Originally Posted by EZLN1
race is a socially constructed concept....all that jazz about negroid, mongoloid, etc is all false, and just highlights the depths to which past white intellectuals have gone to justify the subhuman conditions people of color have had to live and survive in (in particular to the question of slavery).
It is a lot easier to justify and accept having humans in shackles and treated as property when you got "scientific" studies supposedly proving how blacks have smaller brains than whites. It almost seems absurd that such a study would hold any semblance of legitimacy, but such was the case back in the day.
even more so, it is even more apparent how race has been constructed to oppress others when you actually examine the term "white ".
During the early part of our nation, the term white signified "anglo saxon protestants". And again, as someone earlier in this thread mentioned, Europeans never referred to themselves as "white", but solely on nationalistic terms.
But the anglo saxons in this country surely did not see recent immigrants from European countries such as Italy or Ireland as being "white:". We are all familiar with the way such immigrants were treated and depicted upon arriving to US shores.
It was only with the passing of time, and the rising up of such immigrant populations that the term "white" began to be expanded. In particular, the Irish, who were once detested and treated as sub humans, were welcomed with open arms and invited to join the group when they finally organized and gained such strength in NYC that they took over the city's politics in what was referred to as the Tammany Hall machine. A group, who was once on the margins of society, suddenly found themselves with power.
I can keep going on and on
