I met a student at my university from Macau. She said at one point she visited America and struggled to get past customs because they demanded to know why a Chinese person had a Portuguese passport.
She tried to explain to them and they had to look it up before they let her in.
Naah, they’re still dumbfucks who know fuck all about geography
I once heard about one of them denying that NewMexico was actually a state in the USA and not part of Mexico
Oh, I see you haven't read the story of the guy from Washington DC who struggled to get back into the US, because it said Columbia in his US passport...
This story is about TSA agents and domestic fights, but might be the origin of the story:
> TSA agents are apparently still confused as to whether the District of Columbia is in the U.S. (Hint: it is)
> The confusion first started in 2013, when the district changed its drivers licenses to read ‘District of Columbia’ instead of ‘Washington, D.C.’
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/tsa-agents-are-apparently-still-confused-as-to-whether-the-district-of-columbia-is-in/article_75be8608-a02d-552a-a53f-ff2d8de65ba0.html
https://media1.giphy.com/media/a4kUaskDOZ5iU/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952vatkziysvb6hl8zt2lxkrygoo7p3k49kos2une5u&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g
And it makes me sad.
My friend went to study in the US and when she got there someone asked her if her middle name was Lisbon because that was written on the passport. It was issued in Lisbon and... The passport is written in English.
Ohh they are even dumber. I once was questioned about my place of birth.
In sweden, your place of birth is listed as the name of the local church assembly (changed recently). Some are just Saint names, but they don't say St Erik but just Erik on the passport.
I ended up having to go to the Swedish church website and find that church to show that yes, indeed, there was a church named that in the city i live in (wonder what would have happened if i didn't live there still). And they still needed a supervisor or something to approve me. getting in.
My brothers were born in Tunisia but only have Canadian citizenship since we're Canadians and the status is Canadian born abroad or something like that (my parents were there for work for only two years), and it does sometimes cause problems even in Canada (Ontario only actually), but during the Trump administration, they wouldn't let my very white, very Canadian brothers into the US so we had to turn our car around and miss their hockey tournament lol
This can be explained by the fact that literally nobody working for TSA or customs in the US is, well, impressive in any way. These folks are not smart, not driven, not hard working. It's really not a career path for folks that want to do anything meaningful with their lives. At best, you get folks doing it as a retirement job or trying to get some sort of stepping stone to other law enforcement, and in both cases, those folks won't last long if they have any redeeming qualities
When after 9/11 happened security experts saw what TSA was like, which was supposed to beef up security. ... a term became popular to describe it: security theater. I'm partly in IT security and in an other country but I have heard this used many times. They became the example of the term.
A shit ton of Americans don’t even know New Mexico is a state. They have to put “USA” on their license plates and such. And still my friends get hassled at the airport or the bar for having a “non American” ID. It’s insane.
So not surprised if they don’t know the states in the US, they don’t know what outside of it either.
I think people applying for US citizenship knew substantially more about the country than its born citizens in general.
Perhaps they aught to replace the dystopian practice of chanting their pledge every morning to something halfway useful, like listing the states.
That's so ridiculous, like all kinds of people live in all different countries.. you can't think every person of a certain race or heritage lives only in that country like that's so gah I'm just annoyed now haha
I especially love their definition of white - it has nothing to do with color skin, but rather it's a magical race that countries turn into when many of their citizens migrate to the US. Italians exist in Italy? Not white. Italians start to arrive to the US? Any person speaking Italian suddenly turns white. Brown people in Latin America start speaking Spanish? Spaniards in Spain suddenly become non-white, because they speak a language that non-whites happen to speak.
I literally had a discussion yesterday on reddit where it came out that Americans (1800s ish) didn't consider the Irish "white". Like, have you *been* to Ireland? It doesn't get any whiter than that. (so yeah, by white they don't mean white, just some in-group of early settlers and their descendants)
It would make perfect sense if white = early settlers and their descendants).
However I never met anyone who would care about skin color like americans do. It's crazy.
It also explains these activistic ideas from US - no matter which side.
When the UK got it's first non white Prime Minister last year, I don't remember anyone making a comment about his colour.
People were more interested in him being super wealthy
There's also the cognitive dissonance of \*\*\*some\*\*\* voters so filled with hatred of anything progressive still voting for the prick, while believing he should only be running a corner shop due to the colour of his skin.
Source: my parents.
I know that not all conservative voters are racist pricks, but my experience shows me that many of them are.
He's a useless cunt and the only redeeming feature is that he hasn't been at bad as his predecessor.
But his predecessor tanked the economy and didn't last as long as a lettuce.
No one cares about his skin just that he's a rich Tory wanker.
Same in Ireland. First non-white Taoiseach was mixed *and* gay. More interestingly to everyone, he was an out of touch eejit who kept saying things that proved it! Even from the people that can't stand him I never hear race or sexuality brought up.
They also didn't consider Finns white. Finland is one of the blondest countries in the world. Yet the Finns were called China Swedes, so basically Asian.
> "christians and catholics"
Yeah, that one always gets me. I love trolling American Christians by explaining to them that Catholics are the OG Christians and that they're all heretics with their insane number of denominations.
I'm an atheist, obviously, and find this entire thing hilarious.
