kimilseung

This definition led in part to the US court case United States v. Bhagat Singh in 1923. If I remember right, he had his citizenship taken away as the court decided not to follow a "scientific" definition of caucasian.

.Although in some U.S. official forms North Africa and Middle East is still included as Caucasian

scrubbedexpat091

I usually answer white on forms asking my race as I am very fair skinned, red hair and freckles. However I have Native Indian status in the US, and have the card from the tribe to prove said status, so I suppose I could put down American Indian, but I dunno.

There are some benefits at times to not putting down white in the US, especially when it comes to school funding, non-whites will have more access to funding sources for the most part.

dave_j

I hadn't heard of this case and looked it up. It's described quite well at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...at_Singh_Thind and I recomend a read.

It's shocking to think that, considering the text of the US declaration of Independance stating that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal.....", the men of the Supreme Court found themselves arguing over who could and could not be considered "free white persons" for the purposes of US naturalisation. It's an indictment of political dogma that the exclusion of races like chinese resulted in the self contraditory arguments of a court acting to satisfy those political needs.

Such processes are alive and well in Trump's america of today.

Snowy560

Funny how:

ALL men are created equal....."

Former Lancastrian

It was a typo they missed to WO or it got lost in translation as to all humans are created equal.

dave_j

I think, hope, that the term 'men' used here, probably like the argument over the term 'caucasian' was meant to be a generalised description of the human form. But I take your point and such loose language demsonstrates how those in charge at the time probably meant 'people like us' and of course all of 'us' were male.

morpeth

Also for work, especially companies that have government contracts, In my first job there were 20 people hired every year at that company as Executive Trainees. They had government contracts so had to show better results in hiring women and minorities- so HR department and people running the particular program were told no matter what 50% of the people hired had to be women and minorities. And that was some years ago, now I would think the pressure is even greater.
.

scrubbedexpat091

True. The trend in the US seems to be to hire minorities and military vets first then anyone else especially with government jobs and companies with contracts with the government.

bats

I have a South African friend who says there is never a choice to say "white African"

morpeth

Interesting on job applications now there are for VETS various categories besides just veteran- recently separated, Vietnam vet , etc .

It used to be mainly companies with contracts with the government, but I get impression now the questions as to one's race, disability status and veteran status are also asked for private companies. I assume that sexual orientation will soon be added to the list, then who knows after that.

Shard

I don't know enough about American history, but wasn't that language meant to state an anti-slavery position when the Constitution was drafted.

JS? You must have studied this stuff in school?

dbd33

I don't think slaves counted as people so "all men" might mean only free people having a penis (the views of the framers on gender identification contrary to observed reality are not, afaik, recorded).

Is the argument behind the raising of job quotas above that people need to be classified in order that the quota requirements can be met?

dbd33

I worked for years with a Saffer who was an honorary white. He had a certificate to that effect on the wall of his cubicle. "Don't argue with me" he'd say "I'm a white man".

Shard

These days, being white seems to come with so much baggage.

dbd33

They moved to Australia, his wife couldn't deal with the cold here, so I don't know if he now hides his certificate.