White

How are we even sure 19th century Americans classified themselves as white and Irish, Italian, and Spanish as non-white? It sounds like modern racial politics applied without any study in order to attack the concept of whiteness.

>Why has the definition of "white" changed so much trough history?

To fit various political agendas throughout history.

>In your opinion, what's the most accurate definition of white?
Europeans, genetically belonging to one of the three predominant genetical groups found in Europe.

It hasn't that much, really. It's basically meant anyone that's European without noticeable non-european admixture and anything beyond that has been politically motivated hair splitting that passes sooner or later.

Legally or otherwise? Because legally it has to do with laws not being up to snuff but otherwise has remained a remarkably consistent "I know it when I see it".

Literally look at census records. There were Irish before the potato faminines and even after words they and every other European group were legally white affording then and those like them the right to assimilate.

Why don't people ever look at actual sources and not shit like "Irish had it the worst" books, blogs and websites?
Syrians and Lebanese Christians at first. North Africans because Morocco was the first nation to recognize the United States as a sovereign nation.

The anti-Irish sentiment was inherited from the UK and bolstered by the fact that they were Catholic and the anti-Italian sentiment was because they were all fervently Catholic, dirt-poor, coming over in massive waves, had very little cultural similarity with WASPs or desire to assimilate totally and were generally squat, dark, hairy little trolls compared to the WASP population.

>>>Reddit

White should be considered anyone with European ancestry really. USA wants everyone to feel special about their ancestry it's stupid

>learn2leaveamerica

Noel Ignatiev should be buried alive in a mass grave with the corpses of Irish-American industrial workers from the Gilded Age

Irish and Southern Europeans weren't accepted in the US because they were Catholic. Their loyalties lay with the Pope instead of America. It's the same reason there was a pretty fucking staunch Anti-Semitism up until the mid to late 1960's in the U.S. with sentiment still around today. Hell, when Harvard was founded it had a weekly paper and at least once a month the paper had to write about how shit Catholics are.

Guys I'm serious

Why should we care enough to make the distinction on what is white and not white, come on someone enlighten me

>Why should we care enough to make the distinction on what is white and not white, come on someone enlighten me
Geneticists and race theory?

Yes, race is developed out of religious sentiment; the larger point is that out of this was developed a racial theory justifying the hierarchy, not just religious difference

>the larger point is that out of this was developed a racial theory justifying the hierarchy
Not always nor even fully in the cases mentioned. Look at Latin America and the casta system which is still in place. Whiteness in Latin America is closely tied to social status and class rather than skin color or religion. Whereas whiteness in the rest of the West is based on skin color. Obama, for example, is considered white in Latin America but not in the United States. This is also true in other places such as Zanzibar where you're considered Arab or African depending not on skin color but on your class. In East Asia, they follow a similar theory to the non-LatAm West and have for longer than the West did, while also following social class-based hierarchies which developed from "religion". To say their racial hierarchy developed from religion when they had a separate hierarchy developed from religion is specious at best.

I'd argue that "whiteness" as a concept is always tied to social status and class, as well as that which you mentioned. But you're right, and I didn't mean to imply race was always tied to religion, but that it was in that instance, rather than race and religion being completely separate axis.

>I'd argue that "whiteness" as a concept is always tied to social status and class
Rarely is this the case. Russians for example, no matter how rich they were, were considered the "other" and Asiatic until the 20th century. Turks as well, despite being closer related to Greeks than to any of their neighbors, are not even considered white in the 21st century. Whiteness, in reality, is akin to European, as it should be.

Yes, but that's what I mean: an appeal to whiteness was an appeal the social status inherent in this idea of "Europeanness", as a way of excluding the Russians, Turks, etc.

>an appeal to whiteness was an appeal the social status inherent in this idea of "Europeanness", as a way of excluding the Russians, Turks, etc.
Which is horseshit as I just stated. The Russian Tsar was socially equal to the King of Britain. Russia was still not white. The Ottoman Sultan was socially equal to the King of the French. He was still not considered white. It wasn't an appeal to social class except in rare cases such as the Casta System.

