Sunday, June 17, 2012

Why "Caucasian" is Discriminatory

This is a bit off-topic, but it's something that truly bugs me. Unfortunately, this is a concept so deeply embedded in our current culture that most do not consider these terms used to describe "race" beyond a superficial level.
First, I use quotations for the term "race" because I am a human biologist and, strictly speaking, there are no races in the human species. The biological term "race" denotes a subset of a particular species that is recognizable and distinct. Because no groups of humans meet these criteria, there are no races within Homo sapiens. Don't get me wrong, this is not an attempt at race denial or discrimination based on our cultural concepts of race. This is simply an attempt to clarify on a technical level, and as such, I'll be using "ethnicity" instead of "race," as ethnicity is a cultural construct used to divide populations. The continued use of the word "race" only serves as a continued white attempt to differentiate between white people and people of another demographic. Therefore, I reject the word and substitute my own.
Anyway, this centers on the term "Caucasian," which, ironically, Google insists I capitalize. If you are white, I'm sure you're familiar with the term. Even if you're not white, you still probably hear the term constantly. In American culture, we have historically struggled with finding terms to describe ethnicity in ways that are not offensive to the groups being described. I don't need to go into that history, you can look it up yourself if you truly care to do so.
Of all the terms now seen as offensive, though, "Caucasian" has survived. Such a strange term, isn't it? I mean, when we think of people with European heritage, we generally do not think of the Caucasus (or Caucas) Mountains, which form a geographical border between Europe and Asia (think Russia). Even those ethnicities like Italian or Spanish were not regarded as "white" until relatively recently. So why would we refer to those of Anglo-Saxon heritage as being from the Caucasus Mountains?
It's a fascinating story, and you can look it up for yourself if you want better detail, but the basic story is this: around the end of the eighteenth century, explorers uncovered human remains in the Caucasus Mountains. A skull found in these remains was regarded as being a "perfect" skull, a template, if you will, of what good, beautiful European people should look like. It was proposed that these remains represented the ancestors of all European people, simply because it was a subjectively-attractive skull. This is especially fascinating considering we hardly possess adequate technology for facial reproduction in this modern age. The fact that these remains were used as some kind of type example without any ability to know what the living human looked like stands as proof that this was about pure discrimination. The term "Caucasian," as it is used in terms of ethnicity in our culture, comes straight out of a desire to justify the division between Europe and the rest of the world.
So, while we have moved away from using terms used to describe various ethnicities that are seen as overtly discriminatory, we are still frequently using a term that originates in white history's continued attempt to prove there is a difference, and more importantly, there is a superior ethnicity. As a human biologist, I'm here to tell you that's a giant crock of shit. And that's a scientific term, you can quote me, if you like. My point here is that, while some apologists may prefer more specific terms like "Irish-American" or "English-American," the proper term for describing those of European heritage is either "European-American," or, for efficiency's sake, "white." It's not that hard, and if you're really that attached to such an outdated term as "Caucasian," you need to get a life.

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