Anyone Here Speak Caucasian?

I've only recently started thinking about the term Caucasian. Isn't it a polite way to say "white?" I've been meaning to do a little research, but never got around to it. But today my new book, Every-Day Anti Racism arrived, and there was the answer waiting for me on page 13:

The term Caucasian originated in the eighteenth century as part of the developing European science of racial classification. After visiting the region of the Caucasus Mountains, between the Caspian and Black seas, German anatomist Johann Blumenbach declared its inhabitants the most beautiful in the world, the ideal type of humans created in "God's image," and deemed this area the likely site where humans originated. (Humans actually originated in Africa.) He decided that all light-skinned peoples from this region, along with Europeans, belonged to the same race, which he labeled Caucasian.

Where are the Caucasus? Again from the book, "Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, parts of north Iran, and central southern Russia." My ancestors are not from these places, but from England, Ireland, Germany, and Spain.

This essay, titled, "Getting Rid of the Word 'Caucasian,'" makes several excellent points:

• The term Caucasian comes out of a major misunderstanding on the part of Johann Blumenbach, and it was immediately used to create racial hierarchies, placing Europeans and people of European ancestry on top and most God-like, and in the US, deeming light-skinned people most worthy of naturalization as "Americans."
• The term strips light-skinned people of any accurate sense of geographic origin or culture. (Ever go out for Caucasian food or sign up to learn a Caucasian language or go out to watch the local Caucasian dance troupe?)
• In Europe, they have French and Germans and Egyptians, and Somalians. In the US, we have "Caucasians," which essentially means "normal" Americans. And then, to distinguish from normal Americans we have hyphenated Americans like Native-Americans and African-Americans and Asian-Americans. It's as if even Native Americans are immigrants, and white people are the ones who are native to the continent.

So now I know! It's interesting to me that when I've thought about these things in the past, I've wanted to call myself a European-American, rather than "Caucasian," which meant nothing to me, or "white," which acknowledges my skin color and the privileges that go along with it, or "American," which refers to a piece of land that encompasses many countries and cultures and languages to which I lay no claim, but I've felt like my ancestors have been in the US for too long for me to use the term "European American." One set of my ancestors has been here since just after the Mayflower arrived. They were part of a group of pacifist Quakers, escaping persecution in England. But the ancestors of many African Americans have been here as long. And they are still African Americans. I am still a European American.

So be prepared for the slow and painful death of the word Caucasian. As with all other words with racist histories, some will run from it, some will cling to it, and many won't get the memo until they have embarrassed themselves a few too many times. Which makes me wonder, am I getting the memo a little late myself? Did you all know this already? Tell me. It's okay. I can take it.