Talk:Negroid/Archive 1

Picture of the skull needs to be updated

That picture is not a typical picture of a negroid skull, it is exaggerated to a non-typical extremity of human possibility. I do not find it to be helpful in the article and reinforces stereotypes. I will change it when possible.

It's from the "Western Kentucky University forensic anthropology" web-site, do you have a PHD? --Agurzil 23:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some others are at [1]. --JWB 22:42, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This seems to be a fairly standard representation of the so-called "Negroid phenotype." JWB, thanks, but your link provides an African-American skull, which is not the same as a "typical Negroid skull," which is less likely to be affected by miscegenation over time. This rendering is a classic representation of an Africanoid skull (black, unmixed, unmiscegenated). Oddly, the insertion of "Sub-Saharan Africa" into the text of the article is most certainly inaccurate in that it is unecessarily limiting and seemingly intentionally misleading. Nilotic peoples are also "Negroid," with identicial facio-cranial characteristics to those illustrated in the rendering -- and they inhabit, as is clear by their name, the Nile Valley region, which includes Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Eritrea, etc. deeceevoice 13:42, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Negroid does not exist. Their are many African ethnic groups that carry no single phenotype. And those pictures are very stupid; look I dont think these pictures apply to everyone, but it shows the faultiness of the "typical negroid"(your words not mine) skull. --Vehgah 21:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Hamitic does not exist

The Hamitic "type" does not exist. Even here in Wikipedia, when one goes (linked) to the Hamitic page from which the earlier edit had referenced, the content clearly explains the dated, useless, and perjorativeness of the Hamitic myth. To use that as a reference to clarify the touchy issue of seperating West Africans from East Africans by implying that the West Africans are truely negroid, and the East Africans are "Hamitic" (i.e. not really black, just Caucasoids with a tan) is an attempt to reinforce racist views that the culture of East Africa had to come from Caucasoids and not Negroid people.

If you don't like east africans being classified seperately from bantu, nilotics, sudanics, and paleonegrids, popularize a less eurocentric word than 'caucasoid' for them, many europeans, indians, arabs, etc... or find a way to change their skullshapes.

Validity of human races

This is discussed in depth at Validity of human races from various POV, and it would be better to link to that article than starting another discussion of it here, which would probably lead to repetition of POV disputes.

File:Skullcauc.gif

This picture (to the left) is highly degrading to blacks, and incorrect. Its basic features are grossly exaggerated to resemble some sort of pre-human skull (ex. cro-magum), or some sort of ape like animal. Its purpose is clearly to show that blacks (or 'Negroids') are either inferior or not as intelligent nor genetically developed as whites (or 'Caucasoids'). This fact is clearly marked when we are shown the example of a "Caucasoid Skull" (to the right) which is complete in its basic human features.

The universally academically recognized truth is that there is no such thing as a "Negroid Skull" as opposed to a "Caucasoid Skull". All humans have one basic skull. "Caucasoid" and "Negroid" are not in any way based on scientific fact, even the term "race" is just a mere cultural construct.

This image is racist, degrading, insulting, and most importantly it is misleading and downright false. It should be deleted from this article.

There's nothing exaggerated about this skull; it is typical of certain Africoid populations -- the sloping cranium, the pronounced dolichocephalism and alveolar prognathism. Is race as a concept bull? Yep. But since this article addresses the term, a skull of the classic "Negroid" phenotype is entirely appropriate here. The article already makes a point to say (because I wrote that part) that the phenotype is not standard across all ethnicities of blacks. What do you mean the "Caucasoid" skull is "complete in its human features," as opposed to the "Negroid" specimen? It seems to me that the association with an ape is entirely yours. The illustration is not degrading in any sense; for what it is, it is entirely accurate. deeceevoice 20:57, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

The features that are being decribed as typical "Negroid" features are more in line with that of a evolutionary inferior Homo erectus skull (side view) or even a Chimpanzee skull (side view). One only needs to compare the two above pictures to see the different in skulls and how the "Negroid" is being shown to be less developed. All humans have one basic skull shape, that of a Homo sapiens skull (side view). (edit by User:Mesfin)

The pictures do not provide source to be checked (only Western Kentucky University, forensic antropology). I coudn't find these pictures there, though they may be on internal network.

As search for the term returns company selling osteological specimens (http://www.skullsunlimited.com/). They provide photos (low and high resolution) of different skulls, together with description. Among them are:

1. Human African Negroid Skull: [2]
2. Human European Caucasian Skull: [3]

Perhaps the images currently here would be better removed as unverified and possibly replaced with link to the pictures mentioned above. Pavel Vozenilek 22:45, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

A response: cut the crap

I'm an African-American, and I find the objections to the illustration completely over-the-top. The illustration accurately depicts the characteristics of the classic -- not universal -- "Negroid" phenotype. Dolichocephalic skulls are a classic feature of the Africoid phenotype.

Are there similarities between the skulls of the classic Africoid/Negroid phenotype and certain simians/primates? Insofar as, in some instances, a pronounced prognathism and a dolichocephalic skull -- yes, absolutely. And the same can be said of flattened, rounded European skulls with regard to other simian/primate species. So what? The fact that such similarities in the case of Africoid populations have been used in the past to dehumanize and slander black folks has nothing to do with objective observation. The fact is the illustration is dead-on accurate -- not as a representation of all Africoid populations -- but as an illustration of the phenotypical features which most distinctively differentiate fundamentally unmiscegenated Africoid populations from other human populations.

The only Caucasians (other than the East Indian Veddoid group, which incorrectly and calculatingly has been classified as "Caucasian", though they're as black Africoid as the Australoids and Nilotics) known as a group to have dolichocephalic skulls are Nordics. The classic Caucasian skull would not apply to them in all respects, either; but taken collectively and regarded generally, the phenotype of the classic Caucasian skull is as accurate, generally, as its Africoid counterpart. Maxillary and alveolar prognathisms are also classic features of the Africoid phenotype, a feature which often results in a receding chin line. This collection of classic Africoid features (along with the distinctively large incisors common among Nilotic peoples, creating a "bucktoothed" appearance) is precisely the same set of characteristics which clearly reveals the mummy of King Tutankhamen as black African, rather than "Caucasoid North African," as was recently claimed in the shameful (and ongoing) whitewashing of ancient dynastic Egypt by Zawas and the usual lying, racist European suspects.

IMO, black folks need to cut the crap and stop being so damned defensive and reactionary. F*** the racist lies and deal with the facts. I see the dolichocephalic crania (what we black folks call "peanut heads") and maxillary and alveolar prognathisms in even my highly miscegenated African American brothers and sisters everywhere I look. Many of us no longer have dolichocephalic skulls -- or at least not to the degree illustrated -- some of us may lack even the classic maxillary prognathism (but two of my own parents' four children do have maxillary prognathism, and that's with white and full-blood Native American ancestry within just four generations), but most of us have retained both the maxillary and alveolar prognathisms (from my own observations, both are extremely common, with the latter being more prevalent than the former). Get real! We can't on one hand use the phenotypical model to identify long-dead black African kings and then repudiate its fundamental accuracy and cry "racism" on another. User:deeceevoice 07:52, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Mesfin's response

What are you talking about ("classic Negroid phenotype")? It is my understanding that "Negroid" means black people and it is an absurd suggestion that blacks have some sort of different skull type due to genetics. Can you show me any group of people that all share this skull type? User:Mesfin

This is what I'm afraid of. I find it crazy that people can accept the idea that there is such a thing as a "Negroid skull type" (What is the definition of "Negroid" anyways? Is there a clear one?). Let alone the fact that this "skull type" looks like some form of primitive monkey skull. You say that this has nothing to do with "objective observation" then where is the scientific proof that backs this claim up? Where are the scientific studies that prove that "Negroids" have different skull types? I would like to read it. If this theory is not widely accepted (which I am sure it is not), what is it doing in Wikipedia anyways? User:Mesfin

Who said it is accurate? What makes this accurate? "unmiscegenated"? What does that even mean? User:Mesfin

Who said they are not "Caucasian"? Can you even define "Caucasian" in any meaningful way? Who are these "Nordics"? What does this group consist of? User:Mesfin

Hold on a minute. First: Define what group of people makes up "Africoid". Second: Prove that this group of people all have a set of common significantly different skull features. Third: Prove that these features are unique to this set group of people. Forth: prove that these features are genetically caused. Five: Show me a scientifically respected and accepted report of this study. Sixth: I will reconsider my position, and my grounds for objection. User:Mesfin

What are you talking about? Who cares if King Tut was black or not? If you want to see black kings you can find plenty in Africa. Just check my old country (Eritrea/Ethiopia). King are just people who killed/staved/conquered a lot of people to gain or stay in power. Kings are nothing to be proud of, in fact neither is race. User:Mesfin

What facts? Where are these facts? User:Mesfin

What? You can see what skulls they have? This method you are using seems highly subjective. What if I show you black people who have all kinds of different skull shapes? Would you stop trying to believe this pseudoscience? User:Mesfin

Hold on, does this mean you are no longer "Negroid"? What makes someone with one "type" of head any less black then another person with a different head "type". User:Mesfin

Again, what's with this idea of identifing dead kings? What are you talking about? User:Mesfin

end Mesfin's response

I think the links to the pictures from a company above should be used. These are realistic photos and the skulls sold get used for serious purposes where validity is required. Pavel Vozenilek 15:52, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I disagree -- because the photo of the black African skull is not presented in profile. At least the illustration is thorough, with the distinctive phenotypical features clearly labeled. The photo isn't terribly informative/instructive. deeceevoice 17:04, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

You say that this is an Black African skull type, but Black Africans don't have one set skull type. Show me proof that there is a "racial difference" in skulls User:Mesfin

Here is another nice website with a number of human skull casts for your viewing. [4]

The differences between the different races' skulls should be obvious even to the untrained eye.PiccoloNamek 23:12, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate your efforts at finding another link; however these are still not profile shots. The prognathism is not evident -- nor is the dolichocephalism. The illustration is still superior in that regard. deeceevoice 05:51, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree, considering that I uploaded the original image. I was merely trying to help point out that the differences do in fact exist. In those pictures, it's very obvious in the nasal opening and in the eye orbits and in the case of the asian skull, the projecting zygomatics.PiccoloNamek 06:14, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

Vehgah's response:

Using skull analysis is not scientific, and should not be used to classify race. If it was used to the letter, that would mean you might have a "Caucasoid" and a "Negroid" siblings who have common parentage. The -oid terminology should be labeled a pseudoscience in this article, or at least unscientific.link --Vehgah 03:19, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The most accepted measurement of race is genetic cluster analysis. Craniometrics is a correlated measurement.--Nectar 22:55, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

ALL RIGHT

I've finally found the page where the images originally came from. This page also includes extremely detailed information concerning the differences in structure between the different racial skull types.

http://www.wku.edu/~darlene.applegate/forensic/lab7/lab7.html

If this doesn't help to end this silly-ass dispute, I don't know what will.PiccoloNamek 04:49, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for hunting up the link. I'm glad the illustration is staying. And, yes. I agree. The objections to the image are ridiculous. deeceevoice 09:10, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

It is unbelievable the contempt wiki users have for people of african descent. It isn't a coincidence that the mongoloid page doesnt have a skull drawing. That obsurd skull picture reeks of racial imperialism.

If by "racial imperialism" you mean "scientific fact" then yes, it does indeed reek of racial imperialism. As for the mongoloid page, I believe the image was deleted some time ago.PiccoloNamek 22:52, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

This picture is unequivically racist. If you go to google and search for wealthy people of African descent, you will see that their heads do not look like the second stage of evolution from primates.. This picture upseting to the african community, it is no better than this one http://library.thinkquest.org/C0121653/race%20face%201.gif. I do not hold a Phd in anatomy but it is obvious this is designed to give the likes of "stormfront" material so they can further recruit more hate mongerors. ~Chueyjoo 'defender of racial equality'

The picture on the page is a picture that is used in racial determination in forensics, which is a legitimate science. It is not racist, please shut up.PiccoloNamek 23:18, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

Uh, excuse me, Chueyjoo, but I'm a "member of the (pan-)African community." I've been in the struggle probably longer than you've been alive. And I don't cringe in humiliation when idiots liken black people to apes; that's their stupidity and hatred. It's got nothing to do with what and who my people are. Such defensiveness, anger/hostility stinks suspiciously of either ignorance or self-loathing. You certainly don't speak for me. I have no problem at all with the illustration; it is dead-on accurate -- for what it is. You wanna fight the rampant racism on Wikipedia? Fine. There's certainly enough on this website to keep you occupied. But do it from a base of knowledge -- not ignorance. deeceevoice 03:50, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Deeceevoice - you made a comment that really cleared up the mess, and made me re-evaluate my position. The picture, althogh I think is exaggerated, may come across as offensive, because of how we growing up were trained to associate Blackness with inferiority (apes). And perhaps an oversensitive zeal in pre-emptively finding subtle attempts to reinforce racism caused me to react that way. I personally can see how Caucasoid features ALSO reflect apelike characteristics, and you mentioning that reminded me then that I need not be offended on what I objectively see, but what it may objectively imply when taken out of context. So ok, I will leave the picture alone. I see though, I came into a large debate, that I had been unaware of. Apparently it's the "white naive liberal" position that is causing the most controversy? To that position I say this: As a Black person who does not exhibit the phenotype in that skull, I can admit, that my own impressions subjectively clouded my objectivity. Maybe you should also consider. If necessary, find a skull of an actual African and lets see how close or far from the truth the drawing is. - Zaph.

