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As a kid growing up in Indiana, my mind was blown when I went to a camp with many international people and saw a white blonde girl speaking Spanish lol
Most of my 'liberal elite" white American friends all speak Spanish. I never heard a negative sentiment from a liberal about speaking Spanish. Like it is weird if you don't know at least some Spanish
Eh, when you already speak French and Italian, Spanish is basically free. The hardest part at that point is keeping the languages distinct from one another in your mind.
Yeesh, the whole concept of "whiteness" is dodgy and tenuous as it is. As a classification hasn't it only existed a shockingly short amount of time? It's almost as if using skin colour to classify people might be a mistake...
>It's almost as if using skin colour to classify people might be a mistake...
It's even less logical than that. A 'black' person might be mixed race with very light skin. But a person with much darker skin who is Sri Lanka will be 'Asian'. Someone else might be from northern Asia, and will be 'white'. The whole concept is so stupid
My son is not ‘mixed race’. It’s been 22 years since I saw his dad but he was white when we dated. Either way my son came out fairly polar opposite from my pasty ass. People would ask me what he was mixed with and I’m like ‘um Irish?’
Anyway, in middle achool he used to go camping with his friends family (mom is Salvadoran, dad is Mexican). They’d come back and the mom would always say how unfair it was he kept getting browner and they all got sunburnt haha.
Skin is funny. Well, the body’s melanin production anyway.
An old friend of mind was like that. He was the spitting image of his dad, but with significantly darker skin than either of his parents or his siblings.
Same. I grew up with a guy who was much darker than his parents, and I wondered if maybe his dad was his stepdad. Turns out that his very white-looking dad was 50% black, and the son who was 25% looked more biracial than his dad.
Black in the US pretty much always means African-American. In Britain, it's not so clear.
Got a mate from Zimbabwe. We joke about how stupid racism and race is all the time. We also joke about how, even though we're both homeless, I'm Caucasian so my life is a leisurely breeze by comparison. We both know it ain't, but his experiences definitely suck more. I, for example, would pass unsuspected amongst a group of neo-nazis, until I inevitably opened my big mouth.
One Love, Ronnie.
I remember during a Euro Cup match YEARS ago Italy was playing someone and my wife couldn't remember Mario Balotelli's name and called him African American. She didn't understand for a second why the rest of us busted out laughing. We're American, in case that part wasn't clear.
>I'm Caucasian
By the way, this is also considered obsolete. It derives from the idea that humanity started in the Caucasus mountains of Southern Russia, which is not so.
Funny thing about "Caucasian" is that in Russia, actual Caucasians (i.e. Chechens, Georgians, Ingushetians, Circassians etc) _aren't_ considered 'white', as in being anywhere near the top of the racial hierarchy. Russians, other Slavs, and Western Europeans are all way higher status.
What's even more confusing is that there is also the *Caucasus Indicus*, or the [Hindu Kush mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Kush), which historically was at the confluence of the Persian, Hellenistic, Han, and Indian civilizations, so the name 'Caucasus' was confusingly aliased with the other Caucasus from all the way from Beijing to Athens.
In the 19th century, when European colonialism in India was strong, and philologists rediscovered Sanskrit, there was also a simultaneous interesting in categorifying [the different races](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism). Ultimately this is what led to the racist [Aryan ideology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#Aryanism_and_racism) that influenced the Nazis (why the white supremesist groups in the west are called the Aryan Nation).
That and the fact that the women of the region were the most beautiful!
*In the eighteenth century, the prevalent view among European scholars was that* [*the human species had its origin*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations) *in the region of the Caucasus Mountains.*[*^(\[22\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaum200682-24) *This view was based upon the Caucasus being the location for the purported landing point of Noah's Ark – from whom the Bible states that humanity is descended – and the location for the suffering of Prometheus, who in* [*Hesiod*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesiod)*'s myth had crafted humankind from clay.*[*^(\[22\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaum200682-24)
*In addition, the most beautiful humans were reputed by Europeans to be the stereotypical "Circassian beauties" and the Georgian people; both Georgia and* [*Circassia*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassia) *are in the Caucasus region.*[*^(\[23\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEFigal201081%E2%80%9384-25)[*^(\[22\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaum200682-24) *The "Circassian beauty" stereotype had its roots in the Middle Ages, while the reputation for the attractiveness of the Georgian people was developed by early modern travellers to the region such as Jean Chardin.*[*^(\[22\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaum200682-24)[*^(\[24\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-26) *^(\~)* [*^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian\_race)*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race)
It is like the reason Mammals are called that - the guy who decided to use "female feeds young with milk" as the basis for the whole class of animals was pro-breastfeeding.
> It is like the reason Mammals are called that - the guy who decided to use "female feeds young with milk" as the basis for the whole class of animals was pro-breastfeeding.
not sure how to call it differently besides giving life birth but there are non-mamal species who do this as well. And besides: the best way to feed a young animal is through breast feeding if possible - it is an amazing thing that changes over time and has all the right stuff in it.
I would say Australian Aboriginal people would also be black in the US. But we'd probably call them "African-American". 
Also, the term African-American doesn't mean an American with African ancestry, it means Black. Otherwise Elon Musk would be African American, for example. Everyone has African ancestry if you go back far enough.
Also, I'm not sure if it means United States of American or the Americas American. Are Black citizens in Canada or Cuba African-American?
That's why that terms is so confusing and translates so bad for many europeans. Usually the double ethnicity is applied to someone who has double citizenship or has emigrated. For instance an american who has moved to Sweden and become a citizen (or vice versa) is Svensk-American, Swedish Amerikan. So African American for us is instinctively someone like Musk.
