askchapo

The only reason that courts in the US ruled that way was to systematically deny Arabs the right to anti-discrimination or racial equity measures and so that when hate crimes happen it's not possible within the legal system to try a white person for hate crimes against Arabs.

Lmaoooo

No absolutely not

Like they might be described as white only if the describer couldn't in any way identify the person as Arab. One piece of ethnic clothing or whatever and they will instantly be 0% white.

If an Arab dude shaved and wore a polo he might be able to pass as white but Arabs are absolutely a specific racial category in the deranged American psyche

it really depends. i'm a pale arab-amerikkkan. i'm perceived in most contexts as white as long as i don't tell anyone i'm arab. if i spoke english with an accent, wore any kind of foreign or religious clothing, or had darker skin like my father, i don't think i would be perceived like this. these are the kinds of borders of racial categories where strict definitions really start to break down, and individuals have to try to categorize you on the fly based on vibes. i won't claim that i've faced serious racism directed at me, but it is jarring those times when i'm "discovered" and suddenly seen as something fundamentally different from a white person i'm talking to.

incidentally, the reason the US government counts us as white for the purposes of the census (but not for the purposes of military intervention) is because wealthy arab immigrants sued to be considered white under the de jure regime of racial segregation that oppressed black americans. yikes.

Someone below says the court cases for this happened in the early 20th century. That makes sense. In those days arab pretty much referred to Christians from Syria since that was where most of the arab immigration was coming from. That was when my family came over. It’s the later 20th century when things flip and most Arab immigration to the United States is Muslim rather than Christian. In the present day to most Americans arab=brown Muslim. So it might be that disconnect you’re noticing. Arabs were called “white” when the immigration patterns look different. I doubt the same court would have decided Arabs were white if the immigration patterns were as they are today.

At one point US courts literally determined that being Muslim made a possibly white Arab become not white. You can tell people this when they say "but islam isn't a race"

It depends on the specific person. Most likely not but there are definitely white/white-passing Arabs. Same with Hispanic people

if they didn't speak and didn't have any sort of identifying clothing they could probably get mistaken for an italian or greek? but people generally talk and have names so it's moot except to make a point to racists that their categories are nonsense

Along the lines of @rootsbreadandmakka@hexbear.net's contribution, Arab immigration to the US increased by orders of magnitude during the 60s and 70s, principally to add a super-exploitable labor force for auto manufacturing who would initially have a language barrier to organizing. This is when a large number of non-white passing Arab people came to the US. Although as was said, the official category had already been established decades earlier, principally by Christian Arabs from Syria

I also think Christendom was the decisive element in this case since in the same year the Supreme Court 1) denied 'white' status to a Japanese man who argued his skin was paler than most 'white' people's because he was not of Caucasian descent and 2) denied 'white' status to an Indian man who argued on those grounds he ought to be considered white because Northern Indians are of caucasian descent because his skin was too dark.

An arab person could pass as white and so could a hispanic person or a mixed race person or any other kind of asian person or even a black person or an indigenous person. Race is a made up concept and as long as someone LOOKS white they could be considered white at a glance even if they have no european ancestory. And also theres a lot of european people who can be considered not white who have existed as a group before europe was even a thing. Then theres the europeans who are white by modern standards but back in the day would not be considered white. Look all of this is stupid, we should move people around like they did in half life 2 and make the world a nice brown tinge color so that racism could be ended.