Hey, Zaph. *wavin' at the brutha* :) I'm only just now seeing your comment. I haven't been back this way in quite a while. Well, I don't have a dolichocephalic skull, but I definitely have both a maxillary and alveolar prognathism. And, no. Not even all unmiscegenated Africans (many of us here in the States are simply mongrels -- no two ways about it) have dolichocephalic skulls or maxillary prognathisms. But I haven't met or seen one of us yet (unmixed) who doesn't have an alveolar prognathism. I appreciate your comments, though. I've long ago stopped letting the racism of white folks (and others) perturb me; it's their problem -- not mine. I'm not sensitive to it in the least in that sense. I recognize it and fight it when I deem it necessary/productive/important. But we are what we are -- collectively (and, yes, stereotypically/classically): chocolate brown or blue-black with round, "Bantu booties"; full lips; nappy/happy hair with a mind of its own; (sometimes) long heads; broad noses; forward-slanting, sometimes to the point of being downright angular, profiles -- yeah, alluh dat. And I embrace it, appreciate it, truly dig it. IMO, we're the baddest, most beautiful things on God's green. :D I walk in that truth. And I don't much give a damn about those who are so blinded by racism, intolerance, hatred and their own fears and insecurities, that they can't/won't see our Light. I don't care what kind of adjectives they hang on us, or what they try to associate us with. Their constant attempts to dehumanize and denigrate us are a reflection on them and their sickness -- not us. Apes? Without them, we would not be here. They are our ancestors -- and WE are the ancestors of everyone (and everything) else. We stood upright, and OUR eyes saw the Earth when it was new. We built the first great civilizations. We are God's Firstborn. (And I walk in those truths, too. :p) Peace and Light 2 u, my beautiful, black brutha. :) deeceevoice 13:02, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm... it looks to me like the only racist here is you. Skinmeister 20:36, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Get real. Your name gives you away as a racist troll. Just stating facts. Besides, love of oneself and one's people isn't, ipso facto, racism. Look it up (if you know how). *x* deeceevoice 11:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

So you assume I'm a racist, because I dare to point out your hypocrisy? And because my name sounds German, are you assuming I'm a nazi? Either way, it's quite obvious that you're prejudiced. Skinmeister 19:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Your tag gives you away as someone primarily (if not solely) interested in matters of race/skin color. And "meister" as in "master"? Yep. Sounds like a neo-Nazi troll tag. Again, I repeat: love of oneself and one's people isn't, ipso facto, racism. Beyond that, I couldn't care less what you think of me. What I've stated herein about us being God's Firstborn is fact. You got a problem with me loving my people and loving our blackness? Gee, not my problem! :p And, back to the relevant matter at hand: I'm pleased the drawing remains in place. deeceevoice 07:52, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Have you not seen American Pie? In that, Steve Stifler calls himself the Stifmeister. My surname is Skinner, so I call myself the Skinmeister. The 'skin' part is from the fact that my ancient ancestors were tanners, i.e. they worked with animal skin. As for me being a neo-nazi, I'm a half-caste myself, so not exactly prime aryan stock! Your own prejudice has clouded your ability to make rational decisions, making you see prejudice in others where there is none. Skinmeister 08:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Deeceevoice, you should consider how you sound when you express these things. Compare how it would be taken if a white person said that how whites "built the first great civilizations" and were "God's Firstborn", etc. As far as I can tell, this is the only time on Wikipedia where the accusations that you're some sort of "black supremacist" have had any sort of validity. As an aside, I believe the notion of having some great patriotism about your skin colour is about as nonsensical an idea as being hugely proud of, say, being over six foot in height, or whatever. I don't think it's racism, but it's the sort of foolishness that precedes racism. — Matt Crypto 16:20, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

You should consider how you sound when making extrapolations based on certain assumptions in the white supremacist mold. Blacks did, indeed, build the first great civilizations, and we are God's Firstborn. Stating so does not make me a "supremacist." That's just patently ridiculous. Loving one's people is just that; it's something that should be so. Frankly, I couldn't care less if you think it sounds "supremacist." I'm not here to please you or to meet with your approval. "I don't think it's racism, but it's the sort of foolishness that precedes racism." Talk about "foolishness"? Such a ridiculous conclusion -- gee, that's just downright stupid. Finally, you might consider simply not reading what I have to say, since you seem to be critical of and feel the need to comment on just about everything I write. Here's a suggestion: stop stalking me around the website and find something else to occupy your time. Fill what seems to be an obvious void in your life and just be happy. :pdeeceevoice 20:31, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

It’s a pity you can’t see the irony of your words. As a black nationalist you’re far more similar to the white nationalists you claim to be discrediting. Neither blacks nor whites are “God’s firstborn” as early populations were ancestral to all living humans. Civilizations aren’t built by races, but arise due to a litany of prerequisite circumstances. Thus, they’d belong to whatever race or races happened to be present at that time in that location. There’s little purpose in “claiming” them for a race. That you need to believe that a population such as the Egyptians was “black” is no different than a white nationalist Stormfront poster who believes they must have been “white”. [Observer, Feb 5, 2006]

Oh, and Skinmaster, you on you: "Hmm... it looks to me like the only racist here is you." "Your own prejudice has clouded your ability to make rational decisions, making you see prejudice in others where there is none." You got me crackin' up. deeceevoice 20:37, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I like the way you've ignored the fact that I'm completely correct, and proven that you jump to scream "racist" at people who disagree with you. You have a very bitter, twisted mind, and could probably do with some counselling. Skinmeister 20:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

U r funny. I'm not going to get into an argument with you. Know this: I don't care about you, and you have no clue about me. So, why should I care what you think of me? Answer: I don't. And I won't even comment on your "advice." deeceevoice 09:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Get real. Your name gives you away as a racist troll. Just stating facts. Besides, love of oneself and one's people isn't, ipso facto, racism. Look it up (if you know how). *x* deeceevoice 11:33, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

David Duke agrees with your definition: "Of all the races in America, only whites have been tricked into thinking that a preference for one's own kind is racism. Only whites are ever told that a love for their own people is somehow "hatred" of others. All healthy people prefer the company of their own kind, and it has nothing to do with hatred. All men love their families more than their neighbors, but this does not mean that they hate their neighbors. Whites who love their racial family need bear no ill will towards non-whites. They only wish to be left alone to participate in the unfolding of their racial and cultural destinies." [5]

Both, black and white racists deny that they are preaching hate and claim they are only advocating the love of their own people. Two peas in a pod ... SecurID 21:46, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

When you find somewhere where I have advocated lynching, burning, persecuting, hating, etc., anyone based on their skin color or ethnicity, then maybe you can start thinking about putting me in the David Duke/Klan mold. Unless and until then, don't bore me with your simplistic/idiotic assumptions. You don't even begin to have an understanding of what racism is about. *x* Further, this site is not the place for your baseless allegations or simple-minded speculations about my personal philosophies or psychological well-being. deeceevoice 09:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok guys, let's stick to discussing articles.--Nectar 21:41, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

New Topic

I personally think "Negroid" which ultimately goes back to the root for "death" and "nothingness" should be replaced. Yes, I know that it's the most commonly used word in science, but, this is what needs to be changed. These scientific backbone foundation ideas (scientific classification of racial-skull shapes for example) will have an impact on the minds of children. - Zaph

Well, that's why I use "Africoid" -- because of the negative connotations of "Negroid" and "Negro" -- and because, unlike the other "racial" classifications, it doesn't refer back to our geographic point of origin. As far as "race" goes, hey, it's not going away. What has more of an impact, IMO, on the minds of children is the aversion of far too many blacks to dealing with the attendant issues up front and forthrightly. If we teach young, black children who they are and to truly value that -- not just parrot slogans and still run around color-struck and pursuing the perfect perm -- and continue to fight for their right to walk free in the world, with equal opportunity -- and teach them to take advantage of those positive opportunities when they present themselves, and to fight alongside us when they are not -- and own who they are then they (and we) will be just fine. I don't waste my time with pie-in-the-sky or marginally relevant struggles like battling about certain terminology. Part of the battle is being strong enough and knowledgeable enough to go toe to toe with ignorance and beat it down beneath the ground, on its own grounds -- instead of trying to change "locations" (terminology) completely. I pick my battles -- especially since I realize most white folks don't give a damn. They've got their own issues. What's important to us is not what's important to them. I don't even try to make them see certain things. What's the point? Don't waste your time. deeceevoice 13:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Further, I certainly hope "these scientific classification of racial-skull types" does have an impact on the minds of children -- insofar as such classifications are useful in, even critical to, determining the ethnic/racial identity of deceased remains. They are the key to the truth of our own history as African people. They are precisely what provides the incontrovertible evidence of a black dynastic Egypt, of the obvious black identity of certain Egyptian monarchs (including King Tut), an Africoid presence in portions of the New World (the Anasazi) before Mongoloids, before Caucasoids, etc. Hell, yeah. I hope they do take note.

Problem is, not all Africans are black, such as berbers and others in the north. So Africoid isn't ideal.

Political Agenda

It seems that the requirements for which people are to be defined as Caucasoid is far less strict than the requirements for which people are to be defined as Negroid. Apparently about only half of Africa is considered unquestioningly Negroid but Caucasoid people include all of Europe, all of the Middle East, all of North Africa as well as India. To be defined as Negroid it seems you must have very specific features including dark skin, and very specific facial features. Caucasoid on the other hand can range from very white skin, blonde thin hair to dark brown skin, thick black curly hair as well as a variety of facial features. I think it is obvious that a political agenda was at work when the white Americans established these designations.

There are just as many posters here with Afrocentric political agendas, as the "Caucasoid" page was often edited to include only people of European descent (and usually only SOME people of European descent), while contributors of a similar vein want to include all North Africans, some Southern Europeans, some West Asians, some South Asians, Melanesians, Polynesians, Micronesians and even some Native Americans in the "Negroid" classification. Genetic studies have shown that most-- certainly not all-- North Africans and East Indians are within the Caucasoid genetic cluster, which is no more diverse than the "Negroid" cluster, while East Africans are clearly not. Almost all Middle Easterners cluster with other Western Eurasians as well. From Pygmies to Masai to Dinka to Ethiopians/Somalis to West Africans you will find a great deal of variation, esp. in the areas of body type and genetic diversity. -- Gerkinstock 00:45, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Can you explain how someone editing Caucasoid to include only Europeans automatically means that they have an “Afrocentric” political agenda as you put it? This clearly seems to be speculation on your part. Also I’m pretty sure that scientific knowledge on genetics was very limited in the early to mid 20th century, the time in which these designations were issued. Lets also not forget that it was marred with racism, specifically in America at this time. I have also learned that it is possible for some people of one racial group to have more of a genetic similarity to another group then that of their own. This is not restricted these specific groups you mentioned.

Because Caucasoid, even in the 21st century, does not solely mean European. There is no break between Europeans and West Asians, for example. As much as there are "Eurocentrists" who wish to erase the black ancestry of North Africans, there are "Afrocentrists" who wish to limit Caucasoids to as small a geograhic region of origin as possible. "Caucasoid" has never solely meant European, anymore than "Negroid" means solely West African. -- Gerkinstock 22:18, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

That was a very evasive reply seeing as you managed to not answer my question at all. Are you acknowledging that you were just blindly speculating?

Hey, calm down! ....εγκυκλοπαίδεια* (talk) 19:03, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

No, I am not acknowledging any such thing. And I did answer your question. Everything I have read on the subject includes West Asians and most North Africans and South Asians in the definition of "Caucasoid." This is not speculation on my part, and the information is not 100 years old; it is from the 1990's and 2000's. -- 24.130.117.205 21:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Since you insist on giving answers that don’t match my question I must assume that you read it carelessly. Here it is again for you.

“Can you explain how someone editing Caucasoid to include only Europeans automatically means that they have an “Afrocentric” political agenda as you put it? This clearly seems to be speculation on your part.”

It doesn't automatically mean the person is Afrocentric, it depends on who edits it. Posters like JMac are Afrocentric, and he was the one who insisted on Caucasoids being defined solely as European (and only some Europeans), while greatly exaggerating the Negroid element in ancient North Africans and beyond. -- 24.130.117.205 22:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

You still have not given a plausible reason for anyone to believe your claim that people who edit Caucasoid to include only Europeans have an “Afrocentric” agenda isn’t anything other than speculation. If your claim was that some people have and “Afrocentric” agenda based on people editing Negroid to include some Europeans for example then your argument may have held some weight.