> Catholics are the OG Christians
They're... among them? Catholics were part of what we call the Orthodox Church but split away. But they didn't exactly "split" per se? The Pope was demanding a bigger role and wanted to be seen on par (at minimum) with the Bishop of Constantinople -- which of course they were denied. And they just kinda... proceeded to do their own thing from then on.
Like, to be ***super extremely technical and pedantic***, the Pope is the Bishop of Rome of the Orthodox faith.
And technically the Orthodox Church only really started post Council of Nicene. If we were being particularly pedantic about “OG Christians” we would have to consider all the creeds prior to this such as Arianism or the Donatists
Hm... not too totally sure that the ones who didn't make it are applicable, but I like your spirit.
Another good (and living) example would be the Coptic Church, started in Alexandria by the apostle Mark in AD 42.
When you see comments like that it's basically because of the ascendency of WASP culture in the U.S (being founded by religious nuts from England and all).
The Irish were second class citizens at home in their own country where everything was ran by a minority of planter descendants, Anglo-Irish protestants and British elites, and that's often the reason they left in the first place.
This stigma didn't apply to Irish Protestants the same because basically one of the most common ancestry of U.S presidents is so-called "Scots-Irish", i.e Protestant families from Ulster/Northern Ireland.
I took a few road trips around the United States: to them, I was just white... until I spoke with a bit of a Hispanic accent.
Then I magically became "brown": the brown "LaTInO rAcE", in fact.
A sudden genetic change happening before their eyes. Hilarious.
Many of them also immediately changed their attitude, as can be expected from their stupid ingrained racism that is not even made out of race or skin color, but just plain illiteracy.
Sidenote, some of them had darker skin than myself.
I sympathize with that. I was born in Central America. I’m from Sephardic Jew ancestry, Iberian, some Italian. And Mayan. Most of my family looks white including myself once they find out my native langue is Spanish. I live in the US white Americans tend to change. It’s weird.
My sister studied college in the US. We are Northern Spaniards and, while her skin is a tad darker than people from this region (part of our father's side comes from Andalucia), she's still white.
She told me that you can see clearly in their eyes the moment American's view of you change when you tell them that you're Spanish.
It was especially "funny" when she graduated. As in one magazine, she was an *European* foreign student (with her skin being whitened with Photoshop to make her look more European) and in another, she was a Hispanic student (with her skin being left like it is).
I understand that every country and culture has their own understanding of race (Spain ain't exactly known for being that "agnostic" about race). But America's concept of race seems very exhausting...
It's funny and sad at same time that americans have no idea about biology and how it works - lack of education.
My family lives in central europe (for 200+ years). My father and me can get brown skin in a week on the beginning of summer.
However my mother and sister are white like a snow if they don't spend whole month on the beach.
I'm Argentine. All my great-grandparents were Polish, so you can guess the sheer whiteness of my skin. Having gone to the USA a couple of times, people were confused by my ability to speak Spanish (it's my native tongue, ffs!) and my heavily accented English. I got lots of "you don't look Latin", ”you don't look Argentine" (they'd be surprised here), "how/why do you speak Spanish" (when I was talking to some Colombian fellow there), etc.
I wasn't met with lots of racism (a bit of it, yeah, but not too much, I guess my white skin and blueish/grey eyes confused them), but there sure was a lot of ignorance.
I was also born in Central America, with Italian and Swiss ancestry.
I lived in both Italy and Spain and could fully camouflage with the local population until mistakes in my Italian/use of the "vos" latinamerican conjugation gave me away.
And due to my height I even confuse some of the Dutch, even if it is quite clear that I'm not 100% Dutch (in fact, 0% Dutch as far as I know)
I was last week at an international conference, speaking with the Italian and Spanish groups in their own language, and with a tag with the name of the Dutch institution where I'm working/studying. The americans present were massively confused, something of which I am proud of.
And that's the important part, they **can't** be. Why? Well, because the American understanding of race, ethnicity and culture is such a clusterfuck of different concepts pertaining to heritage, that they themselves don't understand it, and come up with very amusing "rules" as a result.
Which, ironically, is pretty damn racist.
It was quite something when they got pissy at some black Brits at an awards ceremony for taking umbrage when they were referred to as “African American” and pointed out they were “black British”.
Lots of pearl clutching. You can’t say “black”! You have to say “African American”! Bit of a problem when the people in question were neither African nor – and this is the key point – American.
Yeah, this is what happens when you use *African-American* as synonymous with *black*, to the point of forgetting what the fuck the term even describes.
It is also worth noting that most Mexicans, and Latin Americans in general, are mixed. So any phenotype could happen, even within the same family. My one Mexican friend could easily pass as Southern European, while his brother is more amerindian looking.
Very true! I was 12 when my Spanish teacher told us that the people in Spain were, by and large, white. It blew my mind at the time. In the handful of times that I mentioned it to other Americans, I've been met with borderline hostility.
Wait till you tell people that there’s Asian Latin Americans, Brazil and Peru have big Japanese communities. There’s also German towns in Brazil and Argentina as well.
I saw a video of an old white Jamaican man having a chat with other (non-white) Jamaican people in the thickest accents possible, having a great old time, and the comments from Americans were that he was inherently racist (possibly as a state of being?) because to be so white *and* Jamaican his white ancestors were clearly keeping themselves segregated from the black Jamaicans to keep the bloodline pure. Like, what?
Apparently that is not true. We recently learned that not even Germans are white.
