I notice facial features on some white South Africans that I don’t often see on white Americans (Non-Hispanics). Could it be that white Americans have more mixed ancestry, meaning that they have heritage from more European countries, and the climate in these 2 countries? I am aware of some white people from South Africa that resemble the average white person from North America, but I see many of them that don’t come close in terms of looks and appearance.
(Sorry if this is offensive).
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What’s there to puzzle? Americans and South Africans probably have enough genetic and cultural differences to account for a difference in appearance
Because not all white people look the same.
I’m not that familiar with South Africa but would imagine a disproportionate amount of white South Africans are from the Netherlands whereas more white Americans have come from England, Ireland, and Germany.
In general, I would say it’s not that difficult to tell white people from one area apart from other white people from an different area. It’s not that hard to differentiate Polish people from Irish despite the same skin color.
Its because the afrikaans are dutch for the most part. Most white americans are descended from germans and scots irish. Duh.
I’m not sure if you are correct that White South Africans have a particular look, because I’ve never met many of them. I have heard that many Afrikaaners have a certain small percentage of African ancestry, which is very rare for self identified White Americans.
Aren’t white South Africans descended from the Dutch? That would be why.
Most white North Americans are from Germany and the British Isles.
I don’t know many White South African people. I know Elon Musk, Ninja and Yolandi, Sister Wendi.
When I look at the list on Wikipedia of people that are famous South African people, they look very normal and could be an American.
But – one answer is in many areas in the country of the US it was fine for Black, White, Asian, etc to marry even back 300 years ago. It became legal there in the 1980s.
(We also have people from all over the world. Polish, Swedish, South America, etc)
Because white people is a category for skin color, not ethnicity. That’s quite a few distinct ethnicities inside of that just like there are black and Asian. Turns out going by census definition is probably the worst possible way to look at race.
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“White” isn’t uniform any more than any other ethnic category is. There are all kinds of Black facial features, and Asian, and so forth. It’s not as though all people with dark skin look the same.
Charlize Theron has convincingly played an American for almost her entire career.
This hasn’t been my experience. I’m a white American who knows several white South African men and to see them you wouldn’t know they weren’t from where I’m from
I think white Americans have more varied heritage in terms of what countries our ancestors came from.
They mostly look pretty much the same, you’re just noticing the ones that don’t.
That being said, most white South Africans are descended from the Dutch. Most White Americans are descended from Germans and Irish. White South Africans are less likely to have ancestors from other parts of Europe, in the US, having ancestors from several different regions is so common as to be the norm.
Could you describe the difference in facial features that you noticed? To me, they are indistinguishable from the average American. We had a lot of immigration from Protestants in mainland Europe from places like Germany. And South Africans are descended from the Dutch/Germans so I would expect a lot of similar looks.
No idea.
Frankly, for my money, its people who assume we’re exactly the same that need to explain themselves.
I don’t know much about Afrikaner history, but I know enough to know that they were sometimes a fairly isolated and insular community. Insular communities usually have less of a genetic gene-pool than average, which can sometimes cause higher prevalences of certain traits and syndromes. You can see it to a certain extent in the Ashkenazi and Old Order Anabaptist communities. Could this be related to what you are talking about?
You should crosspost this to /r/askscience. I’d be interested to see the answers you get there.
because us white Americans be fuckin’, that’s why.
I’m a genealogical nerd. White South Africans look different because they descend from the Dutch, but also because during the 1700’s, there were few women at the cape colony, therefore the men would marry enslaved west Africans, enslaved Malagasy or Indonesians, or enslaved Indians. Therefore the early population was very mixed and became “whiter” over time, kind of like most white Cubans or Puerto Ricans.
There are a whole range of ethnic groups that are considered white that aren’t NW European.
Italians, Jews, Spaniards, Greeks, etc.
What kind of crazy question is this??? You could ask why ANY groups of people look different. Why do white Scottish & White Russians look different? Why do white Greek and white Danish look different? Why do black Nigerians and black Somalians look different? Why do Asian Chinese and Asian Vietnamese look different????
Do you think we should look the same? Do all black people look the same to you? Asians? Hispanics? No, of course not. That would just be silly to think that. Every place in the world has different resources, environments, climate, and heritage that can affect how people look in that area. We don’t look the same because, why would we?
White people are pretty diverse too. On average I’d say a white Cuban from Florida looks vastly different than a white person from Utah.
White Saffa here. I’ve met many American tourists in my time and can’t say I’ve ever noticed a difference when it comes to actual features. What usually sets them apart from afar is their hiking gear and mosquito nets in the middle of a metropolitan city because they imagined we’re all on safari 24/7.
Almost as if different “white” people come from different countries. How brain dead do you have to be to ask this op. Why do Somalians and Nigerians look different?
Why do Japanese people not look identical to Russians? They are both Asian.
I am a white American. I have visited South Africa. I can add and speak to somewhat of what OP is saying, we certainly look different in the US, however we are the product of a Melting Pot. South African whites are typically British or Dutch in origin. One thing in particular stood out to me when in South Africa, the whites were freakishly tall. I can almost guarantee the average was approximately 5’11-6’0+. It was a surreal and uncomfortable experience for me even as a white man, but that wasn’t the only reason I was uncomfortable and I won’t get into specifics on that in this discussion.
Yes, that’s pretty much it. White South Africans are mostly Dutch, but here in the States, we’ve had a lot of migrations from Europe. Most of my European ancestors came from Norway, Germany, and Eastern Europe. Then there is some more mixing here. We have Metis people (usually in the North) whose ancestors came from unions of European fur traders and American Indians. And Creoles (usually in the South) are a mix of European and African ancestry.
I’m most definitely white, as in no one will think I’m anything else. But go back 5 generations and I’m black, 2 kinds of Indian, 3 English, 1 Austrian Jew, and the rest is Scot. I have no idea how common that odd of a mixture may be.
Most white south Africans are of Dutch descent
Most white Americans are some combination of English, Scottish, Irish, Italian, and German
They all look the same to me .
The white South Africans that have unique facial features are typically descended from an isolated group of Dutch farmers called Afrikaners or Boers in the past. They also have dashes of German, French Huguenots, Swedes, Danes, and Belgians. They were also relatively isolated from new immigrants after 1700, as most Afrikaners are descended from colonist that arrived before 1700.
The British South Africans always looked very obviously British to me.
White Americans are a blend of various European ethnic groups with English, German, Scottish, and Irish being the most common, but continued waves of immigration have also brought large numbers of Italians and white Latinos.
White Americans are largely from Northern Europe. That is quite the opposite of South Africa.