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When Italians were “Blacks”: The dark-skinned Sicilians

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Here are some interesting things:

Southern Italians were considered “black” in the South and were subjected to the Jim Crow laws of segregation. They weren’t allowed to marry “whites.” It was difficult, damn near impossible.

They were designated as “black” on census forms if they lived in the South and that is because the majority of them were dark-skinned Sicilians.

Mass lynchings happened to them often.

One of the biggest mass lynchings happened to Italians in New Orleans when they thought that a Italian immigrant had killed a “white” police officer.

The very few Northern Italians that immigrated here perpetuated the myth that Southern Italians and Greeks were of a different race than them in order to save their own asses. This wasn’t true, and there are actually dark-skinned Italians all over Italy, not just in the South, as well as light-skinned Italians all over Italy.

The reason I say very few is because over 80% of Italian immigrants were from Southern Italy (Sicily, Abruzzo, Calabria, Campania, Sardinia, Naples, etc.)

It was highly unlikely (damn near impossible) for a Southern Italian to own a slave because they were seen as the same as blacks, and at the time, they were the second (right behind blacks) most discriminated against group.

The mass immigration for Italians didn’t start until 1880 and even then, they were discriminated against. However, this mass immigration leads into Italian-Americans today:

Italian is the fourth largest ethnic group reported among white Americans.

The great majority of Italians are now middle class to upper middle class and wealthy. They also mostly work white collar jobs.

Their intermarriage rate is around 90%. It was at 80% in the 70’s. So most Italian-Americans also have a white parent of some other descent, especially if they were born after 1980. Exactly like my friend who has a Sicilian father (and he is very dark-skinned) and white Southerner for a mother. We spoke to my friend’s Sicilian grandfather, and he said that one of his brothers was dating a white girl from the South back in the day and that her family considered him “black.” They thought that was weird because by that time, they were living in New York.

They are now considered white

….

Comments:

I thought it was interesting looking at back then and looking at them now. I knew they weren’t considered white back then, but I had no idea they actually wrote them down as black on census forms. That shocked me, and when I found that my friend’s ancestor was listed as black on that census form, I thought the ancestor was just a biracial who had a Sicilian father, and so did she. We were just as surprised to find that he was just a teenage Sicilian immigrant. My friend has tanned skin, dark hair, blue eyes, and freckles to boot. So you can see both ethnicities in her. My Greek professor is way darker than her, and he also has a white, WASPY mother.

Italians are still discriminated against. I remember hearing a group of white women referring to them as “Ghetto Whites”. Many whites who feel they have a “true bloodline” dont like them. Anglo Saxonism is a bitch. Pretty much anyone not from England, Gemany (not Jews), Netherlands and so on is not “truly white”. From my experience and when I look at history, this is how white supremacists feel. Spaniards are technically considered Euopean/”white”, but many dont accept them as that. Discrimination among the white race is very prevalent.

Courtesy Lipstickvalley

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331 thoughts on “When Italians were “Blacks”: The dark-skinned Sicilians”

  1. They obviously know nothing about Hannibal and his army. Probably don’t want to know. Ignorance is bliss. I simply laugh at them. Every specie on this planet has African blood. How do they think they become melanated???

    1. Hannibal and this arm conquared italy for years not centuries . Only a 2% of sicilian have Arabs blood for Arabs domination not for Hannibal .
      Even swedish people have african dna but italian become tanned on the sun even during the roman empire and a lot before Hannibal .

      1. I did a dna test and it showed northern African with a small amount of west African the North African was higher but I also had balkan-Iberian and of course italian …italian being the highest my mother is sicilian and my father is german/italian

  2. I cant stand you American wannnabe’s acting like your Italian and trying to write on the history an honorable country you’ve never even been to. You disgraceful people have no sense of national pride. And by the way, Naples is part of Campania. Don’t list Naples and Campania as two different things. Tu oviamente sei un Americano disgraziato che si crede di essere Italiano. I bet you cant understand this without google translate.