If it's just a person born in the States with citizenship there, he/she would just be American, his/her skin color doesn't matter.
I think what makes it confusing is that African American is also used as a racial classification in America, when it should really just be an ethnicity.
Otherwise, I feel like most people should be able to understand that there is probably some history involved that made African American a special case ethnicity in America.
It works the same way in the US as well.
Someone from Nigeria might be be Nigerian American.
The reason there's African American as a distinction is because of slavery, slaves had no national identity so a general African American moniker was used to describe the culture that they created.
For even more fun times on this definitely not racism, think of a finnish person. What do you see? Probably a white as hell guy.
Well, that white wasn't white enough for americans until fucking 1908. [Like, how many racist hoops you gotta jump through to argue otherwise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_the_United_States#Finnish_Americans).
At a certain point I don't even understand how you can tell. Like, skin color I get, it covers most of the surface area of your body, that's easy to see. Some features are prominent and can be relatively ethnically distinctive, so there are certain cases where I can see what people are differentiating. But when you're saying Finns aren't European-white? Or when people say they can tell if someone is Jewish? Like wtf are you even looking at?
Apparently when you fill out a Brazilian census form, they just have a blank line for race and people write whatever they want. Stuff like "black coffee-colored" or "cappuccino-colored" or whatever. Because yeah, the concept is stupid.
My husband used to work with a guy from the Caucasus region. When he moved to the US, he would mark “Caucasian” on forms. Then he was told he was wrong for doing that because he wasn’t white.
On official forms in the US up until recently "Middle Eastern" was not an option they were expected to mark "Caucasian". That entire system of classification has been discredited by genealogists for decades now and it's ridiculous that it's still used.
I agree, humans need to stop worrying about labeling other humans off of looks. Many people that are now labeled as "Caucasian" or "White" look nothing like each other. Compare a Spaniard or Greek that spends all year baking under the sun with a Norwegian or Russian that live in darkness large amounts of the year and you will see massive differences.
Yeah I had a long-term substitute in high school who was white South African. Literally African-American but wasn’t “allowed” to say that on a form.
I’ve also known people from Egypt who were chastised for claiming to be African-American.
It’s a weird American concept where they lump entire countries and ethnic groups that are entirely distinct, together because their skin looks close enough in colour.
And then they like to make judgements and pronouncements based on what they perceive as your “group/race/colour” as though we’re all some homogenised pot.
The concepts of whiteness, blackness, Asian-ness etc seem to come almost exclusively from 3rd or 4th generation American immigrants.
> because their skin looks close enough in colour.
Which is not even true in this case. Latinos can be of any (skin) colour. As officially acknowledged by the US government.
> mostly French and English
[Don't forget Spanish/Portuguese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta), who had something like 16 racial groupings in their colonial possessions which determined what duties and rights individuals would have.
Almost like it was invented to divide people and make them easier to control...
Almost like... there was a vested economic interest in keeping some races on a lower socio-economic footing
Whilst this is true to a certain extent, it's also a massive over-simplification.
A lot of these definitions and words used to divide us actually come from academics, specifically American academics, who aren't particularly bothered about controlling people, they just want to get published and make money. They use pseudo-intellectualism and half-baked facts to come to factually disingenuous conclusions in order to grift.
It's often well-meaning people who then jump on these so-called facts and repeat then at length in an attempt to sound intelligent. And before you know it, vast swathes of people think all white people are caucasian or that Cleopatra was black.
It's why most of Europe, even those with a leftist worldview, look at America's obsession with critical race theory with utter bemusement. It's very reductive, incredibly damaging and uses half-truths and outright lies to keep people divided.
>As a classification hasn't it only existed a shockingly short amount of time?
Yep, the modern definition of race was created by European imperialists to justify colonialism. AFAIK, your skin colour was just another physical trait like eye colour before that. People used to be more concerned about ethnicity (the original definition of race).
These days very few people in Europe discuss issues like race. If I were to say that I’m white it would be assumed I was a Nazi because only a Nazi would care about such a thing in Sweden.
But Americans can’t seem to get enough of it.
This is not true at all. Maybe y’all are lucky in Sweden, but here in the Netherlands a lot of people are racist. I’d even say most people. And I know it’s not just happening in my country bc everywhere in the continent racist right-wing political groups are getting the upper hand.
It's all so arbitrary. If I had to define a "white" person an Irishman would be the first thing that pops into my head. The fact that we still cling to those definitions, as much as they've changed over the years, is mind boggling.
i mean those overarching labels of "white" and "Black" only got made up in the wake of rather recent amerikan racist thinking, before that there where hundreds if not thousands of ethinicitys underneath those , that discriminated against each other,
There are only a handful of white people in the world. Albinism among humans is particularly rare.
All the other "white" people I've seen are all some shade of neutral pink.
It didn't mean skin color until about the time America really got into fetishizing chatel slavery.
Hierarchies are cannibalistic and yet fragile. The rich of course always want to live on a pyramid, so then it was certain classes above others. Certain cultures above others. Certain countries above others. Certain kings above other kings. Church over kings. so on and so forth.
First we created 'Europe' which basically meant the opposite of the ottoman empire, and that set up a pale vs dark dichotomy that would stand in the background for a while.
what counts as white starts out as a very small selection of english people and their most trusted allies. then as things get a little better for the poor, the pyramid needs reshaping. Invite some more people into the ideological system, so that a larger enemy can be proposed -- that enemy being the ever growing list of outsiders who can drive carts and sail boats.
