Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brown people (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep - a few arguments to disliking the subject depend on the assumption that Wikipedia having an article on a subject means Wikipedia somehow endorses the concept - this isn't the case, and the passes WP:N argument prevails. Wily D 17:40, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Brown people
AfDs for this article: 
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As I said earlier the expression "brown people" or "brown race" is not notable and synthesized (WP:SYNTH). There is no other article for "brown people" in any other languages in Wikipedia, except for Swedish, which proves that the subject of the article is globally unheard-of and nonexistent. Other than that, the article is racist, controversial, and has no scientific foundation.

There is not an exact definition for "brown people" or "brown race"; it has been used inconsistently through history to describe anything from Italians to Malaysians, South Africans, Latin Americans, Arabs, Indians or any mixed ethnicity. At several points, the article says the usage of the "brown people" was even controversial in the 19th and 20th century when racial theories, which very seldom contained the expression, were most popular. I could not verify any mention of the expression "brown people" in sources from Reference 1-21 and 23-25. The authors referenced in the article do not actually use "brown people" or "brown race" as their description of their main concept. I believe that most of the people don't hear or use the expression and that many would consider it even controversial, racial, and not notable of a Wikipedia article.

Foundation of the article on the Fitzpatrick scale which claims that "brown race" is equal to skin type V is also problematic as skin type IV is also often called 'brown' and people of different skin type, depending on their tanning extent or geographical location, has been called 'brown'. The Fitzpatrick scale provides identification of the skin types based on tanning behavior (different types of skin's response to UV light), not on perceived temporal color of skin. Even if there was an article on a type of skin of the Fritzpatrick scale, it should be called "Brown skin" not "Brown race".

Other than that, the article has multiple issues: Reference 8 is a dead link, Reference 26 points to a page where there is no article, link to Reference 29 is not working, and the article contains several entries by the Wikipedia author without citations. Most of sources are of poor quality: most from explorers and linguists, and some from 19th-20th century anthropologist who use outdated, racist and pseudoscientific concepts, and Nordicist propaganda. There are no reliable sources from scientists or encyclopedias which would give credibility to the topic.

Contrary to the article, the topic ("brown people" or "brown race") bears no political, ethnic or cultural classification and is prone to reify prejudicial and racial concepts. It is not much different from unfounded concepts of Nazi ideology, like the "Aryan people" or the "Semitic race". FonsScientiae (talk) 16:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. Controversy surrounding an article's title or subject is never a good reason to delete an article; otherwise, we'd have to delete many, many articles. Lack of use of "brown people" is also not problematic, since it is obviously a controversial, and therefore rarely-used, term. Are brown people discussed in any way at the sources? Are the sources good, and do they back up claims that reference them? Here and here, and probably in a few more places, User:Uncle G added tons of sources. I don't see a reason Uncle G would include anything but good sources, so I believe the article should stay.  City O f  Silver  17:30, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, the deletion discussion linked above is not relevant to this article. (Note the capital "P.") There was a deletion discussion for this article here, and it resulted in a weak keep based on Uncle G's addition of sources.  City O f  Silver  17:33, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * You're not only welcome but encouraged to read and evaluate the sources that I added, and any others that you can find. After all, that's what we're supposed to be doing around here, and it would certainly raise the bar for some of the discussion below this point.  I said this in the 2007 AFD discussion, too, notice.  Uncle G (talk) 22:31, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep This is a recognised term for people of human skin type V and totally differant to someone termed "Black" even controversial topics like this have a right to be on Wikipedia Seasider91 (talk) 19:07, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * If that's the basis of the existence of the article, then we should make articles about olive people/race, light intermediate people, and very light race. Why don't we have articles on blonde people and brunette race? FonsScientiae (talk) 22:00, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ethnic groups-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 19:52, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 19:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep as it can be sourced, BUT I hope other editors will try to fix some of the problems, particularly the use of sources that don't mention the subject of the article. I've done some myself, particularly in the Hispanic section which still needs more work. Dougweller (talk) 21:00, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep. Absolutely a topic, as demonstrated in reliable sources. We'd do well to expand our material on self-identification as brown, eg. by South Asians. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 21:42, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete . Comment My suggestion is to make articles on the skin color of humans (e.g. brown skin, white skin, black skin, olive skin) and include geographic distribution, populations and historical theories within those articles (in accordance with eye and hair color articles). Please don't make articles on generalized racial concepts which do not have worldwide relevance or scientific basis. FonsScientiae (talk) 22:13, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
 * To avoid the appearance of duplicate votes, please remember that the nominating statement is treated as a vote and that it is not necessary to leave a separate delete comment below. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 07:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete (or drastically prune to a disambiguation page) With all due respect to Roscelese, this isn't one topic but several: a (possibly pseudo-)scientific skin color range, a position in a discredited (and definitely pseudoscientific) racial taxonomy for Malay peoples, and three positions in multiracial hierarchies: Latinos and/or South Asians in the United States, mixed White-Black people in South Africa, and an appearance based category in Brazil. To articulate my concerns (mostly raised in the previous deletion discussion):
 * Unifying multiple concepts into a single article, when there is no single concept, violates WP:NOT: "The same title for different things … are found in different articles."