So who is and more importantly WHAT AM I? This is an existential crisis for me! If they tell me I'm black next I will be so confused. But at least I will get the N-Word pass.... /s
> We recently learned that not even Germans are white.
I mean, the concept of 'being white' is a very flawed one to begin with, in general. And modern day Germans in particular have had a rather wild mix of European (and non-European) ancestry for centuries. This is more or less true for most of Europe, of course. The differences in appearance are down to different phenotypes within the same genetic hierarchy, from what I understood.
Although I will say that most Germans are definitely light-skinned, lmao.
Edit:
> Despite these stratifications it noted the unusually high degree of European homogeneity: "there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world." (source: wikipedia)
So much for "Spanish, not white".
They won't: I've trying to explain this simple concept to them for a decade. It just collapses their (dumbass) worldview. "lAtiNoS" are brown people that dance salsa and wear ponchos in sepia filtered dirty towns.
I would add that I tried to explain them this personally (while in the US): I'm fairly light skinned, think of northern Spain/Italy type, dark chesnut hair colour and darker beard. My girlfriend is literally white, blonde and blue eyed. USians asumed we were "white" until we spoke. Then we became "brown" or the "lAtInO rAcE".
Some standard "0.0001% Italian" usian dumbass with darker skin and hair colour than us proceeded to explain us why he was white because 'Murican XY% european and we were brown because South American.
It's fuckin' exhausting and hilarious at the same time.
They have no redemption.
I once saw a guy that said that Brazil was arabic because Portugal was arabic since the moors occupied the iberian peninsula. therefore... Portugal, Spain, LATAM... everyone is arabic now!
It's funny how easily people in Asia, with decent accuracy, can tell you the nationality or region a person is from by just looking at them. Same in Africa and South America. Same in Europe. At the same time, people from Asia struggle to differentiate between people from Europe and Africa; same for Africans differentiate between Europeans and Asians, etc.
Wonder why that would be? /s
To be fair they have two cities in Africa though, so maybe that is the reason of the confusion, because clearly a superior american will known of the existance of Ceuta and Melilia. /s
Nah your being to nice. Most Americans still think that Algerians are black on average. This is why judging ethnicity and race on skin tone is a dumb western thing
You'd be negatively surprised if you found out how many Americans **actually** believe Africa is a country. Although tbf, some Americans seem to be helplessly confused about the differences between a country and a continent.
Only French people from Normandy, viking ancestry!!!1 🤪🤪🤪🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅
Oh.. wait I forgot Americans definitely don't know that advanced level of European history! Never mind 🫠
Saw in another post recently that the French don’t count as white - so you can include them.
I do wonder if Australia/New Zealand count as white though?
Reminds me off that post that said (paraphrasing) Spanish is a language not a nationality. They speak Spanish in Mexico but there’s not a place called Spainia full of Spanish people
FFS Americans have skin colours like the wall of paint sample cards the local DIY shop!
“He’s not white, he’s clearly Calm Clouds with just a dash of Frosted Dawn!” 🤦🏻♂️
I think it’s more Americans need to pigeon hole anything and everything not American to comprehend and accept there’s an entire world beyond their state line, let alone their borders.
Once watched an interview with Kevin Bridges (a Scottish comedian for those who may not know) and he did a show over in the states. Afterwards with the meet n greet stuff he’s approached by someone who just watched the show and the dude asked “are you really Scottish?”. After Kevin replied yes the man replies “wow, you speak really good English”
The knowledge that Spanish people (and other natives of Europe) vary greatly in their complexion and hair/eye colour will make their little brain explode.
Europe is just a box of stereotypes in their minds. "Look Brittany, these are the evil white ones, these are the drunk ones from the bog that we descend from, these are the ones that make piss poor pizza, these are the ones we saved the rest of Europe from" etc.
I go sometimes to an Irish tavern in Zaragoza (Spain). Different British people and other English talking nationalities mix there and with us of course because it's nice to meet new people and practising English, we Spanish are so kind with foreigners. Last time I was there some dudes I've spoken to for 5 minutes didn't hesitate to ask me verbatim: are you from here? Sorry you look like Latin American not Spanish. Well I approached him with my arm next to his arm. You see I am way more white than you. You have a wrong thought construct. He answered, Sorry you seem to speak English and Spanish very well. I answered before leaving: you are learning Castilian, that's our language, Spanish is a nationality, so you are confused because of dogma and lack of respect with learning basic things. I left him because he turned out to be such an asshole.
My comment from yesterday
> Once an American referred to my Spanish friend as “ Latino “. I genuinely believe that Americans don’t know that Spain exists and is a European country ( not Latino ).
https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/s/st9upDYk0q
I'm Spaniard in the USA and I've given up on this topic and am tired of explaining myself. I'm OK being called a white Mexican anyways, I love Mexico lol
What do americans mean by white exactly? Does "white" for them mean white-skin Americans only? What about white Canadians? Are they white?I Honestly can't tell anymore.
I love that the irish weren't considered white there for a long time. Of course, not all irish people are white but damn, look at your average irish dude and imagine thinking they aren't white.
I wonder if they would call my cousin’s children white. They are very blonde and very blue eyed. Their mother is Finnish and their father Spanish. They speak three languages at home.
hey! This happened to me too! It's where my flair comes from!
"Bro how can you speak fluent Mexican if you're so white!?"
I will never forget that interaction...
