Race & Ethnicity

while people in different places or different times have been notoriously unfussy about continent of origin. The Romans, for all their flaws, were one such people. What seems to have been important in Mediaeval Europe is whether or not one was a Christian, not the color of their skin or the shape of their features. Lisbon, from the 1900s on, seems to be another such place and I saw a general lack of racism among Portuguese people of all origins in SE Mass. What mattered was speaking Portuguese.

At other times and in other places, the criteria for insider/outsider were simply different. Likely, they will look at our prsent age with its intolerance of people with African ancestry as bizarre beyond belief since some other criterion will have arisen.

A lot of people across Europe are finding out they have sub Saharan African ancestry these days. That's pretty much proof that the racism prevalent today is not only a recent construct, it's a self defeating one and only temporary.