Are Arabs white?
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  Are Arabs white?
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Question: Are Arabs white?
#1
Yes
 
#2
No
 
#3
Variable
 
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Total Voters: 30

Author Topic: Are Arabs white?  (Read 9062 times)
GMantis
Dessie Potter
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« on: June 29, 2009, 03:51:47 AM »

Inspired by this:
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=98021.0
I think especially if Sudanese are included, the answer is that it varies.
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phk
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« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2009, 04:24:39 AM »
« Edited: June 29, 2009, 04:26:58 AM by phknrocket1k »

Depends on where they are from.

Syria or Lebanon yes.

Sudan no.

"Arab" like "Hispanic" is a culture and not a race and the Arab League's definition is just anyone who can speak the language and claim the identity can identify as an Arab is pretty vague and says nothing about racial classification.

So we can have Black Hispanics from the D.R., White Hispanics from Argentina and Native American Hispanics from Bolivia, just like we can have White Arabs from Lebanon/Syria and Black Arabs from Sudan.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2009, 06:52:09 AM »

The guy who runs the pizzeria around the corner here sure looks plenty white. He's an Iraqi, but he could pass for a German at a pinch until he opens his mouth.
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Stranger in a strange land
strangeland
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« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2009, 10:53:45 AM »

Lebanese and Syrians - yes
Sudanese and Mauritanians - no
Others - varies

Somalia isn't Arab despite being in the Arab League.
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Frodo
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« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2009, 12:24:01 PM »

No, they are Semites -not unlike the ancient Hebrews.

Which is why it makes no sense to me why they are often described as being 'anti-semitic', when 'anti-Jewish' gets the point across more accurately. 
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StatesRights
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« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2009, 01:18:17 PM »


It all depends. I have some relatives who looked very arab and some who had light brown hair and blue eyes, like my grandmother.
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they don't love you like i love you
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« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2009, 01:19:38 PM »

No, they are Semites -not unlike the ancient Hebrews.

Which is why it makes no sense to me why they are often described as being 'anti-semitic', when 'anti-Jewish' gets the point across more accurately. 

So Jews aren't white?
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Earth
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« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2009, 02:44:59 PM »

No, they are Semites -not unlike the ancient Hebrews.


Modern Jews are, for the most part. 
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GMantis
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« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2009, 01:24:35 AM »

No, they are Semites -not unlike the ancient Hebrews.

Which is why it makes no sense to me why they are often described as being 'anti-semitic', when 'anti-Jewish' gets the point across more accurately. 
Semites are a linguistic category, not a racial one. Arabic speakers, as it was pointed out can be very different racially.
Of course, in this case antisemitic is even more inaccurate, but I suppose it's used because it's the established term.
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The Mikado
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« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2009, 01:37:45 AM »

One of my best friends is from Syria, and she's almost as white as I am.  (Severe Semitic nose, but otherwise, Mediterranean features)

Usually, I don't consider Arabs, as a whole, white (unlike Persians and Turks, both of whom I have no compunction labeling white).  However, there is enough variation that some of them, especially ones from the Maghreb (Arabs, not Berbers) and Lebanon/Syria can be safely considered white.
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12th Doctor
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« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2009, 01:59:35 AM »

It certainly depends on your definition.

First off, "White" as a racial designation is perhaps the most useless of all definitions available.  To say "Black" or "African" (meaning sub-Saharan) makes sense for the most part, because most people who would fall under that definition have an ancestry that is vastly mixed and entirely untraceable.  The African cultural heritage in the United States is an amalgamation of many different concepts that stretch all across Africa, due to the nature of African "colonization" of the new world.  Not to be offensive in the least, but an "African Festival" simply is not the same kind of animal as a Greek or Polish festival, as such a festival largely deal with an entirely reconstructed culture that you really could not find in any one location in Africa.

In many circles "White" has traditionally been used to mean peoples who are, in some way descended from Indo-European stock (which actually includes Persians and many in India).  Though even this definition is just a fiction, because most people who now speak an Indo-European language are actually mostly descended from the original pre-Indo-European inhabitants of a region, or some group that moved in later.

If you are going to define "White" as a skin color, then where does anyone from the Mediterranean fit into that scope?  Today, we include Italians, Greeks, and the Spanish under this codex, but that was not always so.  In fact, in many places, Italians were still considered "colored" well into the 20th century.

So, do we include people from the Northern shores of the Mediterranean "White" because they are Europeans?  Pretty shallow, since there has been so much movement around that region over the past thousands of years that your average Sicilian is likely to carry genetic markers from people as far away as Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Crimea, Denmark, or Turkey.

If we are to take this term to mean "Christian" then you could fire a cannonball down any city street in Britain at mid-day and likely not hit a single person who is a practicing Christian.

So, then are we talking about places that are historically Christian?  Well, there is not place in the world that is more "historically Christian" in the world than the Middle East.

My point is, racial designations are, and always will be, utterly arbitrary, and wholly dependent on the fashions of the times.  Ethnic designations have some weight, because they carry with them certain identities, but there is no such thing as a "race" as such.
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Scam of God
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« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2009, 04:32:57 PM »

'White' is a meaningless and collectivistic term that denotes nothing other than the melanin levels in one's skin.
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paul718
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« Reply #12 on: June 30, 2009, 05:06:07 PM »

It certainly depends on your definition.

