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Too American maybe haha. In the case of the Irish (who never thought it terms of skin color really as their oppressor and enemy was always The British-fellow white men) they largely became racist toward blacks in the new country in order to elevate themselves into the dominate American-wasp white culture. The book "How The Irish Became White" is very interesting and mostly takes place in Philadelphia.
So do the Irish still possess an inferior social status today?
Not in America. They, along with Jews and Italians, are the most well known success stories but it's possible they may have had to step over and distance themselves from people (namely American blacks) in order to achieve that and join the dominate anglo culture. That is what that book deals with in explaining essentially "How the Irish Became White".
I've heard the Irish say some pretty negative things about WASPs. I think there's a tension there brewing underneath the surface.
Yes of course, there is definitely still tension but moreso in Ireland and England. I am 100% Irish-American but don't have any Protestant relatives (even the ones that moved to England from Ireland) if that gives you an idea.
But in America the power structure has been largely WASP and the Irish immigrants have historically had to join it in order to succeed.
"One might say that it is a story of how the Irish exchanged their greenness for whiteness, and collaborated with the dominant white culture to continue the oppression of African Americans.
Ironically, Irish Catholics came to this country as an oppressed race yet quickly learned that to succeed they had to in turn oppress their closest social class competitors, free Northern blacks. Back home these "native Irish or papists" suffered something very similar to American slavery under English Penal Laws. Yet, despite their revolutionary roots as an oppressed group fighting for freedom and rights, and despite consistent pleas from the great Catholic emancipator, Daniel O'Connell, to support the abolitionists, the newly arrived Irish-Americans judged that the best way of gaining acceptance as good citizens and to counter the Nativist movement was to cooperate in the continued oppression of African Americans."
It is a built-in human trait to dislike the "other." It is tribal at its base, and it takes strength and courage to overcome it. But overcome it we must, if we are to survive.
Too American maybe haha. In the case of the Irish (who never thought it terms of skin color really as their oppressor and enemy was always The British-fellow white men) they largely became racist toward blacks in the new country in order to elevate themselves into the dominate American-wasp white culture. The book "How The Irish Became White" is very interesting and mostly takes place in Philadelphia.
I gotta see if i can find that on Audiobooks. Sounds very interesting.
I read All Saints, which is a book about the Irish in South Boston...one of the most harrowing books i've ever read. I never knew that they lived in such tough conditions in Southie...even as late as a decade ago.
Whites need each other too much nowadays. That movie was set in the 1950s. Pretty erotic if you ask me.
Tension still exists, even if it can't be seen much on these boards.
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