July 30, 2011

Eugene Volokh finds evidence that Asians are now white.

On the occasion of Gov. Nikki Haley identifying herself as white (when her ancestors come from India), he says:
"I first noticed this effect 10 years ago, at a party where a friend of mine commented that the guests were all white. I responded by mentioning about a dozen Asians; oh, she said, that’s right, but you know what I mean. At a recent UCLA conference I attended, two speakers complained that everyone on the panel was white, without even realizing that one of the speakers was ethnically Chinese, and another was an Asian Indian with skin darker than that of many American blacks."
It's an old question, who's white? Did you know that back in 1879, the Supreme Court seriously considered an argument that a black man was a "white person"? There was a federal statute that granted Indians a remedy against the United States when a "white person" committed a crime in Indian territory.
It is contended... that the term "white person," as here used, means no more then "not an Indian"...
The Court rejected that interpretation, however, because the terminology dated back to slavery times and...
It was, no doubt, thought if the United States made themselves liable only for such depredations as were committed by the whites,... Indians would be less likely to tolerate fugitive blacks in their country. Hence, as a means of preventing the escape of slaves, the change in the law was made.
The case is United States v. Perryman.

67 comments:

Trooper York said...

Does Nancy Pelosi think Niki has gone over to the "Dark Side."

Eric said...

It's a natural outgrowth, abetted by "affirmative action" silliness, of the fact that "minority" means black or hispanic.

And "diverse" means "black". A classroom of 30 black kids? Diverse. A classroom of 10 Indian, 10 white, and ten Asian? Not diverse.

Anonymous said...

White is a state of mind.

SteveR said...

Racial Identity is driven by factors unrelated to genetics. As such its made the concept invalid. You can use neither common sense or facts.

Mary Beth said...

It sounds as though it is being used to identify a set of behaviors rather than appearance.

Anonymous said...

Asians will become the same as whites in America when news of a missing-and-feared-murdered beautiful young Asian woman turns into as much of a media circus as news of a missing-and-feared-murdered beautiful young white woman.

Peter

Palladian said...

Racial pride and racial prejudice, and pretty much everything else associated with the fictional concept of race, is the root cause of about half of human misery in recorded (and probably unrecorded) history.

My strategy is to act terribly offended and embarrassed when people complain about race in a professional context (such as people complaining that everyone on a panel is white). If you do it convincingly enough, you can often make the offender redden with shame and become silent, as they're usually people who have the most deep-seated neuroses and insecurities about race.

ricpic said...

Indians would be less likely to tolerate fugituve blacks in their territories.

What about *Zambos? The Court didn't even consider the potential plight of Zambos in Indian territory. The injustices just pile up and up an...




*Oh, you don't know what a Zambo is?
A Black-AmerIndian according to the previous Nikki thread.

Carol_Herman said...

I have freckles. I've always had them. I asked my mom if they'd grow together and I'd become a "schvatza." I thought that's how it happened. Because, "in the beginning," there's only a small sum of people. Total. And, we didn't walk around with hanging tickets that said "we were nearly extinct."

I really hate all the boxes we have to fill out!

I especially hate it when I see American Indian as an added box to check.

So, when I was on jury duty, and the woman in charge of the jury room passed out these "inquisition" forms, I just checked off every single box.

I didn't start doing this until I came to the category "income." I then went backwards ... and, checked everything.

How come suddenly, by getting a summons to appear for jury duty ... we've got to take a questionnaire that has nothing to do with jury duty?

You know, no lawyer is going to choose me to sit on a panel, don't cha? So I just bring a book.

Your name is called. Or it's not. But that's what those who can summon you do.

I'd prefer a system that used a Wheel of Fortune.

damikesc said...

Seeing as how I am a Southern white person --- we don't really give much of a shit about what color you are. But we can notice that Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites don't look super similar to one another.

Why are Asians "white"? Because they aren't on the plantation of victimhood progressives love so.

The Dude said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Curious George said...