It is very common among Afrocentrists to narrow the Caucasoid population as much as possible while exaggerating the Negroid population's boundaries; in fact, this classic Afrocentrism 101. It is not even remotely controversial that approximately 80% of the North African make-up is Caucasoid, contrary to what Mr. Mac stated in explaining one of his edits. Nor is it remotely controversial to note that West Asians are Caucasoid, or that South Asians are predominantly (though certainly not entirely) Caucasoid. That posters like JMac consistently try to narrow the Caucasoid classification far beyond what credible anthropologists and geneticists define it as, while similtaneously making the case that Negroids are indigenous to and prevelant in areas like Southern Europe, West Asia and South Asia, amounts to nothing less than Afrocentric bias. You can play dumb on this issue if you wish, but what JMac consistently deleted from the Caucasoid page was NOT controversial material; instead, it was what he put in its place that is not backed up by studies of DNA and fossilized bones. The Afrocentric bias has mostly reared itself on this page, not the Negroid page. Nonetheless, the Negroid page's claims that Polynesians, Melanesians, Australoids and Micronesians are Negroid seems to fit with the Afrocentric agenda as well (i.e. expanding the definition of Negroid far beyond what credible anthropologists and geneticts have written in their papers and books). -- 24.130.117.205 00:48, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I find the above post extremely amusing. In fact, it has been the practice of Europeans to very carefully at as gatekeepers to the white, locked john, so to speak -- as, in the U.S., for example, with the hypodescent rule. Further, throughout history, Europeans repeatedly and on an ongoing basis have attempted to define as "Caucasoid" clearly Africoid populations who established/presided over high civiliations (e.g., ancient Egyptians and those of the Levant; Dravidians/"Indians"; most North Africans in a nebulous, inaccurate sense; even, in the most laughable outrageous cases, Ethiopians and other Cushitic peoples), when they clearly exhibit the phenotypical characteristics of black African peoples: dolichocephalism, highly pigmented skin, maxillary and/or alveolar prognathism and often nappy hair, and meet the added criteria of lineage and geographic origin, based on present location or paths of migration. Hilarious. deeceevoice 08:53, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

You have significantly increased my suspicion that you are a very paranoid and obsessive person. The reason for this is that you are exhibiting a very one-dimensional way of thinking, as if there is a mental block. Anyone who reads your posts can clearly see the total insincerity of your accusations, displaying an utter lack of objectivity.

??????????... are you a serial killer? At least sign your name at the end of your ridiculous responses--Gerkinstock 16:19, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems like user 24... is more concerned with forcing everyone to believe is 60 year old views of coon. All your evidence comes back from a time where it was mainstream to view any great civlization as white. Lets remmeber the belgians called the Tutsi's light caucasoids and said that hutus were not able of achieving greatness and forced the tutsi to enslave the hutus

I'm "user 24" and my views are not derived from Carleton Coon. That I don't get my info from kooks like John Henrik Clarke either does not make me a Eurocentrist. My sources are from the 1990's and 2000's. What are the credible sources that classify Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians and Australoids as Negroid? What are the credible sources that deny the significant presence of Caucasoids in North Africa over the last 10,000+ years? Nothing I have stated is remotely comparable to the classification of Tutsi tribesmen as "Caucasoid." --Gerkinstock 22:22, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well you never provide your resources you just make the crazy claims. There are plenty sources that classify Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians and Australoids as Negroid you look it up becuase your ignorant towards the subject not me. Well it seems as if everyone here as a seprate defintion of negroid and caucasoid so it doesn't make sense to argue who is and who isn't until we at least agree on what makes one negro or caucasoid. Eg you might say Morrocans are caucasoid because they don't look Bantu. I might counter that by saying precisely they don't look Bantu but they do look negroid. I might say Spainiards are negroid because they don't look Russian, you might counter that by saying exactly they don't look Russian but they do look caucasoid. Caucasoid and negroid can be viewed from many different sciences. If you want to change the article to include only Bantu Africans then just change the title to Bantu and remove negroid.

Explain to me how North Africans are caucaosid. Explain to me how the native people of a desert that reaches 150 degrees fahrenheit could have white skin? Explain to me how is it that once africans migrating north reach North Africa they magically turn white. Or I can believe that the further north from mid-eastern africa you go the gradually lighter people get and that people in North Africa are the same as those in East Africa but slightly lighther which makes more sense. An egyptian or morrocan looks more like a light ethiopian than they do like a dark white man.

The Berber article details genetic analysis of that group. The studies presented there find substantial caucasian admixture from the female line, but not the male line.--Nectar 01:53, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you mean "sources." Some are Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Richard Klein, Stephen Oppenheimer, Colin Groves and Chris Stringer. And North Africans are about 80% Caucasoid & 20% Negroid. It depends on the individual North African. Their Caucasoid ancestors migrated from East Africa to South Asia, from South Asia to West Asia, and from West Asia into North Africa. They didn't "magically turn white," their ancestors-- through selection and adaptation-- evolved a lighter color skin and Caucasoid features in Asia and brought those traits into North Africa 10,000-20,000 years BP. "Caucasoid" does not refer to skin color, it refers to a people who more or less share a similar phenotype and whose populations "cluster" together, gentically-speaking. Their skin color did not lighten "magically" any more than Europeans' skin color did. There was less of a need for a protective shield from the rays of the sun in Asia, so "non-Africans," for the most part (but not entirely), evolved a lighter skin tone.

Most North Africans don't and never did live in the Sahara desert, which was not even as hot in the past as it is now. North Afrians generally look more like people from the Middle East than the populations of East Africa and West Africa do. Who are you, anyway? Please sign your name after you post here. -- Gerkinstock 16:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Polynesians, Melanesians, Micronesians & Australoids not negroid

they have been in lived in the ociena for at least 50.000-40.000 years and before that Southeast-Asia and then south-asia. And their hair is rather straight then curly and can often be natural blonde. and also from a genetic point of view they are far diffirent. -Anon

Firstly we shouln't randomly be removing things from articles just because some mad-man comes in here and demands we do. I think any discussion on the negroid races should involve only people who believe race exist or else this page should otherwise be deleted. -Png2tog (sign your name by typing four "~"s)

The perspective of scientists who emphasize the weaknesses of "race" are germane to this article. Any edits I make here are to keep the science concordant with mainstream scientific opinion. Polynesians etc. are not african and have never been included in usage of this term.--Nectar 06:44, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Nectar who died and appointed you king of races? Stop trying to force your personal opinion as proof. Most people from places like fiji or png not only call themselves black and look black and where claled negroids, but are considered blacks by those who live around them. Now your claiming that they are genetically different. I don't dispute that they are gentically different, from Bantu africans, but they are genetically identical to non-bantu africans from central africa such as the pygmies who are concsidered to be all black. Jmac800

Hi Jmac800, my only interest is in making this article reflect scientific usage. This article is on an anthropological term that refers to biogeographic ancestry, not appearance or culture. Appropriately, the article includes disccussion of criticism of the term.--Nectar 07:11, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Simply I will state from an anthropolgical point of view these people are negroids, from a genetic point of view they are not. Why did you delete nilotic and Cushitic?

You can't "genetically" apply the term or refute the term. The definition of these groups is based solely on skull shapes. Genetically speaking, you cannot make "negroid" mean "solely of continental African orientation". Runoko Rashidi shows us pictures of Southeast Asians that look as West African as West Africans. The label "negroid" becomes either a synonym for "West African" or it becomes a description of someone's appearance. The appearance is more reasonable. Using DNA markers (which are ultimately subjectively interpreted) is not useful, because the markers for phenotype are not the basis for classifying "negroid" "caucasoid" etc by DNA., and again (going in circles), the whole term "negroid" relates to how a person looks, not what their DNA or their physical region is. Now, we can postulate that the term has evolved into something else, but DNA investigation has only clarified for 10 years, and the establishment of a strictly African regional affiliation has been pushed for maybe 20-30 years (and that strictly by whites). That's not good enough. Negroid is not a term that should be modified to fit a quest to exclude non-Africans. --Zaphnathpaaneah 11:27, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Race: science and social construction

This is a pretty complex area, but it's sometimes simplified in a way that doesn't reflect surveys of scientific opinion. The race article is pretty good from both perspectives. Here's the survey I referred to, copied fromRace#Ancestry_as_a_way_of_categorizing_people :

A 1985 survey (Lieberman et al. 1992) asked 1,200 scientists how many disagree with the following proposition: "There are biological races in the species Homo sapiens." The responses were:

• biologists 16%
• developmental psychologists 36%
• physical anthropologists 41%
• cultural anthropologists 53%

The figure for physical anthropologists at PhD granting departments was slightly higher, rising from 41% to 42%, with 50% agreeing.

(This survey did not specify any particular definition of race; it is impossible to say whether those who supported the statement thought of race in taxonomic or population terms.)

--Nectar 07:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Your link either did not support your arguement or was not clear enough. It was very if and claimed well race is a social construct but it isn't. I need a little more concretness than an article that is presenting conflictin points of views. Here is my evidence that say fijians are black or native fijians at least. "In that Pacific island paradise, indigenous black Fijians have reacted violently to their domination by another ethnic group which arrived later than they did, and prospered more - the Indians."http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/951012.stm All black Melanesians (Fijians) are given the priesthood (blacks in the Philippians even earlier) "We, the Black people in Fiji, came here a long time ago to our present homes in Fiji from Tanganyika, in East Africa. We don't know exactly when we came to Fiji but we know that we came from Africa."

Fijian Tradition

http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/pacific-trav.html

which, after all, included themselves. Men like Frederick Hennings, and John Thurston could well believe in equality between the races, but the relative newcomers took exception to 'black' Fijians set in authority over them. Some sold, others abandoned their property, most of them waited for a massacre on the scale of the 1857 Indian mutiny.http://www.janesoceania.com/oceania_patteson/

It is clear that native fijians, probably the least black looking(lightest skinned of the melansians) and thus meaning many melansian are black. If you have trouble believeing that people from papua new guinea are black do a google search go there yourself and look at them and poke them with stick and take them on a plane to africa and see if they look similiar. I do recognize that not all polynesians are not black and thats why I said many polynesians. Aborigne, micronesian, melansians are all considered to be as black as any other black person. You go look it up cause its not hard to find as i proved above

1:Re:BBC: Being called a Black Fijian is not scientific indication of african ancestry.

2:Re:Fijian tradition: negroid doesn't refer to culture or appearance.. only to biogeographic ancestry, and cultural tradition doesn't trump genetics. Also, how did the Fijian ancestors know it was Africa they came from tens of thousands of years ago or whatever the date is hypothesized to be?

The opinion of anthropologists and geneticists, such as the one I consulted, is what a science article needs to go with. His statement was: "polynesians are mostly mongoloid with a non-trivial melanesian admixture."[6] Ultimately we need a verifiable scientific reference to base this article on, but I didn't find one when I looked. (Any non-obvious claims need to reference scientific documents.)--Nectar 07:48, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry but you will have to do more to discredit a top bbc journalist and researcher who is from Fiji than to simply call them a liar and say they are not black. I'm not sure what your really trying to exactly either. It is clear from a simple internet search that the native people of fiji are black, anyone here can find that themselves. Its like me saying how are Russians white, or caucasoid. It would be so radical for me to claim russians were black that naturally I would be the one who should go do reasearch because I would be the one uniformed on the topic. You should research this yourself rather than to just call me afrocentric and crazy.

It is clear you are doing precisely of what you accuse me of. You are trying to limit negroid specifically to a part of Africa as you claim I am trying to limit caucasoid to Europe. Negroid are people with the negro characteristics and native fijians have them. http://www.pacificislandbooks.com/JPEGS/Fiji's%20Heritage.jpg Most people would say this person looks negroid not mongoloid or white or whatever. As opposed to what you say negroid refers directly to appearance as does caucasoid. If negorid doesn't refer to appearance then why do we have negroid skull in the article? Why do we list negroid chracrteristics. Have you ever heard of anthropolgy, where people are classified by their physical appearance and skull shape. Do you even know that negroid, caucsoid, and mongoloid are all anthropoligical terms based directly on physcial appearance. There was no genetics when these terms were made but there was anthroplpogy and that where they come from.

make up your mind is negroid dependent on location geography ancestry or appearance. You keep claiming one then the other then the other two are false. Its got to be one of them so make up your mind and stick to it.

How do fijians now they come from africa thousands of years ago? That a good question infact it is self answering. The fact that fijians traditions believe they come from Africa without being told so simply verfies they really do originate from africa and not mongoloia or asia. How do britons know they came from rome thousands of years ago or how do people in west africa know they came from east africa how do native americans know they came from asia. Oral traditons, history and it is incorporated into their culture.

I'll discuss your anthroplogical evidence only for the following reasons 1. Earlier you stated that only 16% of biologist believe in race. If only 16% of bioloigist believe in race from a scientific point of view then it is fair to say these views are not mainstream science. Also race (negroid, caucasoid, etc) were all created before any geneticist came into existance so even if all biologist believed in race it would have no use because it would not go with what we believe race to be. Eg. they might classify Italians regardless of apearance as black and all Bantus as white. This however would not change our perception that bantus are black and italians are white mostly.

2.Gentics came after race so genetics cannot determine race as we know it. Even the gentics used to trace ancestry is poor. It can only trace ancestry through 1 side of ancetry. They can only trace what my father fathers father was, but they can trace what my fathers fathers mother was. They can trace my mothers mother mother but not my mothers mother mothers father. Hence for a simple example if my great great grand father from my father side was white and my great great grand mother was also white, but all my other relatives were full chinese, accoridng to gentics I would be 100% white despite that I would look more chinses and have only 2/16 white ancestrors. According to genetics I would be 100% white where as anthroplogist would most likely classify me as asian/mongolid because that is what I would probably look like.

Plainly put genetics has no place in an anthroplogicaly classification of race. Black may deal more with gentics but negroid is strictly anthroplogical and does not involve gentics. The definition of negroid has not changed since genetics and has no link to it so it is irrelvant here.

I said before that not all polynesian are black/negroid. I said many where which is a true statement. I'm not saying you know hawaians are black but many polynesians consider themselvs to be half black like samoans, and some are considere full black like people from Vanuatu http://www.pacificaids.org/grafix/vanuatu-gang_big.gif (most people would say they are negroids.) where melansians and micronesians considered themselves to be all black.

