South Asians are in the realm of 'blacks' than 'Asians.'

[Anansasem]

Obviously, going back this far is going to skew the modern perceptions of 'race.' Even so, India has always been a 'black' nation, even after the Aryan incursions. Also, given the fact that India still maintains a distinctly 'black' population of over 160 million known as the Dalit, shouldn't this place South Asians more in the realm of the 'black' race than the Asian?

This essay is long, though it gives some incredibly fascinating and little known history of the people of India.http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/india.html

http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/kanikar.jpghttp://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/panya.jpg

[Ike]

No, we're not giving up the Indians unless you trade us the Chinese-Jamaicans.

On a more serious note, given India's location, you would probably expect the people there to be a mix of the areas that bordered it. Also, isn't there the theory that India broke off of Africa and crashed onto Asia? (Yes, I got that from watching American Desi, so I might not be the most well-informed.)

[DONKEY]

are you talking about arbitrary racial categorizations based on morphology?
what is the Asian race?
what is any race?

[Unconcerned Citizen]

Also, isn't there the theory that India broke off of Africa and crashed onto Asia?

That's what happened. However, it was long before our time. The Genographic Project (https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html) is a modern way of finding out how human genetic material has made its way around the globe. India's a crossroads for genetic markers of many kinds.

[powerislife]

i think thats bs...there are millions of northern indians and pakistanis that are lighter skinned than thais, laotians, vietnamese, indonesians, and malaysians.

[krnbboyprd]

Damn I was trying to find the Dave Chapelle Show when he does the race trade skit..Did any of you see this..it was great..anyways this Indian being black thing remind me of this skit...

[Synthetic]

haha, i thought, based on the title, we were going to be discussing how cambodians, vietnamese, and the laos folk resembled the american hip hop black culture.

[ktkbs]

They're not called "Dalits", they're called Dravidians. And there's some Dravidian element in many Southern and Central Indians.

Dravidians cluster farthest away from Africans when plotted on a gene map. Southeast Asians, mainly Indonesians and Malays are close to Dravidians and other Australo-Melanesians. Southeast Asia is primarily Austroasiatic and A-M with Southern Chinese admixture. Southern Chinese are the result of many tribes of Southern Coastal China intermarrying with migrants from the North in several waves.

[SamuraiJack]

Scientifically, there is only the human race.

But in practice, the only thing that defines a race is physical appearance. Keanu Reeves is white, Daniel Henney is Asian. Of course there's many shades of grey in between, but the notion of the "Asian" race being geographic is ridiculous. We should never be lumped in with South Asians as a racial group, because we look different, and as such, have different stereotypes we each have to deal with. Would North Asians be considered Asian (ie Russians) as well?

Of course I'm not claiming the word "Asian" for East Asians, but rather, pointing out the need for a word that represents East Asians and Pacific Islanders specifically. Oriental used to be that word, but ever since we became "Asian", we've been lumped with South Asians as well.

I think "Asian" organizations who consist primarily of East Asians and add token brown people are actually doing a disservice to South Asians, who have formed their own groups that exclude East Asians, realizing the stupidity of lumping both groups under the same banner.

It's like "The WORLD'S Most Beautiful People", consisting of all white people with a few people of colour sprinkled in.

[TheMac]

The "realm" of blacks? Only if that completely ignores the Asian spectrum. How anyone can legitimately suggest a people's who are ethnic natives to Asia are actually African because of skin tone, trying to use some pre-modern-homosapien proof to justify it, is just beyond stupid. Ah, but I see the "banned".

For the record, Indians were considered "white" and "colored" in certain parts of the world for a long time, so let's not go down the road of ever-changing racial categories.

[evil_FUX]

^Haha I like you.