According to Madison Grant the white/aryan race was divided in three groups:
>Nordics
>Meditteraneans
>Alpines

According to Grants, the hierarchy of the white race would be like this:

>Nords>>>Mediterraneans>>>Alpines

Checkmate Frisia guy!

Natural pink nipples = white

It's not that hard people

If only we had thousands of historians doing primary source work on the subject.

Oh wait, we do, and /pol/'s retardation and ignorance is leaking once again into Veeky Forums

>Believing in retarded /pol/-science

What on earth are you talking about? I don't think you understand the concept here

Whiteness is not contingent upon social status as the other user claimed except in rare cases. I don't think YOU understand the concept.

No half breeds are NOT white

"White" was a spanish invention, so in 1700 WASP werent the only whites.

So you be saying?

Fun fact: Hispanics became white in the US because of the Good Neighbor Policy and because of how Hispanics view Whiteness. They were sick of being treated as non-white by the US since they considered themselves white so Roosevelt appeased them in order to get LatAm support in WWII as well as good economic treatment before the US entered WWII.

But it simply doesn't follow. The Russian Tsar may have been "white", in so much as that they were the same interbred royal family, but the Russians were not white, representing as they did the Slavic hordes, etc etc. That is a claim upon social status. The concept of a "white race" (as opposed to more localised descriptions etc) was borne out of the homogenisation of a broad European identity in opposition to those in the colonies/Others, etc

The Russian Tsar wasn't considered white until Nicholas II. Also you completely ignored the Ottoman Sultan, a man as white as any other Greek, is not considered white despite being of the same social class. If whiteness was contingent upon social status as you claim, these men would be considered just as white due to being of the same social status and skin color. Instead, this is not true. Whiteness is contingent upon being European and later Western in general. Social class doesn't factor in outside of the Casta System.

>Look at Latin America and the casta system which is still in place.

[Citation need]

Why are you deliberately ignoring the role whiteness plays in confirming and enforcing national borders? It is not just mere skin colour. I think you are using a different definition of "social status" than I am.

>Obama is considered white in Latin America

top kek brah

Journalist to construction boss, 1890s: "Is an Italian a white man?"

Construction boss:"No sir, an Italian is a Dago."

"White" is not a scientific term. That's all there is to it.

Understanding vague, polisinthetic terms is key to understanding history.
See:
Man
Citizen
Freedom
Society
Science

>what's the most accurate definition of white?
A social construct that, before anyone gets triggered, is based in actual ethnicity. I consider Indo-Europeans to be the most white, but then again I divide the world on ethno-linguistic groups, not on shades of brown. Some Uralic and Afro-Asiatic groups are undeniably light skinned but have a culture in different origin to most whites, and aren't related to only white people.

>Russians for example, no matter how rich they were, were considered the "other" and Asiatic until the 20th century.

Never knew that, I'm european and we all consider Russians to be european or white as you burgers call it. Turks on the other hand were always others and non-european, or non-white as you would say.

>government and rich business class full of white criollos
>mestizos make up the minor middle class
>indios make up the bottom of the bottom
Just fucking look at it for shit's sake.

>plays in confirming and enforcing national borders
I did nothing of the sort. Quite the opposite actually. Just because national borders are based on ethnic groups within white doesn't mean the borders aren't contingent upon whiteness.

>I think you are using a different definition of "social status" than I am
Probably, but there's one definition for social class in reality. That is, unless you're a Marxist.

Ever been to Latin America? Spoken to actual Latin Americans? I don't mean /pol/tier Latin Americans, I mean actual Latin Americans.

If you say so.

>Never knew that, I'm european and we all consider Russians to be european or white as you burgers call it
Extremely recent development. It slowly began with considering Russians as more European and thus whiter around the time of Peter the Great, but didn't evolve into including Russia in Europe and fully white until Nicholas II or so.

