#but there are still differing opinions among jewish communities so as of rn youre not going to get a 'clear' answer

[floralovebot]

Ive seen a lot of ppl say that Musa was whitewashed by the Fate: Winx saga, but while I agree an east asian actress should have been chosen, the actress Elisha Applebaum is jewish. From what Ive read, its controversial whether jewish ppl inherently count as poc or not so im not sure if I would call it "whitewashing"

Well, I'm not sure I'm the best person to talk to about this considering I'm not Jewish?

But from what I do know, this is an extremely controversial topic (like you said) that really doesn't have any one answer. There are Jewish people who fully consider themselves to be white (and Jewish of course but like... white too), and there are Jewish people who consider themselves to be poc. I think it's important to remember that a lot of the "Jewish people aren't poc if they aren't black/asian/dark-skinned/etc" comes from antisemitism or anti-zionism. A lot of poc in the west specifically say this because of antisemitism so a lot of the arguments for it are... not great to say the least.

In regard to Elisha specifically, she's ethnically Jewish so I think you could argue that it doesn't count as whitewashing, but that's really up to Jewish people to discuss. It's obviously still wrong for her to have been cast as Musa, that's not up for discussion, but whether she considers herself white, whether Jewish people consider her white, whether non-Jewish people (goyim?) consider her white and how much of that response is linked to internal antisemitism is all very personal and case by case. I'm not sure if there's a specific term for when people sort of... race or ethnicity change a character of color to a different but still not white race so like...?

But anyway, again there is no One specific answer because there's so much discussion and outright arguing over it. A lot of Jewish people do consider themselves to be poc and often West Asian/Middle Eastern (depending on who you ask) but there are a lot of arguments among themselves as well. This discussion really should be left up to them!

It's funny you mention this because I was actually discussing this with a Jewish mutual years ago! Here are some really interesting articles (written by Jewish people (as far as I'm aware)) that I found really helpful at the time: one, two, three, and four. There were others but I can't find them now :(

(There's also the matter of people converting to Judaism which is a similar but ultimately very different conversation so I do want to clarify that I'm specifically referring to ethnically Jewish people.)

[whiteanti]

sry if that's gonna turn out long but i really want your onion on it. in relations to that anon who asked you abt white passing people - what do you think about "west asians" loool. like caucasians, not white europeans but people from the caucasus like armenians georgians azeris etc. personally i could never consider them poc lmao first of all demographic region such as west asia doesnt exist, most countries from that region are middle eastern and the ones who are not are BETWEEN europe and asia

and not to bring that up but armenians have been legally classified as white like 100 years ago, ntm how they never looked racialized in the first place its just that white americans considered anything that’s not white american as impure. like even white southern and eastern europeans. and cool you could say they’re white passing poc but there are not Any specific racialized features that make you go oh thats a poc.. its not fucking 2012 anymore we cant still push that race is social bullshit

(i think tumblr ate the 3rd or 2nd ask so im rewriting it) even if it was its still made to not only benefit them but put them on top. with tht circassian beauty shit that was spread among both europe and the global south w circassian women and their “big beautiful hair” as the beauty standard while black women were and still to this day are abused degraded etc for their hair then you have white ass circassians and other caucasians using as an argument about not being white that white russians call thm bl*ckies or the white version of the n word lmaooo can you believe… and like ok your ppl faced genocide and ethnic cleansing from white russians but how does that contribute to you being racialized ESP in the modern day world. 

not only that but so many of them have pale skin, blue eyes, blonde hair like straight up cracker and they still insist on being poc just cuz they’re not Straight from mother europe. its just a caucasian online thing to claim the racialized experience for white ppl jokes access and extra oppression points. 

if you ask the average middle aged lets say armenian person what race they are they’re gonna tell you white. and with the amount of anti asian sentiment in their communities how tf do they expect to be accepted as asian like they’re truly playing with us. 

also wht bugs me is how they cant tell the difference btwn racism and xenophobia/ethnophobia sjhgahsj how do you insist on facing racism without being racialized? they face as much discrimination in white countries as any average white foreigner would but go explain that shit to them that if you’re not racialized you cant use the terms racism and xenophobia interchargeably. 

to me the only asians are east, southeast, south, central and north, also anything mixed inbetween. all these crackers lite from the caucasus mountains can go fuck themselves and shove their forced victimization up their asses cuz at this point i’m so tired of their white asses trying to prove me they’re on the same level as us whn it comes to discrimination. 

like yes s and se asians are way more discriminated than the rest of us but we (east central north) do face racial discrimination unlike caucasians lmao. and sure they face intergenerational trauma from the genocides of their countries but so do we, in way bigger amounts. thats why im so sceptical abt terms like visible poc cuz you either are a poc or not… they have so many tactics as a gotcha to racialized asians to make us seem as if we’re bigots who invalidate their genocides and talk so aimlessly abt it when all we want is for them to acknowledge their whiteness, white privilege, white guilt and self victimization against us. but anyways im so sry for making it this long but i needed to get if off my chest and you’re like the only person i know who can understand it and give a well thought out opinion. i rlly wish you all the best and good luck on all your exams 💓💓💓

btw for the previous asks i only said “mixed inbetween” bc i talked about monoracial asians specifically not that someone isnt asian if they’re mixed w black or anything else, also idk much abt indigenous ppl from oceania or how they identify so that’s why i left it out

ok so I reformatted some of the asks to make them easier to read (as in I changed where paragraph breaks were bc wow there r so many) but my answer is below the cut! 

[EDIT] since a few ppl r asking me abt this no I don't fully agree w this anon. I don't think arabs are white. I don't think Iranians are white. I don’t know if Armenians or other ethnicities from the Caucasus region are white I think thats an ongoing discussion w in their communities, but as far as I knew I thought people saw Armenians as white. again I could be wrong but that is what I think the general consensus is. if you want to have in in-depth discussion abt this topic pls ask someone from within those communities or at the very least has researched it in-depth.

ok so just from what I know a lot of ppl from the caucus region classified themselves as white during segregation, etc in order to escape racial discrimination. Armenians as far as ik r generally classified as white? the Kardashians are Armenian and I don’t think anyone has ever said they’re poc. geographically Armenia is in west Asia so technically they’re asian but does that mean they’re poc? but if u say Armenians r white then r arabs white? Armenians do face discrimination and they have faced a genocide which is denied by the Turkish govt. but most ashkenazi jewish ppl r also white so….. idk.

as for in Europe they would definitely be seen as poc or at the very least not white. basically anywhere east of turkey (ofc excluding Russia) is seen as Big Scary Middle East full of ppl who want to invade Europe. but again in America I’m not too sure bc race relations r definitely different there.

I think its a rlly complex question w a complex answer and tbh I don’t know enough abt any of this to b able to give a cohesive opinion. what I will say is that I think this is a different discussion completely from whether mixed white poc r poc or not. this is a discussion is to whether a whole ethnicities of ppl who look ‘white’ are poc or not. its complicated bc race isn't ‘real’ as in theres not way to divide humans into 5 groups. ppl like from the caucasus region don’t fit neatly into white or asian and if u look historically the region is closely tied w Greece, Iran and the Mughals in India so again… theres no definite answer. but as far as ik they definitely have a large degree of white passing privilege but I would still say to a lesser extent than full white europeans. they’re also mostly racialised in europe or at least demonised to a certain extent. more than Eastern Europeans and less than poc but like idk lol. I hope this is an ok answer bc to b honest my brain is so fried rn