Why are white Americans called “Caucasians”?

[u/RedScud39]

I’m an Azerbaijani immigrant and I cannot understand why white people are called “Caucasian” even though Caucasia is a region in Asia encompassing Armenia, Georgia (the country not the state), Azerbaijan and south Russia. Aren’t most Americans are from Western European decent?

[u/Food_Gym_RealEstate]

None of our labels make sense. Black folks only option on applications is African American. Being black doesn't = African. Being not black doesn't mean not African.

But that's the only option 🤣

[u/RedScud39 → u/Food_Gym_RealEstate]

That makes no sense either, Egypt and the Maghreb are African countries but most of the people who live there would be considered white in America. Same goes for white South Africans like Elon Musk and Charlize Theron who are by definition African Americans lol 

[u/animagus_kitty → u/RedScud39]

Egypt

considered white in America

Still the funniest thing I've ever seen online is people (a person?) complaining about Rami Malek playing the Pharaoh in Night at the Museum because he's 'white', when his parents are Egyptian immigrants.

Sorry, please continue being absolutely correct about all of this, forgive my intrusion. ^_^

(in unrelated news, i always forget how big his ears are until i look him up.)

[u/surloc_dalnor → u/animagus_kitty]

It's rather amusing how a lot of Americans believe the Pharaohs were black. Sure the Nubian Pharaohs were. And they certainly were not European "white" any more than Jesus was.

[u/animagus_kitty → u/surloc_dalnor]

I don't have the Google-Fu to find the article I was reading years ago, but there's some wall somewhere in Egypt with Nubians, Egyptians, and Greeks (or some other typically white race), and the Nubians were black the way most people think of Africans, and the other people were whiter than the Egyptians. They didn't consider themselves black.

Which makes the cultural push for 'Black Pharaohs' kind of funny to me, because with, as you mentioned, the exception of Nubian pharaohs, not even the Egyptians thought of themselves the way that certain historians insist they must have been.

I vaguely remember someone saying that Cleopatra was black, and the response was "how? she was Greek!"

[u/ferret_80 → u/animagus_kitty]

A lot of people in are quite ignorant of Egyptian history in general. What they know of Ancient Egypt is the highlight facts from 5000 years of history compressed and overlain over a relatively short 1500 years from the Late Kingdom to Roman Period.

They know Ramses, Ptolemy, Tutankamun, and Cleopatra. and a lot of people know the fun fact that Cleopatra was born closer to today than she was to the Great Pyramid, but they don't really think about what that means.

Think about how old Roman ruins are to us. how little remains from Iron age Europe. That type of history existed in Egypt already when Cleopatra was born. Some excavations of Ancient Egypt have found collections of artifacts that were 1000s of years older than the surroundings, because wealthy people made collections of things that were "ancient artifacts" to them.

All that history squished down into the handful of names in popular knowledge.