Is “expanding definition of whiteness” a real thing?

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I'd say white Hispanics that speak English without a notable accent are already starting to be perceived as white.

Another interesting one would be an immigrant from Argentina or Uruguay (probably Chile and parts of Southern Brazil too) who looks as white as I do (100% Irish and Scottish ancestry).  That person is Hispanic and probably has a significant accent when speaking English, but it's also laughable to say that they're not white.

[RINO Tom]

"Whiteness" shouldn't even be a thing, so this is a messy question to begin with.  If we just called ourselves European Americans like we should and stopped trying to cram Moroccans and Turks into this category because we don't know where else to put them in our crude and stupid classification of race based purely on melanin ... it wouldn't be so messy, lol.

However, in the Mad Men sense of "White" effectively meaning that your background/appearance is accepted by society as "mainstream," then yes - there is literally no debate that this has expanded throughout our history and continues to expand.  There are tons of so-called "racist Whites" who would not bat an eye at voting for a guy named "Ted Cruz" who doesn't exactly look like he's from England.  That would not have been the case in the 1950s.

[Хahar 🤔]

There are tons of so-called "racist Whites" who would not bat an eye at voting for a guy named "Ted Cruz" who doesn't exactly look like he's from England.  That would not have been the case in the 1950s.

This is ahistorical. In the 1950s, Cuban native Desiderio Arnaz starred alongside his white American wife Lucille Ball in the most popular television program in the country. Had there been any thought that this was an interracial pairing, that would not have been possible. In the realm of politics, Leander Perez spent half a century as caudillo of Plaquemines Parish, perhaps the most virulently racist local government in the country. In the 1930s, Joachim Fernandez was elected to five terms in Congress from Louisiana. As both I and TheReckoning have pointed out in this thread, what is historically unusual is the idea that white Spanish-speakers belong to a different category than white English-speakers.

[RINO Tom]

There are tons of so-called "racist Whites" who would not bat an eye at voting for a guy named "Ted Cruz" who doesn't exactly look like he's from England.  That would not have been the case in the 1950s.

This is ahistorical. In the 1950s, Cuban native Desiderio Arnaz starred alongside his white American wife Lucille Ball in the most popular television program in the country. Had there been any thought that this was an interracial pairing, that would not have been possible. In the realm of politics, Leander Perez spent half a century as caudillo of Plaquemines Parish, perhaps the most virulently racist local government in the country. As both I and TheReckoning have pointed out in this thread, what is historically unusual is the idea that white Spanish-speakers belong to a different category than white English-speakers.

Fine, maybe the 1950s is too late; there was certainly a decline in a more "Nordicist" type of racism after World War II, after all.  However, the established "White" class of Americans VERY clearly discriminated against those of Southern European heritage in a decade like the 1920s much more than they did Northern European immigrants, and the scope of acceptance among European Americans very clearly gets more narrow the further you go back (e.g., German and Irish immigrants facing discrimination for not being English in the 1800s).  I don't see how that can really be denied.  Again, the term "White" is meaningless in this context unless it is more conceptual than "color of that guy's skin."

[TheReckoning]

Now that the census officially defines Hispanics, Latinos, and Middle Easterners are separate from whites, seems like this has officially happened. I wonder what the next groups that are now considered white will be considered non white.

[Pres Mike]

I'd say white Hispanics that speak English without a notable accent are already starting to be perceived as white.

Another interesting one would be an immigrant from Argentina or Uruguay (probably Chile and parts of Southern Brazil too) who looks as white as I do (100% Irish and Scottish ancestry).  That person is Hispanic and probably has a significant accent when speaking English, but it's also laughable to say that they're not white.

Its too bad Americans are so dumb when it comes to race

"Hispanic" comes to mind a brown skin Mexican (Most Mexicans are mixed European and Native ancestory)

[Green Line]

Its a shrinking definition.

Anybody with slightly olive skin knows that its better to identify as a minority.  Identifying as a white means you get considered last for any job/university application.  Identifying as hispanic/latina gets you oppression points, despite there being no present or historic oppression.

[Indy Texas]

Its a shrinking definition.

Anybody with slightly olive skin knows that its better to identify as a minority.  Identifying as a white means you get considered last for any job/university application.  Identifying as hispanic/latina gets you oppression points, despite there being no present or historic oppression.

I think by and large, "affirmative action" should not apply to immigrants. The original intent of affirmative action was to address structural inequities resulting from the treatment of most nonwhites in America, particularly Black Americans, and the lingering consequences of those inequities faced by their descendants.

I don't see how an immigrant can claim America has "wronged" them in any way. If America were such a terrible, racist place, why in the world would they not just go back to their country of origin?