>Turks on the other hand were always others and non-european, or non-white as you would say.
Equally specious considering they're closer in looks and genetics to Greeks than any non-European group.

Because it matters. People with 95% white blood could pass for white but that does not make them white. How many drops of cyanide would you put in a glass of water before you would refuse to drink it?

>People with 95% white blood could pass for white but that does not make them white. How many drops of cyanide would you put in a glass of water before you would refuse to drink it?
You're comparing non-"white blood" to fucking cyanide for fuck's sake. I still don't see how it matters.

Pic very related

Some of the non-caucosoid do look white

I have a sort of short rectangular face with a hard, defined jaw, pointy noise (mild upturn), dark thick hair, and blue eyes. Where do I fall?

They aren't

If it looks like white, it is white

paleoatlantid best male no homo

that picture is such crap. you could make up any number of "types" and give them fancy names, the truth is that physical features are much more fluid and really hard to define. in any case i don't understand what such a classification system would contribute to our understanding of human and/or the world

they do have some merit in a broad way and aren't meant to be categorical i.e you can have combinations, think about it as a statistical linear model
there's nothing weird about some types being more concentrated in certain areas of Europe

I remember when I visited Estonia how a guy I just saw at a bar looked so impressively like the archetypical west Baltid guy in these pics, it just popped in my head the moment I saw him

It seems to change with the ruling class/white majority's own definition. Even when all the Swedes moved to America in the latter times of the Industrial Revolution, they weren't considered 'white' to the same degree that you might not consider a Balkan person 'white.'
This was over pretty quick for them, because more groups were moving to America which annoyed the white Anglo-German majority even more.

White traditionally, in my own definition and that which I think represents most people, is Western European, memorably by the W. This would be your Nordic people, British Isles, Central European Germans, French, Austrians, Benelux and Swiss. To a lesser extent on class basis perhaps also the Mediterraneans and Slavic people.

Even in Northern Italy you get despise and racism against southern Italians. I've lived in both Europe and Canada, and all of the Italian-Americans are descendants of Sicilians and southern Italians, hence their swarthy nature. I no joke met a Sicilian girl once and she was so dark I thought she was a pale northern Indian. No joke. Northern Italians typically look like any other continental western European.

White in modernity is Europe and the descendants of such people.

OP you're retarded if you think anyone south of Italy or East of Western Russia is considered white.

>Irish and the so-called Southern Europeans were historically considered a different race from "Whites" per se, or at the very least, a kind of "dirty white".
this applied to all non-english europeans.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_Concerning_the_Increase_of_Mankind,_Peopling_of_Countries,_etc.
>Franklin was alarmed by the influx of German immigrants to Pennsylvania. The German immigrants were lacking in a liberal political tradition, the English language, and English culture. Franklin wrote "why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our settlements, and by herding together establish their languages and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion?"

>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.

>this is a real thing
i knew skin whitening cream was popular in some countries but this just seems too ridiculous.

but i agree that naturally pink nipples are the best cut off point for whiteness.

>South Italians aren't white
Retarded as fuck.

because white used to mean "germanic"

North italians are obviously white, it's just sicilians who weren't.

I hate the term, it was invented by anglos and "germans" (i.e. the shittiest european cultures), meds, nords and slavs are the finest, descended from aryan conquerors.

What? Olive skinned people are often considered white and they have purple nipples.

Anyone who originates from a country in Europe. Even Greeks and Italians and Finns. Turks, Kurds, and other similar peoples are Asians.

No weren't, the Irish were called potato niggers

Irish and Africans Americans had lots in common and lots of contact during this period; they lived side by side and shared work spaces. In the early years of immigration the poor Irish and blacks were thrown together, very much part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. The Irish were often referred to as "Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish." A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this: "My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman." Free blacks and Irish were viewed by the Nativists as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between the races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant freedom here since blackness meant slavery.

i don't think i've ever seen someone with purple nipples before, only either pink or brown.

