In the second half of the 20th century, after shedding its racist baggage, it acquired its current neutral form, becoming, along with the word 'white,' the most common designation for Caucasoids in the US, used in all kinds of forms and in bureaucratic language.
Clouds began to gather over the 'Caucasians' as the proportion of the Latino population grew. Note that in the US, racial identification essentially replaces ethnic identification, as is still common in a number of European countries. Thus, people from South America officially came to be called 'Latino' or 'Hispanic' (with an emphasis on belonging to Spanish-speaking culture). Soon the question arose of how, for example, the terms 'Hispanic' and 'Caucasian' relate to each other in cases where 'Hispanics' are direct descendants of Spaniards who immigrated to the New World. As a rule, they began to choose 'Hispanic,' and the scope of the term 'Caucasian' effectively narrowed to descendants of Europeans, except for Southern European countries.
Discussions about the legitimacy of using the word 'Caucasian' flared up again when the US Supreme Court began hearing the case of applicant Abigail Fisher, who unsuccessfully tried to enter the University of Texas at Austin. According to the straight-A student, she was subjected to racial discrimination because the reason for her rejection was allegedly her belonging to the 'Caucasian' race, and her place was given to a representative of another race for the sake of 'racial diversity.' After all, it is possible that it went to a 'Hispanic' who anthropologically belongs to the 'Caucasian' race but preferred to identify by cultural criteria.
In connection with this, a number of American media outlets called for pushing the word 'Caucasian' out of widespread use and for racial affiliation to be denoted only by words related to abstract skin color designations (white, black) or cultural heritage (African, Hispanic, Anglo).
"This word (Caucasian) provides a basis for discussions about race on a technical level, just like a police officer, instead of asking you to get out of the car, would say: exit your moving vehicle," writes New York Times columnist Sheila Dewan. "There is no doubt that this society will continue to classify people by race for the foreseeable future. And as we move toward justice, some of these classifiers will remain useful. But not the word 'Caucasian'."
Anton NEVZLIN,
"Russkaya Germaniya".