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| Hispanic? |
Portuguese-Americans against being declared Hispanic
A survey by a Portuguese-American group has so far seen 90 percent of its almost five thousand respondents oppose moves to have people of Portuguese descent declared Hispanic.
The survey was set up by Palcus, which was created in 1991 by a select group of Portuguese-American professionals who recognised the need to address issues of importance to the Portuguese-American community of the United States.
The questionnaire of Portuguese-Americans resulted after it emerged the US Census Bureau is planning to add Portuguese to the Hispanic designation of ethnicity for the 2020 National Census.
“As there has been much debate about whether or not Portuguese should be considered Hispanic, Palcus is conducting national survey to gauge the overall sentiment of the Portuguese-American community on this issue”, the organisation said in explaining its idea to create a survey. ...
Some notable personalities of Portuguese-descent are actor Tom Hanks (his mother is Portuguese), Keanu Reeves (actor), Katy Perry (singer/song-writer), Steve Perry (lead singer of Journey, who sang ‘Don’t Stop Believing’) and US congressman Tony Coelho.
But, but, how can Tom Hanks's kids not deserve affirmative action?
Pay no attention to ancient rivalries of Hispanics and Lusitanians! The point is to get as many people invested in the racial/ethnic spoils system as possible. Sure, Tom Hanks may seem like a normal American white guy (heck, he may seem like the normal American white guy), but that's just your ethnic insensitivity speaking. No doubt, he has been victimized by our society's pervasive institutional anti-Lusitanianism. Admit it -- you weren't even aware that "anti-Lusitanianism" is a word! That just proves that Tom is a victim, so his descendants unto the 7th generation must be accorded hereditary Hispanic privileges.
The Obama Administration had better fix this quick and declare Tom Hanks Hispanic. Then, Tom would be a great Democratic Presidential nominee against Marco Rubio in 2016.
(By the way, according to a classic article by the Pew Hispanic Center, legally, anybody is Hispanic who feels like saying they are Hispanic.)
Pay no attention to ancient rivalries of Hispanics and Lusitanians! The point is to get as many people invested in the racial/ethnic spoils system as possible. Sure, Tom Hanks may seem like a normal American white guy (heck, he may seem like the normal American white guy), but that's just your ethnic insensitivity speaking. No doubt, he has been victimized by our society's pervasive institutional anti-Lusitanianism. Admit it -- you weren't even aware that "anti-Lusitanianism" is a word! That just proves that Tom is a victim, so his descendants unto the 7th generation must be accorded hereditary Hispanic privileges.
The Obama Administration had better fix this quick and declare Tom Hanks Hispanic. Then, Tom would be a great Democratic Presidential nominee against Marco Rubio in 2016.
(By the way, according to a classic article by the Pew Hispanic Center, legally, anybody is Hispanic who feels like saying they are Hispanic.)
YAY! Disparate impact for all!
ReplyDeletePretty soon whiteness will be so discredited that all Euro-American ethnic groups will give up their white identity, and every American will have an equal right to affirmative action preferences under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
On that glorious day, we will ALL be members of a protected class, my brothers (and sisters, and LGBTQrs, etc.)!
Then and only then will America be a beacon of true equality to the rest of the world. I have a dream!
BTW, "anti-Lusitanianism" contributed to America's involvement in WWI, right?
The Portuguese never really got around to keeping their world empire not because some HBD's types thought that they had intermixed with the blacks LOL but simply because they werent interested in trade and settlement but in plunder.
ReplyDeleteTake the cruelty and intrepid nature of the Spaniards, greed and energy of the English privateers and crank those up a few notches and you have the Portuguese.
In India, they pissed off the local kings of Kerala so much that he sought an alliance with Muslims to drive them out
Is there pseudo mulatto reputation the only reason why they are not considered really white in U.S or is there any other?
I suppose Portuguese will be declared Hispanic as soon as the Democrats project that they won't be getting enough white votes to win elections at some point in the future.
ReplyDeleteIm not sure ethnicity is determined thru the mother in patrilineal societies such as Anglo Americans and the Portuguese so thats a lost cause.
ReplyDeleteThe pseudo matrilineal Jews are an exception of course.
On 2nd thought, it may work with Hispanics if for no other reason that that the average Hispanic person has both his mother and fathers last name.
So people like Bill Richardson(whose dad was Anglo) can pass of as Hispanic while Tom Hanks( who is brunette enough to be Portuguese) may not.
Gilbert, those from Madeira (Christiano Ronaldo) are higher on the social scale than those from Cape Verde (your basic Boston gangbanger). Both are lower than Azoreans and Macanese.
ReplyDeleteWhat about those whose ancestors are from Andorra and Gibraltar? Can they be Hispanic, too?
ReplyDeleteI am deeply offended by the suggestion that the petty inconveniences experienced by Lusitanian-Americans should be considered in any way comparable to the sufferings of we Armorican-Americans.
