply the dictionary definition , then most whites at present live in Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand . There are also whites living in other places of the world."

does NOT promote POV because it acknowledges There are also whites living in other places of the world. Thulean 15:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought you were replying to Sugaar at first, but then I thought you were replying to me. I'm not sure. So, I'll act as if you were replying to me. 1.)I'm not clear at all on why we have to "find who uses whites and caucasoids interchangeably". This article discusses 'white people', it doesn't discuss caucasoids. While I agree that we need to provide sources to support the claim that whites and caucasoids mean the same thing *if* we make that claim, do we need to make that claim? 2.)Misplaced Pages requires that claims be based on reliable sources. Dictionaries are not reliable sources for the same reason that encyclopedias are not reliable sources (see the policy regarding reliable sources). Your opinion on who the majority of Americans does and does not consider a white person is not a reliable source, either. 3.)"Ok. But they should be mentioned in sub sections". What is 'they' here? 4.) "Ok, but you also have to give background info of why they are called Bai." That's fine.-Psychohistorian 15:41, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

1) No. But if people wants to add it, they have to provide sources.
2) I've read Misplaced Pages:Verifiability but it didnt mention dictionaries are not reliable sources. And again I ask you to read what I write:

"Does US Cencus use whites and caucasians interchangeably? Does it accepted by majority of Americans? Most Americans wouldnt accept Iraqis and most Mid Easterners as white, IMO."

IMO = In My Opinion

3) They refers to those. See same number in Sugaar's text. Thulean 16:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

1.)Yes, because this is such a hotly contested topic with a number of people bringing in unsupported claims, I believe that every claim in this article should have a reliable source. That includes the pros and cons of whether white people are the same as the Caucasion race.

2.)I said that dictionaries aren't reliable sources for the same reason that encyclopedias aren't as per the policy on reliable sources. I didn't mention the policy on verifiability. You are looking at the wrong policy. 3.) "They refer to those". Okay, thanks for clearing that up *rolls eyes*. I'm not going to respond to this point until you state clearly and precisely what it is you are trying to say and 4.) I was pointing out that it was your opinion. Your opinion isn't on topic and should have no bearing on this article since the only thing that has bearing on this article is reliable sources. I think we'd do better if we focused less on each other's opinions and more on what reliable sources say.-Psychohistorian 16:57, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

2) Link?

3) And I was asking for citations about who uses caucasian and whites interchangeably and why. I stated my opinion to give an example, not to assert that it should be part of the article. Can you tell me where I implied that my opinion has a bearing on this article? Thulean 19:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

White:

• 3. a member of the Caucasoid race
• n 1: a member of the Caucasoid race
• 4. A person with a white skin; a member of the white, or Caucasian, races of men.
• Definition: a light-skinned race. Synonyms: Caucasian race, Caucasoid race
• 1. white_person - noun: a member of the Caucasoid race. Synonym(s): White, Caucasian

So it's not just me and ALL the people I know in real life... there are a bunch of online dictionaries that say exactly the same.

So I hope you don't question again if somebody at all ever uses white as synonim of Caucasoid. Near EVERYBODY does.

I'm also tired of this demand that everything must be verified (only as pretext to destroy NPOV). Misplaced Pages is full of articles with few sources. These can be improved by looking for the best sources available or (sometimes) by finding out that the claim is more than questionable (and therefore removing it). But lack of sources is by itself not a reason to delete valid parts of an article: it is a reason to go out and find the lacking sources. Be positive, not destructive.

Many sources also are just better ignored. That something has a source doesn't make it necessarily better or more truthful: it just makes it documented. Wether the document is valid or not it is anoher story.

