• NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Jewish people tend to not be considered white even though they are oftentimes fair skinned, blue eyes, etc.

      In the US, Italian and Irish immigrants also used to not be considered white either. It’s a label applied to groups when it’s most convenient. Doesn’t necessarily have a lot of logic behind it beyond racism.

      • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The only people who consider white-passing Jewish people as non-white are actual white supremacists and Neo-Nazis.

        Normal people just assume if you look white, you are white, because they aren’t obsessed with breaking down ethnicities into a hierarchy.

      • kamenoko@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Anyone who wasn’t an Anglo Saxon Protestant was a second class citizen in America for a loooooooooong time.

        • ArtieShaw@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          This is the answer. Being “white” in the US didn’t have much to do with your skin tone. It was more closely linked to ancestry, religion, and class.

          The Irish or Polish weren’t “white” but that didn’t mean that anyone thought they were Black. My understanding of the Indian caste system is incomplete, but it seems like a closer model to the racist hierarchy in the US than anything else I’ve seen.

          1. WASP and have the receipts (DAR membership, for example)
          2. WASP and no one can say otherwise (named Smith or Jones)
          3. WASP adjacent (Protestants from Germany, Scandinavia, etc.)
          4. Catholics and Orthodox Christians
          5. Jews
          6. POC. Depending on location, your mileage will vary but you’re still at the bottom