>No-one uses white to mean "not black"

Well, in Europe (and hopefully modern US) white includes the peoples not considered black (or asian etc).

Arabs for example are still white, Egyptians too, etc. Outside of racist circles were only WASPs or northern europeans were considered white (which was historically the case for most of the 20th century where white was hijacked for "northern European ancestry").

Egyptians for example, are also white. As are Arabs, middle eastern people, etc. But e.g. Ethiopians, or Ghana people are not (the majority of course, not that all citizens are not).

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/ancien...

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/07/arabs-white...

Many of the groups you're mentioning don't even self-identify as white in English-speaking countries. Not really sure what you're trying to get at any more.

They mostly wouldn't be identified as white in England either.

That's not true for much of the Europe I've experienced. Many people from Spain, Greece, or Italy, for example, would not be considered 'white'.

Generally I'd say that the whiter the population is, the higher the barrier to entry, so to speak, to being considered 'white'.