Green-Mercado, Mayte. "Race-making and the preservation of power." Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/race-making-and-the-preservation-of-power. [Date accessed].
Race-making and the preservation of power
How the 15th-century Spainish racial caste system influences far-right politics today
The language of racialization was tied to religious difference in premodern Spain. After the forced conversion of Muslims and Jews in the 15th century, Spain needed a way to distinguish so-called “new” Christians, or conversos, from “pure” Christians. This division was reified in an early Spanish dictionary from Sebastian de Covarrubias. His definition of words such as "raza" and "casta" reflected the growing system of racial caste across the Iberian Peninsula, and eventually the globe. This rhetoric of racialization, with the assumed superiority of white Christians, lives on in modern day Spain’s far-right political discourse.
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La Chanson de Roland and white supremacist medievalisms
La Chanson de Roland as a national epic was a product of both European nationalist and colonial aspirations. It's important for students to understand how the poem and its histories can reiterate Eurocentric white supremacist values if not properly contextualized.
