# Are Southern Europeans white? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 12, 2017, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-southern-europeans-white/788799 "2017-06-12T19:39:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Reddy\_Mercury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@Reddy\_Mercury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reddy_Mercury)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2017, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-southern-europeans-white/788799/1 "2017-06-12T19:39:02Z")
This is something I’ve asked myself to be honest. I’m Italian, and Catholic. Were this say, even as recent as the 1920s, I wouldn’t be considered a white person. My grandfather wasn’t allowed in a “White’s Only” Establishment in the 1950s when stationed in the Army down in Alabama because of his skin tone. They thought him a “Latin” or a light skinned “Negro.” My grandfather, in skin tone, and even in looks, could have, in his youth, been a double for Lou Diamond Phillips. In later years, he was even darker than him: [![](https://i.imgur.com/d2ippCB.jpg) ](https://i.imgur.com/d2ippCB.jpg) Or take the Greeks. Look at some like Aristotle Onasis, his coloring, his nose, his complexion and features. He could easily pass for a Semitic person, or an “Arabic” person in less eloquent language. So my question is as such: Are Southern Europeans White? I know in my own self, I don’t consider myself truly a “White” person. I’m labelled as such because of my skin color. But my ancestors weren’t Mayflower people. I’m not a Protestant. Like many other groups, my people’s culture, traditions and language were lost in the pressure to “assimilate.” My skin tone ranges from pale, to olive depending on the season. I feel a great deal of sympathy for the people assigned as Latinos, because I feel like they’re the new Italians/Irish of our society. I am not what would’ve called “Anglo Saxon” in past times in any way. The earliest ancestors I have in America arrived in the 1840s, served in the Union Army in the Civil War, and did not own any slaves. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2017, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-southern-europeans-white/788799/2 "2017-06-12T20:49:07Z")
All of the Italian and Greek girls I dated, I considered “white”. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-southern-europeans-white/788799/3 "2017-06-12T21:11:28Z")
People who would consider Mediterranian people to be non-white are using White as short hand for “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant”. (This is also true of people who say that “Jews aren’t white”. For example, the consider the attitudes on display in the Dorothy Sayers’ novel, _Have His Carcass,_ where the various upper class, Oxford educated, white people discuss Russians and Frenchman with equal disdain. Nowadays, most Americans have stopped caring about the Catholic/Protestant thing but, with people who worry about “who is a White man”, Christian is still non-negotiable. ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2017, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-southern-europeans-white/788799/4 "2017-06-12T23:20:27Z")
I can’t really comprehend the question, and I would be considered more racist than most Americans because I think races exist, but don’t matter. Italy and Germany are the twin foundations or Europe: and historically Italy would have a lot of Middle Eastern and African blood in the mix, whereas Germany would have a lot of Slavic and Celtish blood. And that’s to say the _least_, ignoring all the other immigration, and individual relationships, and links around the world. ‘White’ doesn’t mean ‘British’ or ‘Norse’ as admirable as those are; if anything it means adherence to shared western civilization. One may have a strong physical preference for the looks of certain peoples, but I can’t imagine thinking about or caring about their ancestry.