Nobody thought it had anything to do with race until you got all quasi. Not even me. Who's racist now?
You're referring to this post, and the point was not at all that you were racist. Sorry that that wasn't clear.
In that painting, more so than these images, the immediate impression most people in the USA will have, and many people outside of Spain, is that there's some relationship to the Ku Klux Klan.
And there is a relationship. It's just that the anti-Catholic, second iteration of the KKK brand likely stole the capirotes and other costuming from the nazarenos, or penitents, and it's become so closely associated, basically every story about them for an English-speaking audience includes that explanatory graf.
With their tall conical hats, monkish robes and facial hoods that only show their eyes, the so-called "nazarenos," or penitents, in Spain's
The processions vary greatly depending on the region but common elements are the hooded penitents, some carrying crosses or candles. The hats, which remind some of Klu Klux Klan costumes, are said to date back to the Spanish Inquisition when prisoners were made to wear them in public as a form of humiliation. The faces are covered so as to allow the penitent sinners to hide their identities.