So IF we are to build an article it must be based in WP:NPOV above anything else. Else we better do just a disambiguation page. After all most of what can be talked about in this entry is covered by other articles already. --Sugaar 23:48, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Sugaar, WP:NPOV does not rule over everything else. According to policy, it is one of four core policies all of which are treated equally. The others are Verifiability, No Original Research, and What Misplaced Pages is Not. Considering recent comments by you, I suggest you refamiliarize yourself with the policies on Verifiability and NOR.-Psychohistorian 12:54, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

More:

• 2) Does US Cencus use whites and caucasians interchangeably? Does it accepted by majority of Americans? Most Americans wouldnt accept Iraqis and most Mid Easterners as white, IMO.
  • The USA is not the center of the World, the USA is just a piece of the puzzle. With only 5% of global population it can't expect to dictate the global opinion that this article (and Misplaced Pages in general) needs.
  • It is "census", with two "s"
  • If Americans accept Travolta and Stallone as whites, they can perfectly accept Hussein or Hariri as such. In fact the US Census does.

• So I'm ready to include the former definition at the top but dictionary definition must also be included at the top.
  • Which dictionary definition? There are thousands of dictionaries. Must it be an English dictionary or would you accept and Hindi or Arabic one? We are discussing something that needs a global viewpoint. I made a search (in English) and came up with a lot entries that read white=caucasian (nothing about color in many cases, see above).

• Ok. However, if we are going to include concept history, we also have to include genetic history. White skin is tightly corrolated with white people in many people's opinions I'm sure. So we have to include origins of white skin.
  • These are in fact two different things and should be treated separately.
  • There is some more information than in that news article in the entry Human skin color, and probably other sources (to be researched yet). At least a link to it must exist. Much of the genetic conditionants of skin color are still obscure anyhow, so we must treat this carefully. We know about the physical mechanism that regulate skin tone (melanocytes): they are somewhat atrofiated among light skinned people and very developed in dark skinned people. As an adaptative trait, it can't be considered a neutral marker to describe ancestry accurately.
  • A brief history of the concept is needed: a dictionary definition only can explain (at most) the current aception not the genesis of the concept. In the Middle Ages nobody in Europe talked of "whites", Alexander's biographers didn't talk of "whites" in contrast with Indians or Egyptians... what happened that changed that? Obviously contact with Black and other non-Caucasoid populations. The concept of "race" (elementarily defined by color analogies) suddenly became important, even if confuse. (But this is still too Eurocentric).

• These should be higher than country sections but the extreme top should be reserved to:

"White people (also white race or whites) is an informal label given to a segment of the human population based on inconsistently-applied characteristics such as ethnicity, country of origin, skin tone, language, and religion as discussed below.

• • I'm not sure what you mean, can you explain?

--Sugaar 00:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

1) We need reputable sources. These seem to be cheap online dictionaries. Any Oxford? Webster? Macmillan? definitions?

2)Your understanding of "near everybody" is irrelevant. Noone I know would accept North Africans or South Asians as white. Source your claims.

3)Then go out and find out. When you do, you can add your sourced additions.

4)Where did I suggest the USA was the centre of the world?

5)Link to Census using whites and caucasians interchangeably?

6)A reputable english dictionary definition. Since we are speaking english, english terms are defined by english dictionaries. If you want to include Hindu dictionaries, I suggest you to go to Indian Misplaced Pages, if it exists.

7)Whatever...

8)Ok, we'll discuss extreme top at meditation.

9)What didnt you understand? Thulean 01:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

1) I don't own an Oxford dictionary. Are you sure that the entry you quoted is the only one? I find extremely suspicious that it does not even mention Caucasian or Caucasoid at all, even when these terms are continuously used as sysnonims, even by the US Census.

2) It is not irrelvant: it expresses another POV and therefore a part of the puzzle to make a good NPOV. It is at least as good as yours. And again the US Census contradicts your perception, among other official sources.

3) Not if you give me less than 24 hrs. to do it. Play fair. Many aditions have not been done by me (in fact I've edited only very limitedly this article). One thing is asking for verifiability, what is legitimate, and another thing is using that for POV-pushing your views.

4) You are suggesting clearly that the definitions used here have a USA or Anglo-American focus. That's totally against policy and guidelines.

9) I did not understand the purpose of putting that paragraph precisely there. Can you say why do you think it is relevant? Why there? I don't opposse it, just I don't have clear why. --Sugaar 12:32, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• 1) Your suspicions are getting extremely more ridiculous. There's an online version of Oxford. Go check it out.

