The word "white"

Yeah it is true, I've read a lot of 19th century literature, Europeans refer to themselves as either European or their nationality, they even call Americans Europeans if not Americans.

But Americans always say Whites, the white man etc, they really over emphasis it.

But America has always had a race obsession which lingers on today.

>I also remember the Shakespeare play Othello which had a line from someone talking about a Moor general having sex with a Venetian noblemen daughter, that "Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe" So as far back as the 1603 at least they contrasted White people to Black people.
cucked in 1603

The Dutch have actually started to say "white people". As in, previously we would say "fair people", or, like you said, by country of origin.
It weirdly enough kind of bugs me. Not entirely sure why, though.

Where did the term "white" originate anyway? It seems weird because the skin tone of "white" people is usually more pink or beige than actually white.

Whiteness emerged after Indians converted to Christianity and Spaniards needed a new way to justify their ethnic hierarchy.

Whiteness was useful because it also played Spanish speaking Catholics directly from Europe above Spanish speaking Catholics born in the colonies, as these people usually had some Native ancestry.

To be fair, a lot of "black people" are more brown than black too.

It bugged me a bit at first because fair people felt like the term it (being white) simply had in Dutch. Whereas white people felt like a term that arose from a perspective in which being white is only associated with racism and white privilege.
But I think people should be able to refer to black people so whatever, I use it (white people) all the time now to get used to it. Besides it is hard to argue that "fair" has lots of positive associations and is much less of a neutral word than white is, even apart from colonial aspects.

As for OP, yeah I do recognize what you say. Sure Europeans see themselves as white but it seems to be more of an afterthought compared to Americans. In discussions about immigration it's typically more about being a native [Dutchman, for example] than being white or non-white.

tbqh Othello is extraordinarily prescient, it analyzes male sexual jealously and racial tension in ways that are even more relevant now than ever before

Shakespeare was a genius

The first to classify the peoples of the world as White, Black, Asian, and Amerind was the groundbreaking Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus.

So, you've been lied to.

Yes, and it's hilarious how they argue about which ethnicities are "white" or not. Personally western nations are 'white,' but yet again, it's a very arbitrary term.

See
>Are you seriously implying that in 17th century there was not other perspective than colonial one?
Are you seriously implying that colonialism wasn't the primary axis of interaction between whites and nonwhites in the 17th century?

jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8516-japheth

At the very latest referring to people as White is as old as the 10s AD. It's probably much older.

The Romans had word "Blackmoor" to describe certain Africans.

You can also describe people as tall or big-nosed, but that doesn't mean those physical features were points of identity for a wide social class

>I saw some user a while back say that the term "white people" was invented by Americans looking to segregate themselves from others and to group themselves with Europeans an ocean away, and that Europeans don't see themselves as "white" but rather as their own respective ethnicity( Frenchmen call themselves French, Spaniard calls themmseves Spanish, etc) and never saw themselves as a Larger unit called "White". Is there truth to this? I'm not a /pol/yp btw

The difference, I think, seems to be that Americans use 'whiteness' as something with which to identify their character, while Europeans use it as merely a distinction of appearance.

As people have mentioned already, the idea of a white man and a black man looking different, has been understood as long as different populations have come into contact. However, I don't believe you'll see many references to the idea of 'We the white people' in Europe, as we have never sought to divide ourselves on grounds of skin colour, but rather of culture.

For example, a German, while obviously acknowledging slavs to be white skinned, may not consider a Pole on the same level of civilisation as himself, in the same way as a white American would look down upon a black American. Most European cultures view at least one other (often neighbouring) people as sub-humans. Germans and Poles, Frenchmen and Englishmen, Gaels (Irish and Scottish) and Englishmen/lowland Scots, Swedes and Finns, Serbs and Albanians, the list goes on.

The idea that we're all one race and should stick together is preposterous, why should I, a Briton, want to cooperate with a German, who is nothing more than a greedy, mentally and socially deficient warmonger, unable to understand or comprehend art, and likes to talk himself up, yet has failed miserably in every conflict he's ever been involved in?

Yes a German may be white skinned, but that doesn't stop him being a deluded subhuman.

Germans are all scum.

newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Carolus_Linnaeus

>Within Homo sapiens, Linnaeus proposed four taxa of a lower rank: Americanus, Asiaticus, Africanus, and Europeanus. These categories were based on place of origin at first, and later skin color. Whereas Linnaeus used some physical characteristics in his division, he also wandered into attributing characteristics according to his perceived view of social and emotional features. Among the numerous attributes he recognized, Native Americans were considered to be reddish, stubborn, merry, and angered easily; Africans were black, relaxed, crafty, and negligent; Asians were sallow, avaricious, and easily distracted; and Europeans were white, gentle, and inventive (Smedley 1993). He also divided them by how he thought they were governed: by customs, caprice, opinions, and laws. Linnaeus's races were clearly skewed in favor of Europeans. Linnaeus considered these varieties of people within the same species.

How about that: one of the most respected scientists in history, the "father of modern taxonomy", developed in the height of Europe's scientific enlightenment the exact same racial classifications we use today, with the exact same temperamental attributes.