 * The outdated, racist and pseudoscientific nature of the anthropological writings involved are best addressed on single pages about their theories (Blumenbach, Race (historical definitions), Color metaphors for race). If, and only if, these pages need to be split, then let them have their own sections.
 * These "race scientists" don't use brown people as a central concept, but rather Australoid or Malayan race. Brown is an add-on descriptor, not the central concept. Using it to link to anyone who's called their collective group of people brown (and contra the article, lots of people have brown skin) to these terms stretches the page into two unrelated concepts, and (this may be what's most important to those of us writing about the racism involved) gives legitimacy to very problematic concepts.
 * Naming conventions (identity) suggests: "Avoid outdated terms when describing people. For example, Asian is preferred over Oriental." Insofar as this article points to Pardo, Mexicans, Latinos, and Coloured, it should be a polite disambiguation, not an extensive description as if this were the name of these concepts.--Carwil (talk) 14:47, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - If the article needs improvement, improving the article would solve that issue, I'm not really seeing any case for deletion here. - SudoGhost 18:52, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep unfortunately. The term is notable in the past literature and although it is used inconsistently, it is generally used to refer to South Asians and SouthEast Asians and perhaps native Polynesians. Perhaps the article can be improved but it shouldn't be deleted and its not inherently wrong--just vague in our modern world. Today some people call SouthEast Asians 'yellow' for the colour of their skin. But its no reason to delete this article. --Artene50 (talk) 21:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - I have been studying US -> Brazil relations and with the terminology that Brazil uses for race Vs. US, this article is needed as it is a term that is still in-use in parts of the world. Regardless of it being a slur here in the United States, it's important that demographics collections by modern countries should not be deleted because the term is en-vogue in one part of the world.  This is the same deletion request we had in Project Arctic regarding Inuit vs. Eskimo where both pages were well cited and researched.  Canada and the US differed on terminology but both pages stayed intact as they both had past and present uses.  BaShildy (talk) 22:04, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Question: Is there any reason to have Brown people do anything in regards to this group in Brazil besides provide a link to Pardo?--Carwil (talk) 01:13, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete or make into dab page, not a real or notable topic and thus having it smacks of racism which damages the reputation of wikipedia. Google doesnt recognise the term except in this article. I recommend drastic pruning if this afd fails. SympatheticIsolation (talk) 23:07, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not censored, we don't ignore racism. Pretending such things don't exist would damage Wikipedia's reputation, documenting it does not.  I don't know what "Google doesn't recognize the term" means, but a quick glance seems to suggest the opposite (and that's ignoring the fact that Google search results don't dictate article existence). - SudoGhost 23:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The article is not about brown people as a racist term, Google just indicates what an unnotable term it is, nothing more (I agree we should not allow google to define what is a notable article though). I think the term is unnotable and having the article is racist but I am not suggesting we have an article about the term as a racist term even if we could source it. SympatheticIsolation (talk) 23:35, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Google doesn't indicate anything of the sort, and the term being unnotable isn't reflected by the sources in the article. "Having the article is racist" how?  Even if the existence of this article was somehow racist (which sounds more like an appeal to emotion than anything), why would that determine if we keep an article or not?  That runs afoul of WP:NOTCENSORED. - SudoGhost 23:41, 8 July 2012 (UTC)+