• 2)As I said, when you provide sources, add. And you still havent proven that USA Census uses whites and caucasians interchangeably.

• 3)You had much more time than that. The article was like that when I first arrived. Lots of unsourced stuff...

• 4)I'm neither American or British or from any english speaking country. Dont be ridiculous.

• 5)As I said earlier, population is relevant when the topic is about people. Thulean 15:24, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

United States Census Bureau language

EDDITOR 18:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree to most of what you outlined Psychohistorian, this discussion needs to come to an end. Regarding questions raised within your article, here is the language from the United States Census Department, as stated by the Alaska Census Research/Analysis team, regarding language on questionaires regarding race:

"The concept of race as used by the Census Bureau reflects self-identification; it does not denote any clear-cut scientific definition of biological stock. The data for race represent self-classification by people according to the race with which they most closely identify. It is recognized that the categories of the race item, include both racial and national origin or socio-cultural groups.

If a person could not provide a single response to the race question on the census form, he or she was asked to select the group which best described his or her racial identity. If unable to do so, the race of the mother was used. If a race could not be provided for the persons mother, the first race reported by the person was used. In all cases where occupied housing units, households, or families are classified by race, the race of the householder was used.

White: Includes persons who indicated their race as "White" or reported entries such as Canadian, German, Italian, Lebanese, Near Easterner, Arab, or Polish.

Black: Includes persons who indicated their race as "Black or Negro" or reported entries such as African American, Afro-American, Black Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Nigerian, West Indian, or Haitian.

American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut: American Indian includes persons who indicated their race as "American Indian," entered the name of an Indian Tribe, or reported such entries as Canadian Indian, French-American Indian, or Spanish-American Indian. Persons who identified themselves as American Indian were also asked to report their enrolled or principal tribe. Therefore, tribal data in tabulations reflect the written tribal entries reported on the questionnaires.

Eskimo includes persons who indicated their race as "Eskimo" or reported entries such as Arctic Slope, Inupiat, or Yupik. Aleut includes persons who indicated their race as "Aleut" or reported entries such as Alutiiq, Egegik, and Pribilovian.

Asian or Pacific Islander: Includes persons who reported in one of the Asian or Pacific Islander groups listed on the questionnaire or provided responses such as Thai, Nepali, or Tongan.

Asian includes Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Asian, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Thai, Other Asian.

Pacific Islander includes Hawaiians (part & Native), Samoan, Guamanian, Other Pacific Islander. Other Race: Includes all other persons not included in the "White, Black, American Indian, Eskimo or Aleut, and Asian or Pacific Islander" race categories.

Persons reporting in the "Other Race" category and providing write-in entries such as multiracial, multi ethnic, mixed, interracial, Wesort, or a Spanish/Hispanic origin group (such as Mexican, Cuban, or Puerto Rican) are included."

Prepared by: Alaska Department of Labor, Research & Analysis Section, CGIN Source: 1990 Census

OTHER INFORMATION FROM ANOTHER SOURCE: "As scientists have sequenced the human genome (the full set of nuclear DNA), they have also identified millions of polymorphisms. The distribution of these polymorphisms across populations reflects the history of those populations and the effects of natural selection. To distinguish among groups, the ideal genetic polymorphism would be one that is present in all the members of one group and absent in the members of all other groups. But the major human groups have separated from one another too recently and have mixed too much for such differences to exist.

Polymorphisms that occur at different frequencies around the world can, however, be used to sort people roughly into groups. One useful class of polymorphisms consists of the Alus, short pieces of DNA that are similar in sequence to one another. Alus replicate occasionally, and the resulting copy splices itself at random into a new position on the original chromosome or on another chromosome, usually in a location that has no effect on the functioning of nearby genes. Each insertion is a unique event. Once an Alu sequence inserts itself, it can remain in place for eons, getting passed from one person to his or her descendants. Therefore, if two people have the same Alu sequence at the same spot in their genome, they must be descended from a common ancestor who gave them that specific segment of DNA.

