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But it's an interesting topic, you don't mind if we talk about it some more, do you?

Sure, why not.

If the people of Spain looked as they did, but the country was stuck on the end of Africa and not the edge of Europe, we'd wouldn't call them white.

I consider south africa to have a large white population personally.

ShumaGorath wrote:I consider south africa to have a large white population personally.

I probably didn't make my point very well. I was saying that given how the Spanish look, if their nation was in Africa and their cultural and economic ties were with African nations we wouldn't think of them as white. However, the Spanish are more closely tied to European countries and have a level of development equivalent to Europe, and so we call them white.

Skin colour is only a small part of how people go about assigning race.

sebster wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:I consider south africa to have a large white population personally.

I probably didn't make my point very well. I was saying that given how the Spanish look, if their nation was in Africa and their cultural and economic ties were with African nations we wouldn't think of them as white. However, the Spanish are more closely tied to European countries and have a level of development equivalent to Europe, and so we call them white.

Skin colour is only a small part of how people go about assigning race.

Perhaps when they have a more personal connection, but from most of the pictures I've seen spaniards seem fairly white by contrast to the latino racial profile seen in the Americas. Were they more geographically close to africa I doubt I would make the connection between the two racially. As I have little contact with traditional spanish culture I can realistically only draw a view of race from skin color, and in that I routinely see darker people stateside that I would consider white.

Well, I lived in Spain for nearly 2 years - perhaps I can offer a perspective?

The Spanish people I spoke to considered themselves white, from what I can gather - one or two certainly referred to themselves as 'white people'. However, in terms of skin colour, I was a LOT whiter than them - although that might have something to do with being a pasty northern european!

They did seem to me to be of a slightly different ethnic grouping - as sebster rightly pointed out (iirc), they are fairly close to being north-african. There has traditionally been a lot of north-african influence on Spain, and vice versa - spain still has colonies there for example.