Hey if Obama can be black (albeit a well dressed, clean, and with no Negro dialect black, Haley can be white.

AllenS said...

American Indians probably have a chromosone that is related to Mongolians.

I can hardly wait when I complete my different phases of DNA testing.

ricpic said...

Speaking of race, the only thing that struck me about Jews when I was a kid and had to attend temple up to my Bar Mitzvah was the size of the old mens' ears. Not their noses, their ears. Huge ears.

But then when I did my horrible stint in the army years later I noticed the same thing about the ears of so many of the older gentile officers. Huge ears. Horrible things. So maybe the whole human race, at least the male side, develops big horrible droopy ears as it ages.

glenn said...

Asians are "White" because they are mostly capable of being self supporting and self sufficient. They don't make very good dependents. Take responsibility for their families as well.

Jason (the commenter) said...

I welcome the Asians to team White.

Team White, the most inclusive of all teams!

David said...

SteveR said...
"Racial Identity is driven by factors unrelated to genetics. As such its made the concept invalid. You can use neither common sense or facts."

I think you just explained affirmative action.

Carol_Herman said...

I would have found it odd if Nikki Haley checked of "Asian."

You know, when I was young we called Chinese people "orientals."

Alas, we called Japanese people Japs because we were at war.

Hostilities breed contempt.

I'm rather flattered that plenty of Americans are saying "White." And, they have my permission to check a box that says "American."

If we go to England, they won't understand us speaking English, anyway.

If we cut out the government funding, we can end these bogus questionnaires.

I never even believed the results when coke was compared to Pepsi. (And, back then Pepsi had a distinctive taste.)

Oy. Now we don't only do statistics, we data mine them.

While Afred Kinsey's results were entertaining, they weren't exactly factual, either.

Carol_Herman said...

Well, ripic, at 6:32 PM. I just noticed the Kosher food always had a selection called "mock shrimp." And, I wondered how would people who eat Kosher even know?

And, Allen S also at 6:32 PM. I have a pinky finger that's curved. It even looks like I'm demonstrating how to sip tea with the quuen, when I pick up a cup of tea.

My aunt had this feature, too. It means that on my mom's side, I inherited a Mongolian feature. And, this leads me to suspect one of my ancestors ... among my great, great grandparents ... was just from Russia ... but must have been Chinese.

We wouldn't recognize our ancestors!

I also know I couldn't quite understand my grandma. Because she could speak Polish and Yiddish. And, very little broken-English.

I never met anyone who had ancestors who traveled here on the Mayflower. But everyone who traveled here ... had to get on a wooden boat! Now, that took courage.

Anonymous said...

"Blogger AllenS said...

American Indians probably have a chromosone that is related to Mongolians.

I can hardly wait when I complete my different phases of DNA testing."

I was just checking that out last night..the $900 is troublesome.

The 'Y' chromosome stuff is expensive.

SteveR said...

I think you just explained affirmative action.

In so many words

AllenS said...

Lars,

I'm using Family Tree. The Y-DNA37 test is $123.00.

That is the father to son only, or Y chromosone.

AllenS said...

Also, they keep your DNA for 25 years, so you can pay for more information later on.

edutcher said...

White is what the Party of Slavery wants it to be at any given time.

AllenS said...

American Indians probably have a chromosone that is related to Mongolians.

They came from that part of the world.

But I suppose the Lefties couldn't play the same mind game if they called them Siberian-Americans instead of Native Americans.

PS Nothing wrong with calling Chinese (or Japanese or East Indians) Oriental, Carol. No more than calling blacks Negro.

Both are just Latin words meaning the same things.

The Lefties like playing mind games and we're fools for going along.

Anonymous said...

Get rid of the antiquated concept of race altogether.

AllenS said...

Get rid of the antiquated concept of discrimination. Everyone discriminates. Everyone. Let discrimination be legal.

Anonymous said...

"Blogger AllenS said...