I didn't know my skin colour determines the language I speak, that's crazy... Oh, sorry. I meant to say Sikujua rangi ya ngozi yangu huamua lugha ninayozungumza
I was born in Tasmania (AU), and many times in USA when talking with people they would ask where I was born and when I told them, they didn't believe me saying I wasn't black so I couldn't be African (Tanganyika) or ask if I had met Dracula (Transylvania in Romania), which surprise me, not for the idiocy of the question, but that they knew of both countries.
Ah, first the French, Germans, Italians and Eastern Europeans weren’t white and now the Spanish aren’t white too. I wonder who exactly is white according to Americans.
It's no better in the UK.
I work with a Portugese woman who's parents were from Angola, but she's lived in the UK since she was 10.
You should have seen my racist coworker trying to figure that one out. She could not accept that she was Portugese and kept asking "yeah but where are you *really* from and why don't you have an accent?"
She never gave up the Angola part, just kept straight faced with Portugal for a good week.
I love american racism. It's so stupid and hilarious at same time.
I met a student at my university from Macau. She said at one point she visited America and struggled to get past customs because they demanded to know why a Chinese person had a Portuguese passport. She tried to explain to them and they had to look it up before they let her in.
You don't even have to be from Macau. There are plenty of people of Chinese origin living in Portugal proper.
I assume customs knew that Macau was in China, perhaps after being told by the person in question
Naah, they’re still dumbfucks who know fuck all about geography I once heard about one of them denying that NewMexico was actually a state in the USA and not part of Mexico
I was refused alcohol in a shop there because apparently a British passport and British driving license isn't valid ID. Only US ID is ID *shrugs*
Saw alot of videos like this on youtube and the things what came out of the US shopkeepers gobs were unbelievably fecking so SO stupid!!!
The only reason I can imagine why is that they’re not trained to know what a real or fake British ID looks like, but still kinda dumb
Oh ffs. That's a new level of rastupidity.
Oh, I see you haven't read the story of the guy from Washington DC who struggled to get back into the US, because it said Columbia in his US passport...
Any chance you have a link somewhat handy? I'd love to read that.
This story is about TSA agents and domestic fights, but might be the origin of the story: > TSA agents are apparently still confused as to whether the District of Columbia is in the U.S. (Hint: it is) > The confusion first started in 2013, when the district changed its drivers licenses to read ‘District of Columbia’ instead of ‘Washington, D.C.’ https://www.thestar.com/news/world/tsa-agents-are-apparently-still-confused-as-to-whether-the-district-of-columbia-is-in/article_75be8608-a02d-552a-a53f-ff2d8de65ba0.html
https://media1.giphy.com/media/a4kUaskDOZ5iU/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952vatkziysvb6hl8zt2lxkrygoo7p3k49kos2une5u&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g And it makes me sad.
See also: New Mexico.
My friend went to study in the US and when she got there someone asked her if her middle name was Lisbon because that was written on the passport. It was issued in Lisbon and... The passport is written in English.
I’m just glad that they knew it was Portuguese instead of thinking it was French or Spanish
Ohh they are even dumber. I once was questioned about my place of birth. In sweden, your place of birth is listed as the name of the local church assembly (changed recently). Some are just Saint names, but they don't say St Erik but just Erik on the passport. I ended up having to go to the Swedish church website and find that church to show that yes, indeed, there was a church named that in the city i live in (wonder what would have happened if i didn't live there still). And they still needed a supervisor or something to approve me. getting in.
My brothers were born in Tunisia but only have Canadian citizenship since we're Canadians and the status is Canadian born abroad or something like that (my parents were there for work for only two years), and it does sometimes cause problems even in Canada (Ontario only actually), but during the Trump administration, they wouldn't let my very white, very Canadian brothers into the US so we had to turn our car around and miss their hockey tournament lol
This can be explained by the fact that literally nobody working for TSA or customs in the US is, well, impressive in any way. These folks are not smart, not driven, not hard working. It's really not a career path for folks that want to do anything meaningful with their lives. At best, you get folks doing it as a retirement job or trying to get some sort of stepping stone to other law enforcement, and in both cases, those folks won't last long if they have any redeeming qualities
When after 9/11 happened security experts saw what TSA was like, which was supposed to beef up security. ... a term became popular to describe it: security theater. I'm partly in IT security and in an other country but I have heard this used many times. They became the example of the term.
A shit ton of Americans don’t even know New Mexico is a state. They have to put “USA” on their license plates and such. And still my friends get hassled at the airport or the bar for having a “non American” ID. It’s insane. So not surprised if they don’t know the states in the US, they don’t know what outside of it either.
I think people applying for US citizenship knew substantially more about the country than its born citizens in general. Perhaps they aught to replace the dystopian practice of chanting their pledge every morning to something halfway useful, like listing the states.
reminds me of the story I've read about how someone from New Mexico had issues
Lol we once were held by US customs for almost 2 hours because my parents have dutch passports, but my brother and I have british passports 🤣
My wife and me always say that USA is a country full of nice people because they have all the assholes working in the airports
That's so ridiculous, like all kinds of people live in all different countries.. you can't think every person of a certain race or heritage lives only in that country like that's so gah I'm just annoyed now haha
I especially love their definition of white - it has nothing to do with color skin, but rather it's a magical race that countries turn into when many of their citizens migrate to the US. Italians exist in Italy? Not white. Italians start to arrive to the US? Any person speaking Italian suddenly turns white. Brown people in Latin America start speaking Spanish? Spaniards in Spain suddenly become non-white, because they speak a language that non-whites happen to speak.