Point being said biogeographical race includes lineage which fijians maintain is from africa so they are black. You might have opposing views but you don't get to tell people who look are black by all measures they are not black. Your the only person who maintains such radical idolelogies jmac800

Hi Jmac, you appear to be confusing me with someone else on this talk page (I haven't accused anyone of "afrocentrism"). The only important point here is that negroid in scientific usage (the topic of this article) refers only to biogeographic ancestry. Thus it doesn't refer to being Black, but rather to being African (it doesn't matter if the Fijans' look Black). The study I quoted found 16% of biologists disagreed with the statement that "there are biological races in humans." Thus 85% did not disagree. If there are questions about race or the science of race, Talk:Race is the best place for them.--Nectar 22:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

According to wikipedia "Biogeographic ancestry is a concept of lineage that looks at kinship and descent based on biogeography, a combination of biology and geography." Kinship and descent is defined by wikipedia as a sub-section of anthropogly so even accroding to you and wikipedia genetics has no place in this discussion, and it means according to wiki: "is one of the major concepts of cultural anthropology. Cultures worldwide possess a wide range of systems of tracking kinship and descent. Anthropologists break these down into simple concepts which are common among many different cultures"

It furthers defines kinship and descent as : "A descent group is a social group whose members claim common ancestry". Fijians claiming african ancestry. What does all this mean. According to wikipedia people are the rac that they trace their ancestry to. I have already established that Fijians trace their ancestry to Africa, and that they identify themselves with other negroids, hence they are negroids, because they claim it to be their lineage.

Explain to me how negroid = african, thats exactly the same as the guy who complained afrocentrsit were saying caucasoid = european

Well I guess it doesn't matter how many biologist beliveve about race because it doesn't seem like it matters since were talking about anthropology not genetics or biology.

Your the same guys who claims that cultural anthroplogist don't even believe in race so how can you tell me how is what race how can they tell me. 53% of anthroplogist don't believe in race yet you want to tell me that half of the black/negroid people are not black or negroid.

Tell me what is race o might man because you must have some loony bin definition off the planet mars. You tell me what is negroid or caucasoid because you know more than webster and are so intelligent. Tell me in your opinion what makes russians caucasoid or Italians caucasoid and chinese mongoloid and somalians negroid. Tell me becuase any defintion I use you just bring up a different science and say this one is more accurate with race. Anthropolgy looks at physical appearance of people and designates them a race. Most people would agree that these people look black so it is fair to call them negroid. jmac800

Negroid is a term from biological anthropology, not cultural anthropology. (Biologists' opinion can't be ignored here.) Measuring ancestry by physical characteristics has been replaced in science by genetic cluster analysis. What we need in order to state non-African peoples are negroid is highly reliable scientific references making those statements. (This is, after all, an encyclopedia article.)--Nectar 01:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[1] According to wiki the terms are from cultural, take it up with the people who argue it and as long as we are talking culutral these peoples are all negroids. [2a] Anthroplpogy does not use gentics so that is not valid here. We are using anthroplogical definitions not genetics ones. If you want to create a genetic negroid thing go ahead but not in here. We are dealing with anthropolgy here and not genetics. [2b] The term negroid was in use in the 1500's, genetics was not thus genetics does not define negroid because it existed before genetics but not anthropology

Re [1] Negroid is a term from biological anthropology, not cultural anthropology.

Re [2] Measuring ancestry by physical characteristics has been replaced in science by genetic cluster analysis.

Doing some research and finding mainstream scientific references will probably clear this up (and allow you to make these additions to the article) faster than arguing ad infinitum. --Nectar 05:50, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Genetic cluster analysis

"Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease" (2002), Neil Risch, Hua Tang, et al. (Risch and Tang have separately led prominent studies in this area).

"Effectively, these population genetic studies have recapitulated the classical definition of races based on continental ancestry. ...

"On the basis of numerous population genetic surveys, we categorize Africans as those with primary ancestry in sub-Saharan Africa ... Caucasians include those with ancestry in Europe and West Asia, including the Indian subcontinent and Middle East; North Africans typically also are included in this group as their ancestry derives largely from the Middle East rather than sub-Saharan Africa. 'Asians' are those from eastern Asia including China, Indochina, Japan, the Philippines and Siberia. By contrast, Pacific Islanders are those with indigenous ancestry from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Micronesia, as well as other Pacific Island groups further east. Native Americans are those that have indigenous ancestry in North and South America.

"Populations that exist at the boundaries of these continental divisions are sometimes the most difficult to categorize simply. For example, east African groups, such as Ethiopians and Somalis, have great genetic resemblance to Caucasians and are clearly intermediate between sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians [5]. The existence of such intermediate groups should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level."

--Nectar 02:30, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

That's only after you expand "caucasian" to the fringes of being negroid anyway! I have seen so many pictures of Ethiopians and Caucasians and they simply do not resemble each other. In my experience 99% of the pictures I see of Ethiopians, when taken with Americans, the Ethiopians do NOT resemble ANY White American. 99% of the time they resemble African Americans (of varying mixtures, none of which are invisibly Black). Only when you place the Caucasians that RESEMBLE other Black people into the category (Yemeni), then do you say "oh yea, Ethiopians resemble Caucasians". --Zaphnathpaaneah 11:41, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

jmac800's response

All you eurocentric people are the same. You have manifested yourself in a cage of lies for the last 500 years and have went around the world calling everyone savages. You murder rape and pillage natives and call them sevages without culture or civlization. You murder them steal their cultural works and deny that they had culture. To add insult to injury you the cultures they did have must have been white becuase mostly mixed people live there today. Maybe you can con black in america who have accepted your lies but you cannot con africans and tell them they are white. You believe anyone able of achieiving greatness is white. This is why Eurocentrics have been reduced to claiming someone like this as white or 'caucasoid'.

http://www.surforeggae.com.br/imagens/bandas/ethiopians.jpg http://www.moledin.ru/dela/photo/putin.jpg

Now be open minded who here is the liar the person who says the above link is black, infact lets compare this caucasoid to another caucasoid we all agree is white. Vladi Putin Russian pres. According to this guy they are both caucasoid.

Or we can believe this these two guys are of the same 'race' http://web.syr.edu/~affellem/jclr.gif http://www.rfi.fr/images/054/mohammed6_220.jpg http://durrutyguedjphoto.free.fr/fleurdepeau_fichiers/image014.jpg

Kings of two countries which Ill disclose later

Now be the judge which two look of the same race to you. How about which is not the same race as the other 4. Its quite clear. I have presented an Ethiopian, an Ethiopian King, nigerien, moroccan king, and a caucasoid russian. Any one yearold could tell the difference. 4 are negroid 1 is not.

You find articles and zero in on a section you think proves your point and don't bother reading the rest of your article. I then come and show you the part that say North Africans are black, you then start discrediting your own source and tell me that here here is a better source (stormfront.com). These are all from your own site that disprove your lies

"In summary, populations outside Africa derive from one or more migration events out of Africa within the last 100,000 years [5,6,7,8,9,10,11]." This indicates that any genetic mutations that would change race would not have affected any native africans or would have affected all africans the same. None the less it is clear that africans whether it be from kenya or tunisia are one race for the last 100,000 years

"The greatest genetic variation occurs within Africans, with variation outside Africa representing either a subset of African diversity or newly arisen variants" So all non-african are different than africans genetically. Well that no surprise becuase native africans are one big negroid race.

"Genetic differentiation between individuals depends on the degree and duration of separation of their ancestors. Geographic isolation and in-breeding (endogamy) due to social and/or cultural forces over extended time periods create and enhance genetic differentiation, while migration and inter-mating reduce it"

So according to mr. phd from stanford. Migration cannot change race. So pygmies from congo moving to polynesia can't change their black race. Further more in order for North africans to be a different race than other africans they would have to have been isolated from each other for at least 10000 of years, becuase thats the time normally accepted for mutuations to take place in humans. We know that Ethiopians africans emipre along the east african coast were numerous and so was war. So they would have been intermixing like crazy. We know that the Nubians are the closets to ancient egyptians in almost every form. The cultures were the same and they warred alot both built pyramids and have been under one ruler many times. Clearly North africa was not isolated from nubia, ethiopia, etc becuase they were trading sharing culture warring and intermingling. Not even to mention that many ancient egyptians were black. Often Eurocentrics will say the Sahara desert was a massive barrier that kept blacks to the south. No it wasn't. I can't even name all the african kingdoms that got rich off of the transaharan trade route. They don't know that there are many oasis' in the sahara. Being from their myself my father taught me how to find water. I just go up to any location that is low as possible and dig for several feet and I will eventually find spring water. What about people who are nomadic. Now I'm getting off topic but point remains that North Africas was never isolated from West or east africa and many places like kanem bornu grew rich off of trans sahran trading. In fact the largest empire in africa was built on the sahara by the songhai. The second largest was by the fulani also on the Sahara. Morocco had no trouble sacking ghana when it crossed the sahara desert.

Most of the genetic make up of North Africans migrated from East Africa to South Asia to West Asia to North Africa... by the time of their arrival in North Africa, approximately 30,000 to 40,000 years had passed since their ancestors left Africa. That is plenty of time for North Africans to have a phenotype and genotype relatively distinct from black Africans. Most North Africans look more Middle Eastern than black African, although about 20% of the ancestry of North Africans is black African. And you're correct to point out that the Sahara desert was never a complete barrier to trans-Saharan migration. --Gerkinstock 16:36, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

"With this as background, it is not surprising that numerous human population genetic studies have come to the identical conclusion -that genetic differentiation is greatest when defined on a continental basis" Oh so all europeans white, all asian asian, and all africans black. Make sense to me.

"For example, studying 14 indigenous populations from 5 continents with 30 microsatellite loci, Bowcock et al. [7] observed that the 14 populations clustered into the five continental groups, as depicted in Figure 1." Figure shows africans, caucasians,other races etc.... Point being mr stanford phd sees africans as a race in the same way caucasian is seen as a race. All negro africans

", these population genetic studies have recapitulated the classical definition of races based on continental ancestry - namely African, Caucasian,..." Once again mr phd stanford separates african fromcaucasians as a race indicating that they are two distinct races. Notice he says africans, not sub-sahran africans, AFRICANS, ALL AFRICANS are of one negroid race accept it.

Now let me talk about the point where you claim ethiopians are white. The profeesors does not claim this himself but quotes from another book. A book written in 1908. Well no surprise u find a book from 1908 claiming someone to be white. I could find one that says asian are sub human and blacks are apes and that white man is greater than all other man. My question is this how could the writer of a book in 1908 use genetics to determine race before Morgan even showed that genes reside on chromosomes. This is equivalent to a person claiming to have a picture of man on the moon before the camera was even invented. My guess is the book was a scientific hypothesis becuase there would be no way that the author could know who was genetically what race.

[7]

This is what berber native algerians look like jmac800

2

Hi Jmac800. Tang et al. state "Populations that exist at the boundaries of these continental divisions are sometimes the most difficult to categorize simply. For example, east African groups, such as Ethiopians and Somalis, have great genetic resemblance to Caucasians and are clearly intermediate between sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians."

For this claim they cite Cavalli-Sforza LL, Piazza A, Menozzi P, Mountain J: Reconstruction of human evolution; bringing together genetic, archaeological, and linguistic data. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1988, 85:6002-6006. Abstract

Regarding separating Europeans and Middle-Easterners from Africans, Cavalli-Sforza et al.'s abstract states: "The first split in the phylogenetic tree separates Africans from non-Africans, and the second separates two major clusters, one corresponding to Caucasoids, East Asians, Arctic populations, and American natives, and the other to Southeast Asians (mainland and insular), Pacific islanders, and New Guineans and Australians."

If the following two individuals were classified according to physical features, the classification would probably be Arabic.[8] [9] Genetic cluster analysis, though, is the best way to analyze evolutionary history. --Nectar 04:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

As I said the eurocentric will find a way to discredit his own source "Genetic cluster analysis, though, is the best way to analyze evolutionary history" He provides no proof or explanation of how is it that there is one african race and according to his source is divided by contintent. In fact his source doesn't even insinuate that there are causcasoid in africa.

So Ethiopians could be classified as caucasoids but Yemeni or saudis could not be classified as negro to preserve the white quotua and to prevent offending saudis. Africans can be white but Europeans can't be black because they will get offended jmac800

It would be nice to note that Nectar is more than glad to classify Haile Selassie and Liberian minster as arabs. Precisdely my point. Eurocentric will claim anyone is white or not black as long as they believe they have something to gain from it. As they have been doing and continue to do for the last 600 years. It does not matter how black they are or what part of africa they are from. If the are significant enough for me to bring in a topic they must be white. jmac800

Tang et al. conclude (as posted above): "On the basis of numerous population genetic surveys, we categorize Africans as those with primary ancestry in sub-Saharan Africa ... Caucasians include those with ancestry in Europe and West Asia, including the Indian subcontinent and Middle East; North Africans typically also are included in this group as their ancestry derives largely from the Middle East rather than sub-Saharan Africa.

I'll also re-state: Tang et al. find Ethiopians cluster as an intermediate (i.e. they are not "classified as caucasoids"). --Nectar 05:45, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

3

It is true that many North Africans have ancestry from Turkey, which I don't deny. The thing is the Turks have only came over in the last few hundred years and are not natives to North Africa and they are not berbers. So when the dr is saying that North African ancestry largely derives from the middle east he is correct. Many North Africans in Egypt have mixed ancestry and their non-black side is from the mid-east so he is correct. In fact their black side is also from the mid-east becuase there are many native black egyptians and egypt is in the mid-east.

Our current Sahara articles list Sahara important Sahran cities as "Other important cities are Tamanrasset, Algeria; Timbuktu, Mali; Agadez, Niger; Ghat, Libya; and Faya, Chad."