    2. Hating Americans, no matter what their ethnicity, doesn’t make you superior, it makes you a hateful bigot. Maybe you are jealous because your family didn’t emigrate to the US, I don’t know. Mine did, from Sicily and from Poland, in 1918. I was born in the US, speak English, and have never been to Sicily or Poland. Does that make you better than me? Does it make me better than you?

    3. LOL Italitan is NOT far off from English, or Spanish. It is EASY To understand what you said in Italian LMFAO, your language is NOT difficult, a CHILD can master your language. You basically said the SAME thing you JUST said in English….

    4. Such anger. Some of you still angry you lost the war? You’re lucky we got Hitler off your backs. You guys were allies but there’s no doubt you guys would be bending over for Hitler. You guys seriously thought you were equal in military power and smarts as Nazi Germany? Equal to the Japanese Empire? You Italians thought you could take on the mighty American military power? Musolini got you Italians a little too hyped up with stories of the ancient Roman Empire glory days. The reason Italy and El Duce Musolini, or should I say El Dousche-bag Musolini is rarely mentioned in World War II history is because Italians were so weak that we kicked your asses right away eventhough there were German soldiers all over Italy protecting you weak goons. Sure the war throughout Italy was brutal but that was the Germans we fought there in Italy; Italians quickly ran away or surrendered early in the war as soon as we landed in Italian shores (some of our allies included). From the weak dictatorship of Italy to another…Spain. At least Spain wasn’t stupid enough to be part of the Axis power. Italy and Spain were equal in military strength. Or should I say equally weak. But at least Spain kept away from the war and wasn’t stupid like Italy otherwise we would have kicked their asses too; then again they were busy fighting off a revolution. How does it feel to be the dictatorship country that was the weakest and most easily to get their ass kicked by the Americans?

  3. Wow! I’m half Sicilian and half Italian and always wondered why my Italian grandma told me that I was black because of my Sicilian side. When I was in Mississippi for 5 weeks, I got a lot of stares by older white people and when I was in first grade in a predominantly white area in southern jersey (the pine barrens), we had a cross burned on our lawn. It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me and my family. I know that Sicily was a Islamic nation for about 200 years, so we aren’t exactly Caucasian. When I moved to Portland Oregon, I got a lot of comments like, “what are you?” Or “You are dark, what are you?” From strangers.

      1. Because Sicily was once its own country… it just takes common sense or Google to figure out instead of trolling other people’s comments questioning their intelligence about their own ethnicity.

        1. According to Google Sicily became part of Italy in 1860, so why after 156 years is it still considered separate or different? I don’t think she meant to offend you by questioning your ethnicity. Just a question

          1. Some Sicilians still won’t call themselves Italians as a petty “revenge”. Something like this also happens in the north of the nation.

          2. About eight years ago my mother, 64 at the time and disabled, was with my sister in Venice. My mother was born in Alcamo Sicily in 1943. My mother, who speaks & understands ALL the Romance languages had to deal with BLATANT & ignorant racism. People looked & treated her & my sister with distaste simply bc they detected the Sicilian accent. My mother came to America in 1955 (WWII refugee status since my Grabdfather was a forced laborer for Mussolini…my family were partisans), she was visiting her native country & faced a level of racism she NEVER faced in the U.S.

            When people ask me my ethnicity I tell them I am Sicilian, if they don’t know where that is I explain “it’s an autonomous region in Italy. A large island in the Mediterranean, southern Europe/North Africa”. I want them to know our story & if they are willing, our long history of being conquered. The bravery of my ancestors…stories passed on & the historical journeys back & forth across the Atlantic, paving a better way for their progeny.

            That is why we don’t consider ourselves Italian. And if you’ve been there or still have family there then you know the impact of living as a second rate citizen under Italy. My family is fortunate to be land & business owners.

