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Are Italians considered Caucasian?
I'm italian, I look like most my family, olive skin, brown hair, and hazel eyes. My mom will fight people to her last breath Italians aren't white. I did a google search and found some article about how Romans were tan and stuff, and in the south italians were considered black and were segregated and couldn't marry "whites" Italy is in Europe, so I think Caucasian I just want other ppl's opinion. Are Italians white?
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Weasel Words are words or remarks that are equivocal or deliberately ambiguous or misleading. Words used in order to evade or retreat from a direct or forthright statement or position. An allusion to the weasel's habit of sucking out the contents of an egg without destroying the shell. A concept so readily debunked, 'race,' so-called, stands as prime example of a a deliberately ambiguous and slippery weasel word, sheer doublespeak, in so far as the word 'race' is so blithely employed actually to suggest species, while evading open and explicit commitment to such blistering malignant absurdity. After all, there is only one human species, such minor regional ethno-phenotypic variation notwithstanding. Historically, the notion of 'race' was concocted to explain away flagrantly unconstitutional social inequality.
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this is laughable at best for the simple fact that the world (when it comes to race) is very black and white. If your not black AKA african, or mixed, your WHITE. theres no way around it. If your skin is light, you white. now where you HAIL from is totally irrelevant these days. Im half hawaiian and and half white. i LOOK like a tall white female with dark hair so automatically i MUST be white. But the truth is you have to dig deeper and actually ask someone where their from in order to know their true race. So you see where you come from and what you look like these days ((unless like i said you so dark that its undeniable that your a certain race)) then you are labelled whatever you appear to the world to be.
i have a friend whos also Italian, and also looks like a tall white girl with hazel eyes so 99 percent of people just assume shes white because THATS what she looks like see?? when we're together people actually assume we're sisters! even though i have olive skin, black stick straight hair and she has brown wavy hair with white skin.
All people see and usually will label you as is the most watered down version of what you appear to be. my "white" side is german, and canadian. both of those races are white but do people care? no. both of those races have light skin right? lol.
No one cares anymore. you are what you appear to be until you either SAY where your family is from or someone takes the time to ask. People tend to simplify what they see and put it into the simplest "basket" in their mind because thats just easier.
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The most important thing to know is that idea of 'race' is largely made up. It's a cultural idea, not a scientific one. It's considered outdated and unused in biology. The people who originated the term caucasian, were more or less using it to justify their ideas about race and skin colour, not observing human biology or genealogy. Some anthropologist still use these terms to determine an ancient's groups point of origin, but they don't apply to distinctions among people currently living.
Who has been considered caucasian has changed over the years. When poor, Catholic Irish immigrants came to the US they were not considered white. British and American protestants considered them an inferior race, more like they viewed African Americans than white people. Today, most people would find the idea that Irish people aren't white to be ludicrous, and the US goverment has included Irish as 'white' or caucasian for decades now.
Italian Americans have a similar history.
Probably best not to fight with your mom over this. It's possible that she is just from a different generation where it's important to her to not be white or caucasian. It's silly, and meaningless, and rooted in racism and bigotry, but because these ideas of race have so little to do with science and evidence anyways (and everything to do with a history of bigotry and immigration) it'll never be easy to argue with her. You can't prove her to her she is Caucasian, because Caucasian is an idea that has shifted, changed and then largely been rejected as a serious distinction, as we've become less bigoted and ignorant as a species.
Nearly every goverment on earth is going to consider people of Italian decent white these days, but that might not convince her, and why should it? She may well remember years when they didn't.
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From a standpoint of Genealogy my personal view is that Italians are white. If you were to ask a Black African I would say they would say Italians are white, not Negro but Caucasian.
There is another possibility that like Asian and Hispanic Italians are there own subset. It is an interesting question one I have never given any thought to especially since my best friend until his passing was Italian.
A friend of mine is a Police Officer. I am going to send him a message and ask him when they book and Italian they arrest if the book the as Caucasian or some other Nationality. Unfortunately I won't be able to send you his answer unless you write back to me in a private message asking fro the answer. Though you could ask a police officer where you live how they book an Italian arrestee
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