Lars,

I'm using Family Tree. The Y-DNA37 test is $123.00.

That is the father to son only, or Y chromosone."

I was looking at one that goes back 6 generations of 'Y'; don't know the the test designation. Trying to pin down the origin of my paternal great grandfather...he 'got around' if you know what I mean;-)

Unknown said...

I was at a conference one time. I was on a panel of six. Three males and three females. Two Jews (one wearing a yarmulke), one Hindu (wearing a sari), one Hispanic, one Arab and me a white guy (me). One of the organizers came around and said "Oh my god this panel is all white!"

The organizer ran off and a minute later she came back with a black guy. She squeezed another chair in and had the black sit on the panel. After she left the black guy kind of hung his head and mumbled "sorry."

Everyone was embarrassed. That was the day I realized how insane the racial bean counters had become. I cannot believe the hard left are now the Bull Connors.

AllenS said...

Lars, if you want to wait until I get some results, I'll tell you if it's worth it or not. My third or fourth cousin did all of the tests and found out some interesting things. His mother was Swedish, or so they thought. She wasn't, she was Finish/Russian. He is a tribal member because he thought he was 16% American Indian, but he's only 6.52%

The Dude said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

Carol_Herman wrote:
I have a pinky finger that's curved. It even looks like I'm demonstrating how to sip tea with the quuen, when I pick up a cup of tea.

I guess we all know what you are beneath that humanoid disguise

The Dude said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

More Carol Herman origin video

wv: worshpi - Religion confuses me.

Shanna said...

My Asian friends would not say they were white, at least the ones with chinese roots.

The Crack Emcee said...

It's an old question, who's white?

Klansmen, that's who. Here's a new question:

Who cares?

I swear, you can be insane some days,...between you and Reynolds - two supposedly "smart" people - there are such huge gaps in knowledge, and even understanding, you've totally reoriented my idea about what the designation even means.

I almost expect to look it up in the dictionary and find "petulence" and "tunnel-vision"...and definitely nothing about consistency.

It's just wild. I mean it. "Who's white?" Sorry, wasn't planning on running across THAT train of thought today,..

The Crack Emcee said...

And hey - who's black?

Bueller?

Jesus, I think I just lost an I.Q. point on that one,...

The Drill SGT said...

there are two contexts for this posting.

on the one hand, Volokh argues that Asians (including presumably Indians) are part of the mainstream achievers and are therefore not count as minorities, thus must be white.

the other view is lingistic and ethnological.

"white" in common usage often means "caucasian"

caucasian 100 years ago, meant basically, Hamites (loosely speaking, North Africans and arabs), Semites (loosely speaking Jews) and aryans. Aryans were broken out as "european-aryans" and "indo-aryans" (e.g. Persians, Pakistani's and some Hindustanis).

Niki is an indo-aryan, thus caucasian thus white in the clasical sense.

PS: Aryan is a Sanskit word, thus it certainly seems that some Indians are Aryans

The Crack Emcee said...

Re-read "Othello."

If you can find any racism in there, then this line of conversation is a valid subject of inquiry.

If you can't, then the KKK have won.

Kirby Olson said...

Anybody who follows the law and the Protestant work Ethic?

jamboree said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hagar said...

I have always found it really offensive that anyone who speaks Spanish, or have a Spanish surname, except oddly enough, the Spanish themselves should be considered not "white." But then that gets me into buying into the concept of "white" to start with, so it is hard to argue against.

However, this is done strictlyu for political reasons, to create another group like the "blacks" that can be counted on to vote Democratic regardless of their actual political leanings.

The Drill SGT said...

Hagar said...
I have always found it really offensive that anyone who speaks Spanish, or have a Spanish surname, except oddly enough, the Spanish themselves should be considered not "white."


and that neither the Portugese or the Brazilians score as minorities. strange

Rialby said...

I once saw an executive from Pepsi speak about diversity. He actually said - By 2010, more than half of Pepsi's workforce will be diverse.

