View source for Brown (racial classification)

{{Short description| Racial classification}}
{{redirect|Brown skin|the single|Brown Skin}}
'''Brown''' is a [[Racialization|racialized]] classification of people, usually a [[Politics|political]] and [[Human skin color|skin color]]-based category for specific populations with a light to moderate brown [[complexion]].

== In the age of scientific racism ==
{{See also|Historical race concepts|Scientific racism|Color terminology for race}}
In the 18th and 19th century, European and American writers proposed geographically based "scientific" differences among "the races". Many of these racial models assigned colors to the groups described, and some included a "brown race" as in the following:

* In the late 18th century, German anthropologist [[Johann Blumenbach]] extended Linnaeus's four-color race model by adding the brown race, "[[Malay race]]", which included both the Malay division of Austronesian (Southern-[[Thailand]], [[Cambodia]], [[Indonesia]], [[Philippines]], [[Malaysia]], [[Brunei]], [[Pattani Province|Pattani]], [[Sumatra]], [[Madagascar]], [[Formosa]]ns, etc.) and [[Polynesians]] and [[Melanesians]] of [[Pacific Islands]], as well as [[Papuans]] and [[Aborigines of Australia]].<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Jane Desmond]]|title=Staging Tourism: Bodies on Display from Waikiki to Sea World|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=2001|isbn=0-226-14376-7|page=54}}</ref><ref name=Jackson>{{cite book|title=Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization: A Critical Review of the Evidence of Archaeology,...|author=John G. Jackson|location=New York, N.Y.|publisher=The Blyden Society|year=1938}}</ref>
* In 1775, "John Hunter of Edinburg included under the label light brown, Southern Europeans, [[Italians]], the [[Spaniards|Spanish]], [[Persians]], [[Turkish people|Turks]] and [[Laplanders]], under the label brown."<ref name=Bernasconi>Bernasconi, Robert. <u>Race</u> Blackwell Publishing: Boston, 2001. {{ISBN|0-631-20783-X}}</ref>
* [[Jean Baptiste Julien d'Omalius d'Halloy]]'s five-race scheme differed from Blumenbach's by including [[Ethiopia]]ns in the brown race, as well as Oceanic peoples. [[Louis Figuier]] adopted and adapted d'Omalius d'Halloy's classification and also included [[Egyptians]] in the brown race.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Equality of the Human Races|author=Joseph-Anténor Firmin and Antenor Firmin|others=Asselin Charles (translator) and Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban (contributor)|year=2002|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=0-252-07102-6|page=17}}</ref>
* In 1915, Donald Mackenzie conceived a "''Mediterranean or Brown race, the eastern branch of which reaches to India and the western to the [[British Isles]]<!--p.7-->... [and includes] [[predynastic Egypt]]ians... [and some populations of] [[Neolithic Europe|Neolithic man]]<!--p.15-->''"<!--p.7-->.<ref>Mackenzie, Donald A. <u>Myths of Babylonia and Assyria</u> Montana:Kessinger Publishing, 2004. {{ISBN|1-4179-7643-8}}</ref>
[[File:Stoddard race map 1920.jpg|thumb|Global racial map by [[eugenicist]] [[Lothrop Stoddard]] in ''[[The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy]]'', 1920.]]
* [[Eugenicist]] [[Lothrop Stoddard]] in his ''[[The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy]]'' (1920) mapped a "brown race" as native to [[North Africa]], the [[Horn of Africa]], the [[Caucasus]] (partially), the [[Near East]], [[Middle East]], [[Central Asia]], [[South Asia]], [[Southeast Asia]], and [[Austronesia]] ([[Malay race]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.understandingrace.org/history/science/early_class.html|title=Early Classification of Nature|website=Understanding Race.org|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130618221516/http://www.understandingrace.org/history/science/early_class.html|archive-date=18 June 2013|url-status=dead|access-date=13 January 2018}}</ref>). Stoddard's "brown" is one of five "primary races", contrasting with "white", "black", "yellow" and "Amerindian".<ref name="Stoddard">{{cite book|last1=Stoddard|first1=Lothrop|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37408/37408-h/37408-h.htm|title=The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy|date=1920|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|quote=Brown Man’s Land is the Near and Middle East. The brown world stretches in an immense belt clear across southern Asia and northern Africa, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans}}</ref>
* Due to what he considered the relatively close physical relationship between many populations "from the Red Sea as far as India, including [[Semitic people|Semites]] as well as [[Hamitic|Hamites]]", [[Grafton Elliot Smith]] conceived the Brown Race as a natural extension of [[Giuseppe Sergi]]'s earlier [[Mediterranean race]] concept. In this popular conception, the Brown Race consisted of a joint "Mediterranean-Hamite-Semite" grouping of ancestrally related peoples, into which Elliot Smith included the Proto-Egyptians.<ref name=Keane>{{cite book|last=A. H. Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin|first=A. C. Haddon|title=Man: Past and Present|year=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0521234108|page=478}}</ref>
These and other race theories have been dismissed scientifically. As a 2012-human biology textbook observes, "These claims of race-based taxonomy, including [Carleton] Coon's claims for homo-sapienation, have been discredited by paleontological and genomic research showing the antiquity of modern human origins, as well as the essential genomic African nature of all living human beings."<ref>{{Cite book | publisher = Academic Press | isbn = 9780123838827 | last = Cameron | first = Noel |author2=Barry Bogin | title = Human Growth and Development | date = 2012-06-08 }}</ref>

