[billyoyo]

The article is just correctly identifying that late 1800s french colonial technocrats were predominantly white males.

The article isn't really making a particular point about this, it's just a quick aside. What are you referring to when you say "here we go again"?

[SnoopJobbyJob]

People in Europe are white. Of course engineers, politicians, cooks, street sweepers are going to be white.

Societies, not only in Europe, have historically been men-dominated. So, again, the elite is going to be mostly men.

It is relevant that what you call a "quick aside" was even made because it reveals the mindset and deeper agenda that pervades some parts of academia and political circles these days, which bluntly is anti-white (and, God forbid, male ones).

[thrance]

Funnily enough, white people were a minority in the French Empire of the 19th century, where Vernes wrote his books. You should read about the second revolution of France, in 1848, where women's role in creating the IInd Republic was instrumental, and yet were refused the right to vote. Underlining those thematics in Vernes books is still interesting, it doesn't have to be relevant to today.

Also, what's that thing about academia and politicians being "anti-white"? This sounds weird.

[billyoyo]

It is only "anti-white" in the sense it's criticizing white men from over a hundred years ago who were doing pretty horrible things in the name of colonialism.

And the fact they were white is pretty important as they themselves used this as justification for their superiority and thus colonialism.

It would be more productive to engage with the meat of the article rather than dismissing it because they mentioned the race and gender of the subjects and engaging in "anti-woke" dog whistling.

[jylam]

Jules Vernes is a notorious misogynist and racist. Read "The Mysterious Island" for instance. He was a product of his time, but clearly not the best one on those grounds.

Also "People in Europe are white" is really something you just hear from people without any European historical culture, and/or people wanting to sell a racist ideology. You have the whole spectrum of colors in Europe, and that's not recent at all. Africa is 30km from Europe, Asia is connected to it, and people travel since before we were modern humans.

[seszett]

I'm not sure this analysis is totally correct though, after all without spoiling to much, an Indian prince features prominently in some of the best known stories of Jules Verne, and another of the famous ones is about a Chinese man.

And most stories take place with characters that are British or American bordering on parodies, rarely French people.

It's true that women are rarely important though.

Also disclaimer, I didn't read this article.

[billyoyo]

The article is talking about how his stories inspired real world colonial technocrats in France at the time.

[BoingBoomTschak]

The role of epistemic superiority structures a persistent division throughout the Voyages between the white male scientist (in the singular) and ignorant natives (in the plural)’

The addition of completely unnecessary (to the comparison) "male" really paints this as flag waving.