I guess the balance is not.

Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...

One of the funniest things going, according to several close, very dark friends from east Africa, is the expression on the faces of "African-Americans" when they finally figure out that real Africans actually consider them to be "white".

Joanne said...

I completed 1st through 8th grades in Louisiana schools during the days of Separate-but-equal. Everybody went to the not-black school except the blacks. And yes, as children we were very curious about the phenomenon of white French-blacks going to the catholic black schools, but very dark Caribbean (Asian) Indians going to the white schools here in Louisiana. It seemed we had to learn that race was a matter of provenance rather than appearance. I don't know if this was different in other parts of the South, but in St. Tammany Parish, separate-but-equal meant only two races, black and not-black. The first time I heard Asian Indians in England refer to themselves as black I almost swallowed my gum.

Unknown said...

To make the racialist Dems happy, Haley should identify herself as non-Aryan White.

Ooops: after consulting Answers.com, Haley is an original Aryan.
"Its history starts with the ancient Indo-Iranians, Indo-European peoples who inhabited parts of what are now Iran, Afghanistan, and India."

How about non-Caucasian White?
Ooops:
"Of or being a human racial classification distinguished especially by very light to brown skin pigmentation and straight to wavy or curly hair, and including peoples indigenous to Europe, northern Africa, western Asia, and India."

And she is also Caucasian.

Question: who is white? Nordic? Blond, blue eye "master" race?

Sal said...

American Indians probably have a chromosone that is related to Mongolians

If you're of European descent, you're more recently descended from Mongolians than American Indians are. Some of the Mongol khans married their children to Turkish royalty, which later married their children to other western European royalty, from which all whitey-whites are descended. And within the last thousand years. I shit you not.

And ever notice how a lot of eastern Europeans have kind of squinty eyes? Yep, that's right...

JAL said...

@ Carol_Herman I just noticed the Kosher food always had a selection called "mock shrimp." And, I wondered how would people who eat Kosher even know?

The same way vegetarian Seventh Day Adventists know what mock "turkey" tastes like.

wv heard
You haven't heard?

n.n said...

SteveR:

It is and it isn't. Our identity closely follows the people near us, starting with our families. Not only does they influence our identity, but also our loyalty. This may be the reason why there are interests attempting to disrupt traditional (i.e., natural) family structures, in order to facilitate grooming a compliant and uniform population.

However, at a macro level, there are other considerations. For example:

The Hutu slaughtered the Tutsi and dissenting Hutu not because they were of different races (by progressive standards), but because they were competing interests.

Here's another example:

Genocide Wiped Out Native American Population

The current speculation is that the conflict arose from internal conflicts between factions. However, we know that there were tribes (in the north) that pursued imperial trends in the expansion of their territory. In the process they murdered, raped, pillaged, and enslaved their competing interests.

Everyone should knows about Islams legacy in slavery; but, it is not as commonly acknowledged that black Africans (especially of the elite class or later in conspiracy with Muslims) enslaved other black Africans. Both acted with a directive to dominate their competing interests; and Muslims act with a directive to dominate unbelievers (but that was unlikely to be the primary reason for Islamic imperialism).

Then there are the Communists (e.g., Soviet, Chinese) who participated in genocidal actions against their own population on a massive scale, which was progressive and remains unmatched in its scope. Well, it may have been premeditated, a result of incompetence, or merely negligence. For whatever reason it happened, it was also about eviscerating and suppressing competing interests.

It does a great disservice to those people and their legacy when we collect them all in one progressive class. It undermines our understanding of the underlying motives behind some of the most egregious acts in history. It also permits people who recall a selective history to exploit others.

It also denigrates individual dignity when humans are classified and referenced by their incidental features.

BAS said...

There are white Africans, and white Middle Easterners, and there are white people who live in India. There are also a lot of whites from South America and Latin America. She looks somewhat light. Is there a swatch we can use to determine when someone has gone from white to "other"? What happens if I get really tan, should I switch my status to "other"?

jerryofva said...