The most flagrant offenders in this regard are arguably Hispanics with little to no indigenous ancestry who occupied high-SES positions in their home countries and then come here for college or graduate school and act as though they are no different from the migrant workers picking lettuce in the Rio Grande Valley or the people Cesar Chavez was organizing in grape fields in the 1970s. It's how you end up with companies bragging about all these "people of color" they have in management and it's a woman whose grandfather was a sugar plantation owner who tried to assassinate Fidel Castro, and a guy from Brazil whose name sounds like it wouldn't have been out of place at the Nuremberg Trials.

[Green Line]

Its a shrinking definition.

Anybody with slightly olive skin knows that its better to identify as a minority.  Identifying as a white means you get considered last for any job/university application.  Identifying as hispanic/latina gets you oppression points, despite there being no present or historic oppression.

I think by and large, "affirmative action" should not apply to immigrants. The original intent of affirmative action was to address structural inequities resulting from the treatment of most nonwhites in America, particularly Black Americans, and the lingering consequences of those inequities faced by their descendants.

I don't see how an immigrant can claim America has "wronged" them in any way. If America were such a terrible, racist place, why in the world would they not just go back to their country of origin?

The most flagrant offenders in this regard are arguably Hispanics with little to no indigenous ancestry who occupied high-SES positions in their home countries and then come here for college or graduate school and act as though they are no different from the migrant workers picking lettuce in the Rio Grande Valley or the people Cesar Chavez was organizing in grape fields in the 1970s. It's how you end up with companies bragging about all these "people of color" they have in management and it's a woman whose grandfather was a sugar plantation owner who tried to assassinate Fidel Castro, and a guy from Brazil whose name sounds like it wouldn't have been out of place at the Nuremberg Trials.

Yes, it is mind bogglingly stupid but goes completely unquestioned.  Somebody whose parents moved here from Colombia 20 years ago gets preferential treatment for jobs and education purely because they grew up hearing their parents speak Spanish.

[gerritcole]

In the modern day, it feels to me like "Whiteness" is expanding to include African-Americans.  The strongest dividing line again seems to be between established American ethnicities and recent immigrants, and African-Americans clearly belong to the former, in a way that Salvadorans or Pakistanis may not.

Lmao. Summer of the 2020 completely proves this false.

It's true if you think of "whiteness" as "the American cultural mainstream", and really has been long before BLM became a thing.

Asians will not "become white" over time because there is no evidence of this process ever having happened in this country's history. Those that intermarry with whites may have white descendants, but only if those descendants are sufficiently white-looking that they lack obvious Asian ancestry.

Asians have never been in the USA in the past at the numbers we are now so there has been no opportunity for that mixing to have occurred. Pointing to the past does not dictate the future, we have no idea if race will even remain a relevant construct in the future and even if it remains perhaps in a drastically different form than today

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There are tons of so-called "racist Whites" who would not bat an eye at voting for a guy named "Ted Cruz" who doesn't exactly look like he's from England.

Hmm? He absolutely looks as if he might, even though, of course, he doesn't.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think the more likely thing will be the discrete category of "white" will be increasingly meaningless as a social classifier as asians and Hispanics gradually mix in with the broader population. Sometimes social conventions and the like just vanish, even though they were once so important for society.

This is not to say there won't be people who are white - don't believe anyone who thinks everybody will be mixed race in the future, just that the distinction between hispanics, whites and asians (as well as hapas etc) may become as irrelevant as what colour hair white people have these days.

African Americans are in another situation as they are more economically dispossessed and ghettoised, but even divide will eventually fade and be replaced with new divisions.

[mileslunn]

White is largely a term and social construct.  US census defines one of Middle Eastern or North African descent as white, but Canadian and British define them as non-white.  So in US Arabs considered white but in Canada & UK are not.  Now average person probably tends to subscribe more to British and Canadian definition as its not just appearance but also culture whereas those from Mediterranean countries in Europe even if darker skinned are still European culturally thus why defined as white everywhere.

Hispanic is a mix as depends on one's origins.  Interracial marriage was much more common in Spanish colonies than British so most Hispanics have some European ancestry, but only a minority are 100% European.  So it depends again do you use one drop rule or go on predominate.  In Cuba and Puerto Rico the majority are predominately of European ancestry but majority also have a little bit of non-European ancestry.  Some even just go on appearance as anyone who has traveled to Latin America will know not everyone fits the stereotypical image.

While not an issue in US, even Black has different definitions as Australian Aboriginals and Papuans are Black in appearance but genetically have little in common with Africans and are closer to Southeast Asians despite appearance.