[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.

[SnoopJobbyJob]

Why do you need to refer to Europeans as "white men" then? To me this highlights the deeper thinking, if not obsession, of the person...

It's similar to the anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese campaigns in the US in the 40s to 60s that over-stressed the "race" of those people. It's similar to the classic racism of over-stressing how Africans are black.

[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.

[Majestic121]

> "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

There's of course a lot of cross-communication with other continents, from the muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula to the Ottoman wars in eastern Europe, and the colonizing empires.

But the European history is very strongly predominantly white, and pretending otherwise is something you only hear from politically oriented people, unless you try to push ridiculous ideas like 'Italians are not white' as I've seen here and there

[JetSetWilly]

You must work in the BBC drama department if you believe that people in Britain, France, Germany etc are not historically and overwhelmingly white.

[adrianN]

Was Verne more, or less, misogynist and racist than his contemporaries? I was under the impression that both were common during his day. From the little Verne that I've read, I didn't have the impression that he had a particularly bad opinion of "the savages" he describes in his stories.