You pay 'em to leave......

[Redbaron]

Says LaoHuLi:

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Interesting though, many of us including the original author of the quote, don't really think of Indians as Asian. Nor Turks or Afghanis, or Iranis. Although we know that they are. It may just be cultural, but for a lot of us, Asia means SE Asia, China, Japan. Guess we can all be a bit culturally short sighted. But then we don't think of Mexicans or Brazilians as Americans either.

 

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LH,

I noticed this while living in the UK too. The Brits seem to think of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis etc as Asians. They refer to SE Asians, Japanese, Koreans and Chinese as orientals. In Australia we think like you when it comes to Asians. (ie the orient).

Maybe it's because of the majority of Asian immigrants in the UK are from India etc, where here (Australia) and North America there are more Chinese, Vietnamese etc.

The British Empire was pretty big in the India region too, that may be some other explanation. (Hence more immigrants from there to the UK).

[pattaya127]

Agree, Indian are Caucasions.

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Really? ::

India is definitely Asia. Both it and China have culturally impregnated the other countries so that pretty much, it is hard to find one item or fact that is not originating to one of these 2 giants, even as they took their regional consonace after centuries of local shaping.

 

PS: almost every festival, every rite in Thailand originates in India. the sacred titling of the Kings of Thailand is also along brahmanic lines. Of course, Buddhism comes from India. Etc....

[Guest]

we are refering to their genetic race profile. Not their cultural outlook.

 

race, one of the group of populations constituting humanity. The differences among races are essentially biological and are marked by the hereditary transmission of physical characteristics. Genetically a race may be defined as a group with gene frequencies differing from those of the other groups in the human species (see heredity; genetics; gene). However, the genes responsible for the hereditary differences between humans are extremely few when compared with the vast number of genes common to all human beings regardless of the race to which they belong. Many physical anthropologists believe that, because there is as much genetic variation among the members of any given race as there is between different racial groups, the concept of race is ultimately unscientific and racial categories are arbitrary designations. The term race is inappropriate when applied to national, religious, geographic, linguistic, or ethnic groups, nor can the biological criteria of race be equated with mental characteristics, such as intelligence, personality, or character.

 

All human groups belong to the same species (Homo sapiens) and are mutually fertile. Races arose as a result of mutation, selection, and adaptational changes in human populations. The nature of genetic variation in human beings indicates there has been a common evolution for all races and that racial differentiation occurred relatively late in the history of Homo sapiens. Theories postulating the very early emergence of racial differentiation have been advanced (e.g., C. S. Coon, The Origin of Races, 1962), but they are now scientifically discredited.

 

Attempts at Classification

 

To classify humans on the basis of physiological traits is difficult, for the coexistence of races through conquests, invasions, migrations, and mass deportations has produced a heterogeneous world population. Nevertheless, by limiting the criteria to such traits as skin pigmentation, color and form of hair, shape of head, stature, and form of nose, most anthropologists agree on the existence of three relatively distinct groups: the Caucasoid, the Mongoloid, and the Negroid.

 

The Caucasoid, found in Europe, N Africa, and the Middle East to N India, is characterized as pale reddish white to olive brown in skin color, of medium to tall stature, with a long or broad head form. The hair is light blond to dark brown in color, of a fine texture, and straight or wavy. The color of the eyes is light blue to dark brown and the nose bridge is usually high.

 

The Mongoloid race, including most peoples of E Asia and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, has been described as saffron to yellow or reddish brown in skin color, of medium stature, with a broad head form. The hair is dark, straight, and coarse; body hair is sparse. The eyes are black to dark brown. The epicanthic fold, imparting an almond shape to the eye, is common, and the nose bridge is usually low or medium.

 

The Negroid race is characterized by brown to brown-black skin, usually a long head form, varying stature, and thick, everted lips. The hair is dark and coarse, usually kinky. The eyes are dark, the nose bridge low, and the nostrils broad. To the Negroid race belong the peoples of Africa south of the Sahara, the Pygmy groups of Indonesia, and the inhabitants of New Guinea and Melanesia.

 

Each of these broad groups can be divided into subgroups. General agreement is lacking as to the classification of such people as the aborigines of Australia, the Dravidian people of S India, the Polynesians, and the Ainu of N Japan.

 

Race Classification and Racism

 

Attempts have been made to classify humans since the 17th cent., when scholars first began to separate types of flora and fauna. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach was the first to divide humanity according to skin color. In the 19th and early 20th cent., people such as Joseph Arthur Gobineau and Houston Stewart Chamberlain, mainly interested in pressing forward the supposed superiority of their own kind of culture or nationality, began to attribute cultural and psychological values to race. This approach, called racism, culminated in the vicious racial doctrines of Nazi Germany, and especially in anti-Semitism. This same approach complicated the integration movement in the United States and underlay the former segregation policies of the Republic of South Africa (see apartheid).

 

Bibliography

 

See R. Benedict, Race: Science and Politics (rev. ed. 1943, repr. 1968); C. Lévi-Strauss, Race and History (1962); M. Mead et al., ed., Science and the Concept of Race (1968); S. M. Garn, ed., Readings on Race (2d ed. 1968) and Human Races (3d ed. 1971); J. C. King, The Biology of Race (1971); L. L. Cavalli-Sforza, The Origin and Differentiation of Human Races (1972); S. J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (1981); I. F. Haney Lopez, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race (1996); A. Montagu, Man's Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race (6th ed. 1998); G. M. Frederickson, Racism: A Short History (2002).

[pattaya127]

 

You forgot to mention that India has been heavily cross-bred thru-out its history. Go to the south of the country (called the original ethnic India, because either aryans or muslims did over-take it less, and tell me these nice dark chocolate pigments are caucasian. I see your point, but India always need qualyfiyng on any point.

 

PS: I also think we were talking about major continental classifying, ie. Asia, Europe, etc.... If India is not Asia, what is it? remember, only 5 major continental choices (I help you a little: not Oceania )

 

[shygye]

[color:"green"] If India is not Asia, what is it? remember, only 5 major continental choices (I help you a little: not Oceania )

[/color]

 

It is the subcontinent.