Other studies have produced comparable results. Noah A. Rosenberg and Jonathan K. Pritchard, geneticists formerly in the laboratory of Marcus W. Feldman of Stanford University, assayed approximately 375 polymorphisms called short tandem repeats in more than 1,000 people from 52 ethnic groups in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. By looking at the varying frequencies of these polymorphisms, they were able to distinguish five different groups of people whose ancestors were typically isolated by oceans, deserts or mountains: sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans and Asians west of the Himalayas; East Asians; inhabitants of New Guinea and Melanesia; and Native Americans. They were also able to identify subgroups within each region that usually corresponded with each member's self-reported ethnicity.

The results of these studies indicate that genetic analyses can distinguish groups of people according to their geographic origin. But caution is warranted. The groups easiest to resolve were those that were widely separated from one another geographically. Such samples maximize the genetic variation among groups. When Bamshad and his co-workers used their 100 Alu polymorphisms to try to classify a sample of individuals from southern India into a separate group, the Indians instead had more in common with either Europeans or Asians. In other words, because India has been subject to many genetic influences from Europe and Asia, people on the subcontinent did not group into a unique cluster. We concluded that many hundreds--or perhaps thousands--of polymorphisms might have to be examined to distinguish between groups whose ancestors have historically interbred with multiple populations. "

Media:www.sciam.com "Does Race Exist?" Science and Technology Review, December 2003

EDDITOR 20:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)READ INTO THE MINUTES OF THE AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, MAY 17 1998

American Anthropological AssociationStatement on "Race" (May 17, 1998) The following statement was adopted by the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, acting on a draft prepared by a committee of representative American anthropologists. It does not reflect a consensus of all members of the AAA, as individuals vary in their approaches to the study of "race." We believe that it represents generally the contemporary thinking and scholarly positions of a majority of anthropologists.

In the United States both scholars and the general public have been conditioned to viewing human races as natural and separate divisions within the human species based on visible physical differences. With the vast expansion of scientific knowledge in this century, however, it has become clear that human populations are not unambiguous, clearly demarcated, biologically distinct groups. Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic "racial" groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. This means that there is greater variation within "racial" groups than between them. In neighboring populations there is much overlapping of genes and their phenotypic (physical) expressions. Throughout history whenever different groups have come into contact, they have interbred. The continued sharing of genetic materials has maintained all of humankind as a single species. Physical variations in any given trait tend to occur gradually rather than abruptly over geographic areas. And because physical traits are inherited independently of one another, knowing the range of one trait does not predict the presence of others. For example, skin color varies largely from light in the temperate areas in the north to dark in the tropical areas in the south; its intensity is not related to nose shape or hair texture. Dark skin may be associated with frizzy or kinky hair or curly or wavy or straight hair, all of which are found among different indigenous peoples in tropical regions. These facts render any attempt to establish lines of division among biological populations both arbitrary and subjective.

Historical research has shown that the idea of "race" has always has always carried more meanings than mere physical differences; indeed, physical variations in the human species have no meaning except the social ones that humans put on them. Today scholars in many fields argue that "race" as it is understood in the United States of America was a social mechanism invented during the 18th century to refer to those populations brought together in colonial America: the English and other European settlers, the conquered Indian peoples, and those peoples of Africa brought in to provide slave labor.

From its inception, this modern concept of "race" was modeled after an ancient theorem of the Great Chain of Being, which posited natural categories on a hierarchy established by God or nature. Thus "race" was a mode of classification linked specifically to peoples in the colonial situation. It subsumed a growing ideology of inequality devised to rationalize European attitudes and treatment of the conquered and enslaved peoples. Proponents of slavery in particular during the 19th century used "race" to justify the retention of slavery. The ideology magnified the differences among Europeans, Africans, and Indians, established a rigid hierarchy of socially exclusive categories underscored and bolstered unequal rank and status differences, and provided the rationalization that the inequality was natural or God-given. The different physical traits of African-Americans and Indians became markers or symbols of their status differences.

As they were constructing US society, leaders among European-Americans fabricated the cultural/behavioral characteristics associated with each "race," linking superior traits with Europeans and negative and inferior ones to blacks and Indians. Numerous arbitrary and fictitious beliefs about the different peoples were institutionalized and deeply embedded in American thought.

