"Caucasian-American": How language breeds inequality in the USA

When people think about White Supremacy in the United States of America, rightfully so, they most likely think first to the most overt images stored in their memory: the confederate flag, the KKK, slavery, countless instances of white police brutality, the faces of proud white supremacists, perhaps even the current president. They might think of angry white men marching with tiki torches in the night. In instance of a racial slur being thrown. We default to these images because they are powerful and carry significant semantic value in American culture as a whole (though of course in very different ways). You can't be an American and not experience some kind of gut emotional reaction to these images. It's why we remember them. 

What most people don't think about, and what they often don't see are the smaller but equally powerful and fundamental systems that structure our everyday lives and that perpetuate the ideology of inequality driven by institutions. 

I'm talking about language, the very system by which we are coded to understand the world. But not the kind of explicit language used as actionable violence. I'm talking about the language that reflects the deep institutional methods of discrimination that have been around since the moment the Declaration of Independence was signed. 

Whenever I go to fill out a form in American form and scan the options of "race", I always hesitate, sadly for the most privileged of reasons, and I should recognize at this point that I am writing from the perspective of a Cis-white male. But I'm also writing from the perspective of a Third Culture Kid, born to White American parents but raised in Europe. My proximity to Europe also means I acknowledge my European heritage; I'm a 1st, 3rd (Scottish Grandmother) and 5th (German ancestors) generation American. 

So whenever I'm filling out my race, I'm always confused, expecting (logically) "European-American" in line with the general categorical trend of (continent of origin) + "American" but instead being met with the "Caucasian-American" option. The term breaks my mind not only because it circumvents the established logic, but because it's entirely ambiguous, as a term seldom used or heard in the English language at all. 

What the hell does "Caucasian-American" even mean?

Investigating the etymology of the word is where things get especially weird. (Disclaimer: Most of this comes from Wikipedia). Historically the term "Caucus" refers to a specific region of the world, situated between the Black and Caspian Sea and consisting of modern day Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, the term derived from the ancient name for the indigenous people. While people from the region would qualify under the term's categorical use in the American context, it by no means encompasses the largely Northern European diorama of the first colonial settlers and makes little sense in describing the people spanning across the continent, at least in strictly modern terms. But we'll get back to that.

The word, in it's more popularly used sense, is uniquely American, both in it's origins and it's use. A "caucus" is "a meeting of the local members of a political party especially to select delegates to a convention or register preferences for candidates running for office" (from the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition). The term derives from the first Boston Caucus, a political organization which would play an important role in the lead up to the American Revolution and become the inspiration for the modern caucus system in American politics. 

Past that, however, the etymology is murky, with some saying it originates from Algonquian (indigenous native American language group) word for "counsel" or the Algonquian word "cawaassough", meaning an advisor, talker, or orator (though I would consider this a fairly altruistic etymology considering how Native Americans were treated by the colonialists). Alternatively it derived from the medieval Latin "caucus" meaning "drinking vessel". The term also coincides with the spread of "cocues", special inns in England and America where one could get the new-at-the-time popular drink "gin", also known as "cuckoo liquor." 

The final etymological track actually relates back to the first through biological anthropology, with "Caucasoids" being an outdated biological grouping from the 1780s, placing it's origins in the geographical Caucuses and referring to one of 3 anthropological races (the other two being the Negroids and Mongoloids). Anthropology has since moved away from describing human diversity through typological "races," instead focusing on race as a social construct depending on ancestry, phenotype and culture. 

So, from the etymology, one can interpret the term "Caucasian-American" as being associated with the very first Americans to be involved in the political organization of America (and therefore the first kinds of Americans to which voting rights were granted and/or intended), or as a now out-of-date racial categorization from a time when European powers were on a colonial rampage and before Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, when theories of human anthropology were trying to explain "biological differences" between Europeans and other civilizations. 

Nice. 

But things don't stop there. "Caucasian-American" has now become synonymous with "White American", though the truth of the matter is that the ambiguity of the term means that people of North African, Central Asian or Middle-Eastern origin can be included as Caucasian Americans and excluded as White Americans. The categorizations of socially constructed color and race don't line up, but that doesn't matter to whoever qualifies for both the category of "White" and "Caucasian" (people of European origin).  

But the thing that irks me the most about the term is how it creates an "exceptionalism" between whoever encompasses the "Caucasian" prefix and everyone else, basing itself in the theories of racial supremacy from which the term originated. Efforts to legitimize it in Algonquian origins, regardless of whether that part of the story is true or not, are probably just ways in which White supremacists tried to legitimize their authority over the new world, while using terms such as a "American-Indians" to incorrectly refer to Native Americans and distance their authority over the land they lived on for generations. 

