Hilaria Baldwin / Hillary Hayward-Thomas and Alec Baldwin

Status
Thread locked. We start a new thread when they have over 1000 posts, click the blue button to see all threads for this topic and find the latest open thread.
New to Tattle Life? Click "Order Thread by Most Liked Posts" button below to get an idea of what the site is about:
It's an authentic part of US culture that has developed that they want to honour their ancestries, and identify strongly with small parts of their heritages. It's a natural response to living in a country that is truly made up of immigrants, and with very little recorded history from before a few hundred years ago. People in Britain have over 2000 years recorded history, and 9000-11000 years of blood ties to the island and our close neighbours who came from the continent.

It's not wrong that Americans like to honour their distant family history, even if it seems obsessive and fake to us.

I also disagree with the notion that Spanish people are definitely white and Americans are stupid. First of all, there are very few people from Spain who live in America. So the assumption for Americans when hearing the term "Spanish" is a Spanish language speaker from the former colonies, where many of them have partial non-Euro ancestry. There will have been many people who didn't look at Hilaria's interviews where she describes herself as from actual Spain, and just vaguely know of her as some kind of Latina. There is also the delibarate confusion on Hilaria's part and trying to attach herself to Hispanic narratives, such as people thinking she's her kids' nanny.

I am born and raised in here the UK with ancestry from the UK, Ireland and Germany. I have only recently started to hear of Mediterranean people referred to as white, and assumed the opposite to above posters, who think Americans only tolerate Hitler's wet dreams as whites. I thought that this recent including of Mediterraneans as white was due to the American influence of calling everyone vaguely Caucasian white, due to less than half of US whites having more than 95% white ancestry. Legally, in the USA they even consider Arabs to be white. I certainly never thought of Spanish people as white or instinctively as "like me", unlike north or east European people from other countries. However we choose to label them with words, there is a visible difference between north and south Europeans.

They had a long history of being colonised and raided by Moors, as did other south west European countries, while the south-eastern countries of Europe where colonised for several centuries by Turks during the Ottoman empire. It is plainly obvious from looking at them that they have Arab/Turk ancestry. You only have to look at artworks from south European countries from before Islamic colonisation to see that the people there used to look the same as North Europeans. There is also the genetic differences between southern Europeans, and the fact they have more African DNA, which is almost non-existent in northern europe. Meanwhile in some northern parts of Spain that the Moors didn't manage to colonise, such as the Basque country, the people there still look like north Europeans. Its the same with north vs south Italy.

That is a very long way to say that I disagree with calling those who think that Spanish people are not white are stupid. It's a valid opinion based on the above facts. Most racial categories have subjective definitions and cut-off points, so who's to say one definition is more correct than the other? It's like the how many grains of sand does it take to become a "pile" philosophical question. We all know what a "pile of sand" looks like but at what point does it objectively become one? No one can say yet we all know what one is when we look at it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 10
I am born and raised in here the UK with ancestry from the UK, Ireland and Germany. I have only recently started to hear of Mediterranean people referred to as white, and assumed the opposite to above posters, who think Americans only tolerate Hitler's wet dreams as whites. I thought that this recent including of Mediterraneans as white was due to the American influence of calling everyone vaguely Caucasian white, due to less than half of US whites having more than 95% white ancestry. Legally, in the USA they even consider Arabs to be white. I certainly never thought of Spanish people as white or instinctively as "like me", unlike north or east European people from other countries. However we choose to label them with words, there is a visible difference between north and south Europeans.

They had a long history of being colonised and raided by Moors, as did other south west European countries, while the south-eastern countries of Europe where colonised for several centuries by Turks during the Ottoman empire. It is plainly obvious from looking at them that they have Arab/Turk ancestry. You only have to look at artworks from south European countries from before Islamic colonisation to see that the people there used to look the same as North Europeans. There is also the genetic differences between southern Europeans, and the fact they have more African DNA, which is almost non-existent in northern europe. Meanwhile in some northern parts of Spain that the Moors didn't manage to colonise, such as the Basque country, the people there still look like north Europeans. Its the same with north vs south Italy.