Early in the 19th century the growing fields of science began to reflect the public consciousness about human differences. Differences among the "racial" categories were projected to their greatest extreme when the argument was posed that Africans, Indians, and Europeans were separate species, with Africans the least human and closer taxonomically to apes. Ultimately "race" as an ideology about human differences was subsequently spread to other areas of the world. It became a strategy for dividing, ranking, and controlling colonized people used by colonial powers everywhere. But it was not limited to the colonial situation. In the latter part of the 19th century it was employed by Europeans to rank one another and to justify social, economic, and political inequalities among their peoples. During World War II, the Nazis under Adolf Hitler enjoined the expanded ideology of "race" and "racial" differences and took them to a logical end: the extermination of 11 million people of "inferior races" (e.g., Jews, Gypsies, Africans, homosexuals, and so forth) and other unspeakable brutalities of the Holocaust.

"Race" thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into "racial" categories. The myths fused behavior and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behavior, implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behavior. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors.

At the end of the 20th century, we now understand that human cultural behavior is learned, conditioned into infants beginning at birth, and always subject to modification. No human is born with a built-in culture or language. Our temperaments, dispositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic propensities, are developed within sets of meanings and values that we call "culture." Studies of infant and early childhood learning and behavior attest to the reality of our cultures in forming who we are.

It is a basic tenet of anthropological knowledge that all normal human beings have the capacity to learn any cultural behavior. The American experience with immigrants from hundreds of different language and cultural backgrounds who have acquired some version of American culture traits and behavior is the clearest evidence of this fact. Moreover, people of all physical variations have learned different cultural behaviors and continue to do so as modern transportation moves millions of immigrants around the world.

How people have been accepted and treated within the context of a given society or culture has a direct impact on how they perform in that society. The "racial" worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth. The tragedy in the United States has been that the policies and practices stemming from this worldview succeeded all too well in constructing unequal populations among Europeans, Native Americans, and peoples of African descent. Given what we know about the capacity of normal humans to achieve and function within any culture, we conclude that present-day inequalities between so-called "racial" groups are not consequences of their biological inheritance but products of historical and contemporary social, economic, educational, and political circumstances.

________________________________________ AAA Position Paper on "Race": Comments? As a result of public confusion about the meaning of "race," claims as to major biological differences among "races" continue to be advanced. Stemming from past AAA actions designed to address public misconceptions on race and intelligence, the need was apparent for a clear AAA statement on the biology and politics of race that would be educational and informational. Rather than wait for each spurious claim to be raised, the AAA Executive Board determined that the Association should prepare a statement for approval by the Association and elicit member input.

Commissioned by the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association, a position paper on race was authored by Audrey Smedley (Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview, 1993) and thrice reviewed by a working group of prominent anthropologists: George Armelagos, Michael Blakey, C. Loring Brace, Alan Goodman, Faye Harrison, Jonathan Marks, Yolanda Moses, and Carol Mukhopadhyay. A draft of the current paper was published in the September 1997 Anthropology Newsletter and posted ont the AAA website http://www.aaanet.org for a number of months, and member comments were requested. While Smedley assumed authorship of the final draft, she received comments not only from the working group but also from the AAA membership and other interested readers. The paper above was adopted by the AAA Executive Board on May 17, 1998, as an official statement of AAA's position on "race."

As the paper is considered a living statement, AAA members', other anthropologists', and public comments are invited. Your comments may be sent via mail or e-mail to Peggy Overbey , Director of Government Relations, American Anthropological Association, 4350 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 640, Arlington, VA 22201.

FURTHER DISCUSSION BY THIS GROUP: ABSTRACT: It is widely agreed that essentialism is a key component of racialism, i.e., the tendency to classify people into racial groups, and of racism, i.e., the tendency to rank these racial groups. What is lacking, however, is an agreed-upon characterization of what essentialism is. That is, what is lacking is an answer to the question: When is a classification essentialist? The goal of this talk is to distinguish several kinds of essentialism, which are often conflated in the literature in cognitive psychology, in the literature in the philosophy of race, and in the literature in history. Moreover, I will argue that one kind of essentialism, which might more properly be called “biologism”, is central in characterizing racialism. A classification of humans into kinds is biologist if the classes so distinguished are thought of as being different species (Machery & Faucher, 2005). Biologism is important in defining racialism, because such a definition enables researchers to identify a cross-cultural and panhistorical universal and to make sense of the scope, but also of the limits in cross-cultural and historical differences in racialist classification. It is also important to understand the cognitive bases of racialism. Machery, E., & Faucher, L. (2005). Why do we think racially? In H. Cohen and C. Lefebvre (eds.), Handbook of Categorization in Cognitive Science, Elsevier (pp. 1009-1033). Machery, E., & Faucher, L. (forthcoming). Social construction and the concept of race. Philosophy of Science. Name:Edouard Machery Affiliation: University of Pittsburgh, HPS Email Address: machery@pitt.edu

ABSTRACT: A growing body of research asserts that psychological essentialism is the backbone of stereotyping and racism. Constructivist approaches often describe racism and the essentialism of human kinds as a historical product of colonialism. In this paper, I argue that this line of thought – while having some merit – is unable to fully account for the origin of psychological essentialization of ethnicity. Examples from pre-conquest Mesoamerica, specifically Mixtec and Mayan art, show that indigenous people already conceived of phenotypic distinctions as boundary markers prior to the introduction of Spanish ideas about race. Additionally, origin narratives from the same areas depict separate creations for different groups of people. This evidence complements two other lines of research. First, very young children essentialize ethnic groups seemingly without adult instruction. Second, essentialist beliefs about human kinds are universally distributed throughout the world. At a minimum these data suggest that essentialist beliefs of human kinds is intuitively appealing. Encounters with the Other have occurred throughout human history, not only as a result of European colonization efforts. These encounters often stimulate the development of folktheories to account for differences among human social groups, which are undergirded by essentialist beliefs Name:Michael Tidwell Affiliation: Email Address: michael.r.tidwell@vanderbilt.edu

ABSTRACT: Race is not just a cultural construct, it is also a psychological construct. I will argue that the "essentialism of race" as it is played out in the post soviet context of Lithuania can be partially understood in terms of the essentialist properties of the social dyad. The social dyad that I will be concerned with is "the pure Lithuanian self" and the "hybrid or incomplete Lithuanian." From outside the dyad, that is from the perspective of the anthropologist, both "types" of Lithuanians look alike and "share the same culture." Using a series of ethnographic case studies, I will show how differences are expressed between these two types of Lithuanians and examine the sociopolitical-historical underpinnings for these differences. The case studies consists of a series of dyads where the differences between the two types of Lithuanians diminish to the point where the difference is just self and other and there is still conflict over who is the pure Lithuanian. This indicates that racial or ethnic rhetoric of difference does not stem only in external conditions of inequality or subaltern relations, but also in the way humans model the dyad as a relationship between the self and other. Name:Victor de Munck Affiliation: SUNY-New Paltz Email Address: demunckv@newpaltz.edu

ABSTRACT: Scholars of race in Brazil disagree about the role that ancestry plays in classification. Some believe that Brazilians classify based on physical appearances while others claim that Brazilians classify by ancestry much as people do in the United States where one drop of blood is enough to determine category membership. My ethnographic research shows that racial terms with multiple meanings can be used in diverse contexts to emphasize either physical features or ancestry. Yet, I also found that the role of ancestry in racial classification is not equal for all racial groups. In this paper, I describe a quantitative task I conducted in Belmonte, Bahia in 2003 to answer the following question. Would Brazilians revise their initial classifications of a target picture when they learned information about the family of the person in the picture? I found that those pictures with physical appearances leading to a classification of negra (black) remained unchanged when the new information about ancestry was revealed. Conversely, those pictures initially classified as branca (white) or morena (brown) were more often revised when information about negra ancestry was presented. This investigation reveals interesting folk beliefs about the power of negra blood. Rather than interpreting the results as wholesale evidence of a Brazilian one-drop rule, I argue that integrating qualitative and quantitative methods reveal surprising insights into the diverse categorization procedures that comprise racial classification in Belmonte. This issue is critically important now when transitioning ideologies about racial categories lead to conflict and confusion regarding supposedly natural identities Name:Michael Baran Affiliation: University of Michigan Email Address: mbaran@umich.edu

