Years ago while working security we had the LAPD come and teach a race sensitivity course. The instructor was trying to inform us the difference between Mexicans, Hispanics and Latino. (as I’m sure you know unknowingly referring to any of these groups incorrectly can be fighting words) Anyways during the session the instructor called one of my bosses a Caucasian. This made him upset being he was Irish and said the Caucasian’s were a tribe/group of Vikings who robed, murdered and raped across the coast and his ancestry wasn’t made up of murders and rapist. Of course he gave more info then that but I don’t remember most of it. I also can’t seem to find any info confirming this. Any truth to it? Anytime I have to fill out demographics I end up having to check that Caucasian box as I know the current use of the word just means white.
No, that’s a bunch of hooey. The term comes from the peoples of the Caucusus, an area of eastern Europe, because early historians thought white people spread from there. The original inhabitants probably weren’t very friendly but they weren’t coastal inhabitants (much less pirates or Vikings).
Your boss was a loon. As a racial grouping, Caucasian applies to virtually all the original inhabitants of Europe, including both the Vikings and Irish. As has been said, the name derives from people of the Caucasus mountains between Europe and Asia, who were regarded as most typical of the group.
The Vikings did in fact rape and pillage along the coast of Ireland for around two hundred years starting in the late 700s, eventually founding many settlements and intermarrying with the locals. This means that virtually all people of Irish descent (including your boss) have some Viking ancestry somewhere (as do most people of northern Europe).
Well read, though - he must have gotten the idea from Ynglingasaga (the first chapter of Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla).
Damn, Colibri beat me to it. As he observes, the Vikings settled all over the place, France and England included.
Are you sure your boss wasn’t trying to be sarcastic? Because if someone tried to tell me that Hispanics, Latinos, and Mexicans are three different things I’d probably laugh at them.
Now go ahead and tell me I’m an ignorant racist. I don’t care.
Also, Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese are all Asian.
If you make this claim on a regular basis I’m sure someone has tried to correct you at some point.
You’re not necessarily racist, but you’re certainly extremely ignorant (and apparently willfully so). You might try to look up the definitions of the three terms before claiming they are identical. In any case, it should be obvious to anyone that all Hispanics and Latinos are not Mexicans.
But all Asians are not Chinese, which is what you’re claiming by saying that Latino is synonymous with Mexican.
And good old Thor Heyerdahl really got into the Asia-Scandinavia thing, but focusing on Azerbaijan and such when I think most people believe the references to old Norse gods coming from the south refer to areas well west of there. E.g., Njord is said to have come from Asia Minor “when the Roman Empire was expanding”.
Conversely to the OP’s loon, the Irish went all barbarian on Scotland, invading, settling, etc. Even giving the name to the country. But you don’t see any Picts getting all upset up that.
Well yeah because they’re all…
oh.
Well, it’s not that easy to find any Picts to provide eye-witness reports these days. That’s why the Irish and today’s Scots keep denying that such a thing occurred. They all say: “Picts, or it didn’t happen.”
I’ll be here all week, folks.
You can keep talking till you are blue in the face but I won’t listen to such nonsense.
And famously, the Irish introduced the bagpipes to Scotland. It’s just that the Jocks haven’t seen the joke yet.
Sorry, I missed orientation day.
Also, not so much willfully ignorant as just apathetic. This is not something I’ve ever encountered, and it has no bearing whatsoever on my life.
And yet you took the time and effort to dump your nugget of wisdom in this thread.
It is my understanding that the term “caucasian”, although no coined there, has been used and is still being used almost exclusively in the US. For instance, I’ve read several translations from English to German in which the expression “caucasian” had been translated with “kaukasisch” and usually, everybody is scratching their heads and wondering why the white folks in America supposedly all come from the Caucasus.
There is nothing inherently Scottish or Irish about bagpipes. It just so happens that bagpipes have remained popular in the British isles while they have become passe in many other places where they were historically played. The Roman Emperor Nero is commonly perceived in modern culture as a fiddler - historical evidence indicates that he was actually a bagpiper. Also see ppfpd.org.
Others have already pointed out that Mexico is only one country in Latin America. Hispanic and Latino also have distinct meanings although there is a greater overlap between them. Hispanics are people who are from or who trace their ancestry back to a Spanish-speaking country. Latinos are people who are from or who trace their ancestry back to Latin America. So a person from Spain is Hispanic but not Latino while a person from Brazil is Latino but not Hispanic.
I think the boss was just trying to make a point in an ironic fashion - you have to be ultra-careful about using the terms “Latino”, “Hispanic”, or “Mexican”, but it’s OK to refer to all whites, whether their descent is Anglo-Saxon, German, Irish, Italian, Scandinavian, Polish…as “Caucasian”? It’s OK to lump him in the same category as marauding Vikings?
At least, that’s my take on his reaction.
Little Nemo:
I’m rather certain that people from Spain do not consider themselves “Hispanic,” and Americans who are of direct Spanish ancestry (including descendants of the original Spanish settlers of California and the American Southwest) have a different term for themselves, which slips my mind at the moment.
ETA: Hispano
Then he’s still a moron, because you don’t have to be “ultra-careful” about using Latino or Hispanic.