That is a very long way to say that I disagree with calling those who think that Spanish people are not white are stupid. It's a valid opinion based on the above facts. Most racial categories have subjective definitions and cut-off points, so who's to say one definition is more correct than the other? It's like the how many grains of sand does it take to become a "pile" philosophical question. We all know what a "pile of sand" looks like but at what point does it objectively become one? No one can say yet we all know what one is when we look at it.
I totally agree with you and also love Spanish history, and frankly the history of movement, influence, art, LANGUAGE composition, colonisation [not the bad parts obv but the impact you see in contemporary times]. But I do think the history of the Moors etc is not something that has occurred to Hilary. I think she has acquired an accent, hair dye, and a fake tan.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: 17
It's an authentic part of US culture that has developed that they want to honour their ancestries, and identify strongly with small parts of their heritages. It's a natural response to living in a country that is truly made up of immigrants, and with very little recorded history from before a few hundred years ago. People in Britain have over 2000 years recorded history, and 9000-11000 years of blood ties to the island and our close neighbours who came from the continent.

It's not wrong that Americans like to honour their distant family history, even if it seems obsessive and fake to us.

I also disagree with the notion that Spanish people are definitely white and Americans are stupid. First of all, there are very few people from Spain who live in America. So the assumption for Americans when hearing the term "Spanish" is a Spanish language speaker from the former colonies, where many of them have partial non-Euro ancestry. There will have been many people who didn't look at Hilaria's interviews where she describes herself as from actual Spain, and just vaguely know of her as some kind of Latina. There is also the delibarate confusion on Hilaria's part and trying to attach herself to Hispanic narratives, such as people thinking she's her kids' nanny.

I am born and raised in here the UK with ancestry from the UK, Ireland and Germany. I have only recently started to hear of Mediterranean people referred to as white, and assumed the opposite to above posters, who think Americans only tolerate Hitler's wet dreams as whites. I thought that this recent including of Mediterraneans as white was due to the American influence of calling everyone vaguely Caucasian white, due to less than half of US whites having more than 95% white ancestry. Legally, in the USA they even consider Arabs to be white. I certainly never thought of Spanish people as white or instinctively as "like me", unlike north or east European people from other countries. However we choose to label them with words, there is a visible difference between north and south Europeans.

They had a long history of being colonised and raided by Moors, as did other south west European countries, while the south-eastern countries of Europe where colonised for several centuries by Turks during the Ottoman empire. It is plainly obvious from looking at them that they have Arab/Turk ancestry. You only have to look at artworks from south European countries from before Islamic colonisation to see that the people there used to look the same as North Europeans. There is also the genetic differences between southern Europeans, and the fact they have more African DNA, which is almost non-existent in northern europe. Meanwhile in some northern parts of Spain that the Moors didn't manage to colonise, such as the Basque country, the people there still look like north Europeans. Its the same with north vs south Italy.

That is a very long way to say that I disagree with calling those who think that Spanish people are not white are stupid. It's a valid opinion based on the above facts. Most racial categories have subjective definitions and cut-off points, so who's to say one definition is more correct than the other? It's like the how many grains of sand does it take to become a "pile" philosophical question. We all know what a "pile of sand" looks like but at what point does it objectively become one? No one can say yet we all know what one is when we look at it.
Apologies for derailing the thread further but there are some wild generalisations here. Yes, a lot of Southern Europe was colonised by the Moors from North Africa and the Ottoman Empire but mostly, this meant that a small elite ruled these nations after they were conquered but there was very little intermarriage etc. Much like the when the Romans conquered England; they left their mark culturally and architecturally but not so much in terms of DNA. You give the Basques as an example of the North/South divide in Spain but they’re distinct genetically and linguistically from Spaniards anyway. Mikel Arteta and Xabi Alonso are both Basque but couldn’t look more different. Sergio Ramos and Alberto Moreno are from Seville in the south but are both fair. In any case, Spaniards, Italians and Greeks consider themselves white. The problem with Americans is that they equate being Spanish with being Latin American/Mestizo. Hilary either thought this as well or tried to capitalise on their ignorance.
 
