Submitted by Pfeffer_Prinz t3_126sj3j in todayilearned
Reply to comment by SeiCalros in TIL in the 1920s, Coco Chanel accidentally got a tan, and helped inspire the trend of sunbathing. Soon "sunlight therapy" was prescribed for almost every ailment from fatigue to tuberculosis. Before this, tanned skin was associated with the lower classes who work outside, and fair skin was revered. by Pfeffer_Prinz
Which white supremacists of the era? We're talking about ordinary European people who had never even seen a black person let alone mixed with them. Pale white skin then was seen as an indicator of having been wealthy enough to stay indoors instead of working in the sun, and that's all there is to it. Race wasn't even an issue among common people in the UK until the immigration of West Indians, Africans, Indians and Pakistanis in the 20th century.
You really think black people didn’t exist in Europe in the 1800s or before? You think a European in the 1920s wouldn’t have seen a black person?
You can’t actually be that dense.
Yes they existed. But not in great number and usually limited to large metropolises. English people outside of London had not mixed with black people, no. And we're not talking about the 1920's here. We're talking pre 1800's. Stop calling people dense when you have no idea what you're talking about.
Just because they hadn’t seen them doesn’t mean they didn’t know about it. Skin color was used as justification for colonialism (white mans burden).
But this isn't the reason for the preference of lily white Caucasian skin over tanned Caucasian skin, which is what we're talking about here. You'll note that white supremacists don't give a shit whether or not a white person has a tan or not. Just that they're Caucasian.
White man's burden was an 1800s thing. He's right, many European people prior to the 1700s probably never saw a black person in their life. People rarely traveled beyond their local villages.
The empire already existed in the 1700s…
"prior to the 1700s"
i think theres a limit to the practical utility of reasoning with a person who refuses to recognize that the literal concept of 'white=better' is intrinsically associated with white supremacy
but i guess theres merit in the entertainment value of it
It's not intrinsically associated at all, colorism has always existed even inside ethnically homogenous societies.
i dont know if i can dumb this down for you any more but - if you have two things? and one is a subset of the other? THAT IS AN INTRINSIC ASSOCIATION
if there was no 'colorism' there would be no white supremacy - colorism is THE intrinsic and inextractible quality of white supremacy that distinguishes it from other ethnic discrimination
But that isn't what white supremacy is, you idiot.
White supremacy is a racial belief system, it has nothing to do with variation in pigment WITHIN an ethnic group and honestly not inextricably linked with pigment at all, considering the anglo Saxon white supremacists targeted the Irish (whiter than them) as an inferior race.
If one brother becomes a merchant and works inside all day while another becomes a poor farmer, they're not looking down on the farmer because of his color, they are looking down on him because he is a farmer, and the color just outs him as one. They're the same "white race"
>But that isn't what white supremacy is, you idiot.
ah yes forgive me for being such an idiot to have developed the misconception that white supremacy was somehow related to skin colour 🤡
>considering the anglo Saxon white supremacists targeted the Irish
really? tell me professor history 🤡 how long did that last 🤡🤡
seems in retrospect there may have been some quality the irish had that inhibited the persistency of that categorism
too bad its nothing obvious 🤡
So you are stupid? Because that distinction was made since race was a concept.
obviously 🤡
>We're talking about ordinary European people who had never even seen a black person let alone mixed with them
nah - what you said was
>Yeah the reverence for lily white skin back in those days had nothing to do with white supremacy
but the two concepts are intrinsically linked - reverence for lily white skin back in those days was intrinsically associated with white supremacy in every place where white supremacy existed
not to mention the fact that the reverence for lily white skin furthered white supremacy in places where it didnt have a strong foothold
now if you had said that the concepts existed separately from each other that would have been closer to true - but still debateable
>Race wasn't even an issue among common people in the UK until the immigration of West Indians, Africans, Indians and Pakistanis in the 20th century.
youre right there - its not like anybody in europe ever heard of the dark skinned moors that invaded christendom in the 7th century despite being mentioned in half the novels of the era
>but the two concepts are intrinsically linked - reverence for lily white skin back in those days was intrinsically associated with white supremacy in every place where white supremacy existed
No it wasn't, it was intrinsically linked to pale skin being seen as a status symbol given that rich and privileged people had the palest skin through non exposure to the sun, as I've explained before. White supremacy was not a concept in the minds of ordinary people at that time, as much as you wish it were.
>not to mention the fact that the reverence for lily white skin furthered white supremacy in places where it didnt have a strong foothold
It might well have done, yes. But white supremacy wouldn't gain any kind of foothold among ordinary white people until they started mixing with non white people and developing ignorant (and sometimes superstitious) ideas about them.
>now if you had said that the concepts existed separately from each other that would have been closer to true - but still debateabl
Well they did, because the admiration of pale skin back then was a way for ordinary white people to discriminate against each other, not other races.
>youre right there - its not like anybody in europe ever heard of the dark skinned moors that invaded christendom in the 7th century despite being mentioned in half the novels of the era
This doesn't mean that ordinary people in the UK had mixed with black people to form ideas of racial superiority, no. Again, it was all about class.
>White supremacy was not a concept in the minds of ordinary people at that time, as much as you wish it were.
in the 1920s? half a century after the american civil war? ten years before the aryan supremacist nazis took power in germany? the decade AFTER 'racist' was included in the oxford english dictionary?
i gotta say bruv despite your confidence i am getting the impression that your understanding of history is quite unburdened by the facts of history
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