=== Subdivisions ===
In the 19th century, the notion of a single "brown people" was sometimes superseded by multiple "brown peoples". Cust mentions Grammar in 1852 denying that there was one single "brown race", but in fact, several races speaking distinct languages.<ref>{{cite book|title=A Sketch of the Modern Languages of the East Indies|url=https://archive.org/details/asketchmodernla00custgoog|author=Robert Needham Cust|year=1878|publisher=Trübner & co.|page=[https://archive.org/details/asketchmodernla00custgoog/page/n31 13]}}</ref> The 1858 ''Cyclopaedia of India and of eastern and southern Asia''<ref>{{cite book|title=The Encyclopaedia Asiatica, Comprising Indian Subcontinent, Eastern and Southern Asia|author=Edward Balfour|year=1976|publisher=Cosmo Publications|page=315}}</ref> notes that Keane was dividing the "brown people" into quaternion: a western branch that he termed the Malay, a north-western group that he termed the Micronesian, and the peoples of the eastern archipelagos that he termed the Maori and the Polynesian.

== Ethnic and racial identifier ==
The appellation "brown people" has been applied in the 20th and 21st centuries to several groups. Edward Telles, a sociologist of race and ethnicity, and Jack Forbes<ref name="forbes">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6aLAeB5QiHAC|title=Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples|first=Jack D.|last=Forbes|date=March 2, 1993|publisher=University of Illinois Press|via=Google Books|isbn=9780252063213}}</ref> both argue that this classification is biologically invalid. However, as Telles notes, it is still of sociological significance. Irrespective of the actual biological differences amongst humans, and of the actual complexities of [[human skin color]]ation, people nonetheless self-identify as "brown" and identify other groups of people as "brown", using characteristics that include skin color, hair strength, language, and culture, in order to classify them.

Forbes remarks upon a process of "lumping", whereby characteristics other than skin color, such as hair color or curliness, act as "triggers" for color categories "even when it may not be appropriate."<ref name="forbes" /><ref name="Telles">{{cite book|pages=[https://archive.org/details/raceinanotherame0000tell/page/81 81–84]|title=Race in Another America: the significance of skin color in Brazil|author=Edward Eric Telles|chapter=Racial Classification|year=2004|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=0-691-11866-3|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/raceinanotherame0000tell/page/81}}</ref>

=== Ethnicity in South Africa ===
{{Main|Coloureds}}
In 1950s (and later) [[South Africa]], the "brown people" were the [[Coloureds]], referring to those born of multiracial sexual unions out of wedlock. They were distinct from the [[Basters|Reheboth Basters]] inhabiting [[Namibia]], who were primarily of [[Khoisan]] and [[Europe]]an parentage. The [[Afrikaans]] terms, which incorporate many subtleties of heritage, political agenda, and identity, are "[[wikt:bruin|bruin]]" ("brown"), "[[wikt:bruines|bruines]]" ("browns"), and "[[wikt:brynmense|bruinmense]]" ("brown people"). Some South Africans prefer the appellation "bruinmense" to "Coloured".<ref name=Adhikari>{{cite book|title=Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community|author=Mohamed Adhikari|pages=26,163–169|year=2005|publisher=Ohio University Press|isbn=0-89680-244-2}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Language in South Africa|url=https://archive.org/details/languagesouthafr00mest|url-access=limited|author=Gerald L. Stone|chapter=The lexicon and sociolinguistic codes of the working-class Afrikaans-speaking Cape Peninsula coloured community|editor=Rajend Mesthrie|year=2002|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-53383-X|page=[https://archive.org/details/languagesouthafr00mest/page/n413 394]}}</ref>

The South African [[Pencil test (South Africa)|pencil test]] was one example of a characteristic other than skin color being used as a determiner. The pencil test, which distinguished either "black" from "Coloured" or "Coloured" from "white", relied upon curliness and strength of hair (i.e. whether it was capable of retaining a pencil under its own strength) rather than upon any color factor at all. The pencil test could "trump skin color".<ref>{{cite book|title=Twilight People: From Mississippi to South Africa and Back|author=David Houze|year=2006|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=0-520-24398-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/twilightpeopleon00houz/page/134 134]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/twilightpeopleon00houz}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness|author=Birgit Brander Rasmussen|year=2001|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=0-8223-2740-6|page=133}}</ref>

[[Steve Biko]], in his trial in 1976, rejected the appellation "brown people" when it was put to him incorrectly by Judge Boshoff:<ref name=Oakes>{{cite book|title=Social Groups and Identities: developing the legacy of Henri Tajfe|editor=W. P. (William Peter) Robinson and Henri Tajfel|author=Penelope Oakes|chapter=The Categorization Process: Cognition and the Group in the Social Psychology of Stereotyping|year=1996|publisher=Routledge|isbn=0-7506-3083-3}}</ref>
:'''Boshoff''': But now why do you refer to you people as blacks? Why not brown people? I mean you people are more brown than black.
:'''Biko''': In the same way as I think white people are more pink and yellow and pale than white.
:'''Boshoff''': Quite ... but now why do you not use the word brown then?
:'''Biko''': No, I think really, historically, we have been defined as black people, and when we reject the term non-white and take upon ourselves the right to call ourselves what we think we are, we have got available in front of us a whole number of alternatives ... and we choose this one precisely because we feel it is most accommodating.

Penelope Oakes<ref name=Oakes /> characterizes Biko's argument as picking "black" over "brown" because for Biko it is "the most valid, meaningful and appropriate representation, ''even though'' in an individualistic decontextualized sense it might appear wrong" (Oakes's emphasis).

This contrasts with Piet Uithalder, the fictional protagonist of the satirical column "Straatpraatjes" (whose actual author was never revealed but who is believed to have been Abdullah Abdurahman) that appeared in the Dutch-Afrikaans section of the newspaper ''APO'' between May 1909 and February 1922. Uithalder would self-identify as a Coloured person, with the column targeted at a Coloured readership, introducing himself as "een van de ras" ("a member of the race") and characterizing himself as a "bruine mens".<ref name=Adhikari />

=== Pardos in Brazil ===
{{Main|Pardo Brazilians}}
In popular use, Brazilians also use a category of ''[[wikt:moreno|moreno]]'' m. {{IPA|[moˈɾenu]}}, ''[[wikt:morena|morena]]'' f. {{IPA|[moˈɾenɐ]}}, lit. '[[wikt:swarthy|swarthy]]', from ''[[wikt:mouro|mouro]]'', Portuguese for '[[Moors|Moor]]', which were perceived as those with darker phenotypes than European peoples.  Thus a ''moreno'' or ''morena'' is a person with a "Moorish" phenotype, which is extremely ambiguous as it can mean "dark-haired people", but is also used as a euphemism for ''pardo'', and even "black". In a 1995 survey, 32% of the population self-identified as ''moreno'', with a further 6% self-identifying as ''moreno claro'' ("light moreno"). 7% self-identified as "pardo".<ref name="Telles" />

