White
Related: "dead white male" trope - ethnicity - "white" culture - white music - "white slavery" trope - White Negro
Contrast: black
Usage, Symbolism, Colloquial Expressions
- The term white is often used in the USA to denote "race" for so-called Caucasian people, i.e. people of European/West-Asian descent with light skin color, whose skin color actually ranges from pink to pale brown, and overlaps with some people that might be classified as "black".
- White noise, in acoustics, is a sibilant sound that is often a nuisance, although it can also be deliberately created for test purposes.
- Whitewash, figuratively, means an attempt to obscure the truth by issuing a blanket of lies. See propaganda.
- Whiteout is a weather condition in which visibility is reduced and surface definition lost in snowy environments.
- In Chinese tradition, white is the color of mourning, death, and ghosts.
- White is the traditional color of bridal dress in both western (/European) and Japanese weddings.
- White is often associated with Conservatism, particularly in the years following World War I, with Civil Wars fought between "Reds" and "Whites", for instance the Civil War in Russia and the Civil War in Finland.
- A white flag is an international sign of either surrender, or truce, i.e., of peaceful intent, typically at time of war.
- The white ribbon is worn by movements denouncing violence against women. It is also worn by some feminists and was a symbol for peace in Quebec, in the beginning of 2003, as part of the popular opposition to war on Iraq.
Caucasian race
The term Caucasian race is used almost exclusively in North America to mean "white" or of European ancestry, especially in government and census forms (see Caucasian type). In the United States, it is currently used primarily as a distinction based solely on skin color; however, it was once considered a useful taxonomical categorization of human racial groups based on a presumed common geographic, linguistic, and/or genetic origin.The term itself derives from measurements in craniology from the 19th century, and its name stems from the fact that its various ethnic groups were thought to have been originally from the region of the Caucasus mountains, itself imagined to be the location of Mount Ararat (where Noah's Ark eventually landed according to Biblical legend).
Historically the term has been used to refer to people of European, Semitic, North African, Iranian-Afghan descent, as well as a very small mionority of the various peoples from the Indian Subcontinent.
In Europe, "Caucasian" currently refers almost exclusively to people who are from the Caucasus. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race [Jun 2005]
White trash
White trash (extended: poor white trash) is a racial epithet usually used to describe certain low income caucasians, especially those characterized by crude manners or abnormally low moral standards. According to Oxford English Dictionary, "white trash" first came into common use in the 1830s as an American pejorative used by the slaves of "gentlemen" (rich white Southerners, often plantation aristocrats) against poor Caucasians who worked in the field. The term involves both behavioral characteristics (such as mannerisms, lifestyle) and overt racial characteristics (whiteness). The term is probably used most frequently in the Southeast region of the United States. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_trash [Jun 2005]Whiteness studies
Whiteness studies is a controversial branch of academic scholarship which emerged circa 1997. As of 2004, according to The Washington Post, at least 30 institutions including Princeton University, the University of California at Los Angeles, and University of Massachusetts Amherst currently offer courses in whiteness studies.The central tenet of whiteness studies is a reading of history in which the very concept of race is said to have been created by a white power structure in order to justify discrimination against nonwhites. Advocates of whiteness studies argue that whites do not see their own whiteness racially, but regard race as something that "others" have; by emphasizing "whiteness," they seek to change white Americans' view of their own racial identity.
Critics deride the field as a fad, or as a mask for racism against whites. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteness_studies [Aug 2004]
A white romance with black music [...]
[...] (re)searching the life and times of first club DJ star Larry Levan, who stands at the crossroads of disco music and house music. My CDs. My white music and black music, and the music in between. AND dance music.Angry white male
Angry, white, male.White Women - Helmut Newton
White Women, Helmut Newton's legendary first work, appeared more than twenty years ago. With its superior mixture of aesthetics, technical perfection and bourgeois decadence it has lost nothing of its potency and attractiveness. Newton's work encompasses a wealth of themes, also embodying facets of the mass-media world of glamour, masquerade and show. Using subtle, yet striking images--like those of Paloma Picasso, Veruschka, Elsa Peretti, Karl Lagerfeld, David Hockney, and Charlotte Rampling--Newton embraces the delicate, natural beauty of the naked female body. White Women is a masterpiece of erotic visual literature. --via Amazon.com