So sub-saharan would mean anyone south of these places. So in other words people from Niger, Algeria, Libya, Chad and Mali are white. In fact even Senegal is located on the Sahara so they are white too. http://afrikafont.free.fr/personnages/Danseurs%20ballouks%20Senegal.jpg Yup see how white the are in Senegal opPS I mean caucasoid.

I think you have misinterpreted what was on the website and misquoted as well misunderstood what the professor was trying to say. Up until now you can provide no explanation of how you claimed various people from African governments as arabic. eg he claimed a west africa minister as more arabic than black. You have a scewd idea of race and do not understand it. The worst thing is that you are trying to use genetics to define an anthroplogical term. Thats like using vectors and derivatives to determine race good luck.

In fact I don't know if what you even said about africans in the article is true. All you did was quote the word sub saharn african. For all I know it could be saying everyone outside of europe is a subsahran african.

Let me even assume you have quoted correctly. American use the one-drop rule where anyone with remote black ancestry is considered black. I have looked far and wide and to no surprise they have avoided racial ratios. What I do find consistent is anywhere I search for North African berber I find that at lowest 5% sub-saharan african admixtures. Well in America this would make all berbers and North Africans considered to be black becuase they have traceable black ancestry as a group. Hence your entire arguement is dead on arrival. Any argument you use cannot cite american sources for this reason, because no matter what to American berbers and North Africans are black even if they may only have small amount of black ancestry. -Jmac800

Americans don't use the one-drop rule; in fact, people are allowed to define themselves racially in the U.S. as they wish. The one-drop rule also has never been a part of anthropological taxonomy, except, maybe, in some cases by people like Carleton Coon (whose one-drop rule meant one drop of white blood makes you white). Also, Wikipedia is not supposed to be American-centric in its text; the one-drop rule was unique to certain parts of the U.S. As for Berbers, they are and always have been a multiracial people.

Sub-Saharan Africa is West Africa, Central Africa, East Africa and South Africa. Niger, Chad and Mali have traditionally been considered part of sub-Saharan Africa.

Do you consider Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince Harry to be black? I believe they have the teensiest wee bit of black blood in them. --Gerkinstock 00:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

4

Satellite view of the Sahara. Senegal is on the border.

Senegal

1. Re:"Up until now you can provide no explanation of how you claimed various people from African governments as arabic."

They are of Middle-Eastern descent because their ancestors came from the Middle-East.

2. Re:"you are trying to use genetics to define an anthroplogical term. Thats like using vectors and derivatives to determine race."

In scientific uses in this area, race is just a measure (approximation) of biogeographic ancestry. Genetic cluster analysis is the best way to analyze biogegraphic ancestry.

3. Re:"All you did was quote the word sub saharn african. For all I know it could be saying everyone outside of europe is a subsahran african."

Sub-saharan means beneath the Sahara. Tang et al.: "We categorize Africans as those with primary ancestry in sub-Saharan Africa."

4. Re:"What I do find consistent is anywhere I search for North African berber I find that at lowest 5% sub-saharan african admixtures. Well in America this would make all berbers and North Africans considered to be black becuase they have traceable black ancestry as a group."

Biogeographic ancestry is most accurately spoken of in terms of percentages. A group would be majority sub-saharan African if their genetics cluster with the other sub-saharan peoples, and majority caucasoid is their genetics cluster with European and Middle-Eastern peoples.--Nectar 00:36, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Merge

I count only 3 sentences that could be used for a section covering negroid, mongoloid, and caucasoid. Also, I think there's room for expansion here regarding some of the issues discussed in the previous section, such as genetic cluster analysis's findings regarding Ethiopians, and regarding Negritos and Melanesians, who are claimed by geneticists to be phylogenetically closer to all other non-Africans than to Africans, even though they resemble Africans the most.--Nectar 22:18, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Cultural and genetic explanations

No. "Negroid" is a term of "racial" classification/designation. Genetics has absolutely nothing to do with racial classification. Never did. The notion of race is based on phenotype and lineage. Such information should more properly be included in the article on race. The funny thing about Asians is that they're rather closely descended from Africoid aboriginals who, à la the Wells migration model, peopled India and the rest of subcontinent, Australia, New Guinea/Papua and then, later, Southeast Asia. Indeed, such Africoid aboriginals can be found in many regions still today in places like Papua, New Guinea. The fact is these groups of Africans (some of whom naturally possess, say, a characteristic often considered to be Mongolid, namely epicanthic eyefolds in the San bushmen and others) intermarried in relative isolation with other, later groups that had mutated/evolved to express a typically Mongoloid phenotypical traits. In fact, early photos of the Semang and other such peoples showed tribal and family groupings of "Negritos," short in stature, some with kinky hair, others with frizzy or straight hair, of varying skin tones, some with "round" eyes, others with epicanthic eyefolds. Some looked typically Mongoloid, with kinky hair. Others looked typically Africoid with straight/straighter hair. These populations routinely exhibited a mix of Africoid and "Asian" phenotypical characteristics, often within immediate family units. This development/interbreeding of the Mongoloid phenotype and the Africoid phenotype in relative isolation for millennia eventually produced, not surprisingly, peoples possessing more genetic markers in common between the two groups and "Asians" than with other, sometimes virtually physically identical Africoid populations. For example, if one were to place a Papuan or a Semang in the middle of Equatorial Africa, none of the locals would bat an eye; he/she would look right at home; like the indigenous population, he/she is Negroid/Africoid. But if one were to place, say, a typical Indonesian native there, that person immediately would stand out. While both the Papuan and the Indonesian may share many genetic markers in common, no reasonable pereson would suggest they are of the same race. Finally, Ethiopians, Oromo/Galla, Sudroid/Veddoid Dravidians, Australian aborigines, Semang, etc., are no less Africoid/Negroid -- based on the classical racial metrics of phenotype and lineage -- than are their Bantu, Dinka, Berber, Khoisan, etc., cousins.

The fact of the matter is recent DNA findings do not change the racial classification of these peoples any more than DNA findings have changed the racial/ethnic classification of millions of miscegenated African-Americans. Again, based on the centuries-old criteria for determining racial identity, phenotype and lineage, the people you refer to are clearly Negroid/Africoid/black. If you wish to examine the matter of race and genetics, that's fine. But such information has no place here. Take it to race, where it more properly belongs. deeceevoice 09:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

This was discussed some above. Few would argue the cultural argument should be included but genetic cluster analysis should be excluded. 84% of biologists disagree with you: Race#Ancestry_as_a_way_of_categorizing_people. See this study for an up-to-date summary of research in genetics: "Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease" (2002), Neil Risch, Hua Tang, et al. (Risch and Tang have separately led prominent studies in this area).

"Effectively, these population genetic studies have recapitulated the classical definition of races based on continental ancestry. ...

"On the basis of numerous population genetic surveys, we categorize Africans as those with primary ancestry in sub-Saharan Africa ... Caucasians include those with ancestry in Europe and West Asia, including the Indian subcontinent and Middle East; North Africans typically also are included in this group as their ancestry derives largely from the Middle East rather than sub-Saharan Africa. 'Asians' are those from eastern Asia including China, Indochina, Japan, the Philippines and Siberia. By contrast, Pacific Islanders are those with indigenous ancestry from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia and Micronesia, as well as other Pacific Island groups further east. Native Americans are those that have indigenous ancestry in North and South America.

"Populations that exist at the boundaries of these continental divisions are sometimes the most difficult to categorize simply. For example, east African groups, such as Ethiopians and Somalis, have great genetic resemblance to Caucasians and are clearly intermediate between sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians [5]. The existence of such intermediate groups should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level."

--Nectar 12:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I see you're not arguing that race doesn't exist, but rather that peoples in Asia and Australia who look like Africans are negroid. Genetic cluster analysis is a better measure of ancestry than facial features.--Nectar 12:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, it would be kind of silly for me to argue that race doesn't exist; it clearly does as a concept. And, no. I'm not arguing that peoples in Asia and Australia who look like Africans are Negroid (with a capital "N," by the way). These peoples have been classified as Negroid for as long as the term has been around. Some of the so-called "Negritos" of Asia are clearly Africoid, though their DNA groups them with other Southeast Asian peoples classified as Mongoloids. (Though I'm not certain how many DNA markers such Africoid populations would share in common with, say, a relatively fair-skinned Asian/Mongoloid from Szechuan province of more the classically Sino-Mongoloid phenotype.) Phenotypically, Africans and some Asian blacks (some of the latter sometimes are classified, controversially, as Caucasoid or Asian; others are classified as Africoid) are more closely related to one another than either group is to Caucasoids in respect of alveolar and maxillary prognathisms, skin pigmentation, dolichocephalism, nasal indices and hair texture. This is clearly evident among the Dalits, Dravidians, many Cambodians, the "black" Thai, etc. The aboriginal peoples of Asia were, indeed, Negritos like the Semang.

With regard to the excerpt, it is irresponsible and overly general to speak of North Africans owing their ancestry to the Middle East, or Indians to Asia. The author falls into the usual simplistic trap of thinking of North Africans as Semitic/Arab, rather than essentially and historically black African (save for larger cities in Egypt and the Maghreb), and of associating "sub-Saharan Africa" with indigenous (read "black") Africans. Such regional divisions and artificial and baseless, arbitrary and inaccurate distinctions among and characterizations of African populations are utter claptrap. Any historian worth a damn will tell you the Arabs, in fact, did not arrive en masse in Egypt until the 7th century A.D. -- extremely late in the region's human history. Aside from the Arabized/miscegenated population, the fact is non-Arab Egyptians are heavily Africoid in appearance and lineage. Speaking of fake/mutable regional divisions, "North African" is itself problematic in that very possibly the blackest (almost blue-purple-black) human beings on the planet, the Sudanese and other Nilotics (meaning "of the Nile Valley," including the Dinka, the Tutsi, the Turkana, Kalenjin, Masai, Kikuyu, etc.) are also clearly Negroid North Africans). He also totally ignores a large segment of the peoples in India and the rest of the subcontinent who are not predominantly Caucasoid-Mongoloid, but clearly Africoid, many of whom never have been classified as Caucasoid and could not by any stretch of the imagination be so described. The highly miscegenated Indians of the Hindu north are clearly different from the peoples of the south -- as is clear from Indian history and, indeed, the caste system itself. Indians cannot be lumped together as one people any more than can Americans -- particularly those in the regions of Tamil, Kerela, Orissa and the Andaman islands. They are clearly Africoid-Australoid peoples, closely resembling aboriginal Australians in faciocranial characteristics, skin color and, some, even hair texture. The same is true for black populations among the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Spencer Wells' DNA studies, in fact, very clearly demonstrated this point. DNA analysis showed that the Tamils (Dravidians), who were pushed southward by Aryan invaders, as well as the Australian aborigines, are most closely related to the San bushmen (presently) of the Kalahari. deeceevoice

And, no. I'm not talking about "measur[ing] ancestry" at all. Again, I'm talking about racial classification based on phenotype and lineage/ancestry. Again, DNA doesn't factor into racial classification at all. It never has. It has, however, been used to study/trace the historical relatedness of various ethnic groups to one another and to, as in Wells' studies, develop hypotheses with regard to human migration patterns. Clearly, the notion of "racial" phenotypes existed long before the study of genetics or any knowledge of the existence of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Again, DNA studies have no place in an article treating a particular racial phenotype, because the concept of race exists completely separate from hard science. Again, such matters more properly should be addressed in an article examining the scientific bases, or the lack thereof, of the notion of race. deeceevoice 16:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

"Measuring ancestry" is the same thing as "talking about lineage/ancestry," as you say. The burden of proof is on those who would argue peoples in Asia are African. "Proof" in this context refers to a mainstream genetic study.--Nectar 21:59, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

My language was meant to distinguish tracing ancestry from "measuring" it. (Duh.) Further, the fact that the indigenous peoples of considerable portions of Asia are/were Negroid peoples, or Negritos, isn't some little-known, obscure fact, or something dreamed up by delusional Afrocentrists. In Malay, for example, the term for "Negrito" is orang asli, meaning original people. Population clusters of Africoid populations, descended from the regions' original people are found throughout Southeast Asia. In fact, there are some scholars who also argue the existence of black/Negroid/Africoid Negrito types in mainland China, Nepal and other parts of Asia, as well. Again, with regard to differentiating between Africoids who share more DNA strands in common with some Asian populations (those with significant and clearly observable Africoid ancestry) than with other Africoids, I would direct you to the voluminous literature contrasting proto-sundadont/sundadont Africoids with sundadont Mongoloids and the difference between sundadont Mongoloids (in portions of Asia, for example, in Southeast Asia -- like Thailand, where ancient renderings of the Buddha are clearly Africoid in appearance -- and the South Pacific, where Africoid bloodlines predominate among the population) and sinodont Mongoloids (as in Japan and Mainland China). The mistake most people make is equating "Asian" in the business about Africoid-Mongoloid/Asian shared DNA with Sinoid Mongoloids -- when such is most certainly not the case. I suggest you do some reading on the matter. Here are a few links -- gathered, FYI, and pasted here in less than three minutes' time. This stuff is common knowledge in the field and is all over the web. [10], [11], [12], [13]. [14], [15], [16], [17] deeceevoice 05:53, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the "trace/measure ancestry" point, if you're going to trace or measure ancestry (this is the same thing), it's more accurate to do it genetically than by facial features, as you had proposed. Thanks for the links.--Nectar 07:34, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, no, it's not the same thing. "Measure" indicates an attempt to make some sort of quantitative assessment. Tracing merely involves detection and following attenuated "racial" lineage. And, no. I wasn't proposing anything -- merely stating that, again, the concept of race is founded on phenotypical distinctions and lineage (and also geography), not genetics, not DNA. Indeed, it could not, because race theory predates genetics by several centuries.