ReplyDeleteI guess we'll see Nick Diaz start spinning out pro-white diatribe now that he's no longer Hispanic...
ReplyDeleteObviously the relevant factor isn't what language you speak but your racial background. The Hispanic category is separated out out from other folks because those with a high percentage of Amerindian ancestry are inferior in terms of economic performance and avoidance of crime.
ReplyDeleteAmerindian peoples are not as bad performing as those of African descent but they are still well below Caucasians and East Asians in terms of their suitability for civilization. It's really scandalous that the government continues to to confound race with language issues.
Broadly speaking the success of the United States derives from its elimination of the Indians and suppression of the blacks. Blacks were isolated as agricultural workers and smallpox wiped out most of the Indians. This left most of the country in the hands of whites - one of the high IQ races. Prosperity followed.
American cultural, scientific and economic success we can now see was because of our split from older European forms of government, our ability to forge a really big national polity, and our favorable racial composition.
Recently blacks have broken out of the fields and have settled in many northerly cites. Those cities have been destroyed economically. Simultaneously Amerindian descended peoples have invaded across our southern borders. This simply means an end to American prosperity. There are no modern rich industrialized nations in which the Amerindian or black peoples are important contributors. Everything that the old fashion racists claimed about the dangers of race mixing have proven to be true. The doctrine of Racial Realism also now appears to be too innocuous a concept to measure up to the racial realities that have overtaken this nation.
A Racial Realist is one who says blacks and Hispanics are different. They avoid the obvious term "inferior". The use of euphemisms implies equality - but that's hardly the case. Blacks and Hispanics (Amerindians) in the population simply mean more crime and poverty. Inferior is the right word.
Nations with homogeneous high IQ populations (Japan, Korea, China, Finland, Switzerland) prosper. Those nations which have too many people from the low IQ races lose out.
It's too late for the US. Nice country while it lasted.
Albertosaurus
Aren't last names that end with -ko East European, like Ukrainian or Serbian?
ReplyDeleteLike, Rick Danko's last name (of The Band) is clearly East European.
ReplyDelete(By the way, according to a classic article by the Pew Hispanic Center, legally, anybody is Hispanic who feels like saying they are Hispanic.)
ReplyDeleteHell, what's so crazy about that?
Where I live, legally, I can be a woman any time I feel like saying I'm a woman. I can use a public women's restroom, and change in the women's room at the public pool.
My favorite "wrong Hispanic" is this guy, air ace and WW2 commander Elwood "Pete" Quesada.
ReplyDeleteOr to put it another way, he's the right Hispanic, his father was actually from Spain, which is not what La Raza is talking about at all.
I've wondered that for awhile. Why can't some morally flexible white kid simply check off Hispanic on his college application?
ReplyDeleteIf he feels Hispanic, he is Hispanic. And it certainly pays to feel Hispanic.
Don't forget the Teixeiras, Ruy and Mark. They need our help, too.
ReplyDelete"Coelho" means "rabbit", and you see it on menus throughout Portugal.
Hispanicizing Lusitanians is controversial in the Old World, too. Galician is essentially Portuguese, and around La Coruña you see road signs with the hated "L" painted over. (Why they don't hate the tilde too, I don't know.)
The only prominent Galician-American that comes to my mind is Tony Bouza, the police chief of Minneapolis in the Reagan years. The city's deadliest years came shortly after his retirement, so he ran for governor on a platform of outlawing handguns. You can bet that was popular In a state where even the liberals go missing on hunting season opener!
Bouza was born in the same town as Franco (no Galician he), and his family left during the civil war. Yet he wanted to treat Americans the way Franco might have treated his refugee father! But Galician refugees apparently think along the same lines as Irish and Jewish ones.
The category of 'Hispanic' is pretty much an artificial creation of the government. After a while those who fall into this classification accept it as being legitimate, particularly as their old-country connections fade out and the lines between them get blurred; being patronized by the government brings rewards and gifts and entices them to so identify.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders if the creation of this category is due to something as simple as good intentions run amok, or if there's more to it than that. Maybe it's part of an attempt to create different identity groups that can be pitted against one another if and when needed as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy. Or is that too sinister an idea?
Nothing winds up a Portuguese dude like being called "Spanish."
ReplyDeleteThis is patently stupid. Go to a city like Boston with a big Portuguese population and you find they're exactly like Italians in that despite being somewhat darker than their Irish environs, none of them speak Portuguese and they're totally intermixed with their paler neighbors. "Ethnic" Lusophones in the United States are mostly Brazilians or members of one of the handful of Madeirense immigrant communities on Cape Cod.
The point is to get as many people invested in the racial/ethnic spoils system as possible.
ReplyDeleteWell, not exactly. They're not going to decide that German-Americans will henceforth count as "Hispanic" - because you can't have too many people in on the racial/ethnic spoils racket.
