3 ms·
There are some correlations between phenotypes and caste (and there is a lot of genetic stratification when you look at ancestry), but caste really cuts across
by ummonk 4y ago
There are some correlations between phenotypes and caste (and there is a lot of genetic stratification when you look at ancestry), but caste really cuts across race - there are lower caste groups in North India that look more "white" than upper caste groups in South India.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> there are lower caste groups in North India that look more "white" than upper caste groups in South India Definitions of race don’t require a skin-color gradient. Plenty of Asians are lighter skinned than white Mediterraneans.
- ummonk 4y agoI'm not just talking about skin color.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> not just talking about skin color Steve Jobs is ethnically Syrian. Most people would call him white. The fact that some e.g. North Africans may fit the classic conception of whiteness better than many Europeans doesn’t dissolve every racial boundary therebetween.
- howinteresting 4y agoIf Jobs had grown up in (say) New England rather than California, there is no way he would be have been treated the same as white people there. He would have clearly stood out.
- jefftk 4y agoReally? Looking at some pictures of him when he was younger (ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#/media/File:Steve_Jobs_in_1972_Pegasus_(retouched).jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#/media/File:Steve_J...) I think he would have been lumped in with other white kids here.
- howinteresting 4y agoIt's hard to tell from a black and white photo.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- zajio1am 4y agoMiddle eastern and north african people are generally considered white here in Europe. Using 'white' just as synonymum for 'european-ancestry' is some recent US quirk.
- howinteresting 4y agoMany people from the Mediterranean and the surrounding areas are white-passing people of color. They've been flattened by the official US race forms into "white", but that's not the same thing as actually being white in terms of day-to-day lived experience. See this book: https://www.amazon.com/Whitewashed-Americas-Invisible-Minority-Critical/dp/0814782736 https://www.amazon.com/Whitewashed-Americas-Invisible-Minori...
- yywwbbn 4y agoGenes which are responsible for white skin were introduced to Europe by “immigrants” from the middle east. It’s a very diverse region due to groups of people moving in/out for thousands of years. So whatever label you try to attach to them you’ll find plenty of people for whom it makes no sense (e.g. there are groups of people whose ancestors lived in the Levant for at least thousands of years and amongst whom red hair and blue eyes are more common than in most “European” populations)
- howinteresting 4y agoRace and ethnicity are related but different things.
- ummonk 4y agoSomeone who is truly white-passing should be considered a person of paleness, not a person of color, no? Like sure they're an ethnic minority but racial minority?
- howinteresting 4y agoI'm not knowledgeable enough to be able to draw that distinction, but what I can say is that several people close to me fit that description and look at themselves as white-passing PoC, due to the ways they've been treated as a separate group from European-origin white people.
- someguydave 4y agoIf by race or caste you mean “measurably distinct genetic groupings” then they are pretty similar.