3 ms·

> Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Kosovo. Last I checked, they are all white European countries. Kosovo has never been white (it's majority-Muslim, cultur

by lmm 2y ago

> Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Kosovo. Last I checked, they are all white European countries. Kosovo has never been white (it's majority-Muslim, culturally Middle Eastern) and whether Italy/Portugal/Spain are considered white fluctuates based on politics.

godelski 2y ago
> Kosovo has never been white (it's majority-Muslim, culturally Middle Eastern) TIL Muslim == brown. I always though Indonesians were Asian. As an American, searching Google images, I really am surprised these people are not considered white. These are the whitest looking "middle easterners" I've ever seen. They really just look like their neighbors: Greeks, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania...
- lmm 2y ago
  > TIL Muslim == brown. I always though Indonesians were Asian. Indonesia is Muslim for different reasons. In that part of the world the religious divide follows the historic culural/ethnic divide (for the same reasons) and is a useful shorthand - I could have equally pointed to how Kosovans drink their coffee, but that would have been less legible. > As an American, searching Google images, I really am surprised these people are not considered white. These are the whitest looking "middle easterners" I've ever seen. They really just look like their neighbors: Greeks, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania... America famously didn't consider the Irish "white" until relatively recently, and Irish people are whiter than white skin-tone-wise. Of course if you've spent much time around Irish people you can immediately see the difference between the Irish and their next-door neighbours, but that goes for all of these distinctions. Kosovo-Bulgaria-Türkiye is ethnically continuous, you'll find people from Türkiye and Syria who look much like Kosovans (and, more importantly, have very similar cultures). Greeks are another group who are "white" or not depending on current politics. Serbians are Slavs, continuous with Slovaks or Ukrainians, which again is a group whose whiteness is a political question (even Poles haven't always been "white" in America). Romanians are their own unique thing (as the name suggests, they're the last of the Romans, and have a distinct culture that reflects that).

by lmm 2y ago

godelski 2y ago

> Kosovo has never been white (it's majority-Muslim, culturally Middle Eastern) TIL Muslim == brown. I always though Indonesians were Asian. As an American, searching Google images, I really am surprised these people are not considered white. These are the whitest looking "middle easterners" I've ever seen. They really just look like their neighbors: Greeks, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania...

lmm 2y ago
> TIL Muslim == brown. I always though Indonesians were Asian. Indonesia is Muslim for different reasons. In that part of the world the religious divide follows the historic culural/ethnic divide (for the same reasons) and is a useful shorthand - I could have equally pointed to how Kosovans drink their coffee, but that would have been less legible. > As an American, searching Google images, I really am surprised these people are not considered white. These are the whitest looking "middle easterners" I've ever seen. They really just look like their neighbors: Greeks, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania... America famously didn't consider the Irish "white" until relatively recently, and Irish people are whiter than white skin-tone-wise. Of course if you've spent much time around Irish people you can immediately see the difference between the Irish and their next-door neighbours, but that goes for all of these distinctions. Kosovo-Bulgaria-Türkiye is ethnically continuous, you'll find people from Türkiye and Syria who look much like Kosovans (and, more importantly, have very similar cultures). Greeks are another group who are "white" or not depending on current politics. Serbians are Slavs, continuous with Slovaks or Ukrainians, which again is a group whose whiteness is a political question (even Poles haven't always been "white" in America). Romanians are their own unique thing (as the name suggests, they're the last of the Romans, and have a distinct culture that reflects that).