I am starting to see some intelligent contributions here.Veritas et Severitas 22:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

EDDITOR 00:01, 14 November 2006 (UTC) This is a subject which is heated, political, sometimes-based in-religious concerns, affects individual egos and self-perceptions, historical mis-reporting,folklore, regional preferences, etc, etcand blah-blah-blah along the way. It deserves discussion from many points of view. I would be interested (and appreciative) in your direction to genetic athropology resources. Thanks.

Well genetic anthropology is a new field and is now returning a lot of results. Here you have a link that can help people get familiar with some basic concepts:

http://www.dnaheritage.com/masterclass4.asp

This one is very interesting, because it is recent, from 2004, and because it is very complete: This study takes into account up to 8 different genetic loci:

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/21/7/1361/T03

See the legend: CEE = Central Europe East. CEW = Central Europe West. EE = Eastern Europe. IberiaS = Spain. IberiaP = Portugal. ItalyN = North of Italy. ItalyS = South of Italy.See also this legend: Molecular (first row) = Different molecular DNA loci and frequency (second row) = Haplogroups. Av. = Average.

Thousands of samples were taken from all over Europe and also from North Africa and the Middle East, especially the areas in Anatolia (Turkey) and Irak.

It is also very interesting to see the origins of the populations in Europe, which often are very different from what traditional accounts told us.

This one also interesting:

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/22/10/1964/FIG6

Or this one:

http://www.scs.uiuc.edu/~mcdonald/WorldHaplogroupsMaps.pdf

The hapmap clearly indicates how population groups, or human lineages, do not overlap with the concept of traditional races. In fact, although with different percentages, lots of lineages cut across countries and continents, and people who are considered white, black or Asian, for example, may well belong to the same lineage.

The following sources I find especially funny. Why? Because we all know that Nordicsm (the most extreme branch of White Supremacism) has several variants. One of them was Anglo-Saxism. Anglo-Saxons played a major role in the shaping of the concept "white" in the US, for example, thinking themselves of pure "Nordic" stock and origins. Just another myth that begins to fall with the emergence of genetic anthrolopogy. Who would have told them that they are of the same stock as Hispanics?

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1393742006

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=406108&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true#StartComments

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/2006/10/10/ecbrits10.xml

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7817

Some people may object: That is just newspaper articles! OK, then read the real books: Blood of the Isles, by Bryan Sykes (In the US will be for sale in December as Saxons, Vikings and Celts) and Origins of Britons, by Stephen Oppenheimer, also a very recent edition. In fact, the last two books are among the newest news in genetic anthropology. In short, most of what we knwe about races, peoples, origins and so forth seems to be quite a mess. Veritas et Severitas 18:06, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• AGAIN... Tracing ancestry isnt done simply by looking at Y-haplogroups. It is done by looking at Autosomal DNA, mtDNA and Y-haplogroups and their correlation. A European might share R1A Y-haplogroup with an Indian but might differ at mtDNA haplogroups. As you can see H mtDNA haplogroup which is very common in Europe is non-existant in India. Thulean 18:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Argentina/ Brazil and Uruguay

The population of these 3 South American countries are:

• 39 million people in Argentina, where 97% of the population is composed of Caucasian European descendants, including 400 thousand Jews;
• 188 million people in Brazil, where over 95 million people are Caucasian European descendants, including 200 thousand Jews, besides 13 million Arabs from the Levante region, mostly Christians;
• and 3 million people in Uruguay, where 97% of the population is composed of Caucasian European descendants.