 * Well if you think its okay to have racist articles on wikipedia, I beg to differ. And while you are entitled to your opinion about google's results for this term again I disagree, it seems to clearly indicate what an unnotable term it is. And I ahvent seen a single ref that supports the concept. This is fairly typical of the poor quality of the refs SympatheticIsolation (talk) 00:13, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * You're calling it a "racist article" without any justification or explanation, and saying Google suggests it isn't notable, again without explaining why. "Racist article" is an appeal to emotion, one that effectively says WP:IDONTLIKEIT.  If by "racist article" you mean an "article about racism", then that is covered by WP:NOTCENSORED, we don't remove an article on those grounds.  Just because something isn't desirable does not mean that it doesn't exist. - SudoGhost 00:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * You thinking you can define what I am saying is unhelpful so please be so kind as to desist; nobody needs you to interpret other people's comments. What is certain is that not one ref actually is about brown people, the articles are all about other concepts etc and just mention brown people in passing; this is hardly evidence that the cioncept exists at all as if it did there would be lots of refs talking about the subject as certainly happens with the concepts of white and black people. SympatheticIsolation (talk) 00:55, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * With no citation that "brown people" is a "political, racial, ethnic, societal, and cultural classification", as proposed by the article, then it seems racist. It also seems creepy. SudoGhost, I see that you have ties to a state that was once part of a group that sought to enslave people that were not of pure white descent. Could you confirm that there is not a conflict of interest? TekItRemark (talk) 01:21, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * . Please tell me you're kidding, suspiciously "new" editor.  If you're going to ask asinine questions like that, do it on your actual account, don't create a new account for it.  - SudoGhost 02:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * . You suspiciously didn't answer the question. I found this, knightriderskkkk, on a simple google search, which provides evidence for the possibility, and with you seeming to avoid a simple acknowledgement and confirmation, I'm not sure what to think. Also, with the link you sent me on my talk page, I believe using "asinine" is a pretentious personal attack. TekItRemark (talk) 21:28, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Fine, I'll humor you. That racists live in the same state as me is evidence of absolutely nothing.  That is the most asanine observation I've ever seen someone make, and the fact that you created a separate account to say this stupidity speaks volumes.  I can and will confirm that there is not a conflict of interest, and your speculation is baseless at best. - SudoGhost 22:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * When someone asks whether there is a conflict of interest, politely respond that there is not, if that is the case. TekItRemark (talk) 22:06, 12 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Please discuss the article in question, and do not make personal insults towards each other! SudoGhost, I cannot find explanation for your actions of deleting other users' comments. FonsScientiae (talk) 22:28, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment The scholars quoted here especially Giuseppe Sergi who died in 1936 and incidentally opposed the Nordic view of race were serious scholars. Yes, their views on race are somewhat outdated today but this article should not be deleted just because the article is a tad outdated. Wikipedia is not censored. --Artene50 (talk) 04:44, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Giuseppe Sergi did not oppose the existence of the "Nordic race", but the supremacy of the "Nordic race". His theories about the "Mediterranean race" were created in opposition to the Nordic view of race. His degradation of the "Nordic race" and his development of the Mediterranean racial identity made him not much incorrect than Hitler. He even traced the raise of the British Empire as a consequence of Mediterranean blood in the British population. Maybe he had popularity, but in no aspect I would call him a serious scholar. FonsScientiae (talk) 10:54, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete as WP:SYNTH. Takes Von Luschan's chromatic scale of skin colour of individuals, applies this in a dubious way to groups, and mixes in a number of unrelated self-identifications as Coloured or Pardo, falsely implying that these are somehow equivalent. Anthropology recognises no such thing as a "brown race," and the term smacks of 1930s-era racism. As the nom notes, the sources don't actually use the term "brown people." There is no actual topic here, just a WP:SYNTH of things thrown together. -- 202.124.72.209 (talk) 09:08, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I can disagree with the nominator but at least I respect the nominator's comments but the statement by the anonymous IP who suddenly comes alive with 3 edits on July 9 makes me a tad suspicious. Yes, the term brown people is inaccurately used to describe Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Polynesians, people from Southeast Asia and I assume South America but it doesn't make it inherently racist. Just inaccurate. If a racist white person sees a SouthEast Asian they would state that this person is "yellow" (ie. a coward) rather than brown. In the end, the word brown is used as a term in the real world and, therefore wikipedia should having