"White" in USA means "Anglo-Saxon Protestants + some groups we accept as close enough".
Makes no sense, but the whole idea of races is dumb from the start (same skin color is a very bad proxy for DNA similarity), so it's pointless to correct them.
Calling anyone in the US "Anglo-Saxon" is already buying in to a mythology about ethnic origins. Even in England I doubt you'll find many people whose ancestry is derived mainly from the Angle and Saxon tribes as opposed to being a mix of pre-Celtic British, Celtic, Norman, other Germanic, etc.
And Protestantism didn't exist until centuries after the Anglo-Saxons stopped being identifiable groups, if they ever were
"white" is a racist label that does not take into account the complexity of world history. It may be reasonable to use it in contexts of historical racism, e.g. in America (where many Slavic people were almost absent) or Sub-Saharan Africa (zero Slavic presence during colonial times), but it just does not make much sense elsewhere, e.g. it's absolutely irrelevant when describing ethnic tensions between Slavs and Caucasians or Central Asians.
ajuc|5 months ago
Makes no sense, but the whole idea of races is dumb from the start (same skin color is a very bad proxy for DNA similarity), so it's pointless to correct them.
griffzhowl|5 months ago
And Protestantism didn't exist until centuries after the Anglo-Saxons stopped being identifiable groups, if they ever were
peterfirefly|5 months ago
It's actually a remarkably good one. If we continue to mix for several hundred years more then it won't be. For now, it is.
EnPissant|5 months ago
ivan_gammel|5 months ago