As an European, I find the definition of European that excludes Spaniards super weird.

Likewise, not counting Spaniards into white is weird too, but at least it does not betray complete lack of knowledge about what counts as Europe.

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rhet0rica 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Generally the matter is one of blood purity, as with all racism. Southern Spain, Italy, and Greece were all occupied at one time by Arabs, which contributed certain hair textures, skin tones, and facial features to the local gene pool. Those with no knowledge of history or civilization tend to be terrified of acknowledging the artistic and cultural contributions of al-Andalus and the Ottoman Empire. As you probably know, the northern reaches of Italy are more German than Romance, on account of those pesky invasive Lombards.

Of course the true absurdity of all this comes when two people from the same parents end up with different physiognomical and racial labels; since these traits are rarely as simple as idealized Mendelian characteristics, it is entirely possible for them to be passed on a couple of generations before re-coalescing. (The case of Summer on The Sopranos comes to mind—while her parents both have fairer skin than she does, the result is otherwise not all that unrealistic.)

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throw0101d 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Likewise, not counting Spaniards into white is weird too, but at least it does not betray complete lack of knowledge about what counts as Europe.

Not that they should actually be listened to about anything, but the KKK (and others) did not consider Italian (immigrants) to be white.

One of the reasons for Columbus Day was people of that background wanting to show their 'American-ness'.

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krapp 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

>As an European, I find the definition of European that excludes Spaniards super weird.

Because you are, as I suspect many people will, intentionally misreading the context of my comment.

I am implying that the use of "European" herein does not literally refer to the geographic region known as "Europe," but rather that in the context of a statement about the likely physical appearance of Jesus it should be understood as a statement about race and ethnicity whereby "European" is a politically correct descriptor for the common set of physical traits often described as "white," as is represented in Western depictions of Jesus, particularly where traits like skin color, eye color and hair color are concerned.

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watwut 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

1.) Look, Spaniards are Europeans by any reasonable definition. They are part of Western Europe.

2.) Traditional western depiction of Jesus looking like Spaniards would be no exception. Traditional western depiction of Jesus tend to look sorta kinda like locals do.

3.) Europeans do have wild range of eye colors and hair colors. The eye color and hair being some specific colors even for whites is weird, because even whitey whites have all kind of hair colors and eye colors.

> "European" is a politically correct descriptor for the common set of physical traits often described as "white,

No it is not and to the extend it is, it is absurd whistleblowing attempt - the one that ends up redefine Western Europe as a place that excludes Spaniards.

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barry-cotter 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

99.99% of the population of the Mediterranean basin at the time Jesus lived were white, almost certainly more given that the trans-Saharan slave trade was a creature of the camel and post dated the Arab conquest of North Africa.

	▲	acdha 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		“White” didn’t exist at that time and the people of the Mediterranean certainly didn’t think of themselves as one homogeneous group. The various peoples had prejudices about each other which only consolidated into a hierarchy when the trans-Atlantic slave trade needed to legally define who couldn’t be property. Prejudices by, for example, the English or American against Greeks or Italians lasted into the 20th century.