Identifying as "brown"

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What's your opinion on people who identify as brown?

Like when people identify as 'blue' when they are sick ("I am feeling 'blue' ....)?

People can identify however they want, I don't care.

If you'r an Asian Indian too dark to be labeled "White", and are not of African descent (so can't call yourself 'Black') its what you get labeled by society as. And most likely what you would call yourself. Not much to "think" about.


Why do you ask?

I can identify with this attitude.

It makes sense for Indian people, but how about my sister or ex-boyfriend? My sister does look a bit darker than me, but she still looks white. And my ex boyfriend is just a white Jew. I don't think he looks brown, he actually has the same skin tone as me.

When I get tan, I identify myself as darker than when I don't get tan.

That IS different. Must be some new younger generation fad: people who would traditionally be labeled "White"-and born to families labeled for generations as "White" suddenly labeling themselves as "Brown". Does seem a bit inane. Especially since people traditionally labeled "Brown" (Mestizo Hispanics, or Asian Indians, or whatever) would not recognize them as one of their own.

But (a) everyone has the right to be inane and silly, and (b) the whole concept of race ittsself could be said to be crazy. But if I ( a WASP American) decide to ID myself as an "Eskimo" tomorrow it wouldnt make the societal insanity of race obsession go away. It would just compound the insanity (I would think).

Last edited by naturalplastic on 14 Nov 2014, 7:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

I could care less what someone else identifies as. However if you were to ask me how I felt about this white/brown/black/yellow/red stuff I don't get it. I'm not "white", I'm Irish and Scandinavian.

That is where I come from and the culture I grew up with. I don't identify with other white people, so it's strange to me that in so many surveys I fill out, like in the census, it asks for all kinds of ethnic groups for other skin tones but I guess I'm just "caucasian".

For starters the scientists still don't know if all of these European ethnic groups came from the Caucasus mountains in Asia. Also I don't have much in common culturally with other white people, we are just one generation removed from the home country so we aren't "white" in the generic American sense. We grew up in an old world cultural situation where there are a lot of differences from typical Americans (like beer at the dinner table every night once you are eight). I identify with my culture, not my skin tone. Skin tone doesn't say anything, it's not a valid census question really. Two "black" people can have nothing in common if the two have a basically different cultural background (of course in America ethnicity has less to do with it for African Americans, as most of them are far removed from their home countries).

I'm part wolfman myself.

You (the OP) mentioned that you are "Hispanic" on another thread.

So if your light skinned sibling decided to call herself "brown" there would be a certain logic to it: she is identifying with her Hispanicness- and Hispanics vary in skin color- and are often 'brown'. So its not quite as arbitrary as me calling myself an "Eskimo". Kinda like "goldfish" are still "goldfish" even if theyre all black, or all white and have no fleck of orange.

I think that "caucasian" word is something left over from the 1900s, when they didn't really have a clue. I have only heard it used by Americans (when talking about white people). The populations of Europe are mostly descended from several waves of immigration from the Middle-east and Asia, but not specifally the Caucasus. After the Ice Age Europe was repopulated mostly by people from a few pockets in Europe, like the Iberian peninsula and the Balkans. The real Caucasians also look different enough from Europeans that they are discriminated against by some ethnic Russians.

The term "Caucasian" for "the White Race" (actually for middle eastern, and Asian Indian peoples as well as Europeans) was coined by the German philosopher Christoph Miener in 1789, and popularized by the German medical professor Joseph Frederick Blumenbach in 1790.

The concensus had been that there were several races of mankind. and Meiner came up with the theory that each race had a seperate point of geographic origin, and that each had fanned out from its point of origin in the far past, and that the peoples of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Indian Subcontinent, all had their origin in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia.

I doubt that there was EVER any kind of evidence uncovered in next 200 plus years to back up the idea, but the name stuck anyway!

The Caucusus mountains (running between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea -encompassing the former Soviet Republics of Armenia, Azerbiejan, and Georgia) are kinda in the middle of the vast region inhabited by the so called "caucasian" (or "Europid") race. But the mountain range is only fly speck on the map compared to that area.

So its because of that outdated theory that Europeans, and western asians, and north africans are still called "Caucasians".

The USA, being a racially varied land of immigrants, probably uses the term more often in police, and governent documents, than do European countries.

. Me John c