493
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
493 points (99.4% liked)
Europe
11247 readers
800 users here now
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons), archive:is,ph,today (their JS DDoS websites)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Again, recency is relative. And arguing recency on an ever changing subject is weird imho.
You could also argue that it didn't change that much, since most of the key characteristics didn't change, only who fulfills these.
That did not come across.
I'll post this once more since the definitions of Whiteness change a lot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_whiteness_in_the_United_States
You didn't get my point. When the legal definition changes from "people X is white" to "people Y is white", that does not necessarily chance on what characteristics the definition is based. It just means that the perception of who fulfills these characteristics changed. And historically, not being white usually was depending on a people or culture being perceived as (for example) "brutish", "uncivilised", "less intelligent" etc. These characteristics have not changed much.
Can you point me to a non-US source showing that Italians (or rather people from the area of modern day Italy) were debating or thinking about concepts like "whiteness" in the 17th century? (Or really at any time). I am really curious where those debates among members of a country or realm were using that as a category in discussions or considerations.
During the 17th century, all sources were non-US.
The concept of whiteness originated in the context of the slave trade from Africa to the New World and the enslavement of indigenous americans by the Spanish empire. According to anthropologist Irene Silverblatt, white, black and brown were used to described colonisers, slaves and colonised as far back as the 17th century by spanish colonisers in Latin America.
Swedish biologist Carl von Linné proposed the four coloured race scheme (black, brown, yellow, white) in 1785.
I am, however, not aware of any italian sources or discussions before the 19th century. There then are for example Antonio Bresciani's Dei costumi dell'isola di Sardegna comparati cogli antichissimi populi orientali (A Comparison of the Customs of the Island of Sardinia with Those of the Ancient Eastern Peoples) or Cesare Lombroso's works (e.g. L'uomo bianco e l'uomo di colore (The White Man and the Man of Color)). Interestingly, in these Italians consider themselves mostly "white" but attributed certain features (like black hair or bigger lips) as "foreign contamination" and higher crime rates in southern Italy to these "contaminations".
I was maybe not clear about it, by non-US source I was talking about historical studies and works not done by US Americans. So, no need to tell me that the US did not exist in the 17th century. Studying "whiteness" is a very US American thing, and the easiest way to prevent such bias is to look at work from elsewhere. But let's take that Michigan/North Carolinian anthropologisat for a second. What you describe there is purely external, concerning colonies, not the homeland.
From what you describe it does not appear, that even in Italy, people were classifying people as white and non-white amont the domestic, non-immigrant population. Not in the 17th century. Now, in the 19th century of course you have the rise of modern racism but even in those works you quote it sounds like they were not separating local non-immigrant population of Italian speaking regions into populated by white and non-white.
I mentioned several sources, two of them primary. Take the US anthropologist as an extra.
And none of them are differentiating the local non-immigrant population into white and black groups, are they?
Yes, they do as far as I read about them. Btw, I am not your damn personal search engine, nor your AI summariser. If you are interested in this, research it.