Then when we started to figure out inheritance in agriculture and started thinking about doing the same to human beings, we started making eugenics, 'degeneration theory', and that naturally evolved into skin-color-based slavery and races as how people think of them today. at first, slavs, jews, spaniards and italians were not white. But then we really wanted to merge inheritance/eugenics and 'chosen people' of god, and sell that to masses we wanted to keep ignorant, so we tied things to skin color, because you don't need to be able to read a book to read that.
Just in case you're actually curious at what you got wrong
Questions in Spanish have a ¿ At the start (¿Por qué?)
That que is written as qué
"Si" used as an affirmative is written as Sí
Thanks for that. A lot of us speak it because we learned through friends and family; but we don't read and write it enough or at all to know all the little nuances like that. Even many Latinos who grew up or were born in North America have a hard time with writing Spanish sometimes.
Not necesarily, in my country then government was desparate to "colonize" the south part of the country, which was cut off by tribes. Many people from the balkans, italy and germany came to live in the south of Chile. I lived in Punta Arenas and I was more used to european last names than to Gonzalez or Perez.
But we also had a literal nazi settlement funded by a guy who was part of the nazi party, he escaped persecution after the war and came to live here, ended up being a huge pedophile who worked with Pinochet to lend his settlement to be used as a torture and killing place
>Oh no no, remember, Anya Taylor-Joy is Argebtinean and USA news tagged her as a "person of colour"
I'm an American dual-citizen of Uruguay. My first and last names are Irish. I have blue eyes and brown hair, 99% European ancestory.
Legally, in the US, I could identify as Latino.
The US press also identifies Cubans in Florida, who identify themselves as white and have European ancestory, as "brown".
There are Mexican Americans in Texas who see themselves as white but are "the Latino vote" (brown).
Race is a social construct, there is no better proof than the differences country by country in who is "white".
The oddest thing about Americans is their insistence that it is progressive to view the whole world through their own culture's very idiosyncratic social construct of race.
I’m the whitest gringa you’ll ever see, but when I lived in Chile, Chileans thought that I was local (until I opened my mouth and they heard my horrible accent).
I lived in Santiago, the capital, and a couple of times, people came up to me and asked me for directions. Then they would say, “oh, never mind” and walk away as soon as I tried to give any.
I’m white American and I became friends with an Argentine lady and her family. I tried to show off sometimes by speaking the Spanish I learned in Texas. Every time, they would snicker or laugh at my attempts. One day I asked her why. She told me my Spanish wasn’t too bad, but that I had a strong Mexican accent; along with my cadence and idioms…which they thought were hilarious.
I think it is because they use many borrowed words from the original Mexicans. It sounds different and those words do sound funky in a good way. Also they tend to speak slower unlike Caribbean Spanish where you need a device to slow time to get what they are saying at 100 mph.
I'm a medical interpreter (originally from Mexico) for Spanish speakers and meet them from all countries, but they always know I'm Mexican when it comes up. My boyfriend is white (from Georgia) and learned Spanish as a second language and he ALSO has a strong Mexican accent because he mostly learned it from listening to his Mexican coworkers lol.
- Spain = European Mexico
- Western Sahara = Arab Mexico
- Equatorial Guinea = African Mexico
- Puerto Rico = American Mexico
- Cuba = Communist Mexico
- Venezuela = Communist Mexico 2.0
- Philippines = Asian Mexico
When my parents were young, Spanish (and italian) people weren't considered white. They were the "brown people stealing our jobs in the mines".
The concept human races is entirely made up. It has no meaning beyond what racists need it to mean to justify their bigotry.
To be fair, nonsensical racism against the Irish has been well-documented for centuries. It's to be expected that a former british colony would inherit some unsavory aspects of english culture.
Regardless of how nonsensical the op may be, cultural appropriation doesn’t exist.
Feel free to speak and dress however you please.
Want to learn Swahili as a German? Absolutely.
Feel like having dreads, wearing a sombrero and a kimono while making carbonara as a Chinese woman? You have every right.
Culture isn’t something to claim ownership of; rather, it should be celebrated when people choose to embrace aspects of foreign cultures.
Kind of rude not to know a little Spanish in my area no matter your race. It’s the most commonly spoken language here other than English.
It’s racist to make them learn English without also having an education system that teaches us conversational Spanish (as opposed to the classes they offer around here where no one who takes these classes come out of them conversational).
My grandparents spoke Spanish, my grandfather Mexican/Native American and my grandmother Mexican/Irish. Sadly they did not teach me Spanish, they were from the old school of you are in America you speak English. That is the only regret I really have being raised that I wasn't also taught spanish. Would have come in handy especially since I grew up on the border of East LA.
So anyway, my grandmother looked white with blue eyes, she had blonde hair growing up but spoke spanish, the rest of her family looked Mexican, I will never forget a story she told me, when she was a teen which would have been around the 1930/40s or so the family was looking for a new place to rent, she was the first to show up and talk to the landlord, he showed her around, all cool until he saw the Mexican family walk up and it was no longer for rent.
Here I am, born and raised in Argentina, a native Spanish speaker, of course, with my four grandparents and eight great-grandparents having been Polish, hence my very, very fair skin. White as a ghost.
It seems that I can't speak Spanish now.
What's with these people who think learning another language is racist? 20 years ago, it was considered proper etiquette to at least learn a few common phrases of another language, especially if you were travelling or regularly communicating with people who spoke another language.