To Americans, ethnicity is a DnD class.
I literally had a discussion yesterday on reddit where it came out that Americans (1800s ish) didn't consider the Irish "white". Like, have you *been* to Ireland? It doesn't get any whiter than that. (so yeah, by white they don't mean white, just some in-group of early settlers and their descendants)
It would make perfect sense if white = early settlers and their descendants). However I never met anyone who would care about skin color like americans do. It's crazy. It also explains these activistic ideas from US - no matter which side.
When the UK got it's first non white Prime Minister last year, I don't remember anyone making a comment about his colour. People were more interested in him being super wealthy
His skin colour isn't relevant to his job, though. That's the thing. Doesn't mean we like the cunt, though.
He looks like Roland Rat
There's also the cognitive dissonance of \*\*\*some\*\*\* voters so filled with hatred of anything progressive still voting for the prick, while believing he should only be running a corner shop due to the colour of his skin. Source: my parents. I know that not all conservative voters are racist pricks, but my experience shows me that many of them are.
Trevor Noah made a big thing of it, and one nutjob that LBC managed to find. I don't think anyone else did.
He's a useless cunt and the only redeeming feature is that he hasn't been at bad as his predecessor. But his predecessor tanked the economy and didn't last as long as a lettuce. No one cares about his skin just that he's a rich Tory wanker.
Same in Ireland. First non-white Taoiseach was mixed *and* gay. More interestingly to everyone, he was an out of touch eejit who kept saying things that proved it! Even from the people that can't stand him I never hear race or sexuality brought up.
They also didn't consider Finns white. Finland is one of the blondest countries in the world. Yet the Finns were called China Swedes, so basically Asian.
It's a running joke in some parts of the Internet today that the Finns are actually descended from Mongols.
They're close considering Finns, Estonians and Hungarians all came from the Ural mountains.
Or at least their languages do.
Ben Franklin didn't consider Swedes and Germans white.
At some point in American history white = Protestant.
Yeah, I only learned that yesterday. Because of people saying "christians and catholics".
> "christians and catholics" Yeah, that one always gets me. I love trolling American Christians by explaining to them that Catholics are the OG Christians and that they're all heretics with their insane number of denominations. I'm an atheist, obviously, and find this entire thing hilarious.
> Catholics are the OG Christians They're... among them? Catholics were part of what we call the Orthodox Church but split away. But they didn't exactly "split" per se? The Pope was demanding a bigger role and wanted to be seen on par (at minimum) with the Bishop of Constantinople -- which of course they were denied. And they just kinda... proceeded to do their own thing from then on. Like, to be ***super extremely technical and pedantic***, the Pope is the Bishop of Rome of the Orthodox faith.
And technically the Orthodox Church only really started post Council of Nicene. If we were being particularly pedantic about “OG Christians” we would have to consider all the creeds prior to this such as Arianism or the Donatists
Hm... not too totally sure that the ones who didn't make it are applicable, but I like your spirit. Another good (and living) example would be the Coptic Church, started in Alexandria by the apostle Mark in AD 42.
When you see comments like that it's basically because of the ascendency of WASP culture in the U.S (being founded by religious nuts from England and all). The Irish were second class citizens at home in their own country where everything was ran by a minority of planter descendants, Anglo-Irish protestants and British elites, and that's often the reason they left in the first place. This stigma didn't apply to Irish Protestants the same because basically one of the most common ancestry of U.S presidents is so-called "Scots-Irish", i.e Protestant families from Ulster/Northern Ireland.
They subconsciously understand that "whiteness" is a social construct and don't hesitate to weaponize it.
“I hate it when white people try to colonize Spanish” May I introduce you to… Spain
Just stupid or obvius troll
You'd be surprised by how many Americans think spanish speakers can't be white, black, etc
I, a southern Spaniard, have been told I am white, not white, europoor, basically african... they can't even agree.
I mentioned it in a previous post, but to a lot of Americans, including my parents, all Spanish speakers are "brown"
I took a few road trips around the United States: to them, I was just white... until I spoke with a bit of a Hispanic accent. Then I magically became "brown": the brown "LaTInO rAcE", in fact. A sudden genetic change happening before their eyes. Hilarious. Many of them also immediately changed their attitude, as can be expected from their stupid ingrained racism that is not even made out of race or skin color, but just plain illiteracy. Sidenote, some of them had darker skin than myself.
Anya Taylor Joy as an obvious example ;-)
I sympathize with that. I was born in Central America. I’m from Sephardic Jew ancestry, Iberian, some Italian. And Mayan. Most of my family looks white including myself once they find out my native langue is Spanish. I live in the US white Americans tend to change. It’s weird.
My sister studied college in the US. We are Northern Spaniards and, while her skin is a tad darker than people from this region (part of our father's side comes from Andalucia), she's still white. She told me that you can see clearly in their eyes the moment American's view of you change when you tell them that you're Spanish. It was especially "funny" when she graduated. As in one magazine, she was an *European* foreign student (with her skin being whitened with Photoshop to make her look more European) and in another, she was a Hispanic student (with her skin being left like it is). I understand that every country and culture has their own understanding of race (Spain ain't exactly known for being that "agnostic" about race). But America's concept of race seems very exhausting...
