Last week with the disturbing news that Russia had invaded Georgia, the word "Caucus" came up on the news. Thom asked me, "what are the caucuses?" I replied, "I don't know. Maybe they are having some kind of voting thing right now and that instigated the invasion." I then promptly forgot the conversation.
Well, I'm just sitting here at my computer and the word came up again. And what do you know! There's that word again. I always rather prided myself on my geography skills, but didn't have a clue that Caucasus was a mountain in Georgia and that the Caucuses are the natural dividing line between Asia and Europe. All of the sudden, minutes ago, it struck me that THIS must be where the term, "caucasian" comes from whenever I fill out a form on self-information. So I googled the origin of the word caucasian and sure enough, there it was. Some foolish man, Johann Blumenbach,1752-1840, who must have been related to hitler, thought the people of this region had the most beautiful skulls,and were the most beautiful people and were the Adam and Eve of us all and were white, so he coined the term, caucasian. I've never like ticking that box, and now I like it even less. From now on I'm scratching it out and just writing, "white".
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3 comments:
I hate that whole conundrum myself. Thing that ticks me off the most is how everyone except for us "caucasian/whiteys" qualifies as "people of color." To me, this implies that I am the opposite of that, lacking in color. How completely illogical and untrue! The whole thing just irritates me...
I hear ya God's guitar girl! How've you been by the way? Is all good? I'll jump over to your site in the morning and check in:)
Things are getting busy w/ school starting soon!! It's been a busy summer, so I don't feel like we got much of a break, but I'd rather be too busy than have nothing to do!
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