>unable to understand or comprehend art
>the culture that has produced Bach

This surprises me, to say the least.

White exists where euros are in contact with non Euros.

Oh and there's earlier cases.
Also contrary to many people white was more then a classification but an "innate" thing so to say that the non -whites can't ever really obtain. The special x-factor.

Contrasting skin tone does not mean one identifies as said skintone.
Othello is 'the Moor of Venice' not 'the black italiano sausage'
How is that relevant to the topic at hand? Negro also refers to colour.
This is about 'white people' not 'black people'.

American 'black people', sure. Have you seen a guy straight out of Africa? Plenty are actually a purplish-brownish or reddish-brownish black.

it was created by the Spanish tho

The English considered Irishmen literal light-skinned niggers up until the 1800s so I'd say a universal white identity is a pretty new concept

So you see how pseudo the whole conception of "scientific" racism is.

>Are you seriously implying that colonialism wasn't the primary axis of interaction between whites and nonwhites in the 17th century?
That's the point of this thread. Category "White people" was not used outside of colonialism.

What exactly is pseudo about it? Extremely minute shit like being located one valley over and having a slightly higher pitched call can be grounds for a distinct subspecies when you're talking about birds. But suddenly, when you get to humans, where we can see distinct geographic relationships, different skull structures, different skin tones, and more closely related cultures, suddenly humans are one big happy family and there's absolutely nothing different about any of us, no sir.

Fuck off, retard. You don't have to claim one race is better than another but you're as bad as the climate change deniers if you think humanity can't be broken up into subspecies.

A subspecies isn't a different species though. It's a subcategory of species. That's why it's called a subspecies and not a species. It no different than racial categorization. Yes subspecies can literally be as "minute shit like being located one valley over and having a slightly higher pitched call" so why do you make race out to have more distinction than the criteria for subspecies?

Because ((people)) want us to believe that even with these very apparent differences between the races, we are not only the same species, but even the SAME subspecies, homo sapiens sapiens
It's ludicrous

so we are talking about racism right? Does Europeans have their own source and thinking of racism that is not, say, imported from USA after WWII

I don't know and I wonder if it matters anymore. Racism today is an American problem. The whole world is an American problem.

It kind of existed way before Amerimuds existed. When some French crusaders went down to Spain they demanded him to show that he was a true christian and he showed them his arm pointing at his "blue blood"

Race means something altogether different in biological taxonomy, a bulldog and a irish wolfhound are physically vastly different yet they're still both classified being part of the same subspecies of the gray wolf.

Yes it's true, the USA at its birth were British colonies, but also captured Dutch, Spanish and French ones, as such they had to create a new identity to bind themselves together
Europeans only call themselves white and only care about whiteness if they're bro Nazis/alt right/ populist, because previously it was the measure of if your country was independent and had an empire that mattered. Would you honestly say a Bulgarian in 1800's Ottoman Empire was superior to the sultan himself

As a biochemist I writhe my fists at you species and subspecies are based upon whether a pairing will produce fertile offspring or not that's it
We moved away from physical classification when DNA techniques gitgud
Honestly you alt right spastics put eugenics to shame, and if that was the case you'd have been sterilised when you fell out your wildebeests snatch

The homo Homo sapiens idea comes from the fact that Neanderthals must have been the same species to interbreed and create fertile offspring
Honestly read a journal for once in your life

>implying this wasn't about 'blood of the devil' or some such omen
Honestly context is key

>"Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe"

Can this replace the standard /pol/tard battlecry?

Moor means dark skinned in latin. The blue blood thing came from Spain as old christians were pale and the king was supposed to be the descendent of Pelayo

Racism exists all over user. There was racism in Europe before ww2 let alone European interactions with non Euros abroad in other continents on top of scientific racism and other BS.

Don't blame America for everything like a pleb.

Those are not the norm it varies heavily by continent. American Blacks could pretty much look like any people from the continent.

According to the rabbinical Jewish OT all the sons of Japheth were blessed with Whitness, therefore it applied to a large linguistic group.

>Americans don't know about their origins XD
>le Americans are heritagefags

Make up your mind yuropoor

Yeah /int/ i spilling into Veeky Forums with the stuff you mentioned in the greentext.

If you ain't fellating Europe that triggers them and if you say anything nice about America (I
m not even supprotive of America at all let me get that across) that triggers them even more.

No, it dates back to ancient Greeks. The Greeks and Romans thought that their skin color which was different from Black Nubians and from pale White Germanics made them unique.

This is true

Except the english are so americanized and cucked they now see themselves as "white british" instead of English

absolutely disgusting

Plenty of people are obsessed with things they are completely clueless about.

ottomans weren't considered a different race, but rather an enemy civilization, they were the vile islamic barbarian hordes that have shackled christian sons

There is nothing in this world more unfair than being "white" (pink).

...

I am not ignorant like op arguing USA invented racism.

I am just saying no one cares about it anymore and everyone adopts the term "white" and thinks in American ways nowadays.