A hypothetical question

White woman speak with forked tongue!
Actually, I don't know the answer to this.Although I do that they were in use before film making [in old books.]I think the answer is a bit of all the reasons that you give.It's certainly seen as racist now of course if you were to call native Americans redskins, but would it be called that for palefaces? Do you remember the Bob Hope films, Paleface and Son Of Paleface?

Were the descriptors of the past racist in today's sense? I think they were as they were posited on the " general acceptance" of white supremacy. Once you expose that the whole thing unravels.

I think they probably were quite racist at the time.

(Just how far can you take racism? )

There's a blast from the past. Not heard these terms since I was a child but think they are probably Holywood-speak and best left buried along with those types of films, where goodies were always murdering genicidal white.

What if there isn't "white supremacy"? When my son worked in Taiwan, he found out that locally he was known as "a longnose". It didn't bother him by the way.

Just posed another question for me. I'm wondering who first came up with the phrase, 'the yellow race'.

Re paleface and redskins. I'm sure they were racists terms as people seem to need to find a derogatory term to describe a race they don't like. It goes on worldwide.

I've never heard the yellow race phrase before but my eldest brother, aged four and a lot, came home from his first day at school and told my mum that there was a boy in his class who was very interesting to look at "because he's a lovely brown colour instead of grey like us." Turns out my brother thought the boy was painted!

There followed a lesson in variations of skin colour from my mother.

agus, that's my problem: are they necessarily derogatory or just a descriptive way of distinguishing? Would the derogatoriness not depend on context just as the rudeness or otherwise of other expressions totally unrelated to racism often depends on the context – the how an expression is used rather than the what?

Definitely depends on context and tone as the term is usually used with disdain. eg. I don't like the terms Krauts or Frogs when I hear people expressing an extreme dislike of these nations.

Surely they (at least originally) are descriptive, as in Redhead, Blond. Nothing racist about describing someone as 'peely-wally'= pale faced. Also interesting that in many parts of the middle east and India, a paler skin than the norm was a mark of high status and beauty. Same thing in Europe when the upper classes valued their pale skins, to the extent of powdering them with arsenic, as a sign that they did not have to toil in the fields and get tanned. Ironic that today's celebs mostly aspire to an orange skin.

Agus

Re paleface and redskins. I'm sure they were racists terms as people seem to need to find a derogatory term to describe a race they don't like. It goes on worldwide

Indeed it does - there's a whole slew of derogatory terms for every group of people by another group of people. On the Isle of Man, you have Peel, which is all of 7 miles from Ramsey but people in Ramsey refer to people from Peel as Gobbags (pronounced Govags) which means 'little fish with a big mouth'; it just seems to be inherent in humans to insult one another!

I remember being told that Afrikaans term for the English is Soutpiel. They gave this term because the English have one foot in South Africa and one foot in England leaving, erm, a dangly bit in the salty sea. Soutpiel means 'salty penis' and I'm pretty sure it's derogatory; I found it quite amusing and displaying an air of imagination in the insulting stakes

I also read that in Germany, the British are known as 'Inselaffe' which means island ape/monkey; I suspect that may also be intended as derogatory

Overall, I don't think the British care very much about that type of label and tend to laugh it off; none that I've ever met have ever expressed offence at them.

In Japan we are called ' big noses ' [that's all Europeans, Americans etc.]It probably all started off as describing looks, but there is always a fear of strangers/foreigners as well, which make the describing rather derogatory.
Just as we used to describe Orientals as 'slanty or slit eyed.'

This may be a dumb question but if it was originally purely descriptive, why 'red skins' and not brown skins ? To distinguish from the black slaves maybe ?
Have I just answered my own question

ninathenana - I've just had a quick google (because I couldn't think of anything plausible) and it seems the term originated from native Indians using red face & body paint. To be honest, I would not have thought of that.

The Yellow Race Shall Rule the World....as predicted by Nostradamus. This is his prediction following the collapse of The British Empire and the world power of the USA. The world shall then be ruled by China.

I don't know the Chinese word for yellow but it is a common surname in China also there was a legendary leader known as The Yellow Emperor so maybe that is why Nostradamus used this connection in his reference to the Yellow Race.

Did a search and I also answered my own question nina

I can understand Native Americans using the term paleface, never having seen a pale skinned person before. Logical connection and probably not meant as a derogatory term initially but would find many reasons to use it as such due to the atrocities they had to endure.

Holly 're "soutpiel" I can confirm that is quite true and it has to do of course with not letting go of the "old country".

South Africans used to call ex-Rhodesians "Whenwees" because their every sentence would start with "When we lived in Roe-dee-shee-a".

The Beothuk people of Newfoundland used red ochre to cover their skins, clothing and all their possessions believing it to be necessary for protection against evil spirits and infection. This is possibly the real origin of the term "redskin".

The Japanese refer to their own people who have lived in UK a long time and become anglicised as "bananas ": yellow on the outside and white on the inside. It is certainly meant to be derogatory.

Europeans in Hongkong were known as Gweilos (foreign devils). This term was used by both the Chinese and the expats.
When I worked there I was referred to as the Gweipo Nga-yih (the female foreign-devil dentist.)
Racist? Yes. Derogatory? No.
The Chinese gave everyone nicknames.
The Senior Resident Engineer on Mr A's first job was known as So Lo (the bearded devil). Mr A, being the Assistant Resident Engineer, was Sai Lo (the lesser devil).

M DH was known as dae-an-gai = goggly-eyed-goldfish - he had large eyes and thick glasses that exaggerated them.

jane I love that Chinese give everyone nicknames, the Zulu people in Natal do the same. My husband was "Madef" or something similar, I can't remember the word exactly now, it translated as "The one with a moustache".

Grannyknot - the Manx have a similar term: 'wheneyes' (I haven't got a clue how it's spelt) and it's for all the ex-colonials that lived here and would say 'when I was in Africa', 'when I was in India'