Racial video claims Portuguese are Nordic and Spaniards Semitic
An Anglo YouTube channel splits Iberians into races: Nordic Portuguese, Semitic Spaniards. A look at the genetic fallacies and the political agenda behind the viral video.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Viral video revives racial theory: Nordic Portuguese, Semitic Spaniards
An Anglo-Saxon YouTube channel has released a series that sorts the Iberian peoples into 19th-century racial categories: the Portuguese would be a "Nordic Aryan race" while the Spaniards would be "Semitic-North African rabble". The thumbnail, antiestéticaturing a blonde model as a supposed Portuguese woman, already gives away the agenda. The content itself, however, is a jumble of genetic half-truths, geographic omissions and a clear anti-Spanish bias.
The video claims that Portugal has more North African DNA than Spain because the Reconquista drove the Moriscos out of the peninsula, except in Portugal — a debatable point, according to critics. Yet at the same time it claims a Nordic Celtic ancestry for the Portuguese, ignoring the fact that Galicia, Asturias or the Basque Country have the same or a greater Celtic component. Ancient and modern DNA analysis, used selectively, serves the narrative: the presence of fair hair and light eyes in northern Portugal is mentioned, while the same reality in northern Spain is left out.
The reaction on social media has been mostly mockery and rejection. Commenters point out the inconsistency of attributing "Aryan purity" to a country with a history of Phoenician, Roman, Germanic and Moorish mixing like any other Mediterranean nation. Some have hinted at the political subtext: the video would be an attempt to break Iberian and Mediterranean unity, feeding old Anglo-Saxon grudges against southern Europe. The choice of thumbnail (a blonde Portuguese woman) is seen as a marketing trick to sell an unsustainable narrative.
Behind this production there are more than a dozen episodes, but the lack of rigour, the self-serving omissions and the 19th-century racial tone have relegated it to the realm of pseudoscientific entertainment. The question that remains is why, well into the 21st century, this kind of content still finds an audience when it seeks to rank Europe's peoples with biological criteria long since discredited.
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An Anglo-Saxon YouTube channel has released a series that sorts the Iberian peoples into 19th-century racial categories: the Portuguese would be a "Nordic Aryan race" while the Spaniards would be "Semitic-North African rabble". The thumbnail, antiestéticaturing a blonde model as a supposed Portuguese woman, already gives away the agenda. The content itself, however, is a jumble of genetic half-truths, geographic omissions and a clear anti-Spanish bias.
The video claims that Portugal has more North African DNA than Spain because the Reconquista drove the Moriscos out of the peninsula, except in Portugal — a debatable point, according to critics. Yet at the same time it claims a Nordic Celtic ancestry for the Portuguese, ignoring the fact that Galicia, Asturias or the Basque Country have the same or a greater Celtic component. Ancient and modern DNA analysis, used selectively, serves the narrative: the presence of fair hair and light eyes in northern Portugal is mentioned, while the same reality in northern Spain is left out.
The reaction on social media has been mostly mockery and rejection. Commenters point out the inconsistency of attributing "Aryan purity" to a country with a history of Phoenician, Roman, Germanic and Moorish mixing like any other Mediterranean nation. Some have hinted at the political subtext: the video would be an attempt to break Iberian and Mediterranean unity, feeding old Anglo-Saxon grudges against southern Europe. The choice of thumbnail (a blonde Portuguese woman) is seen as a marketing trick to sell an unsustainable narrative.
Behind this production there are more than a dozen episodes, but the lack of rigour, the self-serving omissions and the 19th-century racial tone have relegated it to the realm of pseudoscientific entertainment. The question that remains is why, well into the 21st century, this kind of content still finds an audience when it seeks to rank Europe's peoples with biological criteria long since discredited.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (23 replies).
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