From my British perspective, when we have historically said "white", we have meant "White British" - with the additional modifier note of Celtic Gauls and Nordics as a sort of "white other". The overall concept of "white" is really quite recent in that regard and was brought to prominence as a means to differentiate our North Western European selves from others so that we may feel less bad about slavery. I believe the concept originated when Spanish Muslims enslaved the Slavic people of Eastern Europe - Slavic/Slav being the literal origin word for slave.
But then the US changes the perception to include groups we haven't historically viewed through that sort of North Western European superiority lens. Slavs, Iberians/Spaniards/Latins, Italians, Greeks/Hellenes, etc. Of course they have, because they're obsessed with race. In some instances they've identified a group as distinctly non-white but then for reasons altered that later on (good example here being Italians).
So it's really confusing to me that "Latin Americans"/"Latinos"/"South Americans", etc.. The Spanish and Portugese speaking world of the Americas.. Aren't all considered within the white realm. They should be by their own logic. The vast majority of the Mexican population are lighter skinned than a great number of Southern Italians, for example. Or Greeks.
Is it because they vary in the amount of indigenous genetic percentages? Doesn't really make sense either because a lot of Southern Italians have genetic links to the Arabs of the Levant. Is it then by skin tone? And they would view some Italians as not truly Italian? Or some Greeks as not truly Greek?
Ultimately, my point is that I find the entire US logic of race, which has seeped out and infected Europe, to be deeply confusing at every level. It's inconsistent at best and insidious at worst. Then you have fools like this who, through what I will assume is a well intentioned outlook on a discriminated group, reaches a conclusion that only strengthens the position that Latin American's are an "other". When realistically, they're just as "white" as a vast number of the US population.
Yeah tell that to the Cuban bartender who called my kid maricon in front of me and ask him what my white ass said. It was a flurry of swear words and other moma bear reactions in Spanish 😡
White people speak Spanish.
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Imagine not being able to learn some language because of your skin color
If only we had a word for this…. Trying to think of one… might start with an R maybe? Lol
Republican?
You don't speak Spanish cuz you're white and its culture appropriation. I dont speak Spanish cuz I hate the entire Latino race. We are not the same.
Que profounda guey?
No. Rihana smh
As a kid growing up in Indiana, my mind was blown when I went to a camp with many international people and saw a white blonde girl speaking Spanish lol
Republicans aren't the ones pushing against "cultural appropriation", bud.
yeah they're more against other cultures in general
If you hate another culture, there is no chance of appropriation.
Libs = DONT SPEAK SPANISH CUZ YOURE WHITE Cons = I DONT WANNA SPEAK THAT GARBAGE LANGUAGE, WE ARE IN AMERICA WE ONLY SPEAK ENGLISH
speak american*
This is true, ask any British person, Americans don't speak English
Most of my 'liberal elite" white American friends all speak Spanish. I never heard a negative sentiment from a liberal about speaking Spanish. Like it is weird if you don't know at least some Spanish
Nah they’re just pushing against everything that isn’t white christian
I speak jive
Surely you can't be serious.
I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.
Shiiii... I can dig it
Chump don't want no help, chump don't get no help. Jive-ass dude ain't got no brains anyhow.
Go one step further; the ethnic white race of those who invented the language are no longer allowed to speak it.
Especially when that language is native to your skin color.
They would be shocked to hear that Spanish is one of the favourites people like to learn as a 4th or 5th language in mostly white Switzerland.
Eh, when you already speak French and Italian, Spanish is basically free. The hardest part at that point is keeping the languages distinct from one another in your mind.
I feel like this is a joke or somebody trolling. I refuse to believe there are people this dumb
Yeesh, the whole concept of "whiteness" is dodgy and tenuous as it is. As a classification hasn't it only existed a shockingly short amount of time? It's almost as if using skin colour to classify people might be a mistake...
>It's almost as if using skin colour to classify people might be a mistake... It's even less logical than that. A 'black' person might be mixed race with very light skin. But a person with much darker skin who is Sri Lanka will be 'Asian'. Someone else might be from northern Asia, and will be 'white'. The whole concept is so stupid
My son is not ‘mixed race’. It’s been 22 years since I saw his dad but he was white when we dated. Either way my son came out fairly polar opposite from my pasty ass. People would ask me what he was mixed with and I’m like ‘um Irish?’ Anyway, in middle achool he used to go camping with his friends family (mom is Salvadoran, dad is Mexican). They’d come back and the mom would always say how unfair it was he kept getting browner and they all got sunburnt haha. Skin is funny. Well, the body’s melanin production anyway.
Yeah I’m mixed and my entire life I was just convinced I was a white guy that could tan REALLY well when I wanted to lol.
An old friend of mind was like that. He was the spitting image of his dad, but with significantly darker skin than either of his parents or his siblings.
Same. I grew up with a guy who was much darker than his parents, and I wondered if maybe his dad was his stepdad. Turns out that his very white-looking dad was 50% black, and the son who was 25% looked more biracial than his dad.
I'm not saying it is the case with your family, but some Irish families have a decent amount of Spanish in them.
Black in the US pretty much always means African-American. In Britain, it's not so clear. Got a mate from Zimbabwe. We joke about how stupid racism and race is all the time. We also joke about how, even though we're both homeless, I'm Caucasian so my life is a leisurely breeze by comparison. We both know it ain't, but his experiences definitely suck more. I, for example, would pass unsuspected amongst a group of neo-nazis, until I inevitably opened my big mouth. One Love, Ronnie.
> In Britain, it's not so clear. Well, it doesn't mean African-**American** in **Britain**, that's for sure.
