Marshall Segall, Professor Emeritus of Syracuse, spoke at the Senior Center today. His contention is that race really does not exist. He travels around the world with an exhibit that argues his point. He made a strong case, but, as usual, I was more fascinated by the oddities he mentioned than his general argument, which does make a lot of sense.
Oddity #1 - in every decennial census that the US has conducted since the 1800s there has been a different list of races from which you can select your own.
Oddity #2 - The word 'Caucasian', which is a virtual synonym for 'white, came about around 1735. A paper written by a student of Linneaus described the most beautiful descendants of an all-perfect, all-beautiful God as Caucasian because, at the time of his writing the paper, a troupe of dancing girls from the Caucasus was touring Germany. In the eyes of this young man, they were the most beautiful humans he had seen; hence, Caucasian.
2 comments:
Interesting, especially given that the word 'Niger' is derived from the Latin for 'black', from which of course came the word 'nigger', now possibly one of the most offensive words in American language, whereas 'Caucasian', having no relationship to anything resembling 'white' in any language has, as you rightly point out, become synonymous with the skin color - and almost complimentary?
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