There is a lot of demographic and linguistic ignorance shown in this thread.

Nikki Haley is "white" all peoples who are native to the Indian subcontinent are white. Like all Indo-European peoples the Indian population originated in Caucasus. that's what the Indo in Indo-Europeans stands for. Indians are the actual Aryans not those blond haired blue eyed Germans. If living on the continent of Asia makes you Asian in the sense of non-white then Israelis who are native to the region are also Asians.

Joanna said...

"Bipartisan" is the new "diversity".

Michael McNeil said...

There is a lot of demographic and linguistic ignorance shown in this thread.

Yes, so why add to it?

Nikki Haley is “white” all peoples who are native to the Indian subcontinent are white. Like all Indo-European peoples the Indian population originated in Caucasus. that's what the Indo in Indo-Europeans stands for. Indians are the actual Aryans not those blond haired blue eyed Germans. If living on the continent of Asia makes you Asian in the sense of non-white then Israelis who are native to the region are also Asians.

While some Indians are descended (linguistically and/or genetically) from the ancient Indo-European “Aryans”, it is extremely likely that many Indians are not. Speakers of the (non Indo-European) Dravidian languages of India are generally given this credit, but it has not actually been demonstrated that the ancient Indus civilization, for instance, was composed of Dravidian speakers. It is perhaps equally likely that the proto-Australoid racial type, represented in India by, for instance, speakers of the Austric family, are in fact modern day representatives the original inhabitants of India. But one way or the other (or some combination), Aryans aren't all there is of India, not by a long shot.

mariner said...

About twenty years ago a pundit said that there are really only two races in America -- black people and everyone else.

Looks like he was ahead of his time.

Fred4Pres said...

Niki Haley family is from Northern India/Punjab, so I suppose she could call her self "white." But American works just fine too. How about that?

Freder Frederson said...

Niki is an indo-aryan, thus caucasian thus white in the clasical sense.

Maybe in the "classical sense", but certainly not in the racial classifications used by the U.S. government.

I don't know why Volokh and now Althouse are so dense and try and figure out a way to make Haley "white". The OMB has defined the term and although the racial and ethnic definitions are not perfect (e.g., a Brazilian does not fall into any of the categories), Haley is clearly "Asian A person having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent including, for example, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, and Vietnam. It includes 'Asian Indian,' 'Chinese', 'Filipino', 'Korean', 'Japanese', 'Vietnamese', and 'Other Asian'."

That being said, you can claim whatever race you want on any of the forms (or none at all). If Haley more closely identifies with the "white" classification, then there is nothing stopping her from claiming to be white. But to claim that she is white under U.S. government guidelines is patently ridiculous.

Cedarford said...

But to claim that she is white under U.S. government guidelines is patently ridiculous.

==================
No, what is patently ridiculous is the racial classification system two progressive Jewish lawyers over at EEO devised in 1966-67 after passage of the Civil Rights Act. Without a vote, it somehow became "official" and permeated society like malignant cancer cells metasticizing.

Mythical races and ethnicities. Like "pacific islander" and calling genetic and linguistic Indo-Europeans as "Asians". The notion that native Americans "end" right on the Mexican Border..and those below join whites and blacks and mixed ancestry people as part of the new "hispanic" ethnicity they created in a DC office.

As absurd as the racial classification system Nazi theorists concocted.
But the Nazi system fortunately only lasted 12 years.

We have put up with the EEO system for almost 50 years and lost a chance to get rid of it and racial and ethnic entitlement due to mush-brains like Sandra Day O'Connor.

Cedarford said...

Lets add some other things. The human genome project is radically changing the 19th century theories and right up to the half century old ideas of the two Jewish progressives at EEO.

