Now that I understand the context better, I can reply to the OP.
I definitely think of Gal Godot as looking ethnic. That’s just a generic term for not looking like the typical white person that is the default in Holywood. I don’t know if it played a role in her casting, but it would make sense, since Wonder Woman is specifically from a different country. It also helps subconsciously creating an outsider feeling, as we are used to immigrant narratives that tend to involve people who don’t look like the default.
What I can’t say is how she is treated in real life. And I absolutely will not decide whether Jewish people are white or not. That’s way too far for me to go, as a white guy who has experienced absolutely no prejudice due to my race or ethnicity. I’ve experienced prejudice in other ways (mental illness, especially, but also occasionally weight, accent, and my racist birthtown), but not for that. So I’m just not able to say anything to that level.
Just what I said before about race being defined as grouping people by their appearance into cultural groups.
I always get a kick imagining affluent Jewish families in the Antebellum South sitting down for a Passover Seder, and having their meal served by slaves.
No, it’s a “real” issue. But it’s NOT an issue being raised by white racists or anti-semites. It’s an issue being raised by liberal Jews.
Up front: “white” is a silly category that tells us nothing useful. My Irish ancestors AND the English colonists who oppressed them were equally pale. Sicilians AND fair skinned Neapolitans who look down on Sicilians are both classified as “white.” So are Serbs and the Croatians who hate Serbs, Jews and the Germans, Bulgarians and Turks… The idea that we’re all part of some superior white fraternity is ridiculous.
But in every society that HAS taken “whiteness” seriously (Alabama, Rhodesia, South Africa), Jews have been classified as white sand have received all the accompanying rights and benefits of whiteness.
If Gal Gadot had tried to eat at a Whites Only restaurant in Mississippi in 1950 or in Cape Town in 1975, would she have been served with a smile? Definitely. Ergo, she’s as “white” as anyone.
However, being white no longer brings privileges or higher status. Hence, MANY people who used to be routinely classified as “white,” and who once WANTED to be considered white, know claim they aren’t white. Some Jewish leftists now claim with straight faces that they aren’t white.
Some would surely disagree with that statement as written, but I agree with your examples and the statement I think just needs some tweaking to agree with.
There might very well still be ‘privilege’, advantage at least, attached to being ‘white’ in some circumstances, in American society let’s say. And nobody is ever going to agree the point at which that reaches zero. However, as your examples suggest, there are no longer any cases where claiming to be white affords anyone an openly admitted or even legal privilege. Maybe a benefit still goes along with appearing to be white in a strictly passive way and not saying anything, but nobody is going admit they give an advantage to a person saying they are ‘white’, so no advantage to say it. Whereas there can be a social or even legal advantage now to saying you aren’t ‘white’, if you plausibly can.
Especially since eg. people of European Jewish heritage saying they aren’t ‘white’ are still going to be considered ‘white’ in any situation where they don’t choose to bring it up.
Same goes for people of various single or especially mixed backgrounds who aren’t obviously ‘white’ or ‘non white’, depending how you define it. And they are a rapidly growing part of the population. If you have a ‘Hispanic’ (but a ‘white Hispanic’ perhaps?) grandfather you’re not ‘white’, but if all 4 grandparent were ‘white’ you are? Race hasn’t disappeared in US society as an issue by any means, but it’s becoming easier to oversimplify.
More and more, I see Americans using the term “white” when they really mean “WASP.” (White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant), the traditional socially and economically privileged group in the USA. This is used in very generic terms, not differentiating Irish Catholics or Jews other light-skinned minority groups. And it is generally true that people with pale skin and preppy clothes are safer from suspicion and micro-aggression in day-to-day life, so I can understand the tendency.
But I think the conversation regarding Ms. Galdot is more from the perspective of minority groups wishing to “claim” a heroine in their category. Just as it is important to have a female super-hero, it is also important to have a Black, or South American, or Jewish, or just Non-White superhero.
People want to identify with her, and to argue over who does or doesn’t have the right to do so. Which is an inherently dysfunctional discussion driven by (as the OP intimates) the USA’s socially dysfunctional relationship with race in general.
I have a friend whose father is black and mother is Hispanic. He looks as white as any other white person and in Mississippi in 1950 or in Cape Town in 1975 would have been served with a smile. Is he “white”?
For me, he’s white. I never really asked him how he identifies. But could be he identifies as black. What difference would it make?
Put it this way- a few decades ago, both Arab Americans and Mexican-Americans wanted to be deemed “white” and they were. Today? They want their own categories (including the new designation MENA) because being non-white now confers some privileges, like affirmative action. A Lebanese Christian who applied to Harvard 30 years ago was just another white male, but he can now apply as “Middle Eastern.”
American Jews (like South African and Rhodesian Jews) enjoyed all the perks that once came with being white, but some now want to pretend they were always outsiders, and never truly part of the elite.
Your friend would only have been served at that Mississippi lunch counter if the people inside didn’t know his family.
Plenty of people who “looked white” were socially black, because it was known they had a black parent. To really pass for white you’d have to move far away and never see your family again.
That’s not really a criterion though. The US is (from what I have seen) a nation where “White=default”. Passively lots of people can “pass” for White. Most Arabs and Arab origin Jews for instance. Persians, C Asians, and even some S Asians, many of whom would not consider themselves or be considered “White”. The reverse is also true.
On the issue of “passing”, I remember reading a book about a KGB undercover work and in it it was stated that skin tone was the easiest thing to pass off as local. It was accent and dress which were harder.
Are you people really that ignorant of history and logic?
There is only ONE traditional system under discussion. That system has three --repeat, THREE – main groups. Every other group that you people have mentioned is a subset of one of the three main groups. Indians and Aboriginals are – it’s so obvious I wonder why you people can’t figure it out – in the Oriental group.
Here’s a tip:
You look at one of those subgroups. Then you look at the three main groups. There are almost invariably two out of those three groups that very obviously do not fit. So whatever is left over is the one that the subgroup belongs to.
And the first link the OP provides is a great indicator of just how ****ing stupid the idea of ‘POC’ is and racial politics that go along with it. It was funny when Chappelle did his ‘racial draft bit’. It’s moved past satire, it’s moved past ‘first world problems’
And i say that AS A POC (American Indian). Let me off that bus please. I’d like to turn my card in please. Don’t lump me in with Koreans, Malaysians, Pitcairn Islanders, Sri Lankans, Ceylonese, Wodaabes, Hmongs, Burmese etc etc etc…because i’ve got fuck all to do with them and to lump them all together issssssss…wait for it…racist as fuck.
Well, obviously “race” is a social construct, so you are pretty much just the race your society tells you you are.
This reminds me of a terrible sitcom Rob Schneiderlaunched a few years back. He was married to the character played by Catalan actress Claudia Bassols.
In the show, he keeps referring to himself as the white guy married into a hispanic family.