The only reason that courts in the US ruled that way was to systematically deny Arabs the right to anti-discrimination or racial equity measures and so that when hate crimes happen it's not possible within the legal system to try a white person for hate crimes against Arabs.
I thought it was because Jesus came from the Middle East, Jesus = white, so QED Middle Easterners have to be white. The court rulings for the whiteness of Arabs happened in the early 20th century, predating any sort of hate crime and most civil rights measures.
Modern day though, I can see why MENA-american communities may want that distinction to grant protections.
that's not true historically or legally. racially motivated hate crime laws don't require that the victim be targeted for being of a race that is recognized by the US government.
Lmaoooo
No absolutely not
Like they might be described as white only if the describer couldn't in any way identify the person as Arab. One piece of ethnic clothing or whatever and they will instantly be 0% white.
yeah, but also, i think arab-americans themselves mostly dont want to identify as white either.
Oh yeah totally, my comment was from experience lol. Sometime around my mid 20s I started consciously presenting myself in ways that get me assumed as white less often, but now the scenarios in which I am "white" have just become funnier and more absurd
It's not like Arabs wear any "ethnic clothing" unless you're a Muslim woman in hijab. Or at least I've never seen any of my Arab relatives with anything like that.
If an Arab dude shaved and wore a polo he might be able to pass as white but Arabs are absolutely a specific racial category in the deranged American psyche
Someone below says the court cases for this happened in the early 20th century. That makes sense. In those days arab pretty much referred to Christians from Syria since that was where most of the arab immigration was coming from. That was when my family came over. It’s the later 20th century when things flip and most Arab immigration to the United States is Muslim rather than Christian. In the present day to most Americans arab=brown Muslim. So it might be that disconnect you’re noticing. Arabs were called “white” when the immigration patterns look different. I doubt the same court would have decided Arabs were white if the immigration patterns were as they are today.
At one point US courts literally determined that being Muslim made a possibly white Arab become not white. You can tell people this when they say "but islam isn't a race"
it really depends. i'm a pale arab-amerikkkan. i'm perceived in most contexts as white as long as i don't tell anyone i'm arab. if i spoke english with an accent, wore any kind of foreign or religious clothing, or had darker skin like my father, i don't think i would be perceived like this. these are the kinds of borders of racial categories where strict definitions really start to break down, and individuals have to try to categorize you on the fly based on vibes. i won't claim that i've faced serious racism directed at me, but it is jarring those times when i'm "discovered" and suddenly seen as something fundamentally different from a white person i'm talking to.
incidentally, the reason the US government counts us as white for the purposes of the census (but not for the purposes of military intervention) is because wealthy arab immigrants sued to be considered white under the de jure regime of racial segregation that oppressed black americans. yikes.
It depends on the specific person. Most likely not but there are definitely white/white-passing Arabs. Same with Hispanic people
Same with Hispanic people
i was going to say that this smells like the foolish attempts at late-19th/early-20th century latin american civil rights organizations, like LULAC, who expended all their energy, money and influence to successfully get the american judicial system to assert that hispanic people were white; but ultimately THOROUGHLY failed to get american popular sentiment to make hispanic people white.
coming from a mexican, but majority white passing family split between the united states and mexico that always condescends to garden variety looking mexicans in both countries; it's easy to see that groups like LULAC were either blind, stupid, or willfully ignorant.
I mean, in that case you might as well throw in Southern Africa, right?
if they didn't speak and didn't have any sort of identifying clothing they could probably get mistaken for an italian or greek? but people generally talk and have names so it's moot except to make a point to racists that their categories are nonsense
Along the lines of @rootsbreadandmakka@hexbear.net's contribution, Arab immigration to the US increased by orders of magnitude during the 60s and 70s, principally to add a super-exploitable labor force for auto manufacturing who would initially have a language barrier to organizing. This is when a large number of non-white passing Arab people came to the US. Although as was said, the official category had already been established decades earlier, principally by Christian Arabs from Syria
I also think Christendom was the decisive element in this case since in the same year the Supreme Court 1) denied 'white' status to a Japanese man who argued his skin was paler than most 'white' people's because he was not of Caucasian descent and 2) denied 'white' status to an Indian man who argued on those grounds he ought to be considered white because Northern Indians are of caucasian descent because his skin was too dark.
An arab person could pass as white and so could a hispanic person or a mixed race person or any other kind of asian person or even a black person or an indigenous person. Race is a made up concept and as long as someone LOOKS white they could be considered white at a glance even if they have no european ancestory. And also theres a lot of european people who can be considered not white who have existed as a group before europe was even a thing. Then theres the europeans who are white by modern standards but back in the day would not be considered white. Look all of this is stupid, we should move people around like they did in half life 2 and make the world a nice brown tinge color so that racism could be ended.
