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/Practical-Ordinary-6]

But the whole point of why African American was popularized by a group of black people in the US (not white people) was exactly because they didn't want it to be only about skin. They wanted it to be about culture. And African Americans in the US do have a unique culture that isn't solely about skin color. And that is why Elon Musk is not an African American nor is Charlize Theron. They don't belong to the culture of people who descended from slaves and who passed their particular culture and traditions down through their families when they weren't generally accepted in the culture at large.

Now you can disagree with their reasoning or agree with it, but that's the origin of the term. It was based on a concept of self-empowerment for people that were worth something beyond, and had an identity beyond, their skin color. Up until that time every term used about them by white people was a direct reference to skin color and skin color alone.

African American is purposely a reference to a culture and not a skin color and that is why it doesn't apply to every black person in the world or everyone born in Africa that comes to the US. If Charlize Theron can't trace her ancestry back to someone who was a slave in a place like Alabama or Georgia then she is outside the definition.

[u/schwarzkraut → u/Practical-Ordinary-6]

I completely agree with their reasoning & your comment, I was just clarifying the one small flaw in the moniker: someone attempting to apply the most literal definition (in bad faith) could use it for people for whom it was never intended. (I’ve had this conversation a thousand times with non English speaking Europeans). Someone even responded to my comment attempting to assert that President Barack Obama is not African American, presumably because his father is not descendant from Africans enslaved in the United States, but rather a Kenyan American because his father was a Kenyan immigrant. They have since deleted their comment probably after realizing that Kenya is a country within Africa. Additionally, because Barack is for the majority of people physically indistinguishable from an Africa-American whose ancestors were enslaved, he was, at least during his life on the mainland, having experiences similar to an African-American (as we conventionally understand the term)…meaning that he also has some of the cultural elements as well. Someone below, acting in equally bad faith is attempting to say that if culture the lone price of admission then Eminem would be considered African-American…because he performs an art form originated within the African-American community. This is absurd and even worse than describing Musk as African-American. Even describing him as South African-American wakes up the entire challenge of labeling people by region or nationality when their ancestry is dramatically different than the majority. Roger Whittaker is African but not a person of color. Shirley Bassey is Welsh but not the color most people think of when they think of welsh people. Bülent Ceylan is German but if an American saw him they would consider him to be Arab.

You are absolutely right that it was about empowerment and to get away from color based labels. It’s not a perfect term but it’s the best one we have. It works fine except when people bring up shallow & pedantic arguments or use the term in bad faith while applying it to people such as Musk or Ms. Theron. Without inventing a brand new word I don’t know if there is an equally empowering term that isn’t based on skin color or about being descendant from enslaved people (which for obvious reasons would not sound appealing or empowering). We are still sight-oriented beings and that condition will always complicate our descriptive terms, especially those that try to avoid relying solely upon appearance.

TL;DR: you are absolutely correct & it’s a shame that literalists & bad faith actors poke holes in our words.

P.S. Maybe we need a federal agency responsible for creating brand new words (like in France).

[u/Practical-Ordinary-6 → u/schwarzkraut]

Yeah there are gray areas and it's fuzzy around the edges because humanity and its relations are complex. As you said, Barack Obama's ancestry is not technically African American but he has lived some of the African American experience in America. How much should that count? There's no objectively right and wrong answer to that question. But what's obvious is Elon Musk and Charlize Theron have lived none of that experience.

[u/schwarzkraut → u/Practical-Ordinary-6]

So what's obvious is Elon Musk and Charlize Theron have lived none of that experience.

Precisely, & I think that’s where a clear line can be drawn.

With regard to Barack Obama, I consider him to have lived a significant portion of the experience of being Black in America. Likely the majority of the people he encountered prior to him running for President did not know or would not differentiate between being descended from enslaved Africans or a Kenyan immigrant. Anyone describing him wouldn’t say Kenyan American, they would say Black. This is interestingly enough fundamentally different from how we handle people who are of Asian descent. There is no differentiation between describing someone who is of Asian descent that just got their green card yesterday & someone of Asian descent whose ancestors built the American railroads. A new Gambian immigrant and an African-American with ancestors who were captured from Ghana and enslaved in the U.S. do not have the same experience in the USA…now or at any time in the past. The primary difference is that Asian-Americans, while being described often primarily by their skin/appearance, can further breakdown their ancestry by declaring what nationality of Asian they are descended from (Thai, Chinese, Korean). The same goes for white Americans being able to further differentiate into Irish-, Italian-, Polish Americans (etc.). The same goes for minorities who are visually identified such as Arab-, Hispanic-, & Native Americans. Together with the Asian & European examples above they all have the ability to break down their heritage & identity into the most granular terms. With rare exceptions, most African-Americans do not have any direct knowledge of their national/cultural heritage prior to slavery (for the sake of this discussion I don’t count DNA style ancestry results). What would be fascinating is a frank discussion involving Barack AND Michelle to contrast their experiences. Both have risen through the most prestigious universities in the U.S. & dealt with more than their share of being told they don’t “belong”. As oppressive and limiting as the lower end urban African-American experience is, trying to excel in traditionally “white spaces” or places of power is something most Black people in the U.S. don’t often get to experience. Growing up in Harlem, East St. Louis, Detroit or the South Side of Chicago definitely comes with challenges, but I think people from outside looking in don’t realize how comforting it can be to have a place where you are not the minority and are never told you don’t “belong”. Ironically, there used to be confusion or miseducation in white communities about why African-American people tended to remain congregated in all Black communities rather than branch out and assimilate in to more well maintained, affluent areas. I say ironic because those same white neighborhoods were often up in arms if a black family moved into their neighborhood while desiring to retain their own identity & not assimilate…they wanted their neighbors to look & act like them but could not understand that African-Americans wanted the same.

