when it comes to africa for example i was taught that they're poor cause their land isn't harvestable or some bullshit like that, and then i find out as an adult it's actually cause western countries fucked the shit out of them and huh that makes a lot more sense
Italian is a term used to denote people from Italy. If people from Italy look recognizably different in aggregate from the people in country X, then the X people will begin using "Italian" as a "racial" term. Race is a social construct that only exists due to perceivable visual differences from what people are "used" to seeing.
great, so you agree with me. Italian, en masse, look different enough from Anglos to differentiate.
No there isn't. The difference is that when it happens 1/20 times in your ethnicity, and 9/20 times in another, you notice the difference in aggregate. The difference that Italians, on average, look substantially darker and with more Mideast leaning features than Anglos.
And since the term "Italian" is an AGGREGATE TERM, the Italians, IN AGGREGATE, are seen as less white than Anglos.
We are literally in complete agreement here.
Noone said anything about genes. Different extreme ethnicities of Europe look different. South Europeans look different in aggregate from North, and even Eastern look different from Western (the difference is in features, not color, so it's harder for a white American to spot)
Can a single particular individual Italian pass for Russian? Of course. Can a single individual Ukrainian pass as Dravidian South Indian? Of course.
In aggregate though, the differences are very observable (with the Italian-Russian difference being much smaller than the Ukrainian-Dravidian difference, obviously)