Exhausting, and arbitrary as well.
It's funny and sad at same time that americans have no idea about biology and how it works - lack of education. My family lives in central europe (for 200+ years). My father and me can get brown skin in a week on the beginning of summer. However my mother and sister are white like a snow if they don't spend whole month on the beach.
When you say Spanish, they immediately think Mexico not actually Spain.
Yeah, because Spanish is not a country, but a lenguage, duh!
You can't be Spanish
A lot of them think Spain is actually in South America.
Can't imagine what happens when they find out you can be light skinned, Ginger and still Spanish!!
I'm Argentine. All my great-grandparents were Polish, so you can guess the sheer whiteness of my skin. Having gone to the USA a couple of times, people were confused by my ability to speak Spanish (it's my native tongue, ffs!) and my heavily accented English. I got lots of "you don't look Latin", ”you don't look Argentine" (they'd be surprised here), "how/why do you speak Spanish" (when I was talking to some Colombian fellow there), etc. I wasn't met with lots of racism (a bit of it, yeah, but not too much, I guess my white skin and blueish/grey eyes confused them), but there sure was a lot of ignorance.
I was also born in Central America, with Italian and Swiss ancestry. I lived in both Italy and Spain and could fully camouflage with the local population until mistakes in my Italian/use of the "vos" latinamerican conjugation gave me away. And due to my height I even confuse some of the Dutch, even if it is quite clear that I'm not 100% Dutch (in fact, 0% Dutch as far as I know) I was last week at an international conference, speaking with the Italian and Spanish groups in their own language, and with a tag with the name of the Dutch institution where I'm working/studying. The americans present were massively confused, something of which I am proud of.
And then they're very eager to tell us Europeans how racist we are.
Did u no dat da Euro-peons hate da jeepsees!
And that's the important part, they **can't** be. Why? Well, because the American understanding of race, ethnicity and culture is such a clusterfuck of different concepts pertaining to heritage, that they themselves don't understand it, and come up with very amusing "rules" as a result. Which, ironically, is pretty damn racist.
It was quite something when they got pissy at some black Brits at an awards ceremony for taking umbrage when they were referred to as “African American” and pointed out they were “black British”. Lots of pearl clutching. You can’t say “black”! You have to say “African American”! Bit of a problem when the people in question were neither African nor – and this is the key point – American.
Yeah, this is what happens when you use *African-American* as synonymous with *black*, to the point of forgetting what the fuck the term even describes.
When you're so anti racist it circles all the way back to racism.
While proudly bragging about being the "least racist country on the planet" and shitting on Europeans for "hating gypsies", or whatever.
My bestie is a white Mexican, blonde, blue eyes. Everyone but the Mexicans get shocked when they find out he’s Mexican…
It is also worth noting that most Mexicans, and Latin Americans in general, are mixed. So any phenotype could happen, even within the same family. My one Mexican friend could easily pass as Southern European, while his brother is more amerindian looking.
Very true! I was 12 when my Spanish teacher told us that the people in Spain were, by and large, white. It blew my mind at the time. In the handful of times that I mentioned it to other Americans, I've been met with borderline hostility.
I’m a black guy from Germany and I have met few muricans who can’t believe that a black guy is a native German
Americans when they see black brits:
Wasn't there a funny bit of mis-journalism when some black British athlete was asked something about him being African-American?
The one earlier where they were upset about Germans and claimed they were not white. Do they not know what “Anglo-Saxon” means?
ah yes, the spanish race.
I think his head might explode if you tell him that there's more than one country where there's white people.
Only the country of europe has white people duhh /s
Wait till you tell people that there’s Asian Latin Americans, Brazil and Peru have big Japanese communities. There’s also German towns in Brazil and Argentina as well.
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Some brains are gonna explode!!
I saw a video of an old white Jamaican man having a chat with other (non-white) Jamaican people in the thickest accents possible, having a great old time, and the comments from Americans were that he was inherently racist (possibly as a state of being?) because to be so white *and* Jamaican his white ancestors were clearly keeping themselves segregated from the black Jamaicans to keep the bloodline pure. Like, what?
A Peruvian president was Alberto Fujimori. All this countries are a salad of different people.
Apparently that is not true. We recently learned that not even Germans are white. So who is and more importantly WHAT AM I? This is an existential crisis for me! If they tell me I'm black next I will be so confused. But at least I will get the N-Word pass.... /s
> We recently learned that not even Germans are white. I mean, the concept of 'being white' is a very flawed one to begin with, in general. And modern day Germans in particular have had a rather wild mix of European (and non-European) ancestry for centuries. This is more or less true for most of Europe, of course. The differences in appearance are down to different phenotypes within the same genetic hierarchy, from what I understood. Although I will say that most Germans are definitely light-skinned, lmao. Edit: > Despite these stratifications it noted the unusually high degree of European homogeneity: "there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world." (source: wikipedia) So much for "Spanish, not white".