            If you get your DNA analyzed you will see that Greece & Italy overlap in the Mediterranean, North Africa, Middle East & part of the Iberian peninsula (Spain & surrounding areas for those who don’t know) I had mine done by ancestry.com…have another kit from 23 & Me as well as National Geographics Human Genome Project to send in. I wanted to be thorough. I Also had my parents analyzed by ancestry.

            Ancestry pretty much matched my expectations, even the minute amounts. Can’t wait to see what the others return. I hope my response helped you understand the “Why” we don’t consider ourselves Italian…Our ancestors ensure a lot & our current relations still suffer prejudice.

      2. Because Sicilians are NOT Italians. If they were they wouldn’t say “I’m Sicilian”,now would they? Italians are Italians Sicilians are from Sicily. Sicily has its own Language Land and Flag. It’s an Island owned by Italy. Btw I’m Half Italian,but my godfather and some of my friends are Sicilian (some of them from Sicily). They never say that they are Italian,EVER.

    2. “Caucasian” is a pseudo-scientific term coin by a racist he thought the “most beautiful Whites” came from the Caucasus region and it goes back to the old racial classification scheme.

      1. They are Edomites (so called white people, who are actually different shades of red). Caucasian means ‘cave dweller’. White peoples orgins are as primitive (un-cooked meat eating, lice infested cave dwellers). Know your history.

  4. Hi i lived in Italy my first 20 y of my life , i was born in the town of Fabrizia pr. V.V. Calabria my family immigrated to the prov. of Asti in 62 i lived there for 5 y. and nobody said a word about that and i am dark i was in Canada for 50 y. nobody mentioned any thing. Most tell me i look middle eastern , i never seen any thing to read about it it`s a completa sorpresa , north Italians called us torroni and i didn`t think they where any better. thank and God bless.

  6. Most Italians are dark/olive skinned, with the exception of native people from Veneto, Trentino and Friuli, where white skinned people are predominant. You also find white skinned types in other areas of Italy, such as Lombardy and Piedmont, though not as much as in the north-east.

    1. That’s crazy. You won’t find many “olive skinned” people north of Rome unless they are offspring of immigrants from the south. I am from Tuscany, blue eyes, light brown hair, and light skin. Most Tuscans are like me. The same for Umbrians and people from the Marches. In fact, the people from the Marches have an unusually large number of people with red hair.

  7. There is NO black ancestry in Southern Europe among Mediterranean peoples from countries like Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece or even Turkey. These are classic Mediterranean strains of Europeans and they are white and can be darker in complexion, hair and skin color than Northern or Central Europeans. What you see is an admixture over the centuries of Arab and Moorish influences in these nationalities not Negro blood from sub-Saharan Africa, or what we call “black” here in the U.S. Even the peoples of North African countries like Tunisia, Libya and Morocco are mostly Berbers; a nomadic race of herdsmen that are brown and not black.

    1. Sicilians are multiracial and have many completions most Sicilians have a lot of black in them. That is where some of the olive colected skin comes from. Sicily is very close to the content o Africa. These parts of the world ate very rich in culture and History. I love history. Moores and Arabs arl mixed race of people. A mixture of European and African go back to the times of Cleopatra read your history and if a DNA test is done it will tell even the Japanese have done test and found that the first Japanese were black history and DNA don’t lie. Where do you think the olive complexion comes from. My family comes from a mixed background and all of my grand kids come from mixed back grounds, I can tell you where the olive complexion comes from

      1. Sicilian are a mix of Romans, Greeks, French, Normans. The Moors were not black, and their domination is the shortest in the history of Sicily. Sicilians are white.

        1. Your statement that the moors of Iberia were not black. Nothing you say can be trusted with such a great falsehood in historical fact. Especially if you live in Europe reminders of the “black” moors still remain. From castles,Coates of arms, hotels, beers, and football teams have show the moorish influence in Europe including Italy.

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