Galician refugees apparently think along the same lines as Irish and Jewish ones.
ReplyDeleteOne of the distinctive bits of lunacy found in HBD-land is this bizarre belief that the Irish and Jews think alike.
My favorite "wrong Hispanic" is this guy, air ace and WW2 commander Elwood "Pete" Quesada. --Steiner
ReplyDeleteI know things were cheaper in 1961, but still, how could he afford a major-league club on a military salary? Funny, though, how Quesada's team is planted in Arlington, Texas, while Quesada himself is planted in Arlington, Virginia.
I guess the Rangers could rightfully call themselves the Quesadillas!
Consider the Franco-Luso-American celebrity Emeril Lagasse. He has the ethnic cred to get away with his Boston burr in New Orleans. He must remind them of their pirate forebears along the "West Florida" coast.
ReplyDeleteWhat Anonymous@3:41am predicts about universal affirmative action is an established practice in India:
ReplyDelete"For example, the caste-based reservation stands at 69% and the same is applicable to about 87% of the population in the State of Tamil Nadu."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India
Reservation = affirmative action on steroids i.e. government jobs are set aside for people of certain castes etc. There has even been a push to force these laws on the private sector.
The natural result is incompetency, inefficiency, corruption etc.
Now there's the Harlem Shake. I guess gangnam style is old hat already.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I have an idea for Sailer to get his ideas across.
He should do a Sailer Shake, a dance involving a golf club and put it on youtube. He can even come up with a HBD rap ditty. It will be the new internet sensation.
"Take the cruelty and intrepid nature of the Spaniards, greed and energy of the English privateers and crank those up a few notches and you have the Portuguese".
ReplyDeleteI'd re-phrase that a bit---"Take the cruelty and [greedy]nature of the Spaniards, and energy and [intrepidness] of the English privateers and crank those up a few notches and you have the Portuguese."
being Irish-identified (we'll soon remind the world that some academic called Ignatiev said we Irish were not white until recently, so the U.S. taxpayers will soon be hearing from us about that injustice...)
... now I hate being in a position of objecting to an unflattering adjective for the Brits, but if you HAVE to assign only these 4 descriptive, moral adjectives to these two peoples, that's how I'd suggest doing it.
It's all about the gold, man, the gold they took. The Spanish hit the lottery and took it back to their country. All the Brits took back was potatos.
btw, the Portugese began the European slave trade in a big way in late 1400s--not surprising considering their long familiarity with Arab and Muslim ways. They made the English slave holders look like proto-SWPLs by comparison. On the upside, some west African cultures were taught goldsmithing by the Portugese and produced some remarkable works. After the Europeans withdrew from those areas, the art was not maintained even though the Africans still had the resources. That factoid, now banned, was in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1911, and presented as evidence for black inability to make any progress on their own engines.
hispanic means "of spain" so the portuguese are correct. they are not hispanic. portugal and spain are two different nations.
ReplyDeletei've stated before that i think the greatest PR campaign of our time is to rebrand short fat brown people as "hispanic" or even more preposterously as "latino".
latino = latin = old dusty european men pontificating in a dead language 2000 years ago.
white guys in togas expounding upon the finer points of euclidean geometry, how to best engineer stone bridges and aqueducts, or debating the merits of republic government versus emperor rule, does not strike me as having anything to do with 5 foot mexicans living 8 to a house, picking lettuce, and crashing their cars into you drunk with no insurance.
Why is it that so many liberal blacks are mulatto and light-skinned while many prominent black cons are dark-skinned.
ReplyDeleteCompare Holder, Obama, Jealous, Jarrett, and etc with Sowell, Thomas, and Cain.
Did mulatto blacks forge an alliance with 'progressive' whites while ignoring most black blacks? So, did smart black blacks rebel against mulatto privilege and go with whatever that the mulattos opposed? Did they become 'conservative' by default in rebellion against mulattos who gained privilege for themselves in alliance with progo whites?
Stanley Crouch is a 'liberal' but more politically incorrect and critical of blacks than most. And he's black-skinned.
ReplyDeleteCosby, another harsh critic of black culture, is also black(though he's 'liberal').
I suppose there is light-skinned Powell and Rice, but they struck me as real anything. Just opportunists.
A kind of racial Janusism--two-face-ism--operates among many folks.
ReplyDeleteFor example, when light-skinned hindu elites are with other dark-skinned hindus, they think, "I'm like white people and so very different from those dirty darkies." But when they are with whites, they think, "I'm one of the noble people-of-color oppressed, a victim of 'white racism'."
Same with Hispans. When conquis are with native of Latin America, they see them as dirty brownies. But when they with gringo whites, they play the 'peoplez of colorez' card.
But, but, how can Tom Hanks's kids not deserve affirmative action?
ReplyDeleteTom Hanks' son Chester is a wigger rapper who goes by the name "Chet Haze" and goes to Northwestern:
http://dailynorthwestern.com/2011/01/12/archive-manual/frat-star-to-rap-star-chet-hanks/
Maybe this will help his street cred.
Notice the picture of Hanks they used for The Portugal News article:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theportugalnews.com/uploads/news/TOM_HANKS.jpg
It's like they deliberately picked one to make him look as "Latin" and ethnic as possible. He has a tan, his shirt collar is unbuttoned, he looks like he's crooning some Samba song in Latin ecstasy at a Carnaval festival. And he may even be playing the bongos in the picture.
What about John Phillip Sousa?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to get the Scots-Irish take on this. I thought Portuguese and Spaniards were bad because of the Inquisition, slavery, and their treatment of the natives in the New World. Yet including them in a category that is basically a racial category for Amerindians, as Pat described above, seems to be letting them off the hook, especially since most other whites had zilch to do with such bad behavior and get no such special recognition.
ReplyDeleteDo the Scots-Irish hate the WASPs and their assimilated European-American cousins so much that they are willing to let bygones be bygones and let the Iberians off the hook? I am not saying they are behind this new classification. I am just asking why they are not trying to nip this silliness in the bud given their unhappy past with those groups.
For some reason I always thought Tom Hanks was Greek.
ReplyDeletehispanic means "of spain" so the portuguese are correct. they are not hispanic. portugal and spain are two different nations.
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily, since "Hispanic" derives from the Latin name "Hispania", which referred to the entire Iberian peninsula, which includes both modern day Spain and Portugal.
Should Filipino Americans lose their East Asian status and become Hispanics ?
ReplyDeleteAfter all there are many Filipinos with last names like Diaz and Sanchez for example.
Should Filipinos count as members of La Raza ?
Gosh darnit! All these years I thought Tom Hanks was just an ordinary white guy like me (except for the fact he probably is hundreds, if not thousands, of times wealthier). And now I find out he is not white, but is actually "hispanic". I am simply devastated.
ReplyDeleteIf "Spanish" means Latin it´s ok. And join also the Italians, Romanians, Valonians, Moldavians, French from Europe and Quebec, great part of the Suisses, Corsegans, Catalans, Castillians, etç...
ReplyDeleteIf "Spanish" means Latin it´s ok. And join also the Italians, Romanians, Valonians, Moldavians, French from Europe and Quebec, great part of the Suisses, Corsegans, Catalans, Castillians, etç...
ReplyDeleteDoesn't "Portugese" heritage have a special place in American history, or is that something that's been unsaid for so long it's forgotten.
ReplyDeleteFrom 1650 to 1950, it wasn't unusual for a mixed-race (i.e. part black) person passing as a white to claim "Portugese" or "Cherokee" heritage as a plausible reason why they didn't look Anglo.
But I don't think the current movement is at all related to that.
It pleases me that Tom Hanks has grown so homely over the years. He's got the fleshy face and nose and ear thing going. Maybe Michelle O. can put him on a diet.
ReplyDeleteSorry, it's just that I am sick of the HW-NY celebrity cult and of their anti-science Creationism.
Should Filipino Americans lose their East Asian status and become Hispanics ?
ReplyDeleteAn interesting question considering the Philippines, along with Mexico, was once part of New Spain. Speaking of which, I wonder if the Aztlan crowd who dream of retaking the American Southwest also want to claim the Philippines too.
"They're not going to decide that German-Americans will henceforth count as "Hispanic" - because you can't have too many people in on the racial/ethnic spoils racket."
ReplyDelete-That, and for who/whom to work, you have to have a 'who' to blame.
"Pretty soon whiteness will be so discredited that all Euro-American ethnic groups will give up their white identity, and every American will have an equal right to affirmative action preferences under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
On that glorious day, we will ALL be members of a protected class, my brothers (and sisters, and LGBTQrs, etc.)!
Then and only then will America be a beacon of true equality to the rest of the world. I have a dream!"
-At which point the dream of the left, to break apart the white race into small discrete groups (gays, Irish, Italians, handicaps, union workers, left-handed librarians who fart while sneezing, etc.) will be complete. Hard to work together to prevent our own dispossesion when we're viewing our closest allies against the conquest as the 'other'.
"American cultural, scientific and economic success we can now see was because of our split from older European forms of government, our ability to forge a really big national polity, and our favorable racial composition."
-Also, in the 20th Century, we were the only significant country that hadn't been ripped apart by WWII. That was a major benefit.
"latino = latin = old dusty european men pontificating in a dead language 2000 years ago."
-It's because the languages they speak are derivatives of Latin (a 'gift' to the Spanish and Portugese from the Romans). On that note, though, people of French ancestry could be called Latinos. So maybe some clever Canuck in Canadian Parliament could spin it as Canada has been more generous than the US by taking on so many Latinos (i.e.- Quebecois).
"Bouza was born in the same town as Franco (no Galician he)...
ReplyDeleteFidel Castro's father was Galician. I've heard Gallegos described as stereotypically stubborn, independent-minded. They consider themselves to be Celtic.
Many areas of SE New England, particularly the Providence area, have "Lusaphone" populations who don't outwardly appear very ethnic (think Meredith Vieira). There are also the Cape Verdeans, who you won't easily be able to pass off as the salsa-dancing tortilla-flipping "Guantanamera"-singing Hispanics from central casting, or so the media's collective imagination has it.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I always thought Tom Hanks was Greek
ReplyDeleteYou may be thinking of his equally generic-looking wife, who would (at least visually) fit in quite nicely for any episode of Downton Abbey or Upstairs Downstairs
Another successful American entertainer of direct Portuguese descent was Harold Peary, a.k.a. Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve (Great Gildersleeve). A SoCal kid, I think!
ReplyDeleteOne case of prejudice that I've seen personally against continental Portuguese was among wealthy French folk. Some fancy French -- a small sample, admittedly! -- stereotyped them as servants. Now I'm stereotyping the French, but since 1870/1914/1940 that's been cool in my family ;)
And what of the many who lived under Portuguese colonial rule over the centuries, many of whom still speak Portuguese as their first or second language? Mozambique, East Timor, even Goa, etc.
Sometimes I wish a fellow like James Michener was around to write about the end of Portugal's modern colonies, especially those in Africa. Some good screenplays, even. Hint: convoys, 1974-1975.
Many years ago, the National Review ran an article critical of nationality-based preferences where they ridiculed the idea of giving preferences to "Portugo-Americans."
ReplyDeleteToday's National Review probably supports giving preferences to Portugo-Americans.
Just curious: has Keanu Reeves ever claimed a racial identity in interviews/activism/publicity? Frankly "Portuguese-N. American" would not sound very prominent on his menu of options. However I wouldn't be surprised if he's part-Tibetan in addition to being greatly influenced by his Basque/Maori heritage, for starters.
ReplyDeleteAs for Katy Hudson/"Perry" if she ain't white then that many-splendored slur truly no longer has any meaning. She's literally ten shades past ivory while possessing the mental features & measurements of a Mattel doll.
They could have an annual music festival called Lollapasousa
ReplyDeleteI believe it was the great WWTDD who observed: "Katy Perry is famous for 3 reasons, and one of them is her producer"
ReplyDeleteBTW, I figure the other pair of attributes thus referenced must be her milk-jug complexion and buoyant personality--or perhaps they meant her balloon-high vocal style & sizable investments w/ Mellon Bank
I had wondered how Hanks made it in Hollyweird. He's "Portuguese"! LOL, makes sense now.
ReplyDeleteKaty Perry, Steve Perry and Joe Perry of Aerosmith are all Portuguese, but apparently are not related.
ReplyDeleteThey say Joe Perry's original family name was Pereira. If the other Perrys have a similar story of anglicizing their names, then that would lead me to believe they don't need or want to become "Hispanic". They did what they were supposed to do, namely, try to adopt and ape WASP culture. Now the census bureau is about to go start making trouble by trying to crack the melting pot.
How do Sicilians fit into this? I'm looking for some AA myself...
ReplyDelete- Sal
I get very irritated when my last name is pronounced like the Addams Family character rather than like "Homes".
ReplyDeleteThey could offer me $10,000 to be "Hispanic" and I would turn them down if my name would be mispronounced. I think that is part of the essential character of Portuguese. We get hard heads.
"It pleases me that Tom Hanks has grown so homely over the years. He's got the fleshy face and nose and ear thing going...
ReplyDelete'
he was never a pretty boy. Few people look better with age.
"Gosh darnit! All these years I thought Tom Hanks was just an ordinary white guy like me (except for the fact he probably is hundreds, if not thousands, of times wealthier). And now I find out he is not white, but is actually "hispanic". I am simply devastated."
ReplyDeleteIts interesting how you never heard until the last 15 years or so that so many of these entertainers and famous people are now members of other ethnicities/races. Tom Hanks, Joe Perry, Eddie and Alex Van Halen, etc. There was never any mention of anything else. Megan Fox pulls a typical (these days) SWPL girl 'get out of being white' free card trick of claiming to be part Indian, as though she got her looks from this guy:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/En-chief-sitting-bull.jpg
Now that whites are so despised, people keep coming out of the woodworks to claim the faintest amount of anything else as their true identity.
@Anonymous:
ReplyDelete"ust curious: has Keanu Reeves ever claimed a racial identity in interviews/activism/publicity?"
Never. Keanu may not be the greatest actor in Hollywood history, but he is one of the most likeable people ever to work there (admittedly not a high bar). He has several times referred to himself as a "white boy" from Toronto. Back when he had that farcical rock group, he said he couldn't get down because he was "too white", meaning, nerdy.
Please white nationalists, holster your guns, he was just being honest: His mother is an English woman. Give me this over thumbnail Hawaiians who moan over their identity any day.
I've always wanted to ask Spike to analyze Keanu. Keanu's father Sam is descended from two distinct groups: the father's mother was moneyed, a descendent of mixed Chinese sugar baron and Hawaiian aristocracy. His father's father
was American/Portuguese/Hawaiian, and I think, much more working class.
Keanu's has two upcoming films in which he'll be playing halfbreeds, so I wonder whether he's playing along with the one-drop zeitgeist after all. Or maybe he always had a racial consciousness and it's just coming out.
He has a cousin, Keanu David Sai, who is a Hawaiian nationalist.
"Doesn't "Portugese" heritage have a special place in American history, or is that something that's been unsaid for so long it's forgotten.
ReplyDeleteFrom 1650 to 1950, it wasn't unusual for a mixed-race (i.e. part black) person passing as a white to claim "Portugese" or "Cherokee" heritage as a plausible reason why they didn't look Anglo."
Why, yes, unsaid for so long it's forgotten. The English "Old Alliance":
"... the oldest alliance in the world which is still in force — with the earliest treaty dating back to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373."
The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance:
"This alliance, which goes back to the Middle Ages, has served both countries. It was very important throughout history, influencing the participation of the United Kingdom in the Iberian Peninsular War, the UK's major land contribution to the Napoleonic Wars and the establishment of an Anglo-American base in Portugal. Portugal aided England (and later the UK) in times of need, for example, in the First World War."
When you're small naval powers on continents with big wars, it pays to work together...
To illustrate, an English king married a Portuguese princess away back. The new Queen's favorite instrument was the guitar. Pretty soon all the aristocracy were practicing the guitar, so as to be able to entertain the Queen. And that's how the guitar became widely popular in England...
This sort of thing:
Catherine of Braganza
Philippa of Lancaster
And no one ever even remarks on this sort of thing:
U.S. Forces Azores
Lajes Field
Along with base at Iceland, perhaps one of the most vital NATO assets. With the end of the Cold War, among the most important NATO assets to the US.
Then there's Adam Smith, who everyone's also quoting talking about English wool traded for Portuguese wine...
"Now that whites are so despised, people keep coming out of the woodworks to claim the faintest amount of anything else as their true identity".
ReplyDeleteThis comment really saddens me but I can't honestly disagree with it. Here in Canada we have tons of people as white as snow who claim to be "Aboriginals" (Indians). I don't know if this shift away from being white is due to lucrative government programs like A.A. or just people reading which way the socio-cultural winds are blowing. Or perhaps both. But it looks like the cultural Marxists have done their evil job very, very well. Gramsci was an evil mastermind.
Now that whites are so despised, people keep coming out of the woodworks to claim the faintest amount of anything else as their true identity.
ReplyDeleteDunno. It's long been fashionable for white people to claim a bit of American Indian ancestry. The practice began well before affirmative action and Indian gambling casinos, so it's not - or at least originally was not - motivated by a quest for tangible benefits. More likely people think it just makes them sound cool and exotic. And because we don't have a One Drop Rule for Indian ancestry, claiming that your great-great grandmother was Cherokee won't require you to change your entire racial identity.
As for other racial-background changes, if there's a trend of white adults claiming to be black based on some distant ancestors, I've never heard of it. While of course there are many people of physically white appearance who identify as black, e.g. Valerie Jarrett and Benjamin Jealous, as far as I know most if not all of them have always identified as black.
Peter
Aging Hag:
ReplyDeleteHey, I'm more than a thumbnail. By percentage, most of my right arm and my entire left foot is Hawaiian, as well as my money handling skills.
Anyways, the thing with Keanu's Dad is simply this: regression to the mean slams part-Hawaiians hard sometimes. I've known kids who were the offspring of two successful Kamehameha graduates (one was actually the son of an operating manager of one of the largest land development companies in the state) who were as dumb and lazy as the most stereotypical mokes on the beaches of Waianae, but lacked the naturally poor Hawaiians easy-going sense of sun-drenched fatalism. In other words, they were as dumb as rocks and spoiled, with all that brings to the table.
They actually did a profile on Keanu's Dad back when Keanu was Hollywood A-list. He doesn't seem dumb and lazy, so much as lacking impulse control when it comes to drugs and alcohol. He sober now, and disabled. He's not bitter about Keanu cutting him off, sad yes, but completely understanding why he's done so and hoping he changes his mind someday. I don't know if he's still alive, he was emphasymic and disabled at the time.
One of the distinctive bits of lunacy found in HBD-land is this bizarre belief that the Irish and Jews think alike. --anonymous troll
ReplyDeleteAnd one of the distinctive tics found in Anonymous Trollland is snarkily extrapolating an entire belief system out of one specific point made. In this case, the parallel instances of a Galician (Bouza), Irishmen (Sullivan, Kennedy), and Jews (all but SAF & JPFO) pushing gun controls in America while milking tales of their peoples being oppressed in their old homes.
No, they don't think alike on everything, but there are other parallels as well-- intelligence heavily skewed to the verbal side, an obsession with foreign countries beginning with "I" (do the Icelanders of Washington Island and Gimli act this way?), ethnic exceptions to an immigration policy generally biased against whites.
Spike,
ReplyDeletePlease don't take the "thumbnail Hawaiian" personally - I learned the phrase from you, by the way.
I love your stuff about Hawaii, man. It is endlessly fascinating to me. It makes me want to visit Hawaii. I wish you would start a Spike Gomes Hawaii blog.
I got interested in KR when I worked in PR - no details obviously, except that he was the one, the only celeb that I got to like the more I learned about him.
The father is not at all stupid but as you said, lacking impulse control, and married a woman who took him for all he was worth. There is more to the story but I won't say it here. It's like "The Descendents" meets the 60s.
PS to Spike,
ReplyDeleteI remember being totally shocked when I first saw a picture of Keanu's dad: he looks to my haole eyes completely Polynesian/Chinese, although he has some white blood.
Shocked because at the time I thought Keanu was a white guy with a weird first name. I didn't know that it was a truly Hawaiian first name and that he was named after a real uncle. I just thought he had hippie parents who saddled him with what they thought was a cool name. After I saw the picture, I saw Keanu completely differently and now he appears very Hawaiian to me. Isn't that funny?
The only weird part is that he was named Keanu Charles and not Charles Keanu. (Hollywood stars lie a lot about their origins and it's quite possible he was named Charles Keanu. Call me a birther; until I see the certificate this is a possibility.)
His sister Kim has a long Hawaiian middle name. That strikes me as more common. part-Hawaiians used to pay homage to their heritage by giving the kids an Anglo first name and a Hawaiian middle name. Maybe it's changed with Hawaiian nationalism. Are people giving their kids Hawaiian first names?
egression to the mean slams part-Hawaiians hard sometimes. I've known kids who were the offspring of two successful Kamehameha graduates (one was actually the son of an operating manager of one of the largest land development companies in the state) who were as dumb and lazy as the most stereotypical mokes on the beaches of Waianae, but lacked the naturally poor Hawaiians easy-going sense of sun-drenched fatalism. In other words, they were as dumb as rocks and spoiled, with all that brings to the table.
ReplyDeleteIt may not always be regression to the mean, but you do see that sort of generational deterioration among families of all races. IQ is not completely inheritable, smart parents can have a dumb child, and of course when successful parents spoil their children it often does not work out well for the kids.
Peter
ReplyDelete"No, they don't think alike on everything, but there are other parallels as well-- intelligence heavily skewed to the verbal side, an obsession with foreign countries beginning with "I" (do the Icelanders of Washington Island and Gimli act this way?), ethnic exceptions to an immigration policy generally biased against whites."
Is it actually true that Jews are skewed verbal though? I know that verbal intelligence correlates with certain mathematical aptitudes, but there are still an awful lot of historical Jewish scientists/mathematicians for that verbal dominance to be true. On the other hand the Irish do seem to be genuinely skewed verbal, with scores of poets and writers but virtually no famous figures in the sciences.
Shocked because at the time I thought Keanu was a white guy with a weird first name. I didn't know that it was a truly Hawaiian first name and that he was named after a real uncle
ReplyDeleteI always thought "Keanu" was a nickname that he adapted as a real name, and that it was a variation on "keener", which means "nerd" in Canadian English.
However I wouldn't be surprised if he's part-Tibetan in addition to being greatly influenced by his Basque/Maori heritage, for starters."
ReplyDeleteA Basque heritage would be pretty awesome as they are the oldest and most unique people in Europe.Possibly related to the Amazigh(Berber) of the Maghreb.
Apparently it is consider rather stylish to count a Maori as your ancestor.
Russel Crow claimed some Maori heritage though it had never been proven.
Though I am not aware of any Australian going out of their way to claim aboriginal ancestry.
I mean this is a country where the natives got their voting rights only in the late 70s!
I'd re-phrase that a bit---"Take the cruelty and [greedy]nature of the Spaniards, and energy and [intrepidness] of the English privateers and crank those up a few notches and you have the Portuguese."
ReplyDeleteart student:being Irish-identified (we'll soon remind the world that some academic called Ignatiev said we Irish were not white until recently, so the U.S. taxpayers will soon be hearing from us about that injustice...)
... now I hate being in a position of objecting to an unflattering adjective for the Brits, but if you HAVE to assign only these 4 descriptive, moral adjectives to these two peoples, that's how I'd suggest doing it.
DVN: All those adjectives can be applied to the aformentioned ethnic groups.It is only the degree to which it is allocated that is a matter of opinion.
art student:It's all about the gold, man, the gold they took. The Spanish hit the lottery and took it back to their country. All the Brits took back was potatos.
DVN: It wasnt due to a lack of trying.Most of the gold and the regions associated therewith were already appropriated by the Spaniards.SO the English had no choice but to farm ,colonize and become productive. Either that or you raid SPanish ships carrying the gold!
AS: btw, the Portugese began the European slave trade in a big way in late 1400s--not surprising considering their long familiarity with Arab and Muslim ways. They made the English slave holders look like proto-SWPLs by comparison. On the upside, some west African cultures were taught goldsmithing by the Portugese and produced some remarkable works. After the Europeans withdrew from those areas, the art was not maintained even though the Africans still had the resources. That factoid, now banned, was in the Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1911, and presented as evidence for black inability to make any progress on their own engines.
DVN: Oh cut the Africans a break. It is one thing to follow instructions and another to do break out on your own .When the British left India and Palestine ,things went south pretty fast as peoples not accustomed to governing themselves were left to their own devices but they got the hang of it by trial and error.
Of course the African experience had been compounded by their severely tribal socieities and their retrograde Darwinistic religious system.
In the end , for Africans to improve their lot-they have to do it themselves that no means no aid just trade.
Rwanda currently has a higher growth rate than Western countries..Yes Rwanda!
Maybe there is hope after all but let them figure it out themselves and if the error of the trial and error includes genocide then well thats their choice.No need to send in the Marines.
To art student:
ReplyDeleteForgot to mention there seems to be a lot of cross pollination between Irish and Latin Americans.
There's a guy called O Brien who is revered a national hero in Bolivia and some other Irish guy has a similar status in Chile.
OTOH Ireland had a Cuban Prime Minister at the turn of the 20th century.
ReplyDeleteWell, not exactly. They're not going to decide that German-Americans will henceforth count as "Hispanic" - because you can't have too many people in on the racial/ethnic spoils racket."
I would be interested in the other way round if more Hispanics would want to be counted among Germans! Names like Rodriguez etc are Hispanized version of the German Rodrick ,most likely of Vandal origin who were ruling Spain before the Arabs swarmed in and didnt leave for 700 years.
Aging Hag:
ReplyDeleteI've considered starting a Hawaiian HBD Blog (I already have a personal blog mostly dedicated to literature and music), but I was mostly held up by two things: I'm a bit afraid of my interest in the subject getting out into my personal life, and I think it would only be truly interesting if I still lived in the vicinity of UH Manoa's library. There's tons of old journals, papers and monologues in the archives from the 1920s-1960s which approach the racial and ethnic dynamics from a very un-PC angle. I remember reading one article from "Social Process in Hawaii" from the 1930s which discussed the various "mixes" of Part-Hawaiians and their characteristics. I'd love to scan those old things and use them as a jumping off board. I'm guessing in places that have been "diverse" before the rah-rah multicult, there exists such literature mouldering in local university's backshelves. I'd love to take a dig in the libraries in Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago, for instance. I still might be convinced to do such a thing if more than a few people expressed interest in reading it.
As for naming conventions, by the time I was born in the late 70s, Hawaiian first names were already being used. I think it's an artifact of the Hawaiian Renaissance in the 1970s. What's interesting is how it goes on the mainland. My very dark-complexioned step-sister uses her very white valley-girl sounding name in NYC, where she works in media. I don't think even her friends there use her Hawaiian name. My cousin, on the other hand, who is blue-eyed with dirty blond hair, uses her long, difficult to pronounce name exclusively. She won't even shorten it.
I'm not too surprised by your impression of Keanu. From surfing gossip sites, he's one of the people who come up pretty often in "charitable" blinds. Namely, someone who does a lot of charitable stuff without publicizing it (Gary Sinise does a *lot* of that).
Spike,
ReplyDeleteWell, I think you have so much stored knowledge about Hawaii anything you write would be more interesting than what we read in the papes.
More about Keanu's paternal ancestry. Right up your alley:
http://tinyurl.com/ajhqvww
BTW, there are two dancin' part-Hawaiian sisters, who are members of two different major ballet companies: Pua and Likolani Brown. Pua studied at Harvard for a while. Clearly no regression to the mean there.
They aren't twins but they look remarkably similar.
http://tinyurl.com/cbsbuya
http://tinyurl.com/c2qdyb6
Nice mix.
awful lot of historical Jewish scientists/mathematicians for that verbal dominance
ReplyDeleteMathematical ability is related to both verbal and performance (i.e. visuo-spatial) IQ. A verbal skew would not preclude mathematical talent.
Michael Barone has linked to this article at the Washington Examiner.
ReplyDeleteHal K
In our local paper in Northern Ca they took a poll
ReplyDeleteand 90% of the Mexican people claimed on their census
They consider themselves White!
So maybe the Hispanic word is colasping