In Antiquity and Medieval Times, there were "four races of men". These are the Egyptians, the Levantine peoples or "Asiatics", the "Nubians" and the "fair-skinned Libyans". The Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean postulates that the ideal skin tone was to be found somewhere between very dark and very light:  "Those who are too black are cowards, like for instance, the Egyptians and Ethiopians. But those who are excessively white are also cowards as we can see from the example of women and Europeans, the complexion of courage is between the two." Similar views were held by a number of medieval Arabic writers during the time of the medieval Arab Empire. Some Arabs at the time viewed their "swarthy" skin as the ideal skin tone.

The notion of "white people" or a "white race"  [Europeans] contrasting with non-white or "colored" originates only in the 17th century.  In 1775 work, German philosopher Immanuel Kant  refer to "the white [race] of northern Europe", which then excluded Spain, Southern France,  Italy, Greece, Balkans, etc.  Authorities, following Huxley (1870), distinguished the Xanthochroi  or "light whites" of Northern Europe with the Melanochroi  or "dark whites" of the Mediterranean.

It was then, with the huge migration of Italians, that they became referred to as Non-white, but distinguished from the Negroes, to the point that Dagos and Wops were offered less wages than Blacks for back breaking work, perhaps because of their generally smaller, slighter stature. 

Immigrating to the United States, Italians, like all others arriving on America's shores, were made to fill out a standardized immigration form. In the box for race, they faced two choices: North Italian or South Italian. On the line requesting information on color, they wrote simply "white." Yet were not treated "white", nor did they often dare identify themselves as "white". By World War II, the only option they had for race and color questions was "white." 

In 2000, Alastair Bonnett stated that, a strong "current of scientific research supports the theory that Europeans were but one expression of a wider racial group (termed sometimes Caucasian), a group that included peoples from Asia and North Africa".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people

White on Arrival " Italians, Race, Color, and power in Chicago  By Thomas Guglielmo 
Are Italians White?: How Race is Made in America   By Jennifer Guglielmo & Salvatore Salerno
Were You Always an Italian? by Maria Laurino 
How Jews Became White Folks: And What That Says About Race in America by Karen Brodkin 
How the Irish Became White  by Noel Ignatiev 
How America's Immigrants Became White: The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs by David R. Roediger 

My old man is full-blooded, boggle-named Italian, son of the Roman Empire. He is short and thin. He wears a scrub brush moustache and the bronze tone of the Mediterranean. The image is a lot like Luigi in Super Mario Bros. before he eats the mushroom.

Like some of his generation, he misses the days when conformity to a certain cultural standard was expected of public carryings-on, when the American Ideal meant clean-cut and proper - at least on the surface.

He's not racist. He correctly believes that people should be judged by their character, not irrelevant matters like race or religion. However, he is frustrated by the ever-increasing population of suburban homeboys: Caucasian kids who adopt the dress and mannerisms of their favorite rappers.

"Turn your hat around," he says. "You're white." The irony would be inescapable, if he had said it on purpose.

Besides the Spanish colony of Florida, the first people to call themselves Americans were mostly fair-skinned Protestants. They set up communities in the New World and expected any newercomers to speak their language and learn their customs. That is one reason this column is written in English even though Americans of English descent are one of the smallest ethnic groups in the country.

My old man is an olive-colored, unconfirmed Catholic. He loves cavatelli and "The Godfather" movies, but that's the end of the resemblance to his heritage. His speech, customs and culture are white-American, like the cheese: mass-produced and plastic-wrapped.

Before the second half of the 20th century, our family would not have checked the "white" box on their census forms. Cotelesses, Largos and Delbines across America lived mainly within their own communities. It wasn't until the Great White Council convened after World War II and offered the designation to all Caucasians that many Italian-Americans shed their language and culture without hesitation.

In fact, the only groups that didn't were too dark to assimilate. Latin-Americans of the South and Southwest chose the language of their ancestors who had spoken Spanish there before the land was in America. Black-Americans also retained and developed their own culture, a culture born and bred in the United States.

So tilt your hat, white boy. Wear them jeans low with pride. Ain't nothing more American.

http://media.www.thejambar.com/media/
storage/paper324/news/2010/09/14/Opinion/
Tear-Down.Your.Altars.And.Lifeless.Idols-3930915.shtml
 

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