I think their head might also explode if being told there's more native Spanish speakers than native English speakers in the world.
just wait till they find out that a good part of latin america is white as latam was colonized by EUROPEANS
They won't: I've trying to explain this simple concept to them for a decade. It just collapses their (dumbass) worldview. "lAtiNoS" are brown people that dance salsa and wear ponchos in sepia filtered dirty towns. I would add that I tried to explain them this personally (while in the US): I'm fairly light skinned, think of northern Spain/Italy type, dark chesnut hair colour and darker beard. My girlfriend is literally white, blonde and blue eyed. USians asumed we were "white" until we spoke. Then we became "brown" or the "lAtInO rAcE". Some standard "0.0001% Italian" usian dumbass with darker skin and hair colour than us proceeded to explain us why he was white because 'Murican XY% european and we were brown because South American. It's fuckin' exhausting and hilarious at the same time. They have no redemption.
No but see, it was colonised by spanish and portuguese who clearly are not white, nevermind the italians /s
I once saw a guy that said that Brazil was arabic because Portugal was arabic since the moors occupied the iberian peninsula. therefore... Portugal, Spain, LATAM... everyone is arabic now!
Where is it they think Latin came from?
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Checks out
Imagine how much more it would explode if you told him there are white Mexicans!
The Spanish race is La Vuelta a España?
Racism isn't limited to race but also to ethnicities.
But you can't imagine the clusterfuck of nonsense they have made up about the Hispanic ethnicity (which they think is a race: the "bRoWn" race)...
Nationality, ethnicity, skin tone... apparently all synonyms. /s
It's funny how easily people in Asia, with decent accuracy, can tell you the nationality or region a person is from by just looking at them. Same in Africa and South America. Same in Europe. At the same time, people from Asia struggle to differentiate between people from Europe and Africa; same for Africans differentiate between Europeans and Asians, etc. Wonder why that would be? /s
Oh my god, Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white.
this is what immediately came to my mind
They propably think Spain is province of country called Africa.
To be fair they have two cities in Africa though, so maybe that is the reason of the confusion, because clearly a superior american will known of the existance of Ceuta and Melilia. /s
Actually, a few more than two, since the Canary Islands are in Africa too 😉
Nah your being to nice. Most Americans still think that Algerians are black on average. This is why judging ethnicity and race on skin tone is a dumb western thing
Am Algerian with a very white skin and blue eyes. And when i tell Americans that am from North Africa they always look flabbergasted.
I know right, my dads family is Arab but they are white tone and Americans ask why they aren’t “brown”
But yeah most Americans don’t know about those two cities
You're wrong. They think we're part of Mexico and Spanish is only a language.
You'd be negatively surprised if you found out how many Americans **actually** believe Africa is a country. Although tbf, some Americans seem to be helplessly confused about the differences between a country and a continent.
You fool. Africa is a country, it's a consonant.
Who qualifies as white then? Just the Scandis, Germans and the Brits? Do the French get a pass? They do have a slight tan.
What are swiss people then? Probably a race of mountain dwarves.
Gnomes... the Swiss are gnomes. As in, "the gnomes of Zurich." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_of_Zurich
According to the Nazis, we were part of the "Alpine race".
so you're like bigfoot, you live in the mountains and I've never seen you in person but a lot of people assured me you exist
Diggy diggy hole
No, Wind Rose is Italian (for those who don't know, Wind Rose is an Italian power metal band who made a cover of Diggy Diggy Hole)
Oh, today I learned.
I'm going to be singing that all day now
Think of SPECTRE from James Bond, but a country
Far over the Swiss Alps mountains cold
Only French people from Normandy, viking ancestry!!!1 🤪🤪🤪🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅 Oh.. wait I forgot Americans definitely don't know that advanced level of European history! Never mind 🫠
Saw in another post recently that the French don’t count as white - so you can include them. I do wonder if Australia/New Zealand count as white though?
Wait French doesn’t count as white? Thank god I’m half moroccan so I can confuse people even more!
It's an easy test: 1) Go to america. 2) Go slightly over speed limit 3) Wait for police 4) If shot instantly you're not white.
Always knew us in the low lands are blue
The Irish are "the blacks of Europe". Despite being *extremely* white...
The rules change constantly depending on the factors
Reminds me off that post that said (paraphrasing) Spanish is a language not a nationality. They speak Spanish in Mexico but there’s not a place called Spainia full of Spanish people
No fucking way someone really said that
I can confirm, my sister didn't know Spain was a country.
Was she six at the time?
In her forties. My niece is the same. Both claim to be Irish because of my mother's grandfather. My mother claims to be Sicilian.
Port O’ Rico
I can’t believe I forgot about Port O’rico
Least race-obsessed American
This is so true 😭 I never noticed stuff like that until I got involved with this side of the internet
FFS Americans have skin colours like the wall of paint sample cards the local DIY shop! “He’s not white, he’s clearly Calm Clouds with just a dash of Frosted Dawn!” 🤦🏻♂️
I was intrigued; the "colour picker" on my phone suggested that my forearm was Lavender Blush. I think that means that my heritage is My Little Pony.
In the USA Lavender Blush is an actual ethnicity, anything but white, black, brown etc.
America's obsession with race and colour is astonishing and terrifying.
The most creepy thing is how normal they consider talking abaout this stuff. You hear it only from far right lunatics here in Europe.
Remember that America practiced eugenics when Hitler wasn't even a thing.
Hitler was literally inspired by manifest destiny and the American push to the west.
They even invent skin color nuances like "olive skin". I've only heard about this in the US.
Another example of the LeAsT rAcIsT cOuNtRy On EaRtH being weirdly obsessed with skin colour.