A comprehensive study presented by the Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research found that on average, 'white' Brazilians have >50% European genomic ancestry, whereas 'black' Brazilians have 17.1% European genomic ancestry. It concluded that "The high ancestral variability observed in Whites and Blacks suggests that each Brazilian has a singular and quite individual proportion of European, African and Amerindian ancestry in their mosaic genomes. Thus, the only possible basis to deal with genetic variation in Brazilians is not by considering them as members of color groups, but on a person-by-person basis, as 190 million human beings, with singular genome and life histories".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pena |first1=S.D.J. |last2=Bastos-Rodrigues |first2=L. |last3=Pimenta |first3=J.R. |last4=Bydlowski |first4=S.P. |title=DNA tests probe the genomic ancestry of Brazilians |journal=Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research |date=11 September 2009 |volume=42 |issue=10 |pages=870–876 |doi=10.1590/S0100-879X2009005000026 |pmid=19738982 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

=== Use in Canada ===
Relating to [[brown identity]], the popular usage of the term in Canada generally refers to individuals of [[South Asian Canadians|South Asian]] ancestry.<ref name=Sumartojo>Sumartojo, Widyarini. ''[http://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/12245/etd7152_WSumartojo.pdf "My kind of Brown": Indo-Canadian youth identity and belonging in Greater Vancouver]'' (PhD thesis) ({{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141019152527/http://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/12245/etd7152_WSumartojo.pdf |date=2014-10-19 }}).</ref><ref name=Sundar2007>{{cite journal | doi=10.1080/15313200802258166 | title=To "Brown It Up" or to "Bring Down the Brown": Identity and Strategy in Second-Generation, South Asian-Canadian Youth | year=2008 | last1=Sundar | first1=Purnima | journal=Journal of Ethnic and Cultural Diversity in Social Work | volume=17 | issue=3 | pages=251–278 | s2cid=143356411 | url=https://scholars.wlu.ca/context/etd/article/1241/viewcontent/NR26599.PDF }}</ref><ref name=Frost2010>Frost, Heather. ''[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233223849_Being_Brown_in_a_Canadian_Suburb Being “Brown” in a Canadian Suburb]''</ref><ref name=Sandhu2014>Sandhu, Danielle. ''[https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/67974/1/Sandhu_Danielle_201411_MA_thesis.pdf Theorizing Brown Identity]''</ref><ref name=Patel2016>Patel, Sharmi. ''[https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10315/32297/Patel_Sharmila_2016_Master.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y The Politics of Belonging: Cultural Identity Formation among Second Generation Canadians]''</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=What does it mean to be brown-skinned in Canada?|url=https://www.tvo.org/article/what-does-it-mean-to-be-brown-skinned-in-canada|date=July 14, 2016}}</ref>

=== Use in the United States ===
{{anchor|Hispanics in the United States}}
"Brown" has been used as a term in popular culture for some [[South Asian Americans]], [[Middle Eastern Americans]], [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]], [[Latino Americans]], and rarely now, Southern Europeans such as [[Italians]] and [[Greeks]], either as a [[pejorative]] term or sometimes for self-identification, as with [[brown identity]]. [[Judith Ortiz Cofer]] notes that appellation varies according to geographical location, observing that in [[Puerto Rico]] she is considered to be a "white person", but in the [[United States]] mainland, she is considered to be a "brown person".<ref>{{cite book|title=Transcultural Women Of Late-Twentieth-Century U.S. American Literature|author=Pauline T. Newton|chapter=An Interview with Judith Ortiz Cofer|year=2005|publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.|isbn=0-7546-5212-2|page=161}}</ref> [[Moustafa Bayoumi]], an Egyptian-American professor of English at [[Brooklyn College]], identified himself as a "brown Arab-American" in an opinion piece criticizing the [[United States Census]] for forcing self-identified brown persons to identify as white.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bayoumi |first1=Moustafa |title=I'm a brown Arab-American, and the US census refuses to recognize me |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/14/arab-american-census-america-racism |website=The Guardian |access-date=13 March 2020 |date=14 February 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206200145/https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/14/arab-american-census-america-racism|archive-date=6 February 2023}}</ref><!-- WP:EXPERTSOURCE -->

