oh *fandom*

[mimesere]

sometimes you make me want to cry. and/or punch people.

but hey! On the other hand, now I totally know who to avoid in fandom! So...that's a plus. *tries to look on the bright side*

(god, it JUST KEEPS GOING and horrifies me more and more).

ETA: the posts in question
In which Teyla and Ronon are white! No, really! - I swear, the more I hear about race relations in, um, England/Ireland/Wales/Scotland/what-have-you, the less likely I am to ever ever go there.

and!

In which the reason there's not more fic about characters of color is because they are not leads! or not hot enough! or interesting enough! Because when they *are*, there's a lot of fic! No, really!

Comments

[luna-argentea.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's necessarily a simple case of grouping people who are neither black nor Asian as white. It's more a slightly different perception of how to define white, where a certain amount of tan just indicates a Mediterranean white rather than a pasty British/Irish one.

Also, I think the ethnic make-up of "white Europeans" is more complex and more fluid than it is sometimes assumed to be. It's not always taken into consideration how many invasions, conquests and migrations there have been during thousands of years of European history. I suppose the only way to be absolutely sure of someone's ethnic make-up is to do a DNA test. However, I would assume that the reason so many Spanish and Portuguese people have dark hair and an olive/"tanned" complexion in comparison with white Northern Europeans has a lot to do with the Moors conquering the Iberian peninsula in the eighth century and occupying it for the following five centuries (and longer in Granada).

Another influence on the Mediterranean is that for more than two centuries the south-east Mediterranean was part of the Ottoman Empire, at the core of which were the Oghuz Turks, originally from Central Asia.

Of course, hundreds of years before any of this, soldiers in the Roman army were from all over the Roman Empire and merchants in the Roman Empire traded throughout it, and dedications to Syrian and North African deities have been found at Hadrian's Wall.

Also, in the eighteenth century there were black people in Britain and northern Europe, who were either freed slaves or their descendants.

There must be many more examples. I find all this really interesting to think about!

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely, there's a hell of a lot of history out there, which is why I don't think it's possible to know what the map of racism is in another culture without at least a serious amount of study, or preferably living there. I have no idea to what extent having Moorish ancestors is seen in Spain as being less Spanish - if at all.

I know that the Greeks and the Turks are bitter enemies, but that seems to be despite the fact that most Greeks will have some Turkish blood. Why - given that's the case - we in Britain would define Greeks as white and Turks as not-white, I don't know. But I don't suppose any racial classification system is exactly based on reason. Which is, again, why the local nuances are so hard to guess when you're looking at them from a different culture.