White people  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

This reproduction of a 1900 minstrel show poster, originally published by the Strobridge Litho Co., shows the transformation from white to "black".

James Whistler's painting Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862) caused controversy when exhibited in London and, later, at the Salon des Refusés in Paris. The painting epitomizes his theory that art should essentially be concerned with the beautiful arrangement of colors in harmony, not with the accurate portrayal of the natural world.

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Wiki Commons Tumblr Wikisource YouTube Shop Featured: Marquis de Sade: Man or monster? Illustration: Portrait fantaisiste du marquis de Sade (1866) by H. Biberstein

The term "white people" (also "whites" or "white race") has been defined as "being a member of a group or race characterized by light pigmentation of the skin" and "to a human group having light-colored skin, especially of European ancestry."

In the context of describing certain humans, the term white does not refer to a skin color that is literally white; people described as white can have a variety of light skin colors. The term white people functions as a color metaphor for race; one that emerged from a racialized, European historical context.

See

• Blue-eyed soul
• Stereotypes of whites
• The White Goddess
• Caucasian race
• White guilt
• White American
• White slavery
• White men
• White women