What is White? Caucasian students inquire.

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | December 8, 2003 | Jose Antonio Vargas

[SFmom]

The other students call her "white girl."

Justine Steele is a senior at Independence High School in San Jose, a sprawling campus of 4,054 students where 8 percent are Caucasian. Forget the numbers. "Look around," she says. There are Indians and Vietnamese, Mexicans and Filipinos.

[Howlin]

She's single, you know? :-)

[Sir_Ed]

"I always looked at dancing as a little primitive. But it's always fun to watch people make absolute fools of themselves."

I used to folk dance, and it was a lot of fun. Russian, Bulgarian, Greek, Israeli, Turkish...you should check out folk dancing, or Greek dancing at a Greek Orthodox Festival, you'd be amazed at how fun it is.

Ed

[Sir_Ed]

"The problem here is that the Government and the Schools encourage Balkanization of the population by ALLOWING race or ethnic limited organizations. ALL OF THEM should be banned. This is AMERICA. We should only have room for Americans."

So we should ban The Emerald Society or the Italian American Police Association?!

Ed

[ZULU]

NO The "Emerald Society" or the Italian-American whatever are NOT fine.

If you want to be an Irishman or an Italian, Go back to Ireland or Italy, where you belong. Nothing looks dumber than a bunch of so-called Americans marching around and celebrating the fact that their ancestors came from Ireland or Italy, or wherever. If where their ancestors came from was so great, they would have stayed there. My grandparents came from Europe and stayed here because they wanted to be Americans, not Europeans. Here they were free and could live a new life and not have to cowtow to some aristocrat or put up with a state-sponored Church. They were proud and happy to have become Americans, and AMERICANS is what they were when they became citizens here, and an AZmerican is what I am, and proud to be. Furthermore, I want no connection whatsoever with ANY country but America.

So many of those European countries are a pack of cowardly, stupid, inbred, socialist states anyway.

So keep your Emerald Society, or Italian American group to yourself, or, again, go back to wherever your ancestors came from if your so proud to be something other than an AMERICAN.

As for me - I'm an American. Where my ancestors came from has no real relevance to me. I consider myself an American first, last and always and this would be a better place without ANY ethnically restricted racial "Bunds", NAACPs, etc.,etc.

[lawdude]

"She's single, you know? :-)"

Ah, but alas, I am not. Ol' wats her name...you know, "She Who Must Be Obeyed" says I can look but I will be missing parts should I attempt to touch!

[potlatch]

Hum the raisin tune now

LOL, I should have read this first, as you know - I'm humming a different tune!

[potlatch]

hehe ! He's toast ! ... er, raisin !

Yum, 'raisin toast'!!

Hate to admit it, but I can remember 'decoder rings' and things, on cereal boxes, LOL.

[Smokin' Joe]

I like the library idea. Put it online as well.

[Kay Soze]

White:

[Smokin' Joe]

"Original Americans" are probably extinct. Groups such as the Olmecs, Toltecs, Anasazi, Mound Builders, etc. were long gone before the first Europeans came over, their culture lost to the current 'native' residents (when the Europeans arrived). As some of the earliest Americans may have arrived as far back as 32,000 years ago, (maybe farther back than that), it is difficult for Europeans and later invaders to decide just what the original American cultures were like.

"Native American" (my wife prefers "Indian"--she is Chippewa) is no better a term than "white". It embraces a plethora of tribes and cultures which varied widely in lifestyle (nomadic, sedentary, etc.) and culture,largely determined by geography and the available resources and materials which affected their technological development.

A parallel exists, the Native Americans were forbidden to speak their language, taught in schools which did not teach (and often forbade) their culture, and greatly lost their cultural identity.

Now "White" children are going to schools which do not teach their history or culture, and often forbid it.

History repeats itself?

[RWR8189]

Thank God I'll be dead before the worst of it. The Death of the West is in accelerated mode and neither party will do anything about it.

