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Are you Caucasian?
Topic Started: May 23 2008, 05:16 PM (472 Views)
pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
In my most humble opinion....

I don't get why we use this word. It's really just a nonsensical attempt at "political correctness" (why is this even important?) in the form of a replacement for "white", isn't it? Why not just say "white"? Because just as much as I'm not "white" (I'm more dark tan, with some hints of red, and a little bluish color from my veins which are sometimes somewhat prominent), I'm also not "Caucasian".

Last time I checked, I'm American; my family has been here on my dad's side for 150 years, and on my mom's side for 75 years. Even before that, my 19th-century ancestors were not Caucasian -- rather, Lithuanian, German, Polish...

A long time ago, I had family come here from Lithuania, but I don't consider myself a Lithuanian-American; I'm not. Long ago, I had family come from Germany, but I don't consider myself a German-American; I'm not. Today I am American, and today I am Jewish, so I can call myself an American Jew, or a Jewish American, or just an American or just a Jew, either way... can I put that on a "race" or "ethnicity" survey? I'd be happy just putting "American", but I don't think they'd let me do that, would they?

Whatever I might like to call myself, though, I definitely do not like to put down that I am Caucasian, because I'm definitely not Caucasian.

Anybody else feel this way?
Sam
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George K
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Finally
pianojerome
May 23 2008, 08:16 PM
I had family come here from Lithuania

I knew there was a reason I liked you. :wave:

Edit to add: A surgeon I know put "African American" on his med school application. His family were all doctors of Egyptian descent....
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Accuracy.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Renauda
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HOLY CARP!!!
Actually no. I have always felt that I was a Georgian. In fact, I am told by native Russian speakers that before the drinks come out I speak Russian with a Georgian accent. After several shots I am also told I actually start speaking an obscure dialect of Georgian rather fluently.
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Free Rider
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Fulla-Carp
I am so white. My legs haven't seen the light of day since last september.

Man do I need some warmth and sunshine. Lately we've just been getting rain, rain, and more rain.

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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
I'm from Preston. A Prestonion. The seat of civilisation. Well, maybe not the seat, more like the armpit. Either way, I've never been anywhere near the Caucasus.

I quite like Black Russians if that helps.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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sue
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HOLY CARP!!!
I'm from Kitimat. No one ever says I look, or sound Kitimatian. But I am quite white, although not so white as to like Black Russians, if I may say so.
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Orlando Gibbons
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Junior Carp
I'm blindingly white.

I could never be a sniper because the glare off my skin would give me away at 400 + yards.
http://www.threerollsandapretzel.blogspot.com
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Phlebas
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Bull-Carp
John D'Oh
May 23 2008, 06:12 PM
I'm from Preston. A Prestonion. The seat of civilisation. Well, maybe not the seat, more like the armpit. Either way, I've never been anywhere near the Caucasus.

I quite like Black Russians if that helps.

Hey, Preston North End finished a very respectable 15th in the [wtf?]Coca Cola League[/wtf?] - just ahead of Sheffield Wednesday.

Wow, whatever happened to Leicester City?
Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML

The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D


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Daniel
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HOLY CARP!!!
Of course I feel that way. So what do you propose? We just stop tracking race because we can't make a thousand (even still it wouldn't be accurate) status categories? Ain't going to happen.
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
I always like to check the "Native American" box on those forms, because I am one. ^_^
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

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I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
I like to check Asian- my family is from the European subcontinent of Asia.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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apple
one of the angels
whatever you are Sam,

i really like your looks.. (my favorite type)
it behooves me to behold
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pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
Daniel
May 24 2008, 08:03 AM
Of course I feel that way.  So what do you propose?  We just stop tracking race because we can't make a thousand (even still it wouldn't be accurate) status categories?  Ain't going to happen.

I know what they mean, regardless of the word they use. That's the wonderful thing about language, when we know that we have truly communicated -- the meaning is clear, even if the word itself is not.

What they mean is partly to do with skin color, a 2-way division between "white" and "black", but the implications are much more: what they mean is slaves vs. slave-owners; superior vs. inferior; American vs. African; whatever words you want to use (doesn't matter what words you use) for the division in society that the civil rights movement (and many others) fought so hard to dissolve.

While that was a very significant way of dividing society way back when, between these two implications-loaded "races", I don't think it's at all important today, and the implications are now considered horrendous, and it isn't even really so clear anymore who would really fit in which category. It's especially not so clear today, not only because we have to realize that people come from many places, not just England or Africa, but because we have mixed so much. What should I call myself, if I want to be honest about it? German-Russian-Lithuanian-Polish-Jewish-American? (that's only going back 150 years; should I go back longer?) My mom's parents lived in Israel for a while, and my uncle was born there; should I add "Israeli" to the hyphenations? But even that big hyphenated identity doesn't really make sense, because so little of my "blood", by this generation, is German; so little of my "blood" is Lithuanian. At what point does that 10% or 15% etc heritage become so negligible or unimportant in my life that it ceases to be?


Since I started working at my new job about a month ago, 5 people have asked me if I'm Arab; two people just started speaking to me in Arabic; and a couple people asked me what country I'm from. To that last question, I responded: "United States. I'm an American. I was born here." "Well yes," would be the reply, "we are all Americans; we all are citizens. But where is your family from?" I guess I just look like a foreigner, and I wish I knew how to respond, since 150 years in the United States isn't good enough; but "10% this and 15% that" becomes tiresome, and really meaningless to me.
Sam
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pianojerome
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HOLY CARP!!!
apple
May 24 2008, 10:13 AM
whatever you are Sam,

i really like your looks.. (my favorite type)

:blush:
Sam
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Sam, that was a great post. :thumb:
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
I'm passin'......... :D

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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