Cauc-racist

A topic which has resonated with me, ever since discussing it in one of the lectures, is that of the word Caucasian and why it is used to define a white person of European descent (which is what you see when google searching the word ‘Caucasian').

The word Caucasian is derived from the Caucus region, referring to the people whom lived within that area. The Caucus region is referring to parts which include, some of Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Northern parts of Turkey.

So why has this term all of a sudden been whisked away from those areas and now used in our own country? It all started with a man who believed he had developed the scientific justification as to why all races are different. His name was Christoph Meiners, a German philosopher, who followed Hitler’s thought process of having a singular ‘perfect’ race.

Meiners’ viewpoint was that people from the Caucus area had the most beautiful skin.

His idea was adopted by Johann Blumenbach, a German naturalist who had ideas of his own on the races of the world, and separated them in to their very own colour schemes.

1.     the Caucasian or white race – people within the Caucus areas

2.     the Mongolian or yellow race – referring to eastern Asia and some central Asian areas.

3.     the Malayan or brown race – defined south east Asians and pacific islanders.

4.     the Ethiopian or black race – the African continent

5.     the American or red race – which were the Native Americans

This classification was several years later adopted by the U.S founding fathers, which would have been used for cementing things such as slavery. It was described as Scientific because Blumenbach had a collection of over 200 human skulls from human skeletons from various ethnic descents. He decided that the skulls from the Caucus region were the most beautiful so therefore, all people with the same colored skin, which happened to be White, were all beautiful, because of their “scientific” structuring.

So why is it around today, but the other classifications are not? Caucasian is a blanketed term, thrown around in order to separate White people from everyone else. The adoption of the terms from the United States would have had a major impact on this, because they are one of the greatest powers in the world, colonizers would have taken the term with them in their travels, and therefore it stuck.

As I conclude this history lesson, I plead that the next time you want to refer to yourself or anyone as Caucasian…please don’t.