Talk:White people

Significant Issues with Population Figures

I might just be radically misreading the chart under "Census and social definitions in different regions," but I'm seeing wild population numbers and nonsensical Year entries. Looks like someone went through and entered or edited numbers at random. CommissarOfMysticalPastaShapes (talk) 03:39, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Sadly that is entirely normal for demographic data on Wikipedia. An absurd attempt to compile a single table from multiple sources, dating from different times, answering different questions, all in regard to a subject where anyone even remotely familiar with the topic will be aware that 'whiteness' is inherently subjective, and that the same people will give differing responses depending on context. And more often than not, such tables are riddled with 'data' that doesn't match the source cited - sometimes due to ill-informed attempts to 'update' the table without also updating the source, but often simple vandalism, or ethnoboosting for one reason or another - the last clearly assisted through the ability to cherry-pick ones preferred data source to cite in a table. Wikipedia policy on original research supposedly forbids synthesis, and were it properly enforced, would prohibit such data-concoctions, but nobody much seems to give a damn. Tables look like real data, and appearance trumps reliability. AndyTheGrump (talk) 09:56, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Andy makes some very good points here. I've been concerned about this problem for a long time and my suspicion is that any systematic analysis of demographic tables would reveal that the majority contain at least some figures that are made up or not supported by reliable sources. I've sometimes thought about what a serious attempt to deal with this would look like, but the problem feels too overwhelming for me to even know where and how to start that conversation. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:25, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

When I posted this earlier today, I was reminded of a previous discussion we had about this. I've just found it, at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1123#User:Siggfried persistently adding unsourced population figures to Arabs in Belgium. Perhaps we should write an essay on the characteristics of what Andy there called "dubious ethno-boosterism". Cordless Larry (talk) 19:54, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 May 2024

Add white trash to see also section. 2600:6C50:7EF0:71E0:850:28DB:D2EE:6D8E (talk) 07:18, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done Charliehdb (talk) 09:39, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

I feel that this term is too specific to the US for it to be included here in this more general article, so I'm reverting this addition pending further discussion. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:01, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

I didn't want to wade into this when I first saw the edit request (which I just decided to ignore), but I guess I will now that there is a request for discussion. As a white American, yeah, this seems way too specific to the US for a "See also" inclusion. In particular, while anyone described as white trash would be white, that term is heavily class-based and not really applied to white people in general by anyone's usage. And again, I doubt it's used outside the US, making it dubious for this article which is much broader. CAVincent (talk) 09:33, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

This article needs to be cleaned up.

We absolutely need more emphasis on the social significance of this topic, and much less bloat consisting of regional definitions of whiteness. This article is severely cluttered with the latter. Alexander Shipfield (talk) 12:10, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Missing countries

Lots of missing countries in the census information. Germany, and many others. Request for those to be added in please. 184.57.56.79 (talk) 03:33, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Germany has a problematic history with racial classification. At least according to Wikipedia, such information is not collected by today's German government. Really, that whole section is a mess, not least because of the unresolvable problem of differing definitions of "white people". The article would arguably be better without the section. CAVincent (talk) 04:41, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Can we fix the percentages of African countries?

The percentages in African countries are way off. For example Kenya says 42,800 White people is 2% of the population. This would imply Kenya only has a population of 2 million people. Malawi and Morocco are also inaccurate (0.06% and 0.03% respectively) Can we change the percentages of these? Or possibly remove it for being such a small portion of these countries populations? Otterstone (talk) 04:16, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Questionable map

The disputed map

The main map placed in the page is very inconsistent and inaccurate for specifically Latin America. Places such as Jalisco and the north of Mexico are shown with almost no European ancestry even though the ancestry of the region is comparable to the southern cone of South America and Costa Rica. Not only that, one state would have predominantly European ancestry whereas a bordering state has almost none which makes no sense considering the demographic history of Latin America, even more so for Mexico where 1/3-2/5 (30-40%) of the population are European descended. I am also not sure how Chiapas and Yucatán have more European ancestry than the central north region of Mexico. For Colombia as well I see it’s very inaccurate as Nariño and the southern Andes of Colombia are somehow predominantly European even though the people there are indistinguishable from Ecuadorians, and your basis being that “40% are white in Colombia and 47% are mestizo” despite the fact that those numbers are made up and aren’t proven by any source and most sources state in fact that 20% are European, 50-60% re mestizo and the rest are ethnic populations, I recommend reading into the sources in Race and ethnicity in Colombia and adjusting the map from that. There are also other places in the world that have European ancestry that the map doesn’t show. ElMexicanotres (talk) 23:56, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

And this is based from several sources across the specific Wikipedia pages related to these ethnic groups. I recommend you view Ethnic groups in Latin America instead as it provides a better insight to the actual demographics of the region. ElMexicanotres (talk) 00:14, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The over-arching problem here is WP:OR, specifically WP:SYNTH. Images from Commons are not a hack to bypass the need for reliable sources. That's what this map represents. Further, the map has a very, very long list of qualifications in its description at Commons:File:European Ancestry Large.svg, including a paragraph that starts "This is NOT a map of the White race, just an "European ancestry" map." None of this context was included, it was just presented as if it were an accepted bland fact.

Unlike many of these racial/ethnic maps on Commons, this one at least appears to be made with good intentions... or maybe not. There is a lot of racist junk science on Commons, so it's hard to tell. This map would need far, far, far more context and many reliable sources before it would belong in this article, and especially in the lead. Grayfell (talk) 00:23, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The Page European emigration also has this exact map, what shall we do with it for now? ElMexicanotres (talk) 01:52, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning that. I have removed it and started a discussion at that article: Talk:European_emigration#European_Ancestry_map. Grayfell (talk) 04:07, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Just adding two cents: I'd agree that the recently removed map is a mess of OR and SYNTH. Given differing definitions of whiteness and even "Europeanness", this would likely be an irresolvable problem for *any* map attempting to display a global distribution of white people. Also, a lengthy set of qualifications would defeat the purpose of a simple at-a-glance map graphic, and without qualifications the map is more misleading than informative. The article is fine without it. CAVincent (talk) 04:28, 31 October 2024 (UTC)