Hell, the current definition of white isn’t even as old as the 19th century. You don’t have to go back that far to find a time when the Irish, Italians, and at least in Canada Ukrainians and other Slavs weren’t considered white.
I would guess most people would not even recognize that word. I can’t even remember the last time I saw it prior to your post.
“Hispanic” is often used as if it’s a race for a much more straightforward reason; because many people think of it as being a race. It’s no more or less logical than “Black” being a race.
But would those same people identify all three of the people in the photos I posted above as Hispanic?
Excellent. I see the point now. Thanks.
Some would, yeah. This kind of stuff isn’t always based on a great deal of logic.
Characterizing the English and the French as different races - especially given the Norman Conquest - would strike most people today as being totally ridiculous, but not all that far back that’s what people did.
Even at the same time, “race” isn’t always consistent. As others have pointed out, there was not long ago a day when, in some contexts, the Irish or Ukranians were not considered the same “race” as people of more privileged European stock. But, at exactly the same time, those same people were of course white in other contexts, as considered by, in many cases, precisely the same observers. On the other hand, people of sub-Saharan African descent were all just “colored” or “Negro” or whatever the mot du jour was even though, as I mentioned, those people are actually much more genetically and morphologically different from one another than English and Irish people are.
As has been mentioned several times before on this message board, Benjamin Franklin considered French, Swedes and Germans (other than Saxons) to be non-whites.
Relevant Mark Fiore editorial cartoon: