Are Spaniards white?

[Jackalope]

Race is a very shaky concept. From what I gather it's mainly physical appearance. It's pretty ill defined, and not very scientific-completely pointless in taxonomy. Ethnicity is more accurate, as it takes into account culture and group history.

Race is particularly a shaky concept with respect to Caucasian as a proxy for 'white'. Anthropologically speaking, it simply ain't so.

[Alex K]

Depende...

[vorlon13]

Dark complected and hairy works for me.

[pocaracas]

As a Portuguese guy, I'd say I'm more light colored than dark... Although I tan quite easily, becoming a darker shade of light skin.
My hair is dark, almost black, and when mixed with skin can give the impression of an even darker tone.
Dark eyes help complete the look.

If I don't get tanned in the summer, then I'm about as light colored as a German.

Around me, most people are more or less like me. Some are lighter, resembling Nordic pale, some are year long tanned... And, due to the history of African colonies, we also have dark skinned African descendents... And very dark, almost black people from a particular place in Africa, can't remember which specifically...
Curiously, for us Europeans, there is racism between the different African ethnicities! O.o

[Pat Mustard]

So I have been wondering lately if porteguese and Spanish people are actually considered by some to be white. Now i've met people from both countries and they look pretty dark. But when I read some modern pc  writings on history they blame alot of this this kind of racist dynamic white and brown people. I wonna know how this works because alot of the atrocities they blame on western Europe was a result of the porteguese and Spanish. How does this dynamic work without automatically categorizing them as white "dominant" race.

No human grouping could accurately be called white. The nearest approximation are Finns, and they shade from light beige to lobster pink (as do most northern Europeans) depending on how good the weather is.

[Thumpalumpacus]

My experience in Spain was that most Spaniards were about as white as myself, though blonde hair and blue eyes were pretty rare.

[abaris]

Oops. Thought the post said spaniels.

More details please. What atrocities?

Rather reddish blond, in this case. Or black with white blotches. Even greyish at times.

[Regina]

In the UK;

Of any kind of European ancestry = white. Because I'm British, that tends to be how I think too, so yes, Spanish are white.

Depends on what you consider white though. "white" is a human construct and it's flimsy, like where on the world map do you draw a line, and say "ok on this side on the line the indigenous people are white, but on this side they're not"? It's a gradient.

I've heard of Irish people not being considered white on one hand, and North Africans and Arabs being considered white on the other (obviously not at the same time). It's subjective. I'm "mixed race" if you don't consider Southern Europeans white (ancestrally, I'm half Maltese, half mutt of Central/Northern European ancestries), yet I don't look out of place one bit in the UK with my blue eyes and pale skin. The mind boggles.

[Regina]

accidental double post

[brewer]

I think we may be neglecting albinos.