something on it. After all wikipedia is not censored. That is all I have to say. Thank You, --Artene50 (talk) 01:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Before encountering this article I have never heard the expression "brown race" from anyone, even from a racist person. As you stated, a racist person would probably call a Southeast Asian "yellow", and not "brown". This just proves the point, that the expression is not notable and not really used in the real world. My real problem with this article is that it says "Brown people or brown race is a political, racial, ethnic, societal, and cultural classification" and bases the rest of the article on this assumption; nothing is true from that quotation, except that it is maybe a "racial classification" scheme used by some racist people. What do you think about changing the article's title to "brown skin", and making a section under that article which talks about the prejudicial and racial usage of the word "brown"? Or maybe a better idea is to make an article on "racist color terminology" and include "brown" section, along with "black", "white" and "yellow" there. But as I stated previously this article can't stay in its current form as it is synthesized, is to reify prejudice and racism, and the expression of the title is not notable. FonsScientiae (talk) 21:13, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete as WP:SYNTH. Moreover, the name of this page implies that the term "brown people" is used in an official capacity (remember, we are an encyclopedia) to refer to certain groups of people / races / ethnicities / what have you, when in fact the term is decisively informal and based on the physical appearance of the people referred to. We already have good pages for the people named by the term, so I don't think this page is necessary. dalahäst (let's talk!) 21:21, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The name of the page implies nothing of the sort, and "official capacity" has no bearing on articles (see WP:COMMONNAME). That's no reason to delete an article. - SudoGhost 22:06, 10 July 2012 (UTC)


 * For what the article used to look like, the last time that it was at AFD, see . Uncle G (talk) 22:31, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   05:40, 15 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Although it's my view that Uncle G's version linked above is clearly appropriate and should be kept, that may not persuade the closer because of the many arguments above. I think the most effective way I can persuade the closer not to delete this article is to point this out:- only a complete idiot turns a plausible search term into a redlink.  Either we should revert it to the most encyclopaedic version available, such as Uncle G's, or we should turn it into a disambiguation page, or we should turn it into a redirect of some kind.  The absolute last thing we want to do with this title is create a redlink that urges inexperienced users to create material in its place.— S Marshall  T/C 11:14, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect - To black people, I don't see the need or desire to have articles on variances in skin tones to this fine detail. My skin is more of a rich brown can I have a mocha people article? Tarc (talk) 13:42, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Speedy Keep - really - nominating an extensive 6-year old page, that easily passed a previous AFD dissussion? The person who started this, has virtually no edit history before they started this campaign. The case for deletion seems to be based on broken links? Nfitz (talk) 19:23, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment User:S Marshall I agree. The best would be to turn it into a redirect to the Color terminology for race page where a section could clarify the usage of the word, or into a disambiguation page on Mexican Americans, Brazilian pardos, South African Coloreds, and any ethic group which is actually referred to as 'brown' user:Nfitz It did not "easily pass the previous AfD discussion". It was a very slight keep and imo this article is in a much worse condition than it was at the time of the first nomination. FonsScientiae (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Since you nominated the article for deletion, I removed your bolding of the word redirect, just to avoid any confusion. - SudoGhost 19:59, 17 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep - well-used, documented, well-sourced, etc. While we have to avoid unecessary controversy, neither are we censored.  This term is also used by some Brazilians and Filipinas to describe certain people, such as my fiancee'. Bearian (talk) 19:03, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
 * "well-used, documented, well-sourced, etc." Have you actually read the nomination? As for usage, yes it is used but means different things in different context and cultures both historically and geographically (WP:SYNTH). What do you think about disambiguation/redirection to more specific terms? FonsScientiae (talk) 02:28, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.