And you're welcome. deeceevoice 08:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I notice you added a 2002 news story quoting George Weber [18] to the article, but looking at the Genetics section of Weber's web site which you mention above [19], the genetic studies cited there find the Andamanese are equally distant from all other races, or closest to Asians though still very distant.

Also, Weber's Chapter 34 [20] says: "The modern human races (Negrids, Europids, Australoids, Mongolids, etc) are of fairly recent origin; as they look today they are less than 15,000 years old. However, to call the first modern humans to migrate out of Africa "Negrids" would be pointless since Negrids are a modern human race and did not (like all the other modern races) acquire their present detailed characteristics until 15,000 years or so ago. We do not know whether the earliest human migrants looked more like the Khoisan or like Negrids of modern Africa, or different from either. A lot can happen to one's looks in 100,000 years! What we do know is that the first migrants must have been black." --JWB 15:50, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, the interview with Weber that I based the section on is not very good on these points.--Nectar 05:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

References

Remember to cite references if you have them, as unreferenced claims may be deleted down the road by other editors.--Nectar 22:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Have at it. deeceevoice 05:58, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you get a reference for the Ethiopian north-south claim? Citing sources has become more important in the wake of the John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy: "[ User:SJ, a Wikipedia steward admin] is confident a new rule requiring all contributors to cite their sources will help."[21]

Edits

1. "Africoid, or Negroid, peoples collectively possess a greater degree of phenotypical diversity than either Mongoloids or Caucasoids"

Unverifiable assumption. Caucasoids are as phenotypical diverse as negroids. Caucasians can be thick or slim, short or tall, can have straight, curly or even "kinky" hair, thin or thick lips, blue, green, or brown eyes and possess a wide range of skin colors, from pasty white in the north to brownish in the south. In the US, even black ("Negroid"-looking) people may be classified as white. (check out the story of this Egyptian immigrant who definitiely looks Black to most Americans but was ruled to be legally White by the US courts. http://edition.cnn.com/US/9707/16/racial.suit/)

And this points out the fallacy of U.S. political/social racial classification. This is a cultural artifact. It's the same silliness that causes the FBI to classify a Hispanic with obvious African ancestry (an Afro-Latino) as "Latino" or "Hispanic" and an indio Hispanic as "white" -- when, clearly, they are as "Mongoloid" as their U.S. Native American cousins. Any anthropologists/forensic expert would classify this Egyptian fellow as he classifies himself -- black.

With regard to the assertion about human biodiversity in Africoid populations, see:

For example, it is true that the so-called "Negroid" race contains more in-group variation than the other major races. Great differences in height, for instance, can be found within a small geographical area (the "pygmies" are the shortest people in the world on average, while their neighbors, formerly known as "the Watusi", are the tallest). These two "negroid" subgroups vary more from each other in height than either does with the averages for height in the other two major races. However, if total genetic cohorts are used rather than limited sets of traits like height and blood type in an effort to find true overall relatedness, it is seen that any two "negroids" will share a much higher net genetic affinity with one another than either will with any individual of the other two major races. The same is true for any two caucasoids and any two sinoids (see conclusions of the Human Population Genetics Laboratory headed by L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza at [1]).

Again, this isn't even debatable among those who know their stuff. deeceevoice 06:32, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

2. "Because family lineage historically also has played an important role in racial designation, a person completely lacking Negroid phenotypical characteristics still may be classified as Negro, or Negroid. "

That's a nonsensical phrase and confusing to anybody outside the US unless you explain to the reader that "a person completely lacking Negroid phenotypical characteristics still may be classified as Negro, or Negroid" (= concept of "invisible Blackness ") is an unique U.S. phenomenon based on the rules of the American one drop theory.

I've reworded the passage and included info re hypodescent -- but not limited this phenomenon in its varying forms to the U.S., because the practice of defining someone as black (or "tainted" by African blood) is not only an American one. deeceevoice

Negro, Black, or African-American yes, but Negroid is specifically supposed to refer to physical anthropological features, not social group membership. --JWB 16:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Not so, JWB. "Negroid" often is used to refer to "Negroes." Merriam-Webster defines "Negroid" as "(adjective) : of, resembling, related to, or characteristic of the Negro race." deeceevoice 09:30, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

M-W is clearly using "race" as a reference to ancestry. If we had relevant authors using the term to refer to social group membership rather than ancestry, that would warrant a discussion in the article.--Nectar 10:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[22] links many online dictionaries; the majority specify physical resemblance. Some mention it is an anthropological term, as does the beginning of Negroid. The -oid article explains what that suffix means; it connotes something in the sciences or mathematics, and indicates a similarity, not necessarily exact. --JWB 13:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the similarity referenced in the Oid suffix refers to related (similar) peoples being grouped together, rather than to an unrelated person bearing physical similarities with the group.--Nectar 20:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• The relationship then is a matter of debate. The progenator of the term is also a matter of debate. If you have two similarily looking groups who are not related in any other way, then the obvious question arises, why does group 1 get the term, and why does group 2 not get the same term? Why can't we put the regional adjectives in front of the names (African Negroid, Asian Negroid, Pacific Negroid, etc). Why must we avoid using this anthropological term on those outside of Africa? I suspect because we still view the Africans as less desirable, and do not want to insult those Asians of an ignorant mindset who would find the association offensive. --Zaphnathpaaneah 11:35, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

3. "a set of features associated with European, Middle-Eastern, and some South Asian peoples" Along with North Africans, see http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-1.pdf (Unsigned contribution 195.93.60.83)

I've deleted "North African," because the term is an inherently inaccurate one and potentially misleading/confusing, as discussed above. (It also includes Sudanese and others who are clearly black-skinned black people.) "Middle Eastern" is more appropriate here, because it includes, by inference, those North Africans who are Semitic. And I've added "most commonly." In writing this passage, I purposely chose the most obvious population groupings. The list of peoples here, as elsewhere in the article when discussing other points, is by no means meant to be exhaustive. deeceevoice 07:11, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki trouble

There have been several rounds of deletion of interwiki links to this article and related articles, and reversions of the deletions, on several wikis. The problem seems to be that most wikis deal with the biological/evolutionary as well as sociological/linguistic aspects of the word in one article, whereas in English and a few others the subject is split into Negroid and Negro. Interwiki linking shouldn't be a problem between wikis that have only one article, but there may be a problem with linking to English and other wikis that have two articles – unless "double interwiki" is possible, i.e. two links to the same wiki from one article. Is it possible?
Unfortunately the deletion that has been going on is plain deletion and not replacement, and it even deletes interwikis between wikis where there is only one article. I think this is wrong, and I have reverted the deletions once in some of the wikis. However, I would like to see the opinion of other wikipedians before I go on reverting across the wiki world. --Eddi (Talk) 17:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Quick question about mixed race terms

Just a quick question for someone who doesn't know much about this. Is there a term for mixed Negroid (or whatever African-Americans are called) and Caucasoid? (Also, if you know any other mixed race terms.)

It would require an investigation into the nuances of African-American variation. Since people refuse to accept that African-Americans are not the only Negroids, and because people spend too much time belittling the identity of African-Americans by making statements like "whatever they are called", it becomes rather circular to respond to the quick question above when the circular mentality will only rearrange the assumption-conclusions around the facts. It's called "truthiness". --Zaphnathpaaneah 11:13, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Another way to look at it, you do not need to find "another" term for "mixed race" people who are negroid. Have you found a term for mixed Caucasoids? (or whatever European-Americans are called) .... now you see the absurdity of the question don't you? --Zaphnathpaaneah 11:15, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Zaph: *wink* :p deeceevoice 06:14, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Mulatto is the term for people of African-European descent. That's probably in a social context; I haven't seen an equivalent term in an anthropological context.--Nectar 09:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect. "Mulatto" is a term for a "halfie" or "biracial" person -- someone who is half black and half white -- not of mixed black and European descent. Mulatto, as well as all the "roon"-suffixed words, is pretty much defunct in U.S. society. They had currency during the time our people were in bondage when the racial admixture of blacks had commercial value. After slavery, the terms persisted in certain social circles, but they have been in extremely limited usage since the latter half of the 20th century. You are correct, however, that "mulatto" has never been a term of racial classification. "Mulattos" are Negroid/Africoid peoples.

Further, assuming the original question is sincere -- and that's a stretch -- it assumes there is, can, or should be, a collective racial term for a group of people of varying racial/ethic heritage/admixture (African, Native American, European, Asian, etc., ancestry), based on shared and relatively contemporary (when viewed in the context of the sweep of human history) historical and geographical circumstances. The very idea makes no sense. That's not the way racial classification works (or doesn't :p). deeceevoice 15:44, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

M-W and American Heritage define mulatto both in the sense of the offspring of one black and one white parent, and a person of mixed white and black ancestry. Two other dictionaries give only the former definition. None of the four I checked mention anything about it being obsolete. Here is an example of usage in the latter sense from Encyclopedia Britannica.[23] --Nectar

My comments were explicitly about U.S. usage -- in response to the initial question about African-Americans. Further, I never said the terms were absolutely dead, simply rarely used. An online dictionary I consulted briefly gave as the first definition, " the first-generation offspring of a black person and a white person" and as a second definition, "a person of mixed white and black ancestry." Here in the States, "mulatto" was/is almost always construed to mean, again, a "halfie." There are other (also virtually obsolete terms), such as quadroon, octoroon, etc., that were more commonly used here -- again, because the precise racial admixture of black chattel had important economic implications during slavery -- and, in racist/color-conscious society (esp. in a pigmentocracy like New Orleans -- which still is the case somewhat, where the term "Creole" is still used for blacks with white, often French, and sometimes Native-American ancestry), social and class implications, as well. Mayor Ray Nagin, for instance, is a Creole in New Orleans. In New Orleans, the word tends to refer to mixed ancestry, yes, but usually when such a lineage results in a certain skin tone range and hair texture. New Orleans remains a kind of sick pigmentocracy; it's racist as all get-out. (Katrina exposed that.) But "Creole" is also construed in other parts of the South to be any one with a mixture of African, Native American and Caucasian ancestry -- which is a fairly high percentage of African Americans, including my family. I'm from Louisiana, too, but inland, and my family would be considered "Creole" in New Orleans; but that term was never used by my family or anyone they grew up with. They were simply "colored" -- and with a small "c" at that! We were, and always have been, some variant of "n/Negro," "black" and "African American." But, again, in the U.S., mulatto traditionally has meant what sometimes is called now "biracial." With regard to virtual obsolescence, the same pretty much can be said for "Creole," too -- except for NO. But that's a special, and very twisted, case. Whites observed the one-drop rule for their own reasons, and black folks observed the same (we had no choice), but we had a completely different perspective: that of (generally ) common cause. And, yes, there are and still are artificial divisions among blacks in some quarters on the basis of hair texture and skin color (sick). Until white mothers of half-black children raised a ruckus about the term "biracial" in the '80s, the old norm pretty much remained across the board: black people are black people. Still, though, that attitude remains. It's taken for granted that virtually everyone black has some of this and some of that. And even if you're mixed and you look white (as my childhood minister and his famiy did -- blonde wife, blond sons, pale skin -- the whole nine yards), hey, you're still black. deeceevoice 03:07, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Merged content from Congoid

I've merged content from Congoid, according to this AfD. Do with this content what you will. --Deathphoenix 13:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

About the skull picture

Don't Africans usually have bigger heads than other peoples? and is that picture based on a non-adult? Digitalseal 19:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

What is Negroid?

Currently the defintions of negroid and caucasoid make no sense whatever. The caucasoid pages that all of africa is caucasoid as well as North and West Africa. I'm trying to stay out of this because its silly and stupid and ends up in an edit war but this is too ridiculous. Two weeks ago I saw that same article claiming east and central africans were caucsoid and I'm wondering if negroid will just become a link to the caucasoid page. It seems no one can agree on what is negroid or caucsoid.

Primarily because different countries have different race classifications. Eg all North African is considered black in America because of the one-drop rule, yet in UK they may be considered brown.

Also is negroid really mean from sub-saharan africa? I don't think most people know where that would include because it would mean most of the blacks from Saharan africa are white, like the guy from egypt who was classified as white. Not only that but Nigerians, Nigeriens, Sudan, Libyans, Mali, Chad etc. are all caucasoid which should cause somone to lift an eyebrow. I guess that means many of you african americans are white because your ancestors come from there well good luck on your new found identity. Just consider when the defintion of negroid came into being and in the 19th century Africa was called the dark continent because Eruopeans were ignorant towards it. So explain to me how they could have possible used geography to classify people in a continent they knew nothing about? How did they not know that the Zulu were white, or that there was a race of green people(thats streching it but you get the point), you can't define what you don't know.

The connotations are that say people from South Africa who are white are negroid. Its really silly to classify people by geographical location because people move around like crazy.

