Arab-Americans Tell Census, 'We're Not White'

[Indy Texas]

I'm pretty sure my dad's side of the family would totally lose their sh*t if the Census tried to tell them they weren't white. There's a lot of racism/colorism in Arab society, particularly against Africans or people who are perceived as having African-looking features (really dark skin and thick hair). I think it would make more sense to treat "Arab" as an ethnicity in the way that "Hispanic" is treated, since there really is no monolithic "Arab" race of people - the term just refers to "Arabic-speaking peoples" and that includes everyone from people in Somalia (pretty obviously African) to people in Lebanon (pretty obviously white).

I don 't like being called white, either.  The last time I tried to put "Hispanic" (on account of my Portuguese heritage), I was kinda called out on it.  Understandable for me, but for an Arab-American... Yea, they don't seem anything like your typical white.

I've always thought of Hispanic as referring specifically to people from the Spanish-speaking Americas who have both Iberian and indigenous American ancestry. I don't think of people from Spain or Portugal as being "Hispanic." I just think of them as like any other white European. If we're going to put them in a separate category, it seems like we'd have to do the same for all ethnolinguistic groups in Europe.

[Indy Texas]

So why was the KKK railing against Roman Catholics in the 1920s?

The KKK hated people for reasons other than race. Religion was another example of the way their bigotry manifested itself.

[Indy Texas]

If it had no social relevance, I would agree with angus... but it does.

It does only because you say it does. 

And the KKK?  Seriously?  You, BRTD, and Indy Texas are probably the only three posters on this forum who take them seriously. 

Uh, excuse me, I've never pretended the KKK is relevant in the 21st century. We're just talking about something they did in the 1920s when they most certainly were relevant.

[Indy Texas]

I don 't like being called white, either.  The last time I tried to put "Hispanic" (on account of my Portuguese heritage), I was kinda called out on it.  Understandable for me, but for an Arab-American... Yea, they don't seem anything like your typical white.

But that's just silly. I mean that's the same ridiculous logic krazen tried to use to pass Pat Toomey off as an example of a minority Republican Senator (as he's half-Portuguese) and was laughed at by just about everyone. And anyone trying to pass themselves off as not white in Brazil on those grounds would be considered just as ridiculous as say someone descended from white South Africans trying to pass themselves off as black in the US...and Brazil is plurality white under its Census.

But perhaps most importantly, you'd still be considered White by the Census anyway since Hispanic is not a separate category.

I did say it didn't work.  Around the 2012 election I was making it a point to do things like that.  I'm just pointing out that if a European-American like myself might want to distance themselves from "whiteness" that I'm hardly surprised an Arab-American would.

For Arab-Americans, the situation is different. Particularly if you're Muslim, you're facing a lot of discrimination comparable to what a bona fide non-white person in America faces; but you get none of the "benefits" non-whites get via affirmative action because you are treated, on paper, like a European-American white.

So a lot of them feel like they're saddled with the "responsibilities" of being white but none of the "privilege" of being white. No offense, but I doubt that kind of discrimination is a problem for you.

[Indy Texas]

So honestly if you people meet these people on the street



Would you think that they were people of colour?

Of course not. I'd be too busy punching them in their Caucasian faces.

[Indy Texas]

The problem is that other than very recent immigrants who were granted asylum here from places like Iraq, I doubt you'll find any Arab-Americans who don't speak English. The bulk of them are 3rd+ generation Americans and they never lived in concentrated neighborhoods to begin with, so learning English was a very rapid process for them by necessity.

You see "Chinatowns" in most big cities. You see Vietnamese or Korean neighborhoods. You never see "Arab" neighborhoods in large cities. The closest you get to that is Dearborn, MI, and, again, nearly all of them speak English in daily life.

[Indy Texas]

how come no one wants to be white any more?

Everyone in the intelligensia want to be a victim today (even White conservatives), the easiest way is to pretend you part of some poor persecuted minority and if you can't do that, pretend the group you belong to are one. 

I knew a student a year ahead of me in law school. He was an archconservative who claimed to be a "libertarian". He put up a plaque of his haplogroup to show that he was "oppressed" as a joke. The problem with the joke is that his haplogroup was indicative of the Vikings. Probably the one group that can't say there were oppressed.

True, though to be fair, they swore off the raping, pillaging and plundering a long time before the major powers of Europe and Asia did. While imperialism was in full swing in Darkest Africa and the British, French, Belgians and Portuguese were trying to wring as much rubber, copper and gold out of the place as they could, the Scandinavians were...I'm not really sure what they were doing. Probably making reindeer meatballs and putting furniture together.

[Indy Texas]

how come no one wants to be white any more?

I do have some white guilt over the privilege I enjoy as a white American, but I wouldn't trade my ethnicity away. It's hard enough living as a gay dude. I can't even imagine how hard it'd be to cope as a gay dude of color, or even a gay lady of color.

Here's the point, for some groups Jews and most Arab-Americans, who if we say they're not White, do look White. They can still enjoy all the privileges of Whiteness, as they're purely based on social norms.

In the 1960s, my uncle, who was blonde-haired, blue-eyed and of 100% Arab Christian background, was living in East Texas and was asked by a neighbor to join the local KKK chapter. (He politely declined the offer.)