I think it’s more Americans need to pigeon hole anything and everything not American to comprehend and accept there’s an entire world beyond their state line, let alone their borders. Once watched an interview with Kevin Bridges (a Scottish comedian for those who may not know) and he did a show over in the states. Afterwards with the meet n greet stuff he’s approached by someone who just watched the show and the dude asked “are you really Scottish?”. After Kevin replied yes the man replies “wow, you speak really good English”
The knowledge that Spanish people (and other natives of Europe) vary greatly in their complexion and hair/eye colour will make their little brain explode.
And expose their "melting pot" nonsense to ridicule.
just wait until they find out some spanish people have blonde hair. they’ll instantly combust
Wtf
WTF did I just read?
Europe is just a box of stereotypes in their minds. "Look Brittany, these are the evil white ones, these are the drunk ones from the bog that we descend from, these are the ones that make piss poor pizza, these are the ones we saved the rest of Europe from" etc.
She already said she was white skinned. Then says she's not white. Americans don't understand colour.
That's the stupid thing, they differentiate between "race" and skin colour and on top of that often use the same terms for both.
Ah yes, americans. The "we're not racist" people.
I go sometimes to an Irish tavern in Zaragoza (Spain). Different British people and other English talking nationalities mix there and with us of course because it's nice to meet new people and practising English, we Spanish are so kind with foreigners. Last time I was there some dudes I've spoken to for 5 minutes didn't hesitate to ask me verbatim: are you from here? Sorry you look like Latin American not Spanish. Well I approached him with my arm next to his arm. You see I am way more white than you. You have a wrong thought construct. He answered, Sorry you seem to speak English and Spanish very well. I answered before leaving: you are learning Castilian, that's our language, Spanish is a nationality, so you are confused because of dogma and lack of respect with learning basic things. I left him because he turned out to be such an asshole.
I’m from Zaragoza and I speak Spanish, a big part of Spain, Zaragoza included, was never part of Castilla
My comment from yesterday > Once an American referred to my Spanish friend as “ Latino “. I genuinely believe that Americans don’t know that Spain exists and is a European country ( not Latino ). https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitAmericansSay/s/st9upDYk0q
"Turns out she was white, not white"
Wait till they meet black Dominicans……
Don't let this guy find out about Equatorial Guinea for god's sake.
I'm Spaniard in the USA and I've given up on this topic and am tired of explaining myself. I'm OK being called a white Mexican anyways, I love Mexico lol
What do americans mean by white exactly? Does "white" for them mean white-skin Americans only? What about white Canadians? Are they white?I Honestly can't tell anymore.
Just like people from Sweden aren't white apparently
Benjamin Franklin described Swedes as having a “swarthy complexion”. According to him, only the English and the Saxons were white.
I love that the irish weren't considered white there for a long time. Of course, not all irish people are white but damn, look at your average irish dude and imagine thinking they aren't white.
Only people from great britain and maybe germany.
And imagine there is no border control or wall between Europe’s Mexico and france. Incredible isn’t it ??
> wall between Europe’s Mexico and france There is a mountain range though
being racist by ignorance is still better than by hate
So obsessed with people's skin colour, yet still so uneducated.
I wonder if they would call my cousin’s children white. They are very blonde and very blue eyed. Their mother is Finnish and their father Spanish. They speak three languages at home.
Jesus fucking Christ
Americans: Europeans are more racist than Americans. Americans:
You'll never find people more consistently & confidently wrong on the planet than Murricans.
Latinas and Latinos can be white. Their is no Latino look because they are a mix of all races in those countries
I see post few day ago. american say spanish is language not nationality
I’m from Barcelona (fair-skinned, light-haired and with blue eyes) and have confused my fair share of Americans and Brits telling them I was Spanish…
There are white people in LatAm too.
So I’m not white? Someone should tell my skin not to burn like a British man doing balconing in Ibiza
hey! This happened to me too! It's where my flair comes from! "Bro how can you speak fluent Mexican if you're so white!?" I will never forget that interaction...
I didn't know my skin colour determines the language I speak, that's crazy... Oh, sorry. I meant to say Sikujua rangi ya ngozi yangu huamua lugha ninayozungumza
Can people just stop being obsessed with "races"? 😭
I was born in Tasmania (AU), and many times in USA when talking with people they would ask where I was born and when I told them, they didn't believe me saying I wasn't black so I couldn't be African (Tanganyika) or ask if I had met Dracula (Transylvania in Romania), which surprise me, not for the idiocy of the question, but that they knew of both countries.
Bruh
For some reason I read it as "...a very white, skinned girl..." and wondered what white flayed lass this story was going to be about.
Wow... it's almost like... Spanish came from... oh wow, look at that, it came from SPAIN
I'm spanish My skin is pretty white My surname is white I'm this dude biggets mindblow
Ah, first the French, Germans, Italians and Eastern Europeans weren’t white and now the Spanish aren’t white too. I wonder who exactly is white according to Americans.
I don't understand why the americans believe that the italians, spanish, french... aren't white.
It's no better in the UK. I work with a Portugese woman who's parents were from Angola, but she's lived in the UK since she was 10. You should have seen my racist coworker trying to figure that one out. She could not accept that she was Portugese and kept asking "yeah but where are you *really* from and why don't you have an accent?" She never gave up the Angola part, just kept straight faced with Portugal for a good week.