DNA analysis has shown to be a very accurate way to trace evolutionary history. Not many people think the Middle-Easterners in North Africa, such as in Egypt and Morocco, are black. These are generalizations; more detailed reports of genetic cluster analysis would assumedly map many Saharan areas and peoples as being more closely related to sub-Saharan Africa (which includes Nigeria and the Ivory Coast) than to Middle-Easterners. The historical "one drop rule" isn't a criticism of genetic methods of tracing ancestry.--Nectar 05:06, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

You brought up many good points but negroid still seems to lack deifniton. As stated by many people above DNA analysis uses genetic markers which are subjective to the scientist who does the project. Middle-East doesn't include North Africa(except egypt). Egyptians are a mixture of race so I'm not sure, how they can be classified as negroid or caucasoid. Eg you had the guy listed in some link above who looked negroid and was suing the government to be classified as black. You also have Answar Sadat who most people would agree is more negroid. Then you have Egyptians who look caucasoid many who are descendents of the greeks or romans who occupied the country. So how can it be classified as one or the other. It would be like saying all americans are negroid or caucasoid, when we know it is not fully either. As for Morocco, well I would say they have alot larger negroid looking population than egypt does. Look at the Moroccan royal family some look negroid some look caucasoid some look mixed so once again how do you classify an entire country as one race when it is clearly a mix. Your seem to be leading into a fallacy that middle-easterns are a race. Lots of Nigeria is above the sub-sahara which would make them white according to whoever uses the defintions that negroid = sub-saharan african dualdual

Negroid are the peoples indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa peroid Digitalseal 02:32, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Life started in sub-saharan africa, making the first people indigenous, so therefore we are all negroid according to you. There is nothing that supports this claim, its simply a defintion given with no proof facts or basis. African Americans are from America making them non-black to you.dualdual

The inhabitants of North Africa are caucasoid(Algerians,Tunisians,Lybians,Egyptans) they are the only non-negroid inhabitants of Africa unless you don t count the South Africans decendand from European colonists --Digitalseal 23:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Blog Refernces

You can't refer to a blog because anyone can create one in 5 minutes and put on anything they want. Yeah I know the whole internet is like that but there are too many afrocentric blogs for anything they say to be taken seriously

That's correct. Wikipedia:reliable sources covers what is and is not acceptable for a source. Cheers, -Will Beback 23:53, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Disturbing trend

I find it highly disturbing that one scientist is used as a refernce for the entire negroid race. How do we not know she has made a mistake. How do we not know she is poltically motivated. I almost feel like gutting half the article because its filled with ridiculous assumptions all based on the findings of Cavalli-Sforza back in 1994. I would like to see us using somewhat modern books because gentics has advanced a mile fool since then

Cavalli-Sforza's 1994 data is still made use of in works published recently, and it's widely praised. Jared Diamond, for example, praised it for "demolishing scientists' attempts to classify human populations into races in the same way that they classify birds and other species into races." If there was a genetics study disagreeing with Cavalli-Sforza's data, that would be grounds for changing the article.--Nectar 03:08, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

The Term Negroid

This term is considered offensive since it is derived from the offensive term Negro. Although it is still used by a small number of anthropologist the consensus is that it is an inappropriate term. This is true for several reasons. Previous stilted European anthropologist used this term as a mechanism for explaining physical differences and biased opinions of Athe fricans inferiority compared to other races. A more preferred term is Africoid as it relates to a less offensive interpretation of the indigenous people from Africa. In addition Dr. Yosef A.A. Ben Jochannan explains this point and origins of the word in his book "Africa: Mother of Western Civilization" Secondly as it was originally believed by Eurocentric historians and anthropologist that Europeans originated from the continents of Europe, this also was proved wrong and is now universally known that the origin of mankind originates from the African continent. In addition in ancient times Africans were widely called Ethiopians, once the medieval times began most Africans were called Moors this was an accepted term based on the group choosing to identify with this term. The word Negro or Negroid was manufactured during the Atlantic slave trade. To shine more light on this, it is fair to say that just as there are many species of small fish in the ocean, once placed in cans they obtain the label Sardines. There is no free fish called a Sardine. Just as various Africans obtained the name Negro once placed in chains. In trying to keep a NPOV I must go on and state that, "Man names himself so that others may address him accordingly. This is why we ask a person's name. So that we may have a way to identify a person from others etc... One doesn't just go out and say, "Hey you person with wavy hair, pointed nose and slanted eyes, what time is it?" Neither do we just place labels on others as it is offensive.

Unfortunately there existed a time when a group of biased historians and anthropologist took it upon themselves to name other races of the world. In doing so this memetic engineering has created numerous problems and as this becomes adopted and accepted by others as well as those who were forced to take on this term during the slave trade causing a lost of self identity. Elohimgenius | Talk 21:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Negroid was changed to Congoid a long time ago but it seems that anthropologists still stick to "Negroid" --Digitalseal 19:50, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, as you can see by the quotation in the last sentence of the article's opening paragraph (or any other undergraduate physical anthropology textbook, for that matter), real anthropologists very seldom use the word at all because it cannot be objectively defined. The only people who use it are those who have never taken a course in physical anthropology and yet, for some reason, they falsely attribute it to anthropologists. -- Frank W Sweet 22:29, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Four Simple Questions of Source

1. The section "Genetics and Negroid populations" opens with the sentence: "In a study of global genetic clusters at the level of ten clusters, sub-Saharan Africans were found to be one of of the clusters. (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994)." This citation lacks a page number. Could someone please tell me on exactly what page the cited book says this?

2. Later, in the same paragraph, it says: "...the Capoid Khoisan and Pygmy peoples, who were identified as another of the clusters at the level of ten clusters (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994)." Again, no page number is given. Could I please have a page number for this reference?

3. In the second paragraph of the section, it says: "Modern-day Ethiopians in the Horn of Africa have been found to generally cluster as an intermediate cluster between sub-Saharan Africans and Middle-Easterners (Risch, Tang et al. 2002)..." As far as I can tell, the cited paper is about the importance of ethnic self-identity in predicting different medical conditions to which U.S. residents are prone, and says nothing about Ethiopians. But perhaps I missed it. Again, could I please have the page number of this reference?

4. Finally, the article's second sentence says: The term [Negroid] is used at the level of five global clusters, along with Australoid, Capoid, Caucasoid, and Mongoloid. The passive voice is unfortunate since it conceals just who is doing the using. Could I please have a page-number reference to any physical anthropology text that uses those five "global clusters." I know that Carleton Coon's The Origin of Races (New York: Knopf, 1962) reports five "human subspecies," but "Negroid" is not among them.

Thank you. -- Frank W Sweet 16:40, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll get page numbers shortly.

3. The online version doesn't use page numbers, but one can press ctrl + f to search for "ethiopian".--Nectar 17:48, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. Once you published the precise wording, I figured out how find the paragraph. Thank you. -- Frank W Sweet 18:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

So far, only one of the above four source questions has been answered. I would be very grateful for answers to the other three. Please. If no source can be found for those three statements, then it may soon become time to consider removing them and replacing them with statements that can be backed up with sources. -- Frank W Sweet 19:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

5. On 28 March 2006, Dark Tichondrias altered the table at the botton of the article to read: "Race (historical definitions): Australoid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid and Congoid." I would be grateful for a source on this as well. On what page of what book or other source did those specific five categories ever appear historically? -- Frank W Sweet 19:26, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair Warning

Okay, people, fair warning. If nobody can substantiate the above claims (1, 2, 4, and 5) by tomorrow (3/30/2006), I shall rip them out and replace them with legitimate peer-reviewed information. I do not know if the above counterfactual claims are the result of ignorance, error, or deliberate ideologically driven falsification, and I do not care. Anyone can glance at the opening paragraph of section "1.6 Scientific Failure of the Concept of Human Races" on page 19 of Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza, The History and Geography of Human Genes, trans. Sarah Thorne (Princeton: Princeton University, 1994), and see immediately that claims 1 and 2, above are not only false, but they invert what the authors wrote. My correcting this misinformation may well lead to a classical 3-reversion Wiki edit war, complete with accusations of POV and original research. So be it. As a scientist and scholar in this field I cannot in good conscience ignore such misrepresentation of scholarly work. -- Frank W Sweet 14:30, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

---

I corrected the text to reflect current scientific consensus on the word in question ("Negroid"). I left in the paragraph about the Bantu expansion. I also left in the paragraph about the Andaman Islanders. Nevertheless, I can see no connection between those two paragraphs and the word in question. Unless anyone can somehow connect those two topics (Bantu expansion and Andaman Islanders) to the word "Negroid" in the next few days, I shall remove those paragraphs as well. Also, I eliminated all reference to phylogeographic "clusters." The reason is explained below. -- Frank W Sweet 12:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Since no one has suggested a connection between either the Bantu expansion or the Andaman islanders and the obsolete term that this article is about, I have now replaced the two paragraphs in question with links to Wiki articles on African cultures, African languages, the Bantu expansion, and the Negrito peoples of southeast Asia. -- Frank W Sweet 14:52, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Clustering

Warning. The Following Explanation has Nothing to do with the Term "Negroid."

The prior text mentioned "clusters" in several places, including one mention citing a peer-reviewed study (http://genomebiology.com/2002/3/7/comment/2007). The usefulness of "clusters" is irrelevant to the topic at hand (the word "Negroid"). The text implied that "clusters" are conceptually equivalent to the now-discarded phylogeographic notion of "races" in that an assumed African cluster (or subSaharan cluster, or non-Khoisan non-Somali non-Ethiopian sub-Saharan cluster, whatever) would be conceptually equivalent to "Negroid." This misunderstands the phylogeographic meaning of "cluster."

You can split humanity into as many or as few clusters as you wish. You do not "find" clusters. You assume a specific number of them and then measure things about them. As explained in Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza, The History and Geography of Human Genes, trans. Sarah Thorne (Princeton: Princeton University, 1994), page 19:

Although there is no doubt that there is only one human species, there are clearly no objective reasons for stopping at any particular level of taxonomic splitting. In fact, the analysis we carry out in chapter 2 for purposes of evolutionary study shows that the level at which we stop our classification is completely arbitrary.

Please note that "the analysis we carry out in chapter 2" of Cavalli-Sforza 1994, mentioned above, subdivides humanity into fifteen clusters on page 68, three clusters on page 70, fifteen clusters on page 71 (not the same ones as on page 68), seventeen clusters on page 72, forty-two clusters on page 79, two different sets of six clusters on page 79, and nine clusters on page 80. As the text explains, all of these different clustering schemes are based on measurable traits and yet all of them are equally arbitrary as to how fine-grained they are.

Cavalli-Sforza's exhaustively explained point is that you can assume many clusters or few clusters depending upon your goal. For example, if you want to support the U.S. judicial system, you would assume three clusters and equate them to the Caucasian, Negro, and Asian "races" used in such a context. The phylogeographic problem outside the U.S. is that trait variation (whether DNA or craniofacial anthropometry) would then be much greater between sub-groups within the three clusters than between the clusters themselves. For example, such a clustering conflates Indonesians and Manchurians, who are less similar in physical measurements than, say, Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans. If you then define four clusters by splitting Asians into northern (sinodont) and southern (sundadont) branches then you solve one problem, but now you conflate Khoisan, Watutsi, and Bantus, peoples whose measurements are not even similar. If you assume six global clusters then your measurements are more consistent but still not replicable. Twelve clusters gives better results. A hundred clusters is better yet, assuming a thousand clusters is much better, ten thousand is even better, and so forth.

In other words, if you divide humanity into five clusters (as did Coon for his subspecies) then the differences between any two of those clusters (Caucasoid and Congoid, say) are less replicable, measureable, or reliable, than the differences between sub-groups (sinodonts and sundadonts, say) within any of the five clusters. This non-replicability problem is lessened if you go with a hundred clusters. Replicability improves even more if you define ten thousand clusters. But (with one exception, explained below) the problem never goes away.

Given that the fineness of any clustering scheme is arbitrary (Cavalli-Sforza's word), then any assumption of number of clusters that results in different clusters (Caucasoid and Negroid, say) being more similar than subgroups within each cluster is not persuasive to a scientist. And so, finding clusters of traits that objectively define human groups has been the "holy grail" of physical anthropology for over two centuries. It is still being pursued.

In mathematical terms, equating "race" with "cluster" is equivalent to asking the question: "Is it possible to categorize H. sapiens into groups such that inter-group variation (physical differences between clusters) is greater than intra-group variation (differences between sub-groups within the clusters)?" If such a categorization scheme were ever discovered, it would biologically define human "races." Hundreds of scientists have sought to do this. All investigators, without exception, have found that the more clusters you define, the more objective and replicable the measurements get. But (with one exception) you never reach a point where inter-group variation exceeds intra-group variation.

Carleton Stevens Coon's The Origin of Races (New York: Knopf, 1962) offers an early example of the hopelessness of this pursuit. Coon (the greatest craniofacial anthropometrist of the 20th century) took this path and discovered many dozens of distinct "races" in Europe alone. [See Carleton Stevens Coon, The Races of Europe (New York,: Macmillan, 1939).] He was still working on defining the thousands of "races" in sub-Saharan Africa when he died.

Noah A. Rosenberg offers a present-day example of the same doomed grail-chase. [See http://backintyme.com/admixture/rosenberg01.pdf.] Rosenberg used meticulous statistical mapping programs in powerful computers to analyze hundreds of DNA markers in many thousands of subjects worldwide. He proved that if you tell the computer to identify three clusters in humankind, the results are better than if you tell it to find two clusters. Assuming four clusters is better yet, five is even better, and six is best of all. (Rosenberg quit at six.) The statistical trend that he found is unmistakable. There is no end to this pursuit (with one exception).

In short, even if you divide our species into millions of tiny clusters you will always find that there is more variation between sub-groups within each of those millions of clusters than there is between the clusters themselves.

The exception? You will reach the holy grail of cluster definition if you divide humankind into 6.5 billion clusters of one individual each. Only then does inter-group variation exceed intra-group variation. The variation between different individuals is greater than the variation among the cells of each individual.