The term "Brown American" has been used both as a pejorative and as a self-identifier in reference to [[Filipino Americans]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Reyes |first1=Bobby M. |title=How Filipinos Came to Be Called the "Brown Americans" - MabuhayRadio |url=http://www.mabuhayradio.com/history/how-filipinos-came-to-be-called-as-brown-americans |website=Mabuhay Radio |access-date=March 13, 2020 |date=May 14, 2007}}</ref> Furthermore, some Americans of Southeast Asian or South Asian descent have used the terms "Brown Asian" or "Brown South Asian" to distinguish themselves from East Asian Americans, who are what the term "Asian American" usually refers to in the United States.<ref name="Asia Society">{{cite web|last=Schiavenza|first=Matt|title= Why Some 'Brown Asians' Feel Left Out of the Asian American Conversation|url=https://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/why-some-brown-asians-feel-left-out-asian-american-conversation|date=October 19, 2016|access-date=June 14, 2022|website=[[Asia Society]]|quote=And that, unfortunately, did not include any South Asians and only one Filipino. That caused a bit of an outcry. It raises a legitimate issue, of course, one about how 'brown Asians' often feel excluded from the Asian American conversation.}}</ref><ref name="Ms. Magazine">{{cite magazine|last=Kulkarni|first=Saili S.|title=South Asians Are Asians Too. When Will Our Racial Reckoning Be?|url=https://msmagazine.com/2021/04/24/south-asian-racism-fedex-indianapolis-sikh-shooting/|magazine=Ms.|date=June 14, 2022|access-date=March 24, 2022|quote=Yet we didn’t similarly rally to support the instances of Anti-Asian hate pre-COVID-19 and certainly not for Brown, South Asians.}}</ref>

==== Brown pride ====
Brown pride is a movement primarily in the [[United States]] among [[Latino (demonym)|Latinos]] to develop a positive [[self-image]] by embracing the idea of being brown as a form of pride.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Tharps |first=Lori L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TdgzDwAAQBAJ&dq=%22brown+pride%22&pg=PA74 |title=Same Family, Different Colors: Confronting Colorism in America's Diverse Families |date=2017-10-03 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0-8070-7108-3 |pages=74 |language=en}}</ref> Brown pride is a response to the [[Racism|racist]] or [[Colorism|colorist]] narrative that [[white skin]] is more beautiful than brown skin.<ref name=":0" /> Brown pride first emerged among [[Mexican Americans]] in the [[United States]] alongside the [[Chicano]] and [[Black is beautiful|Black is Beautiful]] movement in the 1960s.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Mariscal |first=George |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z45UUJmlAbIC&dq=%22brown+pride%22&pg=PA45 |title=Brown-eyed Children of the Sun: Lessons from the Chicano Movement, 1965-1975 |date=2005 |publisher=UNM Press |isbn=978-0-8263-3805-1 |pages=129 |language=en}}</ref>

==== Media portrayals of brown people ====
In the United States, [[mainstream media]] has sometimes referenced brown as a racial classification that is a threat to [[White Americans|white America]] and the idea of 'America' in general.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Milian |first=Claudia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CSDhAAAAQBAJ&dq=%22brown+pride%22&pg=PA101 |title=Latining America: Black-Brown Passages and the Coloring of Latino/a Studies |date=2013-02-01 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=978-0-8203-4479-9 |pages=101–03 |language=en}}</ref> This has been done through rhetoric of a "brown tide" that is changing the [[Demography|demographic landscape]] of the United States, often with an underlying negative tone.<ref name=":1" /> This may stoke racial fears of people, and particularly [[Latino (demonym)|Latinos]], who are seen as brown.<ref name=":1" />

== See also ==
* [[Bronze (racial classification)]]
* [[Racism]]
* [[Discrimination based on skin color]]
* [[Melting pot]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite book|chapter=XX. Genealogy of the Brown Races|author=Alexander Winchell|year=1890|publisher=S. C. Griggs and company|title=Preadamites: Or, A Demonstration of the Existence of Men Before Adam|url=https://archive.org/details/b28074622|no-pp=true|page=xvii et seq}}

{{Historical definitions of race}}
{{Skin colors}}

[[Category:Ethnonyms]]
[[Category:Race (human categorization)]]
[[Category:Scientific racism]]
[[Category:Person of color]]