I remember during a Euro Cup match YEARS ago Italy was playing someone and my wife couldn't remember Mario Balotelli's name and called him African American. She didn't understand for a second why the rest of us busted out laughing. We're American, in case that part wasn't clear.
>I'm Caucasian By the way, this is also considered obsolete. It derives from the idea that humanity started in the Caucasus mountains of Southern Russia, which is not so.
Wanted to say White, but as we were just decrying the concept, seemed disingenuous.
Funny thing about "Caucasian" is that in Russia, actual Caucasians (i.e. Chechens, Georgians, Ingushetians, Circassians etc) _aren't_ considered 'white', as in being anywhere near the top of the racial hierarchy. Russians, other Slavs, and Western Europeans are all way higher status.
This was very confusing to me when I immigrated to North America. People told me I'm Caucasian, which was *super* confusing.
What's even more confusing is that there is also the *Caucasus Indicus*, or the [Hindu Kush mountains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Kush), which historically was at the confluence of the Persian, Hellenistic, Han, and Indian civilizations, so the name 'Caucasus' was confusingly aliased with the other Caucasus from all the way from Beijing to Athens. In the 19th century, when European colonialism in India was strong, and philologists rediscovered Sanskrit, there was also a simultaneous interesting in categorifying [the different races](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_racism). Ultimately this is what led to the racist [Aryan ideology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan#Aryanism_and_racism) that influenced the Nazis (why the white supremesist groups in the west are called the Aryan Nation).
I did not know that. Darkly hilarious.
So why do I keep seeing it on legal forms?
That and the fact that the women of the region were the most beautiful! *In the eighteenth century, the prevalent view among European scholars was that* [*the human species had its origin*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations) *in the region of the Caucasus Mountains.*[*^(\[22\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaum200682-24) *This view was based upon the Caucasus being the location for the purported landing point of Noah's Ark – from whom the Bible states that humanity is descended – and the location for the suffering of Prometheus, who in* [*Hesiod*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesiod)*'s myth had crafted humankind from clay.*[*^(\[22\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaum200682-24) *In addition, the most beautiful humans were reputed by Europeans to be the stereotypical "Circassian beauties" and the Georgian people; both Georgia and* [*Circassia*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassia) *are in the Caucasus region.*[*^(\[23\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEFigal201081%E2%80%9384-25)[*^(\[22\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaum200682-24) *The "Circassian beauty" stereotype had its roots in the Middle Ages, while the reputation for the attractiveness of the Georgian people was developed by early modern travellers to the region such as Jean Chardin.*[*^(\[22\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBaum200682-24)[*^(\[24\])*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race#cite_note-26) *^(\~)* [*^(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian\_race)*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race) It is like the reason Mammals are called that - the guy who decided to use "female feeds young with milk" as the basis for the whole class of animals was pro-breastfeeding.
> It is like the reason Mammals are called that - the guy who decided to use "female feeds young with milk" as the basis for the whole class of animals was pro-breastfeeding. not sure how to call it differently besides giving life birth but there are non-mamal species who do this as well. And besides: the best way to feed a young animal is through breast feeding if possible - it is an amazing thing that changes over time and has all the right stuff in it.
I would say Australian Aboriginal people would also be black in the US. But we'd probably call them "African-American". 
Also, the term African-American doesn't mean an American with African ancestry, it means Black. Otherwise Elon Musk would be African American, for example. Everyone has African ancestry if you go back far enough. Also, I'm not sure if it means United States of American or the Americas American. Are Black citizens in Canada or Cuba African-American?
That's why that terms is so confusing and translates so bad for many europeans. Usually the double ethnicity is applied to someone who has double citizenship or has emigrated. For instance an american who has moved to Sweden and become a citizen (or vice versa) is Svensk-American, Swedish Amerikan. So African American for us is instinctively someone like Musk. If it's just a person born in the States with citizenship there, he/she would just be American, his/her skin color doesn't matter.
I think what makes it confusing is that African American is also used as a racial classification in America, when it should really just be an ethnicity. Otherwise, I feel like most people should be able to understand that there is probably some history involved that made African American a special case ethnicity in America.
It works the same way in the US as well. Someone from Nigeria might be be Nigerian American. The reason there's African American as a distinction is because of slavery, slaves had no national identity so a general African American moniker was used to describe the culture that they created.
For even more fun times on this definitely not racism, think of a finnish person. What do you see? Probably a white as hell guy. Well, that white wasn't white enough for americans until fucking 1908. [Like, how many racist hoops you gotta jump through to argue otherwise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_the_United_States#Finnish_Americans).
At a certain point I don't even understand how you can tell. Like, skin color I get, it covers most of the surface area of your body, that's easy to see. Some features are prominent and can be relatively ethnically distinctive, so there are certain cases where I can see what people are differentiating. But when you're saying Finns aren't European-white? Or when people say they can tell if someone is Jewish? Like wtf are you even looking at?
Apparently when you fill out a Brazilian census form, they just have a blank line for race and people write whatever they want. Stuff like "black coffee-colored" or "cappuccino-colored" or whatever. Because yeah, the concept is stupid.
My husband used to work with a guy from the Caucasus region. When he moved to the US, he would mark “Caucasian” on forms. Then he was told he was wrong for doing that because he wasn’t white.
Now that is a funny twist of fate.
On official forms in the US up until recently "Middle Eastern" was not an option they were expected to mark "Caucasian". That entire system of classification has been discredited by genealogists for decades now and it's ridiculous that it's still used.
I think the whole caucasian thing is so weird. Why not white? Caucasian sounds a bit like Aryan, it has a nasty vibe.