In conclusion, you can show objectively, replicably, mathematically, that our species comprises only one biological "race" of 6.5 billion individuals. Or you can show that we comprise 6.5 billion biological "races" of one individual each. But no one has ever found anything in between.

Like I said, none of this has anything to do with the term "Negroid." -- Frank W Sweet 12:48, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is arguing that only division into 5 (or whatever fixed number) of buckets is the only possible or best possible system. The reference to Coon's 5-race system in this article was probably carried over from the Congoid article that was merged into this one, or from Capoid. Both of those terms only seem to be used in the context of Coon's 5-race classification, and I assume he coined them. Obviously "Negroid" is a term with much more history and not tied to Coon's five races or subspecies.

Actually, the prior text gave no source of its claim of "five global clusters". It did give a false source for its claim that "In a study of global genetic clusters at the level of ten clusters, sub-Saharan Africans were found to be one of of the clusters." But the basic problem was lack of attribution for the use the term "Negroid." -- Frank W Sweet 17:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

True, though you have said at least twice that this particicular Talk section has nothing to do with the term "Negroid", so I don't think I'm out of bounds in answering you :)

Certainly the previous text was confused. The closest match I see to a reference to 10 clusters in THaGoHG is a list of 9 clusters on p. 79, which includes all sub-Saharan Africans in one cluster, instead of separating Pygmies and Khoisan (and lumping those two in a single category would be unusual.)

THaGoHG does mention "Negroid" on p. 167-9. It is not accurate to call "Negroid" and similar terms completely obsolete and no longer valid; they are just de-emphasized.--JWB 19:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The test "that inter-group variation is greater than intra-group variation" has not been a requirement of any definition of race that I have previously seen. To state a particular definition only requires some discernable inter-group variation. There have been multiple conflicting definitions of race and of particular races, but this does not disqualify them from documentation in Wikipedia, which describes actual usage, and deals with multiple conflicting POV by describing all major POVs on an issue.

You are correct. In fact, there is an excellent (indeed, featured) Wiki article on just this very topic Race. But the article named at the top of this screen is only about the use of a word: "Negroid". -- Frank W Sweet 17:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Cavalli-Sforza does devote a good deal of discussion to which splits are stable between different clustering methods, different runs of the same clustering method, or between clustering on different data (e.g. genetic vs. anatomical). He concludes that the initial split between sub-Saharan Africans and others is very stable. The next several splits occur in different orders with different methods or data, but are still recognizable as similar to traditional racial definitions.--JWB 14:53, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with your last statement "similar to traditional racial definitions" because "traditional racial definitions" have varied (and continue to vary) all over the map and all over the calendar. Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Brazilians would strongly disagree with Americans as what is "traditional." And had you called an 1810 Louisiana Colored Creole slaveowner or a Florida Spanish grandee "black" or "negro" to his face he would have challenged you to a duel (if you were of his social rank) or shot you dead on the spot if you were not. Although its meaning may be obvious to you, the phrase "traditional racial definitions" cannot be defined objectively. For more on this, see the Wiki articles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_%28people%29 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_%28people%29 . But my agreement/disagreement with you regarding the objective definability of the phrase "traditional racial definitions" is irrelevant to the title at the top of this screen: "Negroid." -- Frank W Sweet 17:00, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the assumption that traditional racial categories have to completely classify all people and have to be completely consistent between various people's definitions. --JWB 19:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

2

I've been quite busy lately; sorry I haven't been around. P. 19 affirms the topic of the book, that there are clusters, or a "genetic tree" (Cavalli-Sforza), that correspond with anthropological history. Looking at how the population clusters at different levels of detail (5, 10, 17) shows the degree of relatedness between different groups. For example, this article used clustering at the level of 10 clusters to show North Africans are more related to Middle Easterners than sub-Saharan Africans. Unsurprisingly, at greater levels of detail these clusters divide into subclusters.

I don't think anyone here was talking about "races", if that was a concern. The "ten genetic clusters" statement was based on a secondary source, a review of an in-press book by Richard Lynn which uses ten clusters from Cavalli-Sforza's book for comparative analysis.[24] --Nectar 23:44, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

---

According to the online review that you link to, above, "[Lynn's book devotes] a chapter to each of the ten ‘‘genetic clusters’’ or population groups identified by Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza (1994), which Lynn regards as ‘‘races.’’" If this link was meant as a defense of the original fraudlent citation in the present article, it fails to grasp three vital points.

First, the present article fraudulently cited Cavalli-Sforza's book, not Lynn's as its source for the "ten clusters." That citation was fraudulent. Had it cited Lynn's non-peer-reviewed, self-published book, it would not have been fraudulent. (And it would have received the credibility that it deserves.)

Second, the linked-to online review claims that Lynn's "ten genetic clusters ... identified by Cavalli-Sforza." This claim is either mistaken or Lynn's book itself is fraudulent. If Lynn's book does not cite Cavalli-Sforza as source for the "ten clusters" then the online review is mistaken. If Lynn's book does cite Cavalli-Sforza for the "ten clusters" then Lynn's book itself is fraudulent. As explained above, Cavallis-Sforza nowhere finds "ten clusters." Cavalli-Sforza at various places in his book, shows: fifteen clusters on page 68, three clusters on page 70, fifteen clusters on page 71 (not the same ones as on page 68), seventeen clusters on page 72, forty-two clusters on page 79, two different sets of six clusters on page 79, and nine clusters on page 80. Nowhere are ten clusters shown. This debate is pointless. Open Cavalli-Sforza's book and see for yourself.

Third, your statement, above, that, "I don't think anyone here was talking about 'races'." Is either incredibly naive or deliberately misleading. The very online review that you linked to, above, says, "each of the ten 'genetic clusters' or population groups identified by Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi, and Piazza (1994), which Lynn regards as 'races.'" Read those last five words again: "which Lynn regards as 'races'." How much more bluntly could anyone put it? -- Frank W Sweet 12:57, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The point, of course, was that nobody participating in the editing of this page was talking about "races", not that researchers who cite Cavalli-Sforza's book don't consider clusters to be "races".--Nectar 04:53, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

How closely did you look at the book? Of the pages you note, the groups on p. 68 are population samples, the tree on p. 71 is based on anthropometrics, and the tree on p. 72 on skull metrics.

The genetic clusters referred to in Rushton's Personality and Individual Differences review refer to the 9 genetic clusters Cavalli-Sforza et al. find, listed on pp. 79-80 (aggregates of the 42 clusters on p. 78). The discrepancy is that Cavalli-Sforza et al. treat the Mbutiy Pygmy and San (Bushmen) as outliers, whereas Lynn treats them as a tenth cluster. Their outlying position can be seen in the two trees on p. 78, particularly the latter.

At any rate, what we can say is that Cavalli-Sforza regard the San and Mbuti as each being significantly distant from the West African, Bantu, and Nilotic people, even to the point of representing major branches of human history. Their positions on the two trees give them each an equal or greater phylogenetic distance from the surrounding populations than, for example, Indians from Europeans.--Nectar 07:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

If you can cite any recent peer-reviewed scholarly work in physical anthropology that supports the term "Negroid" please, please insert it. Any scholarly source on this would be eagerly welcomed. -- Frank W Sweet 15:48, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

African Continental Ancestry Group

I'm moving the information we had about the history of African peoples to African Continental Ancestry Group. This is the term used in the US National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) since 2004, when they deleted terms like "Black" and "White".(ctrl+f negroid)--Nectar 20:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

removed image. factual error.

I removed a map claiming to depict Coon's conclusions. The map does not match Coon's map. Coon's map shows the horn of Africa as "Caucasoid," not mixed. Also, Coon's map distinguishes "Capoids" as an entirely different "sub-species" of human, rather than lumping them in with "Congoids." Either remove the claim that the map reflects Coon, or fix the map to reflect Coon. -- Frank W Sweet 10:43, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

The last effort was closer, but Coon's map shows all of Siberia east of the Urals as "Mongoloid." Also, you misspelled "Australoid." -- Frank W Sweet 10:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

reverted unsourced POV

Someone removed the observation that "Negroid" is no longer used in science. If anyone can cite any recent peer-reviewed scholarly work in physical anthropology that supports the use of the term "Negroid" please insert it. Any scholarly source on this would be welcomed. We do not want to give the impression that no current scientist supports the use of the term "Negroid," if in fact any scientist does. If anyone knows of one who does, please cite his or her work. Until then, please keep unsubstantiated unsourced POV opinions out of the article. If you are unclear as to just what is a scholarly peer-reviewed source, I would be glad to explain it. (Hint: it is not a web page.) -- Frank W Sweet 01:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Frank, the term appears to now be mainly used in medical/genetic contexts.[25] [26] [27] For more references, see a sholar.google.com search for the term from 2004-2006. [28] --Nectar 03:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

That definitely looks worth pursuing. Also forensics. Here is a note that I wrote to Yom over in talk:Caucasoid:

It does not have to be anything out of the ordinary. All we really need is a journal article or a book from a university press. A web page reference is no good because anybody can put anything on a web page with nobody overseeing and checking it. "Negroid" and "Caucasoid" are still used routinely in forensics (to comply with U.S. government "races"), perhaps we could find a scholarly book or journal article on forensics (you know, like CSI stuff). Tell you what. I am out of town right now and won't be back home for a week. But when I get back, I will root around among my old anthro textbooks to see if I cannot find something on forensics that uses the two terms. I know there is stuff out there. In a college forensics class I once had to pass a test showing that I could distinguish a Caucasoid skull from a Mongoloid skull from a Negroid skull. The problem is that most people around here just want to repeat their unsubstantiated opinions over and over. But, dammit, that is not what Wiki is all about. In the meantime, before I get back, if you can find something on this (other than a web page), please post it. There are people here going nuts about it. Search on "forensics" and then try to get a book title, author, and publisher (or article name, journal name, and issue date. I am sure we can find some legitimate source if we try. I know there is stuff out there.

Nectar, I am going to continue searching, starting with your web links, above. But since I am on the road, I cannot access my library and so I need others' help in getting peer-reviewed book title, author, publisher (or article title, journal, issue date). We have to find something soon or the local zealots around here will go berserk. -- Frank W Sweet 03:28, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I see current usage of negroid in forensic contexts in this scholar.google search (see the first entry, for example).[29] Is there anything else that we need to find?--Nectar 04:02, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Dear Mr. Sweet, I have sited where terms like negroid are still used. Yes they are not used to describe subspecies but are used in forensic anthropology and now under a newer term cline. I have kept your info for both pages (caucasoid and negroid) but just made it more neutral. I have also cited where it is used. So please stop changing the article to push your agenda. Thank you. Zachorious 08:16, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You removed a quotation and cited reference to an acccepted college textbook and replaced it with a non-peer-revierwed, non-scholarly web page link. You have done this repeatedly despite the wiki standards for NOR and NPOV. Your behavior has begun to border on vandalism. -- Frank W Sweet 11:06, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

All of these terms Negro, Negroid were manufactured during the Mid-Atlantic slave trades and are considered offensive. There were used to dehumanize Africans in order to justify the treatment as chattle by deaming them as fraction of a man or human. I would question why you would want to argue the limited use of the term that is considered offensive to others as a basis for saying it is used. I work with several Anthropologist and the term has been deemed offensive. The fact that a limited number of individuals still are ignorant to this is not a reason to say it is still used. I had not decided to join this debate before but being that you state it is still widely accepted I have to object to that. Second I would have to ask if you yourself have a degree in this field? In reality Forensic Anthropology has proven to be wrong when describing people from Ethiopia, Sub-Saharan, and other regions of Africa. There are individuals that by this term would be classified by caucasoid or negroid but proved to be the opposite deaming this a non exact science. The term is widely obsolete with just a few individuals choosing to continue the acceptance. either through ignorance or by stubbornnes.--Gnosis 10:11, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Some prominent scientists may feel that way, but other prominent scientists feel the opposite way. We'll just report what can be agreed on, that these terms are in scientific usage, and give the specific domains in which they're used (medicine, genetics, and forensics). (A neutral encyclopedia wouldn't want to take sides in an active debate.)--Nectar 11:00, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge Caucasoid and Negroid

These two articles are becoming damned near identical. I propose to merge the two articles into one titled "Negroid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid," so that we only have to explain these obsolete terms only once: what they once meant and how they are used today in the last few remaining academic and professional venues where they are used. -- Frank W Sweet 11:38, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

"Obsolete" doesn't seem like the right term if Negroid is in current usage. Anthropologists and biologists have long disagreed on this stuff.--Nectar 13:25, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

You misunderstand, I am not going to put an adjective in the title of the merged article. I just want to merge them (with appropriate relay links) so that we dont have to repeat everything (and dont have to try and maintain it in two places). -- Frank W Sweet 13:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Obsolescence of Terms Caucasoid and Negroid

Since the issue of the terms' obsolence is contentious, it deserves a subsection of its own. I can use all the help that I can get. I how have several recent articles that use the terms "Negroid" or "Caucasoid" and I will cite them in the appropriate section (either admixture mapping, medicine, or forensics). On the other hand, no one has yet found a scholarly, peer-reviewed source (NOT an unsubstantiated web page!) that actually advocates either of the terms. -- Frank W Sweet 13:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

If anyone can find any such evidence of academic advocacy or support, I ask them to please post it here. Please do not rant. Just post the goddam article citation if you can find one. Incidentally, I do not need the opposite. I already have oodles of scholarly, peer-reviewed articles and, more importantly, highly reputable journal editors' current instructions that any use of the obsolete terms will cause an article to be rejected. -- Frank W Sweet 13:43, 15 April 2006 (UTC)