  • Like
  • Heart
Reactions: 22
Apologies for derailing the thread further but there are some wild generalisations here. Yes, a lot of Southern Europe was colonised by the Moors from North Africa and the Ottoman Empire but mostly, this meant that a small elite ruled these nations after they were conquered but there was very little intermarriage etc. Much like the when the Romans conquered England; they left their mark culturally and architecturally but not so much in terms of DNA. You give the Basques as an example of the North/South divide in Spain but they’re distinct genetically and linguistically from Spaniards anyway. Mikel Arteta and Xabi Alonso are both Basque but couldn’t look more different. Sergio Ramos and Alberto Moreno are from Seville in the south but are both fair. In any case, Spaniards, Italians and Greeks consider themselves white. The problem with Americans is that they equate being Spanish with being Latin American/Mestizo. Hilary either thought this as well or tried to capitalise on their ignorance.
I could just as easily have given another north Spanish region. The Basques have been intermarrying with people from other regions of Spain which is why some of them look stereotypically Spanish and some don't.

The Romans didn't leave a genetic mark, because not many of them actually travelled here. Travelling across a continent wasn't easy 2000 years ago. Also the DNA of the Romans was not that different from ours, as this was from before the Moors.

Whereas the moors very much did leave their genetic mark in southern Europe: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947089/

Given that they raided Europe for slaves, it's not hard to see where this extra-marital DNA would have come from.

Why are you giving me examples of fair-skinned Spanish? People like that also exist in Pakistan and India. It means nothing.

Americans are not ignorant, and I explained were the confusion comes from. It's from making assumptions, taking Hilaria at face value, and her deliberately sewing confusion. I'm sure that most Americans know that Spain is in Europe where there are few native Americans.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 6
I could just as easily have given another north Spanish region. The Basques have been intermarrying with people from other regions of Spain which is why some of them look stereotypically Spanish and some don't.

The Romans didn't leave a genetic mark, because not many of them actually travelled here. Travelling across a continent wasn't easy 2000 years ago. Also the DNA of the Romans was not that different from ours, as this was from before the Moors.

Whereas the moors very much did leave their genetic mark in southern Europe: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947089/

Given that they raided Europe for slaves, it's not hard to see where this extra-marital DNA would have come from.

Why are you giving me examples of fair-skinned Spanish? People like that also exist in Pakistan and India. It means nothing.

Americans are not ignorant, and I explained were the confusion comes from. It's from making assumptions, taking Hilaria at face value, and her deliberately sewing confusion. I'm sure that most Americans know that Spain is in Europe where there are few native Americans.
So because around 5-10% of Spaniards have some trace of North African/Arab dna they’re not white? Most Spaniards wouldn’t agree. I gave examples of fair skinned Spaniards because you said there was a distinction between north and south and that Southern Europeans clearly had Arab/Turk ancestry. There’s a vast spectrum of looks in Spain (and in Arab countries and Turkey for that matter). I actually found your initial post quite uncomfortable, especially the comment about how you’ve always thought of Spaniards as different and not “white like me”. It all feels a bit unsettling. Furthermore, I highly doubt the average American who thought Hilaria was a woc came to that conclusion based on their knowledge of Spanish history and the Islamic Conquests. They lumped her together with Latinos and she was quite happy to go along for the ride. Anyway, I’ll stop derailing the thread as it’s starting to feel like we’re getting into weird territory.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
  • Heart
  • Angry
Reactions: 26
There's a reasonable proportion of any European country that has non-white/Caucasian genes. The Romans certainly brought all sorts of a mixture of genes to the rest of Europe, if only by the legionaries from all over the empire shacking up with locals, fathering children and getting their retiral plot of land wherever. The earliest Roman burial found here in the UK was of a woman of sub-Saharan ancestry who was brought up in southern England. There were black Britons recorded in Tudor times and later. Port cities right up into the 20th century had large populations of African, Indian and Chinese sailors and their families recorded, and their genes disappeared into the population through intermarriage. The port of Leith had a large black population in the 18th century which "disappeared" but a large section of the current white population apparently carries African markers in the blood.

Spain is no more or less mixed or white than any other European country, which makes it hilarious that Hilary mixes it up with the genetics of central and southern American and Caribbean Spanish-speakers.
 
  • Like
  • Heart
Reactions: 9
Finding the discussion about European ethnicity very interesting.
To me when people say “white” I don’t think of your average Mediterranean person e.g Greek, Italian, Spanish. Is Penelope Cruz white? I don’t know.... it just seems overly simplistic that if you are from the continent of Europe and don’t obviously belong to another ethnic group then you belong to the homogenous group of “white people”.

