Italians are not racists. And to tell the truth, they can never be either. History, geography but above all the founding act of Italian identity says it.
What is the "Italian breed"?
If we ask ourselves if there is an “Italian race” - a question that probably no Italian even feels the need to do - the answer is definitely no. While the rest of the world is divided on a racial basis, this has happened in very few cases in Italy, the most striking of which culminated in the unfortunate racial laws of 1938, which however constitutes an exception to the fantastic millennial Italian history.
Every Italian is the result of so many crossbreeding that he has all the races of the world in his blood.
The story: Italians are not racists
The boot has hosted migrations from all over the world since forgotten times. In ancient times the Greeks made their colonies prosper in the South, the Celts established prosperous settlements in the North. The Roman Empire transformed Italy into a great blender in which all the peoples of the Mediterranean and the Middle East were mixed, not to mention the barbarians of conquered continental Europe.
The Middle Ages was another time when barbarians and Romans, Armenians, Jews, Arabs, Byzantines and even Mongols found in Italy territory in which to sprout their blood. But the Germanic, French, Hispanic dominations in Italy lasted until unity, bringing with them endless family intertwining. Which in the twentieth century found a continuation in the tourists who ended up staying to marry Italians. Or let's think about Italians in South America: we remain Italian, even after generations, not by race but by culture.
The relationship with the Jews
Let us think of the case of the Jewish people. While he experienced bloody repressions in Spain, in the Arab world, in Russia still in 1800 and in Germany not later than a century ago, in Italy - with the exception of the aforementioned racial laws - he experienced a peaceful and very often fruitful coexistence that it has lasted since Roman times. Indeed, the grafting of Jewish blood into the flow of Italian blood is such that many of our surnames are of Jewish origin.
Current affairs
There is a racism emergency in the United States and many other parts of the world. On the other hand, in the 800th century, slavery based on race still existed in America. This has never happened in Italy, not even at the time of the Roman Empire. And while this is happening, and while anti-Semitism is growing in France and a little throughout Europe, Italy continues to welcome migrants from all over the world (even beyond the threshold of common sense) rejected by other European countries. In short, Italians are not racists even today.
Italians will be able to say many things. But if they say they are racist, we know where to start the response raspberry.
