know that you are ONLY supposed to refer to people of your rough general skin color as WHITE? No, I'm not kidding. I know, I know. Why you could have knocked me over with a pin feather.

You see tried to vary my adjective use last night and substituted 'Caucasian' for 'White' and got jumped on by a supposedly reasonable poster. He, and I assume it was a HE, got all kinds of upset, going so far as to imply that I was an Archie Bunker sort of individual because I got tired of writing White. Perhaps he was just having a bad brain day.

You know, as writers, we are rather limited as to how we can refer to the great oppressors of the masses. I can, for instance call HIM [it's always a he, isn't it?] White or I can call him [if I want to be offensive to the subject in question] Whitey, Honky, Fey, or make up some sort of funky new term that will be momentarily cute but thereafter confusing to readers, unless the masses accept the term in general usage. Little chance of that happening.

Come to think of it I could switch to 'Anglo-Saxon'. Would that term be less offensive to certain racially tender sensibilities than Caucasian? Or as a writer am I only allowed to restrict word usage to 'White'?

Now proper terminology is not restricted only to Caucasians [Ooops! Pardon that slip. I meant Whites] in my youth, in mixed company, should the subject arise for some reason, [and once in a rare blue moon, White people DID discuss race relations in what passed for civilized manners among their backward kind] we were instructed to name African-Americans in general reference terms as Colored. This was because the term Negro was a bit to close in general sound to the nuclear 'N' word. A slip of the tongue leads to broken teeth, eh; or at least to injured feelings? Then for some reason Colored was out and Black was substituted. Then a decade or so later the term 'African-American' supplanted 'Black'. NOW Black seems to be sliding back into preferred usage.

I have been using the term African-American as that was the last official word I heard on the subject. Why inadvertently give offense?

Unfortunately it doesn't end there. We might as well address the hot topic nomenclature of other races or ethnic groups. Is it, for instance, Hispanic or Latino/Latina? How about Native-American? I KNOW that it is no longer remotely correct to say Indian when you mean Native-American, or is it? Actually, when sending charitable donations to Native-American organizations we frequently see references in the literature to Indians. It's all so confusing!

We also could go into Middle Eastern racial and ethnic references, but then perhaps there should be a cap on this discussion somewhere.

Oh, and one can't just ignore race. Not in writing when one is actually referring to race relations. Names are rather necessary so as to avoid confusion and embarrassment.

Now I don't care what you call Whites from the standpoint of race relations. I'm not sensitive on the subject in that respect. I just need some other proper term than White so as to vary the writing.

So does anyone know of any proper and respectful alternate terminology in regard to Whites as it appears to be NOT PC any longer to refer to them as Caucasians. Please tell a struggling writer what to do in this regard when referring to people of relatively pale skin color with the nasty habit of running things.

It pays to stay up to date with trends.

Is your entire interior life just one seething mass of resentment, Gollum, or is it just this racial thing that's lured you out from beneath your rock?

Actually, there would be nothing wrong about calling a white, Euro-American a "caucasian", save for the fact that (East) Indians, Arabs, Iranians, and Pakistanis are also of the Caucasoid race. So Caucasian is too broad a term.

I actually liked 'Colored', as it is continent-neutral, and merely refers to skin color (pigmentation). The difficulty with 'Colored', is what do you call a brown-skinned Mexican? "Colored" worked back in the days before Mexican-Americans (or is it Azteca-Americans?).

Oppresors

Racists (If it's white it's a racist, and if it's a racist it's white)

Bigots

Satan

==============================­================

My wife asked me if I wanted to go with her and my daughters last Saturday to "The Indian Store". I was puzzled. Is that a grocery store that sells Indian foods? No, they sell arrow heads and animal skins and Native-American stuff. I gotta say I was a little shocked.

The word "caucasian" has been around for at least a century or more to denote those individuals who have certain physical characteristics that are similar, such as hari type, facial structure and a skin complexion that can range from 'black" (to identify those from India or other middle eastern nations) to "white" (to identify those from western european cultures indigenous to Europe) .

Many Hispanics are defined as hispanics by their surnames, but can consist of a congolomeration of caucasian and/or mixture of caucasian and local native ethnic groups, such as some of the peoples of Central America, South America and Mexico, outside of those "caucasians" of those nations originating from western european indigenous cultures.

However, when reviewing the Wikipedia definition of "caucasian" as a race, there is a lot more information to be defined as to how the name came about and why in today's definition of race it is no longer qualifying completely as to one kind of racial group.

<link>

And in other frameworks of reference, you can have this determination of caucasian:

Caucasian may refer to:

• Caucasian, an adjective describing anything from the Caucasus region
  • Peoples of the Caucasus, humans from the Caucasus region
  • Languages of the Caucasus, languages spoken in the Caucasus region
• Caucasian race, a human racial group
• Brown Caucasian (cattle), a cattle breed
• North Caucasian (pig), a pig breed
• Caucasian Snowcock, a type of bird
• Caucasian Shepherd Dog, a dog breed
• The Caucasian Chalk Circle, a play by Bertolt Brecht
• Caucasian, a nickname for a White Russian (cocktail)

<link>

So...you can't call "whites" caucasians anymore as a specific racial group...and whites refers to only those of a specific skin complexion color range...so the best thing to do is simply call them all "assholes"...that covers all ranges of skin complexions, skeletal and facial structures as all kinds of bodily hair types, just as in dogs and cats you can have all kinds of short-haired, long-haried, wire-haired, no-haired and rought-haired, curly-haired, etc...types.

It's all alosing game...so that now even "black" is supposed to mean "good" and "white" is referred to "evil" as evidenced by the Black Liberation Theology espoused by Jeremiah Wright's Church and belief systems that he preaches.

Asians Mongoloids or Orientals? Just checkin.

contributors here. Nobody that I know of puts this kind of effort and information into a post.

What about "Black" and " Unblack " now that works doesn't it?

race issues and relationships. er, aren't we? I mean is the Slate home page only t be read and NOT discusses? Damn it, I wish Slate would tell us about these changes in policies. Go play in traffic you moron.

term 'Fey', it was presented to me about twenty years or so ago by a 'black' friend of mine when the subject of race relations arose in reference to the then new term African-American.

You see I asked him what common term African-Americans used for Whites aside from White and he supplied Fey.

Whites this morning in response to the gentleman that objected to the Term Caucasian. I suggested something along the lines of White Oppressor of Racial Minorities. Let's see . . . WORM. Hell, THAT's absolutely perfect!

I now know to call Whites WORMS when looking for an acceptable adjective!

===============

Yeah, I think Native Americans have simply shrugged and decided to go with whatever seems to work for people on the whole. Call 'em Native-Americans or Indians but bring your Visa card because they don't accept American Express.

Hmmm . . . am I going to get in trouble over that? Was I being disrespectful there? I am sooooo confused!

Sing it with me now...

"nobody knows... the trouble I've seen..."

confusing for me. I don't keep up with all this racial PC stuff and had a vague memory of when Whites were listed as Caucasians on official documents and so I innocently used Caucasian as substitute for White.

People should generate lists of these things for earnest people trying not to commit offense.

"Fey" means gay, sort of. this is pre-1969 Gay, BTW. I don't think that fits except in an ironic sense.

How about Dolichocephalic Devil?