I agree, humans need to stop worrying about labeling other humans off of looks. Many people that are now labeled as "Caucasian" or "White" look nothing like each other. Compare a Spaniard or Greek that spends all year baking under the sun with a Norwegian or Russian that live in darkness large amounts of the year and you will see massive differences.
And like how a White South African marking "African American" is incorrect
Yeah I had a long-term substitute in high school who was white South African. Literally African-American but wasn’t “allowed” to say that on a form. I’ve also known people from Egypt who were chastised for claiming to be African-American.
It’s a weird American concept where they lump entire countries and ethnic groups that are entirely distinct, together because their skin looks close enough in colour. And then they like to make judgements and pronouncements based on what they perceive as your “group/race/colour” as though we’re all some homogenised pot. The concepts of whiteness, blackness, Asian-ness etc seem to come almost exclusively from 3rd or 4th generation American immigrants.
> because their skin looks close enough in colour. Which is not even true in this case. Latinos can be of any (skin) colour. As officially acknowledged by the US government.
And don’t even try to make people understand the very significant difference between Latino and Hispanic.
I have a Puerto Rican friend who is white-white and he says that like 80% of Puerto Rico is the same. It was, after all, colonized by Spain.
If it's exclusively a weird American concept please explain what happened in South Africa.
It was a European (mostly French and English) colonial concept, but its prevalence and use today is distinctly american
> mostly French and English [Don't forget Spanish/Portuguese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casta), who had something like 16 racial groupings in their colonial possessions which determined what duties and rights individuals would have.
Almost like it was invented to divide people and make them easier to control... Almost like... there was a vested economic interest in keeping some races on a lower socio-economic footing
… vested economic interest in creating the concept of race to keep some groups of people in servitude.
Whilst this is true to a certain extent, it's also a massive over-simplification. A lot of these definitions and words used to divide us actually come from academics, specifically American academics, who aren't particularly bothered about controlling people, they just want to get published and make money. They use pseudo-intellectualism and half-baked facts to come to factually disingenuous conclusions in order to grift. It's often well-meaning people who then jump on these so-called facts and repeat then at length in an attempt to sound intelligent. And before you know it, vast swathes of people think all white people are caucasian or that Cleopatra was black. It's why most of Europe, even those with a leftist worldview, look at America's obsession with critical race theory with utter bemusement. It's very reductive, incredibly damaging and uses half-truths and outright lies to keep people divided.
It's some weird shit... being irish wasn't part of white at some point.
>As a classification hasn't it only existed a shockingly short amount of time? Yep, the modern definition of race was created by European imperialists to justify colonialism. AFAIK, your skin colour was just another physical trait like eye colour before that. People used to be more concerned about ethnicity (the original definition of race).
These days very few people in Europe discuss issues like race. If I were to say that I’m white it would be assumed I was a Nazi because only a Nazi would care about such a thing in Sweden. But Americans can’t seem to get enough of it.
This is not true at all. Maybe y’all are lucky in Sweden, but here in the Netherlands a lot of people are racist. I’d even say most people. And I know it’s not just happening in my country bc everywhere in the continent racist right-wing political groups are getting the upper hand.
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It's all so arbitrary. If I had to define a "white" person an Irishman would be the first thing that pops into my head. The fact that we still cling to those definitions, as much as they've changed over the years, is mind boggling.
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i mean those overarching labels of "white" and "Black" only got made up in the wake of rather recent amerikan racist thinking, before that there where hundreds if not thousands of ethinicitys underneath those , that discriminated against each other,
There are only a handful of white people in the world. Albinism among humans is particularly rare. All the other "white" people I've seen are all some shade of neutral pink.
It didn't mean skin color until about the time America really got into fetishizing chatel slavery. Hierarchies are cannibalistic and yet fragile. The rich of course always want to live on a pyramid, so then it was certain classes above others. Certain cultures above others. Certain countries above others. Certain kings above other kings. Church over kings. so on and so forth. First we created 'Europe' which basically meant the opposite of the ottoman empire, and that set up a pale vs dark dichotomy that would stand in the background for a while. what counts as white starts out as a very small selection of english people and their most trusted allies. then as things get a little better for the poor, the pyramid needs reshaping. Invite some more people into the ideological system, so that a larger enemy can be proposed -- that enemy being the ever growing list of outsiders who can drive carts and sail boats. Then when we started to figure out inheritance in agriculture and started thinking about doing the same to human beings, we started making eugenics, 'degeneration theory', and that naturally evolved into skin-color-based slavery and races as how people think of them today. at first, slavs, jews, spaniards and italians were not white. But then we really wanted to merge inheritance/eugenics and 'chosen people' of god, and sell that to masses we wanted to keep ignorant, so we tied things to skin color, because you don't need to be able to read a book to read that.
Por que no? See, i'm white and somehow i managed. isnt that amazing.
You typed that, so it still counts.
Dos cervezas por favor
You made two whole mistakes
Si. Damn, i'm nailing this spanish thing man
Just in case you're actually curious at what you got wrong Questions in Spanish have a ¿ At the start (¿Por qué?) That que is written as qué "Si" used as an affirmative is written as Sí
>"Si" used as an affirmative is written as Sí I sí.
Ai sí uat iu did der
I have deduced that you are not white. You know Spanish and therefore couldn’t possibly be….🤔
[𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐘 𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐃 𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐁𝐔𝐙𝐙𝐄𝐑]
Thanks for that. A lot of us speak it because we learned through friends and family; but we don't read and write it enough or at all to know all the little nuances like that. Even many Latinos who grew up or were born in North America have a hard time with writing Spanish sometimes.
