2,407 articles
West Slavs
West Slavs: western branch of the Slavic peoples in east-central Europe, ancestors of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Sorbs, and extinct Polabian and Pomeranian groups; Lechitic and Czech-Slovak language groups, settled from the sixth century.
Western Confederacy
The Western Confederacy, also called the Northwestern Confederacy and the United Indian Nations, was a coalition of Native American tribes formed in 1785 to resist US settlement.
Western world
Western world: cultural-geographic term for western Europe and its settler-colony nations (North America, Australia, New Zealand); also an economic label for richer Western countries; no official definition; classifications differ (WENAO vs Huntington).
Wet feet, dry feet policy
Wet feet, dry feet policy: 1995-2017 U.S.-Cuba migration rule under which Cubans intercepted at sea were returned to Cuba while those reaching U.S. soil could stay and apply for permanent residency after one year under the Cuban Adjustment Act; ended by Obama January 12, 2017.
Wetback (slur)
Wetback is an offensive slur for Mexican or Latino people, from wading the Rio Grande to enter the U.S.; dated to the 1920s and used officially in the 1954 Operation Wetback deportations.
Whaling in the Faroe Islands
Whaling in the Faroe Islands (grindadráp): community drive hunt of long-finned pilot whales and dolphins, documented since 1584, regulated by law since 1832, contested over animal welfare, mercury contamination, and sustainability.
Wheel-well stowaway
A wheel-well stowaway is a person who hides in an aircraft's landing gear compartment to travel without a ticket, facing fatal cold and oxygen deprivation at cruising altitude.
White Africans of European ancestry
White Africans of European ancestry, including Afrikaners and English-speaking South Africans, descend from European settlers, chiefly from the 1652 Dutch settlement at Table Bay; South Africa's white population fell from 11% (1996) to 7.3% (2022), about 4.5 million.
White Americans
White Americans are U.S. residents identifying as White on the census, a self-reported, socially defined category. In 2020 they numbered 191.7 million non-Hispanic (57.8%); the 1790 Naturalization Act limited citizenship to free white persons.
White Argentines
White Argentines are Argentines identifying or classified as white, central to the national myth of a European-descended Argentina ("los argentinos descendemos de los barcos"), supported by massive 1880–1930-era immigration yet qualified by genetic admixture and recent census counts of Afro-descendant and Indigenous populations.
White Australia policy
The White Australia policy, centered on the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, excluded non-European migration via a 50-word dictation test and companion Pacific Islander laws, reshaping Australia's demographics until its dismantling from 1958 to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
White Brazilians
White Brazilians (brancos) are Brazilians self-identifying as white in the IBGE census: 88.2 million, 43.5% in 2022, concentrated in the South, mostly of Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and German immigrant descent, with persistent income gaps versus pardos and pretos.
White British
White British is the UK census ethnic group category "White: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British"; 74.4% of England and Wales residents identified with it in Census 2021, down from 87.5% in 2001.
White Chileans
White Chileans: Chileans who identify or are identified as white or of European descent. Also a socially constructed whiteness produced by state whitening policy, Nicolás Palacios's homogeneity myth, European immigration, and everyday racial hierarchy; roughly 88.9% identified as white or non-indigenous in 2016.
White Cubans
White Cubans (blancos) are the self-identified white majority of Cuba's population, about 64 percent in the 2012 census, and roughly 86 percent of Cuban Americans; they hold disproportionate access to remittances, travel, and private-sector income.
White flight
White flight: departure of white residents from U.S. urban neighborhoods and schools as nonwhite presence grows, first named after World War II; explains 34–50 percent of early 20th-century segregation growth and persists in middle-class suburbs.
White Fragility
White Fragility: term coined by Robin DiAngelo in a 2011 paper and her 2018 Beacon Press book on defensive reactions of white people to racial stress; bestseller for 155 weeks, ~1.5 million sales, widely debated for testability and training effectiveness.
White Hispanic and Latino Americans
White Hispanic and Latino Americans identify as Hispanic or Latino (an ethnicity, not a race) and as White. Counts fell from 26.7M White alone in 2010 to 12.6M in 2020, largely due to census question and coding changes.
White Latin Americans
White Latin Americans identify as white within Latin America's census and survey categories of White, mestizo, pardo, Black, and Indigenous; shares vary widely, prominent in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay, about 13-17% in Mexico surveys, with whiteness tied to skin color, status, and inequality measurement.
White Mexicans
White Mexicans: people in Mexico identifying or perceived as white, with European-associated features. Also blanco; roughly 15-20% self-identification; shaped by colonial casta hierarchy, mestizaje ideology, and "money whitens" class effects.
White Namibians
White Namibians: citizens of European descent from German colonial and South African settlement eras; about 1.8% of the population in the 2023 census, speaking Afrikaans, German, or English.
White people
White people: a socially defined racial category used in law and censuses, historically tied to US naturalization law from 1790, with boundaries that vary by country and lack biological validity per National Academies genetics findings.
White privilege
White privilege: unearned social and institutional advantages held by white people in racially stratified societies. Popularized by Peggy McIntosh's 1988 Wellesley paper, anticipated by Du Bois's 1935 "psychological wage"; studied empirically and contested politically.
White South Africans
White South Africans are South Africans of primarily European descent, mainly Afrikaners (about 2.7 million, Afrikaans-speaking) and English speakers, about 4.5 million people or 7.3% of the 2022 census population, declining from 11% in 1996.
White trash
White trash is a derogatory American term for poor, low-status white people, first recorded in the South in the early 1820s, considered an offensive slur.
White Zimbabweans
White Zimbabweans: Zimbabweans of European ethnic origin, formerly Rhodesia's settler minority. Settled 1890s, ruled until 1980, 28,732 counted in 2012, ~4,000 farmers lost land in 2000 reforms, compensation announced 2024.
White's
White's is London's oldest gentlemen's club, founded in 1693 at 37 St James's Street. A men-only, Grade I listed aristocratic institution famous for its historic betting book, closed waiting list, and royal members.
Whiteness studies
Whiteness studies: interdisciplinary field, from the late 1980s and 1990s, examining white racial identity as a social construction, white privilege, and whiteness's role in reproducing racism; includes critiques, historiography, and later quantitative and health research.
Who is a Jew?
Who is a Jew? examines criteria for Jewish membership: halachic matrilineal descent and conversion, biblical patrilineal origins, Reform's 1983 patrilineal ruling, Israel's Law of Return, court cases, and survey evidence on Jewish identity as religion, ethnicity, and culture.
Wichita Confederacy
The Wichita Confederacy, self-named Kitikiti'sh, was a loose alliance of Caddoan-speaking Native American peoples of the Southern Plains whose descendants are the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes of Oklahoma.