"Caucasian-American", because of it's double-meaning makes a clear difference between who is included and excluded from the political system, in a way saying "only people of Caucasian origins are allowed to vote." And so it's clear from the beginning who the political system was built in mind for; disenfranchised Europeans. 

But then why not just use the term "European American?" 

Because the unspoken purpose of the US founding documents, by function of the American Revolution, is to cut ties as much as possible with the cultural authorities of the old world. Where the mirroring French Revolution is about overthrowing the cultural authorities in power, recognizing the mistakes of the past and renovating themselves, the American revolution was more towards burying the mistakes of their ancestors and declaring themselves independent and anew under "Caucasian" culture. But of course simply "declaring" a culture doesn't undo generations of traditions and cultural values, and in fact many of the traditions found undesirable in the old world end up manifesting in the United States, welcomed as part of the new culture instead of suppressed as being harmful to enlightenment values (and thus the US's counter-"culture of ignorance" is born and thrives to this day), where during the French Revolution they were rooted out and relegated to historical study. Hence terms like "Caucasian" remained in use in America. 

Unfortunately this allowed a lot of the ejected and destructive aspects of European culture, such as superstition (think the Salem Witch trials) and laws surrounding bloodline purity and inheritance, and cultural supremacy (that put Europe in a state of perpetual war) to take root in the foundations of the USA and gain legitimacy. Ideas such as "White supremacy" (disproved and discarded in Europe) by enlightenment values were only able to make a veritable comeback in Europe, and specifically, Germany following a devastating World War and the consequential vast economic reparations, famine, chaotic transition to a relatively powerless republic, territorial secession, hyperinflation, occupation of industrial territories and a nail in the coffin Great Depression. 

Post World War II America became rich off of it's veneer of exceptionalism, one justified not by the roots of American culture but by European-Americans (such as the influx of refugees and immigrants from and following World War II), enlightenment Americans and from time to time American minorities who were able to obstruct the cult of ignorance by to adapt and live up to the true protestant Judeo-Christian values (present in other major religions too), the same values that the revolutionaries in Europe sought to disentangle with the corrupt authorities of old during the enlightenment; values of peace, inclusion, empathy, love and respect for all humans, as well as the enlightenment values surrounding the pursuit of science and truth. 

However, this only served to give American exceptionalism and the cult of ignorance false legitimacy and wealth, ignorance that would undo progress again and again as it was entwined with America's institutions. So instead of heeding the lessons of history, revising and improving, Caucasian authorities instead took the lazy route and in cycles subject the people who they find themselves sharing the continent with: Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Pacific Islanders, Latin-Americans, Native Americans, and by the equally illogical categorizations of color, for whom the Caucuses weren't intended, because they were excluded at the founding of the country and because they are of a "different race". And yet they're kept close enough to the chest to prevent them from developing any cultural autonomy or authority that can rival the corrupted Caucasian culture (though on many occasions African-Americans came close). 

The irony here is that, when the US turned it's attention towards the Middle East, things became complicated as the system of categorization didn't work for discriminating against people from the Middle East (conventionally considered European). So instead of racial discrimination, they turned to religious discrimination, using terms like "Arabs" and "Muslims" and by extension "brown people" (though this created confusion with Indians, who are often classified as Asian-Americans or earn their own racial classification of Indian-American). This happened similarly during the Cold War, where the US had to demonize Russians (another White, Christian peoples, caught in European limbo) along lines of economic ideology, as "Communists" in order to reinforce themselves as the center of White Supremacy. Of course the USSR collapsed, too, under a cult of ignorance. 

So the insidiousness behind the word "Caucasian" is not just White supremacy, it's American + White Supremacy, that dictates that "Caucasian-Americans" are superior to even their European ancestors. A superiority that in this day and age, to anyone remotely scientifically literate and embodies those enlightenment values, is clearly delusional. 

The fact that "Caucasian-American" still comes up on US Census forms should ring alarm bells. 

This is just one word in the English language. One word. Not commonly used from day to day, in fact, one could say it is "invisible." And yet that one word is printed on millions of documents, it's used by legitimate organizations, it pervades American society from the beginning. And until that word is disentangled with America's White Supremacist cultural-authority, or a new equal authority is constructed (entirely possible at this point) the people will never, quite literally by the definition of the term "Caucasian-American", be created equal. The term "Caucasian" is not just a racist term. It's a term of ignorance. 

I am not a Caucasian-American, at least I strive not to be in spirit, because, as it seems, to be a Caucasian is to be ignorant of your historical and cultural background. I am a European-American, in my ancestry and my upbringing. I recognize my history, and I value it's teachings, good and bad. To pretend like it doesn't exist is like pretending racism doesn't exist.