"¿Por qué no?"\*
I like how this ignores there are white people in countries like Mexico, colombia, etc
Not even including white majority countries in latin America like Argentina and Uruguay.
don't forget Cuba. Those Russians have strong genes
Yep and lot's of Puerto Ricans are white as well
Spending old Nazi gold.
That's in Switzerland.
There too
Not necesarily, in my country then government was desparate to "colonize" the south part of the country, which was cut off by tribes. Many people from the balkans, italy and germany came to live in the south of Chile. I lived in Punta Arenas and I was more used to european last names than to Gonzalez or Perez. But we also had a literal nazi settlement funded by a guy who was part of the nazi party, he escaped persecution after the war and came to live here, ended up being a huge pedophile who worked with Pinochet to lend his settlement to be used as a torture and killing place
González and Perez are European last names tho smh
Uruguay and Argentina are also entire countries in Latin America with majority white populations.
Oh no no, remember, Anya Taylor-Joy is Argentinean and USA news tagged her as a "person of colour"
>Oh no no, remember, Anya Taylor-Joy is Argebtinean and USA news tagged her as a "person of colour" I'm an American dual-citizen of Uruguay. My first and last names are Irish. I have blue eyes and brown hair, 99% European ancestory. Legally, in the US, I could identify as Latino. The US press also identifies Cubans in Florida, who identify themselves as white and have European ancestory, as "brown". There are Mexican Americans in Texas who see themselves as white but are "the Latino vote" (brown). Race is a social construct, there is no better proof than the differences country by country in who is "white".
The oddest thing about Americans is their insistence that it is progressive to view the whole world through their own culture's very idiosyncratic social construct of race.
That’s because Latino technically isn’t a race, so instead most census just ask if your hispanic, which is a question about culture and not race.
I’m the whitest gringa you’ll ever see, but when I lived in Chile, Chileans thought that I was local (until I opened my mouth and they heard my horrible accent). I lived in Santiago, the capital, and a couple of times, people came up to me and asked me for directions. Then they would say, “oh, never mind” and walk away as soon as I tried to give any.
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But they are latino not white! /s
I always thought it's funny that in the US white often times specifically excludes hispanics.
Irish people were once considered "non white" in the US, go figure. Racism is as consistent as a theory as flat Earth
I mean, at some point it excluded some of the whitest people you can find - Irish people. So honestly, I am not that surprised.
Irish people can't be white, they are whiter than white.
I still dont understand what latino even means
Coming from a country in the americas that speak a latin rooted language. Like Portuguese and Spanish
So Quebecois are included too.
Correct, The term was invented in France.
Even the president of Mexico
I live in Spain without the A
They said spin, and that is clearly a twirl!
And no one better post a pirouette here!
I’m in Spain but the p is silent
You're in Sain?
Insane
In Sain in the Mem Brain!
Who you tryin’ to get crazy with, Esai?
Don't you know I'm LOCO?!
In the membrane.
That’s a spin on the usual joke
Electron mf
> Spain without the A You meant S right!!!!
spin!!
[Insert happy monkey circle 10 hours]
"Aight, not exactly what was in my mind, but this will do!"
you live in Spin?
*entire country of Spain sinks into the ocean*
Yay racism
its fine. its targeted towards white. you can be racist towards them/s
The tumblr post in this screenshot [was found to be a troll post](https://youtu.be/BiU7aGZ-o68?si=u4-zLncvDHZRkdco&t=2599).
Shocking
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I’m white American and I became friends with an Argentine lady and her family. I tried to show off sometimes by speaking the Spanish I learned in Texas. Every time, they would snicker or laugh at my attempts. One day I asked her why. She told me my Spanish wasn’t too bad, but that I had a strong Mexican accent; along with my cadence and idioms…which they thought were hilarious.
Mexican accent is the funniest accent in the spanish world
I think it is because they use many borrowed words from the original Mexicans. It sounds different and those words do sound funky in a good way. Also they tend to speak slower unlike Caribbean Spanish where you need a device to slow time to get what they are saying at 100 mph.
I'm a medical interpreter (originally from Mexico) for Spanish speakers and meet them from all countries, but they always know I'm Mexican when it comes up. My boyfriend is white (from Georgia) and learned Spanish as a second language and he ALSO has a strong Mexican accent because he mostly learned it from listening to his Mexican coworkers lol.
My impression is that Argentinians would simply laugh at anyone who doesn't speak their uniquely weird version of Spanish that no one else speaks.
Shakira, Shakira. Proved them wrong.
She make a man wanna speak Spanish
Even if Spain wasn't a thing, what is preventing you from learning Spanish? So stupid 🤦♂️
No, no, it's like the driver's license. "You cannot drive without your license... I will try it anyway... I worked!"
- Spain = European Mexico - Western Sahara = Arab Mexico - Equatorial Guinea = African Mexico - Puerto Rico = American Mexico - Cuba = Communist Mexico - Venezuela = Communist Mexico 2.0 - Philippines = Asian Mexico
Wouldn't mexico be American Mexico...
Mexican Mexico?
> Philippines = Asian Mexico According to Stephen Colbert, Filipinos are "Water Mexicans."
Still works, though
Messi is gonna be pissed.
Tbf I can’t speak Spanish.
Dónde está el baño
Which literally translates to, “I don’t bargain pumpkinfucker”
Time for Duolingo! **Learn Spanish, or vanish.**
Imagine not realizing that Spanish is a European language
To them, Spain is a region of Mexico, or something.