[Capriole]

Every year at this time my kids' public school (located, by the way, in what is supposed to be among the finest school systems in the US) has some kind of "Diversity Day" or "Heritage Day" or some such. At these events one is supposed to dress in one's exotic native costume and bring native foods to put on a card table for the other parents and children to sample, then talk about one's rich ethnic heritage. This is supposed to generate mutual understanding and admiration. Note that there is a presupposition that everybody is so newly off the boat that they have a native costume still tucked in the closet.

Well, my kids and I got sick of being left out of the fun, so we decided that we were going to take part and celebrate diversity, too. We would get a card table and dress in our unusual native costumes and talk about our ethnic heritage like everyone else at the school. So we put on native clothing that most of the people there had never seen--I wore a wool plaid skirt, a cashmere sweater, a navy blazer, and Great-Grandmama's pearls, with plain flats; my son wore his navy blazer, a baggy white cotton button-down shirt, and a simple silk tie. We made a Yorkshire pudding, Sally Lunn bread, and a few other English odds and ends, and set up a display about quaint native customs from our ethnic heritage. Our little display showcased charming ethnic folkways like the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, writs of habeas corpus, and trial by jury. We also put up pictures of those who contributed to our quaint native culture. I chose pictures of Shakespeare, Jefferson, Marshall, Washington, Wren, Newton, Reagan, and Churchill, to name a few. We had a boombox playing Purcell and Dowland.

Nobody thought this was in any way amusing, for some reason. Our gesture was not appreciated. We are just insensitive white racists, after all.

[nutmeg]

read later bump

[ChicagoHebrew]

Now "White" children are going to schools which do not teach their history or culture, and often forbid it.

There is no such thing as "white" culture or history.

[dougherty]

Nobody thought this was in any way amusing, for some reason. Our gesture was not appreciated. We are just insensitive white racists, after all.

I think it was great. I guess they would have been more impressed by some spicy food or idiotic dancing. The Magna Carta, Bill of Rights or Shakespeare just can't compare I guess. LOL @ the idiots.

[MeekOneGOP]

hehe !

[Cronos]

Hate to break it to you but Caucasian, referring to race, has nothing to do with Azeris and Armenians. It is derived from Caucasoid, which Azeris and Armenians are certainly a part of, just as Negro is related to Negroid and Mongol to Mongoloid(though no one would call an Asian a Mongol these days.)

Arabs, Iranis and Indians are Caucasian too, so the Caucasian club would be kinda dumb. They could have those of Italian, of English etc. heritage. An Asian club is equally stupid as a European club -- you gonna tell me a lebanese, an indian, An Uzbek and a Japanese have commonalities?

[Cronos]

Whites are the minority world wide. They compose only four hundred million out of a world population of six billion

Uh, I got news for you, Caucasians constitute at least 2 to 2.5 billion with another 1 billion mixed, so that would constitute a majority.

[Smokin' Joe]

But the same people who teach the gay/other-than-white ethnocentrist versions of the American History fable in the public schools would have oour children believe the "white" contributors to the history of this nation were all evil abusive slave-owning mysoginists. Or that they and their contributions simply didn't exist.

How can we discuss the significance of the Federalist Papers with our grandchildren if their time in history class is taken up with iterations of the "white" man as the evil overseer, exploiter, and owner? Every culture has its rough spots, the 'white' American melting pot is no different.

But, pray tell, how can you have "Black" history, "Gay/Lesbian" history, etc., and not have "white" history--if in no other regard than the bias with which it (allegedly?) is presented.

When you teach that George Washington was a slaveowning rich white farmer, and ignore the remainder of his life, except perhaps the 'cherry tree incident', then you show cultural bias.

While you claim there is no "white" culture or history, there is certainly an anti-"white" culture and history, largely fomented and perpetuated by the same folks who would balkanize America along racial or cultural lines, and who mercilessly milk those divisions for money, votes, and power.

Racism flies the flag of 'diversity' now, but only for the state-approved. "White" folks need not apply?

[MissAmericanPie]

I would have loved to be a fly on the wall for that event. At least you have them something to think about, and your stock went up with your children.