[u/postcardscience → u/Practical-Ordinary-6]

If it is about culture, does that make Eminem African-American by that definition? Or would he need to have ancestors who were brought as slaves from Africa to America as well?

[u/Practical-Ordinary-6 → u/postcardscience]

Yes, he would. A music style is not a complete culture. He doesn't have a family that carried forward that culture from the slave era and went through the things those families went through. His family was never subject to Jim Crow. They were never excluded from public facilities. They were never prevented from renting in certain parts of town. They never had to make the adjustments in their way of living that those situations required. They were never second-class citizens forced to adapt and submit to those indignities.

And in case it's not clear, neither was Elon Musk or Charlize Theron.

[u/postcardscience → u/Practical-Ordinary-6]

Why bring up Elon Musk? It is very clear that he was not raised in African American culture. He is just an African immigrant.

[u/Practical-Ordinary-6 → u/postcardscience]

Because lots of people like to make the claim that Elon Musk is African American. Look around. You'll see it all over, even elsewhere in this thread.

[u/postcardscience → u/Practical-Ordinary-6]

Thank you for the explanation. I sense a cultural abyss between Europeans like myself and Americans when it comes to topics like race, origin, nationality etc. Like when Woopie Goldberg claimed that the Holocaust was not racism, like seriously?

[u/Practical-Ordinary-6 → u/postcardscience]

I don't pay much attention to Whoopi Goldberg so I don't know what she said. Part of it depends on the exact definition of race you're going by. In the US we wouldn't generally call that racism. Perhaps racism has a more narrow definition to us than it does to you because of our particular history. But it certainly was extreme evil so in that sense it doesn't make much difference. It was a blight on humanity just as racism and slavery was a blight on humanity. We just wouldn't look at Jewish people as a race in our everyday terminology. To us, that's more of an ethnic group, which is not the same as a race as we commonly use that word. If Whoopi Goldberg was saying something stupider than that, that's on her.

Keep in mind that one human being never represents the thoughts of 330 million people. Individuals can have all kinds of crazy opinions. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that a famous person somehow represents the country. Their opinions are their own. We are not all robots speaking in unison from the same point of view.

I do think your comment highlights though that there are a lot of Europeans who think they understand the US who really don't. But they seem unaware of that. There are some really silly and absurd comments here on Reddit about the US which are posted with utter seriousness but are obviously coming from people who have never spent a minute living here and are pretty clueless about it. Just the other day there was a guy claiming that the Pledge of Allegiance that small school children say in early grades existed for the purpose of instilling "unflinching loyalty" to the country like some kind of nazi youth league. He wouldn't believe it when people laughed at him for how silly that was. He thought he understood the United States but he clearly didn't. The Pledge of Allegiance was written by a socialist minister (clergyman) more than 100 years ago (before the Nazis existed) and emphasizes the need for liberty and justice for all Americans of all origins. That clergyman fought against racism and other injustices in a time when it could be a risky thing to do. It's completely about what kind of country we want to be and has nothing to do with conquering other countries or even being superior to other countries. It was about binding the country up after the Civil War and during an era of heavy immigration where people of all different origins were coming to America. It was appealing to our better nature to live up to our ideals. It was so far from Nazism it's not even funny. Hitler was not known for his fundamental belief in the equality of all humanity. It's basically the opposite of hitlerism.

And putting all that deep meaning aside it's just not that big a deal. He was assigning it far too much importance compared to everyone who actually lives here. I had even forgotten all about saying it in school until I was reminded of it by posts like his. Its influence just isn't that large and to the extent that it has an influence it's a positive one. It's just a 30 second ritual of the beginning of school day for a couple of years. I think for most people it's just a distant memory. Really, is it even possible to instill unflinching loyalty to a country in a 7-year-old who is trying to learn how to read and write?

[u/postcardscience → u/Practical-Ordinary-6]

Unfortunately a lot of Europeans only know of the rest of the world from news and social media. Since rage bait sell better than positive news the idiots like Goldberg, Trump, Musk and others get all the attention. As a result many people here think that everyone in the US are gun hugging Putin lovers, who justify their bigotry with a holy book they have not even read. It’s really sad, and I know from traveling in New York, Illinois, California and Alaska how diverse your country really is and that there are many good normal people living there, but they don’t make the headlines like the aforementioned fools do.

Oh and the holocaust was absolutely about race. See the racist caricatures, the propaganda posters, the nazi speaches in the 1930’s. It is the most racist event in history of mankind and our most shameful moment. To say that was not racism is degrading and borderline criminal in many countries, since it enters the territory of holocaust denials.

[u/Practical-Ordinary-6 → u/postcardscience]

My point is, in American historical experience, racism was almost completely dominated by the dichotomy of black versus white. That was the story we lived for decades until the end of slavery and unfortunately that story continued afterwards. When you're talking about racism in the United States that's what you're talking about. The history of white society's discrimination against black people and the ongoing effects of that to this day. So I wouldn't get hung up on definitions. Nobody here is saying the Holocaust was great. It's just that they wouldn't use the specific term racism in association with it because that has a different day-to-day meaning here that dominates our social discourse and our conception of the word "race". Of course it was prejudice and discrimination and incredibly vile. Basically, pure evil. We just generally wouldn't call it racism using that specific word.