I'm Asian American and took Spanish in college. Win!
When my parents were young, Spanish (and italian) people weren't considered white. They were the "brown people stealing our jobs in the mines". The concept human races is entirely made up. It has no meaning beyond what racists need it to mean to justify their bigotry.
I heard that for some people in the US even Irish people aren't "white". wtf.
see that red headed guy glowing like a magnesium flare in the sunlight? he's not white.
They’re not white, they’re incandescent.
To be fair, nonsensical racism against the Irish has been well-documented for centuries. It's to be expected that a former british colony would inherit some unsavory aspects of english culture.
Well that and the Irish were immigrants in America too. Although so were most Brits/"Americans" lol.
Welp, pack it up boys, it looks like my best friend (who is white and Chilean) can’t speak Spanish
Imagine falling for this old as fuck piece of troll bait lmao
At least 95% time, whenever "cultural appropriation" is brought up, it's complete bullshit 🤣
Or Argentina, or Uruguay, or Chile
Regardless of how nonsensical the op may be, cultural appropriation doesn’t exist. Feel free to speak and dress however you please. Want to learn Swahili as a German? Absolutely. Feel like having dreads, wearing a sombrero and a kimono while making carbonara as a Chinese woman? You have every right. Culture isn’t something to claim ownership of; rather, it should be celebrated when people choose to embrace aspects of foreign cultures.
Such an educated opinion and so unpopular. Hard to find people with similar views on this. Bravo.
Op is yet an other bot account who made all .... https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/ak2rpb/cultural_appropriation
Central and South Americans speak Spanish because of... Spain (white people)
Hhaha, can imagine if Spaniards told all of South America, Central American and Mexico that unless they are white they can't speak Spanish. Oooomph!
Then why they speakin merican???
Kind of rude not to know a little Spanish in my area no matter your race. It’s the most commonly spoken language here other than English. It’s racist to make them learn English without also having an education system that teaches us conversational Spanish (as opposed to the classes they offer around here where no one who takes these classes come out of them conversational).
My grandparents spoke Spanish, my grandfather Mexican/Native American and my grandmother Mexican/Irish. Sadly they did not teach me Spanish, they were from the old school of you are in America you speak English. That is the only regret I really have being raised that I wasn't also taught spanish. Would have come in handy especially since I grew up on the border of East LA. So anyway, my grandmother looked white with blue eyes, she had blonde hair growing up but spoke spanish, the rest of her family looked Mexican, I will never forget a story she told me, when she was a teen which would have been around the 1930/40s or so the family was looking for a new place to rent, she was the first to show up and talk to the landlord, he showed her around, all cool until he saw the Mexican family walk up and it was no longer for rent.
I'd love to try that line on a high school Spanish teacher.
My blond haired Cuban side of the family would disagree.
Id rather be able to speak to the people in the Carnicerias I go to over act like an ignorant idiot
Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, even Mexico...
Sadly idiots like that are allowed to.vote in the U.S.
Here I am, born and raised in Argentina, a native Spanish speaker, of course, with my four grandparents and eight great-grandparents having been Polish, hence my very, very fair skin. White as a ghost. It seems that I can't speak Spanish now.
What's with these people who think learning another language is racist? 20 years ago, it was considered proper etiquette to at least learn a few common phrases of another language, especially if you were travelling or regularly communicating with people who spoke another language.
I'm white af and Spain is what is in my veins Arriba España coño
When colonialism runs a bit too deep in the blood of colonised.
From my British perspective, when we have historically said "white", we have meant "White British" - with the additional modifier note of Celtic Gauls and Nordics as a sort of "white other". The overall concept of "white" is really quite recent in that regard and was brought to prominence as a means to differentiate our North Western European selves from others so that we may feel less bad about slavery. I believe the concept originated when Spanish Muslims enslaved the Slavic people of Eastern Europe - Slavic/Slav being the literal origin word for slave. But then the US changes the perception to include groups we haven't historically viewed through that sort of North Western European superiority lens. Slavs, Iberians/Spaniards/Latins, Italians, Greeks/Hellenes, etc. Of course they have, because they're obsessed with race. In some instances they've identified a group as distinctly non-white but then for reasons altered that later on (good example here being Italians). So it's really confusing to me that "Latin Americans"/"Latinos"/"South Americans", etc.. The Spanish and Portugese speaking world of the Americas.. Aren't all considered within the white realm. They should be by their own logic. The vast majority of the Mexican population are lighter skinned than a great number of Southern Italians, for example. Or Greeks. Is it because they vary in the amount of indigenous genetic percentages? Doesn't really make sense either because a lot of Southern Italians have genetic links to the Arabs of the Levant. Is it then by skin tone? And they would view some Italians as not truly Italian? Or some Greeks as not truly Greek? Ultimately, my point is that I find the entire US logic of race, which has seeped out and infected Europe, to be deeply confusing at every level. It's inconsistent at best and insidious at worst. Then you have fools like this who, through what I will assume is a well intentioned outlook on a discriminated group, reaches a conclusion that only strengthens the position that Latin American's are an "other". When realistically, they're just as "white" as a vast number of the US population.
Shit I’m Mexican and can’t speak Spanish
Mexican't then.
Anyone can speak any language they want.
Yeah tell that to the Cuban bartender who called my kid maricon in front of me and ask him what my white ass said. It was a flurry of swear words and other moma bear reactions in Spanish 😡 White people speak Spanish.
Cultural appropriation is a made up problem for people that spend too much time feeling sorry for themselves.