Awww...the poor snowflakes. Who the hell isn't "wounded"? Hundreds of thousands of Irish people came here under indentured servitude, which wasn't much better than slavery.
That opinion is one of the greatest examples of falsehood that has manifested itself in the discourse about racism in America. For years I even believed that. I remember reading a book titled “Trinity” written by Leon Uris about a fictional hero of the Irish resistance named Conor Larkin. The story detailed the treatment of the Irish from the 1700’s until the 1916 uprising. Yes, the Irish were treated terribly in Europe and when they first came to America. But they were not slaves. Irish historians such as Liam Hogan have made this crystal clear. The Irish were indentured servants and not slaves. The fallacy in using indentured servitude as an argument lies in the fact that indentured servitude was a contractual agreement made between 2 or more parties. One party agreed that for payment of passage to America, the individual(s) would work for a specified term to repay the cost of passage. To say it was not much better than slavery is simply a lie. Slavery was permanent. Slavery was also generational. If you we born into a slave family, you were a slave. When you had children, they were slaves. There was no 7 years and a headright. When the master died, the slaves went to his widow. When the widow died, the slaves went to the children.
Certainly, the Irish did endure difficulties. The general argument in order to dismiss or derail conversations about the treatment of blacks, is that everybody had it tough. That is true, but everybody else CHOSE to come to America. No matter what diversion is used, Africans sold Africans to whites. The shipping companies were not owned by Africans. Nor does it appear that the more than 10 million Africans shipped across the Atlantic made any contractual agreement to perform labor in return for passage. So yes, the Europeans that chose to come here with little or nothing did struggle. But the various European ethnic groups had one thing they used to lift themselves up. And they used it to step on others- the race card.
“Whiteness is a social construct, and one with concrete benefits. Being white in the U.S. has long meant better jobs and opportunities, and an escape from persecution based on appearance and culture. Although these structural advantages remain, the meaning of whiteness is still hotly debated.”
Sarah Kendzior, How do you become “white” in America?
Now let us understand how those who claim today to have suffered like blacks did not. I will cite 2 groups, the Irish and the Polish. Both groups upon coming to this country were considered lesser, inferior, or plain just not white. In the north, Irish and blacks competed for the same jobs, or should I say, were relegated to low wage, menial labor. Irish and blacks in the north lived in the same communities. Both groups mixed socially, intermarried and had bi racial children. The green was the black when and where no blacks existed.
“In the early years of immigration the poor Irish and blacks were thrown together, very much part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. The Irish were often referred to as Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish. A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this: "My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman." Free blacks and Irish were viewed by the Nativists as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between the races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant freedom here since blackness meant slavery.
An article by a black writer in an 1860 edition of the Liberator explained how the Irish ultimately attained their objectives: "Fifteen or twenty years ago, a Catholic priest in Philadelphia said to the Irish people in that city, 'You are all poor, and chiefly laborers, the blacks are poor laborers; many of the native whites are laborers; now, if you wish to succeed, you must do everything that they do, no matter how degrading, and do it for less than they can afford to do it for.' The Irish adopted this plan; they lived on less than the Americans could live upon, and worked for less, and the result is, that nearly all the menial employments are monopolized by the Irish, who now get as good prices as anybody. There were other avenues open to American white men, and though they have suffered much, the chief support of the Irish has come from the places from which we have been crowded."
Once the Irish secured themselves in those jobs, they made sure blacks were kept out. They realized that as long as they continued to work alongside blacks, they would be considered no different. Later, as Irish became prominent in the labor movement, African Americans were excluded from participation. In fact, one of the primary themes of How the Irish Became White is the way in which left labor historians, such as the highly acclaimed Herbert Gutman, have not paid sufficient attention to the problem of race in the development of the labor movement.
And so, we have the tragic story of how one oppressed "race," Irish Catholics, learned how to collaborate in the oppression of another "race," Africans in America, in order to secure their place in the white republic. Becoming white meant losing their greenness, i.e., their Irish cultural heritage and the legacy of oppression and discrimination back home.”
Art McDonald, Ph.D., “How the Irish Became White”