Excellent. But who are you and (if possible) which are your sources? --Sugaar 00:23, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

DITTO Questions from Sugaar re your facts, and relevancy to issue regarding "Race" Issue. Regards, EDDITOR 03:02, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

General Comments

1.) Thulean, having been asked for a link to the policy on reliable sources, I'll point to the left of your screen to the textbox below the label marked "search". Its a search engine. Learn how to use it. Also, the Help link, also on the left, takes you to a page which lists many policies and "how tos". I am not your personal search engine. I have other, better, things to do with my life. 2.) While I appreciate the fact that people are going through the effort to find articles relevant to this article, it should be pointed out that cutting and pasting them here causes this page to become incredibly long. Some older browsers have trouble loading longer wikipedia pages and wikipedia pages, themselves, have an absolute size before they will no longer load at all. I recommend that, to ensure that everyone can see the articles you've taken the effort to find, that you provide just the link to it in this page whenever possible so as to keep the size of this page down. 3.) Sugaar, verifiability is a core policy of wikipedia. If you do not like the fact that anything can be removed if it does not have a reliable source cited, the best I can do for you is suggest that Misplaced Pages isn't the medium for you.-Psychohistorian 12:47, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

1) Really? I think another thing you can do with your life is to cut silly advices. It's in compliance with your second advice as well. I did search "reliable sources" and checked couple wikipedia policies but none mentioned about your claims. Thulean 15:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

So, you haven't read the policy on reliable sources because you haven't found it yet. Keep looking. Developing the skill to find content on Misplaced Pages will serve you well in the future. -Psychohistorian 15:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you are having a reading comprehension issue again. Just like you were claiming a certain article said "races are biologically meaningless" when the article indeed said exactly "it is inaccurate to state that race is "biologically meaningless."", you seem to again misunderstood WP:RS. Lets quote:

"A tertiary source usually summarizes secondary sources. Encyclopedias, including Misplaced Pages, are tertiary sources. Misplaced Pages articles may not cite Misplaced Pages articles as a source, because it is a wiki that may be edited by anyone and is therefore not reliable. However Misplaced Pages may be used as a primary source about Misplaced Pages, subject to the constraints above. Publications such as the Encyclopædia Britannica, World Book, and Encarta are regarded as reliable sources."

And you were saying:

"2.)Misplaced Pages requires that claims be based on reliable sources. Dictionaries are not reliable sources for the same reason that encyclopedias are not reliable sources (see the policy regarding reliable sources)."

So please stop making claims about policies you do not understand. Thulean 15:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I see you've taken a step in getting better at finding content on Misplaced Pages. That's good. Now you need to learn how to read an entire article rather than to cherry pick it. Its called "reading for context" and is a skill you should be pretty competent in by the time you reach 11th grade if you're in a good school system.

That policy states, "Encyclopedias, including Misplaced Pages, are tertiary sources". It also states, "In general, Misplaced Pages articles should rely on reliable secondary sources". Finally, it adds, "General encyclopedias, like the Encyclopedia Britannica or Encarta, sometimes have authoritative signed articles written by specialists and including references. However, unsigned entries are written in batches by freelancers and must be used with caution." In other words, Encyclopedia Britannica and other encyclopedias are only reliable sources when referring to articles which are signed by authoritative specialists and include references. In all other cases, encyclopedias must be used with caution. Dictionary definitions are not signed by authoritative specialists and do not include references. Therefore, they are not reliable sources.-Psychohistorian 16:42, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

• I see that your reading incomprehension still persists. First of all:

"In general, Misplaced Pages articles should rely on reliable secondary sources"

This doesnt mean tertiary sources arent reliable. And:

"General encyclopedias, like the Encyclopedia Britannica or Encarta, sometimes have authoritative signed articles written by specialists and including references. However, unsigned entries are written in batches by freelancers and must be used with caution."

is written under the part "Advice specific to subject area" and "History".

In other words Encyclopedic sources and hence dictionaries are reliable sources, especially when we arent discussing a historic subject such as this one. I do hope that you develop your reading comprehension. Try to read lots of books. Thulean 17:53, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

1. http://shrn.stanford.edu/workshops/revisitingrace/Risch_confound.pdf

• Misplaced Pages controversial topics