'Caucasian'

This post was inspired by a recent article in the New York Times about the politics surrounding the word "Caucasian."  I didn't think anyone else cared about the frequent misuse of this word.  People using it seem to think that it's a more politically correct term for "white," but the term's history suggests that those who think it is more "dispassionate" or "scientific" should probably dig a little deeper. "Caucasian" was first used to describe Europeans in the late 1700's by German philosophers and scientists who were in the process of creating modern definitions of race.  Bruce David Baum, in The Rise and Fall of the Caucasian Race, describes the belief, common at that time, that humans originated in the Caucasus mountains, as that was where Noah's Ark landed and hence the nexus of human repopulation of the earth after the Flood.  Noah's descendants were supposed to have given rise to all the civilized cultures of the known world, from the Indian subcontinent all the way over to Nordic Europe.  Other races then "degenerated" from the (supposedly) white people who were left stranded on Mount Ararat after the waters receded.  The early anthropologists saw humans through this racist lens, interpreting current conditions to fit these (now obviously discredited) origin stories.  For example, Georgians, as direct descendants of the forerunners of modern humans, were thought to possess exceptional natural beauty and intelligence.  Although many different racial distinctions and sub-distinctions were subsequently created, each schema had one thing in common: using bogus tools like phrenology and craniometry to set up "Caucasians" as the "superior" race, both in terms of physical qualities and innate intelligence.  Later racist theories about "Aryans" and the like are rooted directly in these early thinkers, most notably Christoph Meiners and Johann Blumenbach.

So, I cannot begin to describe how frustrated I get when I hear some third-year medical student describe a patient - thinking that they're being all officious and scientific - as a "63-year-old Caucasian gentleman."  First, how do you know he's a gentleman?  Did he hold the door for you?  Did he throw his cloak over a mud puddle so you could step across it without getting your satin slippers dirty?  Second, do you understand the background of what you're saying when you call that "white" guy a Caucasian?  Because unless you're trying to invoke three centuries of bullshit pseudoscientific institutional racism, I suggest that you just admit the essential arbitrariness of the racial categories and call your patient a "63-year-old white man."