First off, "White" as a racial designation is perhaps the most useless of all definitions available.  To say "Black" or "African" (meaning sub-Saharan) makes sense for the most part, because most people who would fall under that definition have an ancestry that is vastly mixed and entirely untraceable.  The African cultural heritage in the United States is an amalgamation of many different concepts that stretch all across Africa, due to the nature of African "colonization" of the new world.  Not to be offensive in the least, but an "African Festival" simply is not the same kind of animal as a Greek or Polish festival, as such a festival largely deal with an entirely reconstructed culture that you really could not find in any one location in Africa.

In many circles "White" has traditionally been used to mean peoples who are, in some way descended from Indo-European stock (which actually includes Persians and many in India).  Though even this definition is just a fiction, because most people who now speak an Indo-European language are actually mostly descended from the original pre-Indo-European inhabitants of a region, or some group that moved in later.

If you are going to define "White" as a skin color, then where does anyone from the Mediterranean fit into that scope?  Today, we include Italians, Greeks, and the Spanish under this codex, but that was not always so.  In fact, in many places, Italians were still considered "colored" well into the 20th century.

So, do we include people from the Northern shores of the Mediterranean "White" because they are Europeans?  Pretty shallow, since there has been so much movement around that region over the past thousands of years that your average Sicilian is likely to carry genetic markers from people as far away as Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Crimea, Denmark, or Turkey.

If we are to take this term to mean "Christian" then you could fire a cannonball down any city street in Britain at mid-day and likely not hit a single person who is a practicing Christian.

So, then are we talking about places that are historically Christian?  Well, there is not place in the world that is more "historically Christian" in the world than the Middle East.

My point is, racial designations are, and always will be, utterly arbitrary, and wholly dependent on the fashions of the times.  Ethnic designations have some weight, because they carry with them certain identities, but there is no such thing as a "race" as such.

THANK YOU!!!

Why am I not surprised that such a cogent response came from the keyboard of Soulty? Tongue  Enough with these absurd "race" threads. 


'White' is a meaningless and collectivistic term that denotes nothing other than the melanin levels in one's skin.

Not even.  It denotes nothing.
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12th Doctor
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« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2009, 11:42:15 PM »

It certainly depends on your definition.

First off, "White" as a racial designation is perhaps the most useless of all definitions available.  To say "Black" or "African" (meaning sub-Saharan) makes sense for the most part, because most people who would fall under that definition have an ancestry that is vastly mixed and entirely untraceable.  The African cultural heritage in the United States is an amalgamation of many different concepts that stretch all across Africa, due to the nature of African "colonization" of the new world.  Not to be offensive in the least, but an "African Festival" simply is not the same kind of animal as a Greek or Polish festival, as such a festival largely deal with an entirely reconstructed culture that you really could not find in any one location in Africa.

In many circles "White" has traditionally been used to mean peoples who are, in some way descended from Indo-European stock (which actually includes Persians and many in India).  Though even this definition is just a fiction, because most people who now speak an Indo-European language are actually mostly descended from the original pre-Indo-European inhabitants of a region, or some group that moved in later.

If you are going to define "White" as a skin color, then where does anyone from the Mediterranean fit into that scope?  Today, we include Italians, Greeks, and the Spanish under this codex, but that was not always so.  In fact, in many places, Italians were still considered "colored" well into the 20th century.

So, do we include people from the Northern shores of the Mediterranean "White" because they are Europeans?  Pretty shallow, since there has been so much movement around that region over the past thousands of years that your average Sicilian is likely to carry genetic markers from people as far away as Egypt, Morocco, Spain, Crimea, Denmark, or Turkey.

If we are to take this term to mean "Christian" then you could fire a cannonball down any city street in Britain at mid-day and likely not hit a single person who is a practicing Christian.

So, then are we talking about places that are historically Christian?  Well, there is not place in the world that is more "historically Christian" in the world than the Middle East.

My point is, racial designations are, and always will be, utterly arbitrary, and wholly dependent on the fashions of the times.  Ethnic designations have some weight, because they carry with them certain identities, but there is no such thing as a "race" as such.

THANK YOU!!!

Why am I not surprised that such a cogent response came from the keyboard of Soulty? Tongue  Enough with these absurd "race" threads. 


'White' is a meaningless and collectivistic term that denotes nothing other than the melanin levels in one's skin.

Not even.  It denotes nothing.

I wish if were slightly more coherent.  Looking at the writing mistakes I made in that thread, I want to cover my eyes.

Thanks, though.
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Jacobtm
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« Reply #14 on: July 01, 2009, 01:31:05 AM »

Italians, Greeks, Turks, Lebanese, pretty much all seem the same to me, pretty much the same gene pool that's been passed around through trade and conquest for thousands of years.
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Queen Mum Inks.LWC
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« Reply #15 on: July 01, 2009, 02:23:20 AM »

No
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the artist formerly known as catmusic
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« Reply #16 on: July 01, 2009, 02:24:29 AM »

not all of them. some are. some aren't, like my school teacher Lila Reather. She was Arab and white.
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #17 on: July 01, 2009, 04:54:09 AM »

No, Arabs are Arabs.

What is it with this superficial obsession over skin pigmentation?
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