5 ms·

I was responding to his lengthy diversion on the commutabality of British and Italian actors, which seems to be rooted in the delusional American notion (dating

I was responding to his lengthy diversion on the commutabality of British and Italian actors, which seems to be rooted in the delusional American notion (dating back to the late 19th century, recently revived by lefties who deny the existence of white native European nations) that Italians aren't "white". In reality, Italian and British phenotype variation overlaps significantly.

notahacker 5y ago
Considering that the author does extensively discuss what he considers to be ahistorical British diction in the Latin speaking, and that Romans (even those that were from Italy!) were much more visibly ethnically varied than modern Italian regional groups, and doesn't at any point raise the 19th century politican position that Italians were insufficiently white to deserve prestige in or even admittance to the United States, that seems to be rather a lot of projection on your part
eru 5y ago
Duh, Irish people (and even Germans) weren't considered properly 'white' in the US. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/29/how-the-asians-became-white/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
foldr 5y ago
'White' is an arbitrary category based loosely (but not solely) on appearance, so it's not as if 19th century Americans were objectively wrong to classify Italians as non-white. It's just that the categorization scheme has changed somewhat over time. (Obviously, this does not excuse the racism directed at Italians at the time based on the perception that they were not white.)
simias 5y ago
The concept of whiteness, and even more the USA concept of whiteness is a very recent construct, I'm not really sure I understand the point of studying ancient Rome through that lens. I'm from the South of France and now live in Portugal, it's not rare to find people who have a rather dark complexion despite being what I'd call "white", especially if they spend a lot of time outside. But maybe Americans would consider them "latinos"? Or is that more of a cultural adjective? I don't really know and I don't really care. At any rate if we ignore these modern semantic arguments and return to the point of the article, I would agree with them that I highly doubt that the Roman senate looked that much like an offshoot of the British parliament: https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Senators.png https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Sena...
deleted 5y ago
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imbnwa 5y ago
And all of your ancestors were at some point dark-skinned like many Africans but with light-colored eyes (paler skin would come later IIRC)
- zozbot234 5y ago
  I thought the "dark skin" bit was widely misinterpreted, and with better evidence it was more like olive-colored or brownish, but not really black. Of course many (Northern!) Africans have brownish skin.
  - imbnwa 5y ago
    Feel free to provide links indicating the latter, better evidence as there're endless Google results for the former

notahacker 5y ago

Considering that the author does extensively discuss what he considers to be ahistorical British diction in the Latin speaking, and that Romans (even those that were from Italy!) were much more visibly ethnically varied than modern Italian regional groups, and doesn't at any point raise the 19th century politican position that Italians were insufficiently white to deserve prestige in or even admittance to the United States, that seems to be rather a lot of projection on your part

eru 5y ago

Duh, Irish people (and even Germans) weren't considered properly 'white' in the US. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/29/how-the-asians-became-white/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

foldr 5y ago

'White' is an arbitrary category based loosely (but not solely) on appearance, so it's not as if 19th century Americans were objectively wrong to classify Italians as non-white. It's just that the categorization scheme has changed somewhat over time. (Obviously, this does not excuse the racism directed at Italians at the time based on the perception that they were not white.)

simias 5y ago

The concept of whiteness, and even more the USA concept of whiteness is a very recent construct, I'm not really sure I understand the point of studying ancient Rome through that lens. I'm from the South of France and now live in Portugal, it's not rare to find people who have a rather dark complexion despite being what I'd call "white", especially if they spend a lot of time outside. But maybe Americans would consider them "latinos"? Or is that more of a cultural adjective? I don't really know and I don't really care. At any rate if we ignore these modern semantic arguments and return to the point of the article, I would agree with them that I highly doubt that the Roman senate looked that much like an offshoot of the British parliament: https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Senators.png https://i0.wp.com/acoup.blog/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Sena...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

imbnwa 5y ago

And all of your ancestors were at some point dark-skinned like many Africans but with light-colored eyes (paler skin would come later IIRC)

zozbot234 5y ago
I thought the "dark skin" bit was widely misinterpreted, and with better evidence it was more like olive-colored or brownish, but not really black. Of course many (Northern!) Africans have brownish skin.
- imbnwa 5y ago
  Feel free to provide links indicating the latter, better evidence as there're endless Google results for the former