I remember recently when Rita Ora was accused of cultural appropriation of black culture lots of articles referred to her as “white Albanian” 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Im looking forward to falling down a rabbit hole of Hilary Baldwin videos with her speaking in a Spanish accent - the tea is just too hot!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 4
First of all, there are very few people from Spain who live in America. So the assumption for Americans when hearing the term "Spanish" is a Spanish language speaker from the former colonies, where many of them have partial non-Euro ancestry. There will have been many people who didn't look at Hilaria's interviews where she describes herself as from actual Spain, and just vaguely know of her as some kind of Latina. There is also the delibarate confusion on Hilaria's part and trying to attach herself to Hispanic narratives, such as people thinking she's her kids' nanny.
This. It's only now shes trying to backtrack and say she isnt from Spain. She knew Americans would assume she was Latina and therefore not white. And even in Europe people from Mediterranean cou tries are viewed differently to northern Europeans- long siesta's, poor , lazy etc stereotypes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2
Finding the discussion about European ethnicity very interesting.
To me when people say “white” I don’t think of your average Mediterranean person e.g Greek, Italian, Spanish. Is Penelope Cruz white? I don’t know.... it just seems overly simplistic that if you are from the continent of Europe and don’t obviously belong to another ethnic group then you belong to the homogenous group of “white people”.

I remember recently when Rita Ora was accused of cultural appropriation of black culture lots of articles referred to her as “white Albanian” 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Im looking forward to falling down a rabbit hole of Hilary Baldwin videos with her speaking in a Spanish accent - the tea is just too hot!
Interesting our own perceptions, i've never considered the above Europeans as not being white, some may have olive skin but still have the features of Caucasian and they do consider themselves white (and can differentiate and still be just as racist to non white people!). Afro Caribbeans and South Indians can have the same shade of dark brown skin but south Indians are not called black.

anyway Hilaria is a crazy woman!
 
  • Like
Reactions: 7
Interesting our own perceptions, i've never considered the above Europeans as not being white, some may have olive skin but still have the features of Caucasian and they do consider themselves white (and can differentiate and still be just as racist to non white people!). Afro Caribbeans and South Indians can have the same shade of dark brown skin but south Indians are not called black.

anyway Hilaria is a crazy woman!
I think it just shows how reductive it all is. For example, East Asia. Whether you’re Japanese, Chinese, Korean - three distinct nationalities with their own clearly different cultures right there - or any other - people get labelled as Asian yet there are probably hundreds of ethnic groups making up this homogenous group of “Asian” people.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3
I based my comments about flamenco and what ignorant Americans think of Spain (seen as they are unlikely to have been there) on the fact that Hilary had even took up Latina dancing and entered competitions, used and wore traditional Spanish items at her wedding, called all her children Spanish names, wore a Spanish football jersey - she took a stereotype and ran with it. The fact that Alec believed it all is just as bad. And that everyone assumed it was Latino Spanish she was referring to and not European. Hilary is so in love with the ‘traditional’ culture (stereotype) of Spain that she has made herself look completely stupid.

Yes those can be traditional parts of Spanish culture, and people with Spanish heritage will be proud of their ancestry and nothing wrong with that but I agree, most of Europe is a real mixture of ethnicities.

In the U.K. on forms there is the option of white, white British, black, Asian etc but not black European
These are categories we identify as in the U.K.

 
  • Like
Reactions: 8
God he was really duped wasn't he? So embarrassing!!
Omg just watched this. It is SO bizarre? Either he didn’t know or was in on the whole lie. She doesn’t even sound Spanish to me, she sounds like an American affecting a generic foreign “exotic” accent. The clip where she asks her daughter to compare skin colour - what the fuckkkkk!

It's an authentic part of US culture that has developed that they want to honour their ancestries, and identify strongly with small parts of their heritages. It's a natural response to living in a country that is truly made up of immigrants, and with very little recorded history from before a few hundred years ago. People in Britain have over 2000 years recorded history, and 9000-11000 years of blood ties to the island and our close neighbours who came from the continent.

It's not wrong that Americans like to honour their distant family history, even if it seems obsessive and fake to us.

