Talk:White Australian

Merge the article into European Australian?

The proposal to merge the two items do not make much sense. Being white is not synonymous with European. Also Arabs and people from the Caucasus are white (so regarded even by US Census Bureau) and many people of the Americas, being them mostly in countries such as USA, Canada, Argentina or Uruguay are also white. I'm North African - not European - and I'm white.--Isinbill (talk) 01:56, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

You said the US. Being white is different from country to country, and as Australia does not collect data on such, this is a neologism of the author's imagination. '''tAD''' (talk) 18:49, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Given the term White Australia policy, this is hardly a neologism. It is a term of historical significance, with usage dating to over a century ago. wbm1058 (talk) 00:23, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

White Australia has redirected to White Australia policy since 2002. wbm1058 (talk) 00:26, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

The above idea that Arabs and North Africans are White Australians because they are considered white in the US (which does not rule Australia believe it or not) assumes that there is a one-size-fits-all approach in which every human being has a "race" that is innate to them; it is in fact a social construct. Arabs, such as the large Lebanese society in Australia do not see themselves or are seen as "white" in Australia, whatever their DNA or their skin colour is. [1] [2] [3] [4] The OP mentions being North African and calls himself white, fine for him, but you'd be hard pushed to find a French or German citizen of NA ancestry who sees themselves as such in those societies. Wallachia Wallonia (talk) 22:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

However I support "White Australian" linking to this disambiguation page and not to European Australians as the two don't fully overlap as they would in some other countries - those links I found also mentioned Greeks as "other" to white. I am not Australian but to the best of my knowledge the case is that Italians, Greeks and former Yugoslavs have been or are still "othered" in that country. Wallachia Wallonia (talk) 23:11, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

White Australian (disambiguation)

I created a disambiguation page for White Australian (disambiguation). It is designed to resolve the issue of what the word means in different contexts. It does not necessarily mean European Australian, nor the American definition either. If there are no major criticisms, then I will redirect White Australian to this disambiguation page or merge the two pages. Travelmite (talk) 09:25, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

It's a nonstarter to "merge" content from articles into a disambiguation page. This isn't really a valid disambiguation. There is no White Australian (band), or White Australian (film), or White Australian (song), or White Australian (book)... This is a WP:Broad-concept article, and while it could be written in list form, generally topics like this are best covered in prose, as it was in this version, before the article was redirected out of existence. – wbm1058 (talk) 00:39, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

There is a discussion fork at Talk:European Australians#White Australian (disambiguation). – wbm1058 (talk) 00:59, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

This just reverted the article back 4 years. There are no references. This is now messy, with two articles instead of one. This action is against the discussion thread just started and previous comments by other editors. Is it your intention to act so unilaterally? Travelmite (talk) 16:30, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Do you think that having separate articles for European Americans and White Americans is messy too? If not, what's the difference between America and Australia? wbm1058 (talk) 18:49, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Redirecting White Australian to White Australian (disambiguation) put these pages into the WP:MALPLACED work queue, which is how I found this. wbm1058 (talk) 18:53, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Where I think you are going with this is that you want to move White Australian (disambiguation) to White Australian, as you seem to be saying that there is no primary topic for the title. If you really want to merge content, and not delete it by redirection, then you need to be more specific about what you want to merge. The European Australians article is weak on the concept of "white". wbm1058 (talk) 19:05, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

Firstly, we need not use Americans as a reference, as it's a different country, with a different history and legal system. As you may observe in the article White people (which I never edited) there are a variety of understandings across different nations. White Australian was originally redirected to European Australian, which several people disagreed with, because of the historic White Australia Policy. If you would like to see more appropriate examples: Black Australians, White Russian, Macedonian. In these examples, the reader can decide which context of the term they want to read about, and I argue that it could resolve the issue here, such as avoiding original research. The messiness is that I setup the talk pages for any discussion prior making long-term changes, and now there's an extra 2014 era page with no references. Travelmite (talk) 19:42, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what legal systems have to do with topics relating to race and ethnic groups. America and Australia have more in common regarding their history than I suspect many care to admit. In both cases the indigenous people were dominated by the colonists, who eventually made themselves the dominant ethnic group. This is in contrast to the history of Rhodesia and South Africa, where whites remain in the minority. The article Australia's Secret History as a White Utopia finds Australian history to be "much like the United States". wbm1058 (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

For your interest, of course there are some similarities, but also differences. The blog post is historically correct as an overview, and informative, but also has conclusions lacking nuance. In my opinion, he seems to be trying to establish relevance to an American audience. Australia's racism was based on the attitudes of officials, rather than laws. For "White Australian" there was no legal/governmental definition. Even during the early 20th century White Australia Policy, officials were left to decide about any migrant, and courts just upheld their capacity to decide. In contrast, I understand that US courts had to decide who was a White American and so there's ample legal information about how they decided. Consequently, that article has ample sources. Travelmite (talk) 10:45, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Discussion of the past edit history and next steps

I double-checked the history and the page has been redirected since 2015 at least. Past editors have made a merge. Travelmite (talk) 19:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I responded on the topic of the 2014 "merge" at Talk:European Australians#White Australian (disambiguation). – wbm1058 (talk) 14:14, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

While I don't disagree with these last edits, you're making adjustments to a page others dispensed with for four years. I don't know why you're bypassing the talk section either. Travelmite (talk) 13:05, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I changed your proposal to take the European Australians article off the table. My modified proposal is to merge White Australian (disambiguation) into White Australian. This is a problematic proposal because I agree that the current version of White Australian is poorly referenced, and I don't care to take time now to work on it. Ideally we would have more participation in this discussion, but I don't think we should leave the status quo in place for months or years while waiting for others to respond either. So this is my expedited proposal which I hope you can agree to:

1. Move White Australian to White Australians without leaving behind a redirect, to clear the page for moving the disambiguation, and to preserve that page history for anyone who might want to develop that article in the future. White Australians has no substantive history, so is free for this purpose.
2. Move White Australian (disambiguation) to White Australian (per WP:MALPLACED).
3. Redirect White Australians to White Australian.
4. Remove the merge proposal; no merge to be done at this time.
5. Leave this talk page right here, so it becomes the talk page for Talk:White Australian (disambiguation), rather than making it a {{talk page of redirect}}.

OK? wbm1058 (talk) 15:01, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good proposal. I wasn't even aware there was a White Australians (plural) page. Travelmite (talk) 09:23, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done wbm1058 (talk) 10:05, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Oh! It's done. Thanks for that :) Travelmite (talk) 11:08, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Broad-concept article

Some editors may be tempted to tag this disambiguation as a {{Broad-concept article}}. Feel free to work on the broad-concept article which is in the page history of White Australians. You may move White Australians to Draft:White Australians to work on it. – wbm1058 (talk) 10:18, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

White people

There is a sentence in the white people article needing disambiguation: The concept of whiteness has particular resonance in racially diverse countries with large majority or minority populations of more or less mixed European ancestry: e.g., in the United States (White Americans), Canada (White Canadians), Australia (White Australians), New Zealand (White New Zealanders), the United Kingdom (White British), Brazil (White Brazilians), and South Africa (White South Africans). I'm not sure whether to conform with the White Canadians and White New Zealanders redirects, or make it an intentional link to disambiguation. The other countries don't seem to have a problem with having articles about their White people. wbm1058 (talk) 10:50, 16 July 2018 (UTC)