The New York Times recently put up a piece, Has ‘Caucasian’ Lost Its Meaning? Much of the analysis in the article has too much of a feeling of ethnographic 'close reading', but I still am excited that the middle-brow journal of record has started to weigh in on the ridiculousness of the whole situation. I've been arguing that people should stop using "Caucasian" when they mean white or European for years, because the use of the term in this manner has led to farcical but common instances of semantic muddle such as the below exchange:
****Whate race do GEORGIAN people belong to***? - well if you are georgian or armenian and you go to other country, it is very hard for people to believe that you are white, everyone thinks either you are hispanic or mix so i was wondering what is the name of the race georgians.armenian are? [One ...
