missmonty:

stirringwinds:

Well today whiteness in the US is tied to “European-ness” I guess and Turkey is seen as non-European. Of course this is quite superficial if you actually look at history- Turkey was the site of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire and the modern population still is descended from these people, just more mixed. The fact that Ottoman Turkey was Muslim fed this notion of racial Otherness, especially when one considers how much Christian Europe used to fear the Ottoman Empire. Even though we know a lot of Turkish people share genes with Southern Europeans. The fact that it’s still predominantly Muslim although it’s a secular state is kind of why people don’t see them as “European”.

Again I think it’s a bit ridiculous to treat it as though “whiteness” or lack of is definitive, because a lot of Turkish people get racialised as white appearance wise in the US (I once met a Turkish guy who was fair skinned and had blonde hair and green eyes). American racism is more colourist so a lot more people can access white privilege whereas in Europe, there’s no coherent sense of whiteness and a lot of it is to with ethnicity. But I doubt they are seen as “white” in Europe due to history. That’s why there’s been hate crimes against Turkish people in Germany, for example. I mean even between two European countries like Germany and Greece, there were lots of nasty stereotypes being hurled at each other (Germans were “Nazis” over austerity, Greeks were “lazy parasites”). But I guess by comparison Turkey’s Muslim nature seems more of an “Other” to Europe and therefore “not white”.

Which is why I really don’t think people should be using terms like “POC cultures” outside the US. It makes very little sense. Not only is it a term best suited to the American colourist variant of racism, whereas racism elsewhere is often structured along ethnicity. We also often do not see ourselves consciously as persons of colour back in our own countries. I doubt a Turkish person, part of the majority ethnic group in Turkey, would have cause to see themself as a “POC” there.

Very true

Also let s not forget how “person of colour” is initially targeted at black people. Seriously black people suffer the most, without meaning to devalue the discrimination anyone else goes through, but blackness as it is has been a huge discriminating factor to the point where people are getting killed for it

Oppressed minorities or oppressed people maybe would be a better term and more einclusive to people who are not very dark skinned but still suffer from discrimination either due to looks or religion or ethnicity

It s weird tumblr trend to use that term for anyone that suits them and doing also on cultures outside the us

Which creates not only huge issues due to misconceptions

But also issues of racial discrination where they didnt t initially exist

Mostly about Turkish… Let me examine what is going on

The Turkish took over of what was Byzantine empire

The Turkish were erasian people mixed with Mongolian and then arabian people as well as the middle Eastern people they took over, that including the byzantines

They mixed and created what you see today

Now… While we were occupied the Europeans created a whole image from. Stories about how the Greeks were and should be

And fitted everything into their little bubble making stories were they didn’t exist just so they could make them selves more believable as continuatiors of what once was a great civilisation

They took it upon themselves to continue the culture however they thought was right thus creating even a whole racist viewpoint based on their assumptions and completely white washing, literally and metaphorically, the ancient greeks

I won’t go into politics and the reason they helped with the revolutions, point is they were getting annoyed with the Turkish and tbh though we’d be easier to hsndle

Move to liberation

WE desperately need someone to lead us and help us and cling on someone who is completely unlike our oppressors aka the Western saviours

They assumed the role right away created ideas about how much they helped us and told us how we should act and remove l those eastern qualities the turks had given us

Little did they know these qualities were always there and were simply enriched

They weren’t foreign

But the ottoman empire had to be the bad guys

Because they wrr posing a threat and an obstacle

So the idea of the bad evil corrupted turks who were uncultured got even more intense to a new volatile nation desperately looking g to cut ties and fit in

Give that and the shared Christianity it was so easy to alienate the turks

Is is the sole reason this whole anti Turkish sentiment goes around still and they didn’t even bat an eye at the genocide

They don’t even remember kt