Some of them look like literally Arabs

christian arabs are white.

Irish have been legally white since the earliest days of the colonies and were treated as such. They may have been rather poor but that does not negate their official White status.

Then Irish experience is not one of the potato famine, they've been here a long time.

Stop the revisioning, look at the old censuses and court cases and stop acting like Irish were treated just as badly as Blacks because that's not the case except by MUH HERITAGE Irish Americans that love to steal pictures and make up false histories.

They aren't related to the arabs either, they just live in countries that are now arabic.

>since the earliest days of the colonies
like when they were slaves?

...

Europeans were servants not slaves, they were recognized as distinct groups and were treated as such.

John Punch was enslaved for life as punishment for his running away, the two Europeans he was with were only given an extended service.

Learn to read documents

>Source: my ass

I'm Italian and it's true that there's some really off looking individuals around.
Pic related really looks like a Paki. He is pretty off looking though, not normal.

Raised by whites.
Well off.
Educated.

What makes the girl in the right non-white or half-breed? Being called Rodriguez?

She's half-breed and thus non-white. She's not even white passing mestizo.

>The day Veeky Forums finally became /pol/ and /int/ combined

This thread, jesus christ.

>cyanide

Oh for fuck's sake. There's a reason why "Are X white?" threads are banned even in /pol/. Pure retardation.

>carefully phrased /muh whites/ OP so that it doesn't get deleted for being a shit- or trollpost
clever

>Grandpa is from Kekistan
>I'm a quarter Kekian
>Kinda sworthy, people typically think I'm Jewish
>People at my college call me racist white man
>But I'm full Kekian and brown, I can't be racist! I've experienced discriminated based of my tannish complextion!
>They actually buy this this

I love playing with peoples heads

> look at the old censuses and court cases and stop acting like Irish were treated just as badly as Blacks

You're right they weren't they were treated worst than blacks. African slaves were actually valued more than Irish slaves and treated better because they weren't Catholics. From 1641 to 1652 the English sold 300,000 Irishmen into slavery all over the Americas and the trading of Irish slaves continued in the empire until the British ended in their participation of the slave trade in 1839

Yeah. There were some Irish, Italians, Slavs, Frenchmen in the original colonies, nobody challenged their whiteness. Somehow it always only accounted for recent immigrants.

No, Hispanics became white when the U.S. won the Mexican territories and called them white so they could be U.S. citizens and keep their property.

The vast majority of people in the original colonies were WASPs

I never said otherwise.

Those Irish were not slaves, even in Monserrat where the majority of them went they were not slaves but servants with contracts unlike chattel slaves.

The majority of Irish servants either assimilated into the Anglo population, the mixed race free community or formed incestuous, non-labourer communities known as Redlegs who were done with their contracts before the English ended slavery.

Maybe if they're white otherwise this is fiction, if you are anti-black especially so.

it is about jobs and poor people user, it always is
when you a have a bunch of slums popping over all around town you don't give a fuck who is occupying them, you just get pissed

And escorts aren't prostitutes and volunteer units in the pre-20th century US Army weren't conscripts. It doesn't matter what you call them, because it doesn't change what they actually are; indentured servitude is a form of slavery and it's acknowledge as such by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The reason why indentured servants are referred to as such and not out right called slaves was because the categorization was a technical loophole on the theological issue and Canonical law that forbids Christians from enslaving fellow Christians.

To be fair isn't he the offspring of a white American mother and black Kenyan father?
That would make him just as white as he is black. Or almost as much, apparently his mother may have had a black ancestor too.

Unfortunately for you, that isn't true. White Hispanic didn't originate on the US census until FDR

Nope, you had to be white to become a U.S. citizen so they were marked as white.

which are the least white germanics? would it be germans?