We know where people came from, when they differentiated into groups. We know certain ethnicities have "mixes" of not only racial strains of one race, but separate races, proto-races - even separate species (pre white, Mongoloid...within Africa itself, mixes of various Negro strains and earlier people like the San, who almost evolved into a separate species before reblending with Negro ancestral stock). We even know that we carry genes of separate species - Neanderthal in whites, Desevonian in Melanesians.)

A half century ago, the two Jewish lawyers at EEO blew off the mixing and what is a preponderance to actually reaffirm the Old South "touch of the tar brush" in a reverse logic. Their thinking went...well, since even a smidgeon of African or NA blood could cause "discrimination" in the past, the merest drop of African or NE blood makes that person no longer white by classification. But since the law was limited at the US Border, obviously elsewhere, mixing could best be covered by making everyone an artificial new race "Hispanic".

The persistance of Nazi-quality EEO racial theories is simply because liberals and progressive Jews into the Marxist class theory of race, gender making for wholly different societal responses...lapped up the EEO theories and have fought like hell to keep them going. While of course talking from the other side of their mouths when different races, ethnicities and genders have different outcomes because "all differences MUST be from discrimination" since all people are equal and race and gender and ethnicity are but "social constructs".

So we have some blonde haired blue eyed guy with a modest tan referred to as the "1st Black Olympic swimming medalist because he had a mulatto great grandmother. Or refer to some black with 1/32nd NA blood as "good to go" as a casino Indian.

And say that some Peruvian white from a naturalized illegal couple - deserves a promotion over fellow equal or better qualified white because he is "hispanic".

Deirdre Mundy said...

Bart--- I used to work with a couple of East Africans at a Shoney's. They didn't consider African-Americans "White" They actually called them "Sub-human-monkey-people-fit-only-for-slavery." I was a senior in high school at the time and suddenly realized that all that "Pan-africanism" stuff the teachers had been feeding us was total BS.

I mean, we don't treat all the Europeans as "one country" (or we didn't pre-EU) --No one expects the Asians to all get along, but somehow they tell us that Africa is a cohesive unit and that "Africans" are one people? Give me a break.

Also-- a few months ago (can't find the article now) I read something about how humans actually determine "in group" by a person's ACCENT, not their looks. So if Nikki Haley TALKS white, then she IS white!

Anonymous said...

Early 20th century, Swedes and Norwegians were considered different races. Can we agree on just the human race?

KeesKennis said...

South Africa had the term "Honory White" for the Japanese
Maube you could borrow a term from the apartheid era

Cedarford said...

Skipper50 said...
Early 20th century, Swedes and Norwegians were considered different races. Can we agree on just the human race?

=============
NO, we can't. Perhaps we can agree that all humans are of the same species..but NOT all of the same race, indistinguishable in all aspects save "skin color".

Mitch said...

If a South African of British or Boer descent emigrates to the US and becomes a citizen, is that person an African American?

Having been born here, I claim to be a Native American of the Litvak-Galiziana tribe

Jose_K said...

zambo: half native, half black
mulato: half white, half black
mestizo: half white, half native
pardo: a mix of all them or a poor white
cuarteron:half mestizo, half mulato. a quarter of slave blood.
salto atrás( jump backward): half mulato , half black.
There were legal categories in the spanish colonies that included Florida until 1814 and Texas from 1814 till 1821. And the anexed mexican territories till 1821: New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Montana,Oklahoma.
Puerto Rico until 1898.

American Indians have a chromosone that is related to Mongolians.They are asians

Jose_K said...

And ever notice how a lot of eastern Europeans have kind of squinty eyes
Hungarinas are proud of being descendants from Huns and they came form east Asia.
And Mongolians were masters of the south of Russia and most of the countries at the south. The north of Russia was a a colony of scandianavian
And natives american came from Asia by the Bering strait no more than 10 k years ago perhaps less

Jose_K said...

I have a pinky finger that's curved
Beware of David Vincent

Jose_K said...

Question: who is white? Nordic? Blond, blue eye "master" race?
Unless you fight at days because if people with blue eyes can bat in days game there will be a tougher task to kill someone