I also disagree with the notion that Spanish people are definitely white and Americans are stupid. First of all, there are very few people from Spain who live in America. So the assumption for Americans when hearing the term "Spanish" is a Spanish language speaker from the former colonies, where many of them have partial non-Euro ancestry. There will have been many people who didn't look at Hilaria's interviews where she describes herself as from actual Spain, and just vaguely know of her as some kind of Latina. There is also the delibarate confusion on Hilaria's part and trying to attach herself to Hispanic narratives, such as people thinking she's her kids' nanny.

I am born and raised in here the UK with ancestry from the UK, Ireland and Germany. I have only recently started to hear of Mediterranean people referred to as white, and assumed the opposite to above posters, who think Americans only tolerate Hitler's wet dreams as whites. I thought that this recent including of Mediterraneans as white was due to the American influence of calling everyone vaguely Caucasian white, due to less than half of US whites having more than 95% white ancestry. Legally, in the USA they even consider Arabs to be white. I certainly never thought of Spanish people as white or instinctively as "like me", unlike north or east European people from other countries. However we choose to label them with words, there is a visible difference between north and south Europeans.

They had a long history of being colonised and raided by Moors, as did other south west European countries, while the south-eastern countries of Europe where colonised for several centuries by Turks during the Ottoman empire. It is plainly obvious from looking at them that they have Arab/Turk ancestry. You only have to look at artworks from south European countries from before Islamic colonisation to see that the people there used to look the same as North Europeans. There is also the genetic differences between southern Europeans, and the fact they have more African DNA, which is almost non-existent in northern europe. Meanwhile in some northern parts of Spain that the Moors didn't manage to colonise, such as the Basque country, the people there still look like north Europeans. Its the same with north vs south Italy.

That is a very long way to say that I disagree with calling those who think that Spanish people are not white are stupid. It's a valid opinion based on the above facts. Most racial categories have subjective definitions and cut-off points, so who's to say one definition is more correct than the other? It's like the how many grains of sand does it take to become a "pile" philosophical question. We all know what a "pile of sand" looks like but at what point does it objectively become one? No one can say yet we all know what one is when we look at it.
I definitely found this when I lived in NZ too. There is far more interest in ethnic origin and ancestry DNA kits etc than I think there is in the U.K.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 8
Some women are "chameleons" and change themselves to attract the mate of choice, I've got a friend on her 3rd marriage and I barely know her from the person I went to school with. Her 1st husband was a wannabe rock star so she dressed as a goth and even got married in black. 2nd husband was an old generation monied type and she became a lady who lunched wearing pearls. Her 3rd husband works in a theatre, and she's now a boho styled "lovey" really into the arts. I can't keep up. Look at Geri Horner - she went from Spice Girl to white clothed Stepford wife. I think Hillaria did this to attract Alec (duck knows why) and now he's being laughed at, he'll be long gone. I feel quite sad for her actually that being herself wasn't enough - in fact any woman that doesn't have the conviction to be themselves. And feel "good enough".
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: 27
Some women are "chameleons" and change themselves to attract the mate of choice, I've got a friend on her 3rd marriage and I barely know her from the person I went to school with. Her 1st husband was a wannabe rock star so she dressed as a goth and even got married in black. 2nd husband was an old generation monied type and she became a lady who lunched wearing pearls. Her 3rd husband works in a theatre, and she's now a boho styled "lovey" really into the arts. I can't keep up. Look at Geri Horner - she went from Spice Girl to white clothed Stepford wife. I think Hillaria did this to attract Alec (duck knows why) and now he's being laughed at, he'll be long gone. I feel quite sad for her actually that being herself wasn't enough - in fact any woman that doesn't have the conviction to be themselves. And feel "good enough".
You can tell he really liked having a “Spanish” wife. It’s weird because tons of celebrities and people in the public eye have partners of other ethnicities/nationalities and they don’t make a massive deal of it yet he seemed to take pleasure in correcting peoples pronunciation of her fake name and bragging about having bilingual children
 
  • Like
Reactions: 15
I can’t imagine Alec at 60 odd wants to be a weekend dad to 5 tiny kids or lose half his money so I think he will suck it up 😂
 
  • Like
Reactions: 21
Status
Thread locked. We start a new thread when they have over 1000 posts, click the blue button to see all threads for this topic and find the latest open thread.