History of the word "Caucasian"

So I constantly hear the word 'caucasian' thrown around as a "PC" way to refer to people who are of European ancestry or self-identified white. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself where this word comes from? Well one of my history professors explained that the word itself represents the epitome of racism.

Meet Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Blumenbach was a German scientist and anthropologist that created a classification system for all of the various 'races.' I keep putting 'races' in quotation marks because the idea of different 'races' in itself perpetuates the same type of thinking that has been responsible for many atrocities throughout human history. Blumenbach's system is based on physical characteristics including skin color, hair growth, and cranium shape. These classsifications have been/are used used to infer the ability, intelligence, and 'civility' of different ethnic groups. So what 'race' are you according to Blumenbach:

Caucasian: white race
Mongolian: yellow race
Malayan: brown race
Negroid: black race
American(indigenous): red race

The caucasian race was considered the most beautiful, intelligent, and superior race. The Caucus region was also fabled to be the birthplace of mankind even though we know that the human race originated in Africa. There were also sub-racial groups within each of these categories. In fact, according to Blumenbach, the white race included Egyptians and other north Africans, known as the Hamitic race. You may be saying to yourself "why is this a bad thing, he's saying that some Africans were as superior as whites?" Well, the Hamitic race was added as a sub-group mostly to explain the great historical civilizations of Arabia and Egypt. Blumenbach needed a way to separate "good and intelligent" black people(Hamitics) from he viewed as the animalistic black people of southern Africa(Negroids).

How has this way of thinking impacted our lives? Colonialism, slavery, the holocaust? Blumenbach's work still echoes today. Genocides, racial purity, race wars, racism, the imaginary notion of reverse racism are especially prevalent amongst the current debate about immigration and "defending" America. Perhaps you have only experienced this in the less extreme realm of interracial dating. You know what I'm talking about. I can't tell you how many times I've seen families disapprove of different love interests based on the color of their skin. If this isn't an everyday example of racial purity, I don't know what is.

Basically what I'm trying to say is STOP USING THE WORD CAUCASIAN. Most of my self-identified white friends identify strongly with the various countries they're from (ie Italy, Ireland, France, etc) and NOT some German anthropologist's take on racial purity/migration. And while there will continue to be white privilege based strongly on skin color...using the word caucasian will only perpetuate the historical notion of racial purity and superiority.