Yeah the US hasn’t had consistent definitions of who counts as white, or what different races even are. I don’t trust 1940s census data to reflect demographics in 2010. Like my friend’s grandparents in the 1950s got arrested for miscegenation because the wife was Cajun and the husband Italian. Not to mention the quagmire of whether or not Latino is white.
I’m also reminded of Dow v. United States, where Syrians got legally classified as white under the logic that since Jesus was white, therefore other middle easterners are white. The USA has a completely fascist social caste system of race, where whiteness serves as an elite social category rather than anything specific to heritage or even skin color sometimes. Like ask anyone if Muslims are white, even if they have fair complexions and have primarily European ancestry.
Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth. I could wish their Numbers were increased. And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People? why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red? But perhaps I am partial to the Compexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind.
AFAIK Arabs were still considered white all the way into the 1960s. It wasn’t until American adventurism in the middle east the classification changed. Latinos were considered non-white prior to WWII. There weren’t enough Latinos to make up segregated units like the Black Panthers or Red Tails, so they were made white to be assigned to white units. After WWII, their whiteness was revoked.
side note: Alec Guinness did brown face in Lawrence of Arabia and worked with a lot of Arabs to develop the role. I suspect they may have thought nothing of it (Guinness or the Arabs coaching him) because of the race classifications of the time. The role still should have gone to an Arab actor, though.
Yeah the US hasn’t had consistent definitions of who counts as white, or what different races even are. I don’t trust 1940s census data to reflect demographics in 2010. Like my friend’s grandparents in the 1950s got arrested for miscegenation because the wife was Cajun and the husband Italian. Not to mention the quagmire of whether or not Latino is white.
I’m also reminded of Dow v. United States, where Syrians got legally classified as white under the logic that since Jesus was white, therefore other middle easterners are white. The USA has a completely fascist social caste system of race, where whiteness serves as an elite social category rather than anything specific to heritage or even skin color sometimes. Like ask anyone if Muslims are white, even if they have fair complexions and have primarily European ancestry.
my favorite quote about this:
Franklin?
yep. he’s often touted as one of the less awful founding fathers cos he didnt own slaves, but… you know. this is him :D
The only good founding father was Thomas Paine.
He’s only chaotic neutral instead of evil on account of helping found the USA because of his last name
AFAIK Arabs were still considered white all the way into the 1960s. It wasn’t until American adventurism in the middle east the classification changed. Latinos were considered non-white prior to WWII. There weren’t enough Latinos to make up segregated units like the Black Panthers or Red Tails, so they were made white to be assigned to white units. After WWII, their whiteness was revoked.
side note: Alec Guinness did brown face in Lawrence of Arabia and worked with a lot of Arabs to develop the role. I suspect they may have thought nothing of it (Guinness or the Arabs coaching him) because of the race classifications of the time. The role still should have gone to an Arab actor, though.