Racial difference had to be manufactured before Europeans seemed alien

Evidence

Such was the character of the world consciousness that dominated thought in Western Europe. Its origins, as we have seen in Part I, were intra-European rather than a reflex of encounters between Europeans and non-Europeans. Indeed, the social base to which this conception was a response assumed its sociological forms more than a millennium before the advent of an extensive European trade in African workers and they were not easily displaced even by the eighteenth century. This cultural tradition of a moral and social order that rested on racial distinctions was nevertheless readily available for the extension to Asian, African, and other non-European peoples when it became appropriate. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 401 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Race scholar David Roediger’s analysis of these groups shows that they were at first racialized but, after World War II, accepted into whiteness. He states that they occupied an “inbetween” space: “‘Inbetween’ hard racism and full inclusion neither securely white nor nonwhite—new immigrants were also chronologically inbetween sharply posed calls for their racially based exclusion … and far greater acceptance.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 227 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

It was not until after World War II, when Whiteness was socially redefined to include all groups of European ethnic origin and American identity expanded to a Judeo-Christian one, that Catholics, Mormons, and Jews were granted an opportunity to become first-class citizens. The differences between Eastern and Southern European immigrants and Anglo-Saxon Americans became ethnic rather than racial. Because ethnicity was a difference based in culture, not biology, Americans of Italian, Irish, and Eastern European ancestry had individual agency to assimilate into mainstream Anglo-American society—a choice unavailable to persons of non-European origin or outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 387 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Postwar redefinition of Whiteness shifted European differences from racial to ethnic — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 387; Racial hierarchy and whiteness were invented inside Europe before modern capitalism; Race and ethnicity were synonymous before World War II — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 383 (+8 more)

Related

• Southern and eastern European immigrants were racialized before entering whiteness after WWII (similarity 0.89)
• European immigrants’ racial difference had to be intellectually manufactured (similarity 0.88)
• Postwar redefinition of Whiteness shifted European differences from racial to ethnic (similarity 0.87)
• European racial ideology predates colonial encounters and was extended to non-Europeans later (similarity 0.86)
• European immigrants were racially stratified despite sharing legal Whiteness (similarity 0.85)
• European racism predates African enslavement and originated as intra-European domination (similarity 0.85)
• Ethnicity replaced race for European immigrants by the 1940s (similarity 0.84)
• European racism began inside Europe before capitalism or African encounters (similarity 0.84)
• US non-white populations remained concentrated in the working class until after WWII (similarity 0.83)
• European immigrants became white by projecting surrendered preindustrial freedoms onto blacks. (similarity 0.83)
• Race replaced medieval citizenship as the principle of European social order. (similarity 0.82)
• European racialism has four analytically distinct historical moments (similarity 0.82)
• European racial ideology predated and justified the African slave trade, not vice versa (similarity 0.82)
• Racialism pervaded Western consciousness before and beyond capitalism (similarity 0.82)
• Capitalist imperialism’s denial of equality to colonized peoples produced Muslim racialization (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• European racial ideology predates colonial encounters and was extended to non-Europeans later #corroborates (0.88) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 401
• Postwar redefinition of Whiteness shifted European differences from racial to ethnic #expands (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 387
• European racism began inside Europe before capitalism or African encounters #corroborates (0.85) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 17
• Southern and eastern European immigrants were racialized before entering whiteness after WWII #exemplifies (0.85) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 227
• Southern and Eastern Europeans were once branded unassimilable in the USA #exemplifies (0.85)
• Racial hierarchy and whiteness were invented inside Europe before modern capitalism #corroborates (0.80)
• Ethnicity replaced race for European immigrants by the 1940s #exemplifies (0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 397
• European immigrants were racially stratified despite sharing legal Whiteness #expands (0.80) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 386
• Ethnicity emerged as a status upgrade over race for Europeans #expands (0.78)
• Race and ethnicity were synonymous before World War II #qualifies (0.75) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 383