The tale of horrible racism my family suffered through.

[Persistence Of Memory]

Background. Italian immigrant couple came here LEGALLY around 1900. They settled in a little Town in PA in a county where no one had a full set of teeth. They were laughed at for having goats in the back yard.

They endured verbal taunting for yrs. Father hassled at work. Mother hassled at home. Kids hassled at school. It was pretty bad. No violence, but words that cut worse than a butcher knife.

Their solution was to smile and turn the cheek. Grandma slowly worked her Dago charm in the community. A cook of all cooks, she used to make her famous fried dough and sugar and would give them to the kids in the neighborhood. Grandparents would do the smallest of things to help people, barely noticed but thoughtful.

One day. A well to do couple up the street were balling cries of help up and down the street. The near lifeless toddler arms and legs dangling down. Supposedly the toddler had eaten some green apples and became violently ill. Not holding down even water. Doctors could not do anything. No hospitals then back there.

Well these people weren't the favorite of my grandparents. They heard the parents anguish. My grandfather took a look at the child. He ran in the house and got a bottle of goats milk. The child sucked it down in a second. Dumbfounded parents. my grandfather got several bottles of milk and gave them times to feed the kid and come back for more. My grandparents became the King and Queen of that community from that day on.

Instead of wallowing in pity for yrs and blaming everyone, they slowly worked in kindness.

Anyone else have a story

 

[IM2]

Italians are white. They were not excluded by government policy.

“Here it is important to understand how, exactly, Americans ‘become white’. The history of Polish-Americans is an illuminating example. Upon arriving in the U.S. en masse in the late 19th and early 20th century, Poles endured discrimination based on their appearance, religion and culture. In 1903, the New England Magazine decried the Poles’ “expressionless Slavic faces” and “stunted figures” as well as their inherent “ignorance” and “propensity to violence”. Working for terrible wages, Polish workers were renamed things like “Thomas Jefferson” by their bigoted Anglo-Saxon bosses who refused to utter Polish names.

The Poles, in other words, were not considered white. Far from it: they were considered a mysterious menace that should be expelled. When Polish-American Leon Czolgosz killed President William McKinley in 1901, all Poles were deemed potential violent anarchists. “All people are mourning, and it is caused by a maniac who is of our nationality,” a Polish-American newspaper wrote, pressured to apologize for their own people. The collective blame of Poles for terrorism bears great similarity to how Muslims (both in the U.S. and Europe) are collectively blamed today.

But then something changed. In 1919, Irish gangs in blackface attacked Polish neighborhoods in Chicago in an attempt to convince Poles, and other Eastern European groups, that they, too, were “white” and should join them in the fight against blacks. As historian David R. Roediger recalls, “Poles argued that the riot was a conflict between blacks and whites, with Poles abstaining because they belonged to neither group.” But the Irish gangs considered whiteness, as is often the case in America, as anti-blackness. And as in the early 20th century Chicago experienced an influx not only of white immigrants from Europe, but blacks from the South, white groups who felt threatened by black arrivals decided that it would be politically advantageous if the Poles were considered white as well.

With that new white identity came the ability to practice the discrimination they had once endured.

Over time, the strategy of positioning Poles as “white” against a dark-skinned “other” was successful. Poles came to consider themselves white, and more importantly, they came to be considered white by their fellow Americans, as did Italians, Greeks, Jews, Russians, and others from Southern and Eastern Europe, all of whom held an ambivalent racial status in U.S. society. Also, intermarriage between white ethnic groups led some to embrace a broader white identity.”

Sarah Kendzior, How do you become “white” in America?​

 

[John T. Ford]

Background. Italian immigrant couple came here LEGALLY around 1900. They settled in a little Town in PA in a county where no one had a full set of teeth. They were laughed at for having goats in the back yard.

They endured verbal taunting for yrs. Father hassled at work. Mother hassled at home. Kids hassled at school. It was pretty bad. No violence, but words that cut worse than a butcher knife.

Their solution was to smile and turn the cheek. Grandma slowly worked her Dago charm in the community. A cook of all cooks, she used to make her famous fried dough and sugar and would give them to the kids in the neighborhood. Grandparents would do the smallest of things to help people, barely noticed but thoughtful.

One day. A well to do couple up the street were balling cries of help up and down the street. The near lifeless toddler arms and legs dangling down. Supposedly the toddler had eaten some green apples and became violently ill. Not holding down even water. Doctors could not do anything. No hospitals then back there.

Well these people weren't the favorite of my grandparents. They heard the parents anguish. My grandfather took a look at the child. He ran in the house and got a bottle of goats milk. The child sucked it down in a second. Dumbfounded parents. my grandfather got several bottles of milk and gave them times to feed the kid and come back for more. My grandparents became the King and Queen of that community from that day on.

Instead of wallowing in pity for yrs and blaming everyone, they slowly worked in kindness.

Anyone else have a story

That's a great story and a true testament to the American experience.

However, these people you are referring to who are wallowing in pity for yrs and blaming everyone ....

They are suffering from a mental disorder.

The symptoms are Hatred, Intolerance, and obsession with the color of skin.

It is a separate matter altogether from the great story you are telling.

 

[Persistence Of Memory]

Italians are white. They were not excluded by government policy.

“Here it is important to understand how, exactly, Americans ‘become white’. The history of Polish-Americans is an illuminating example. Upon arriving in the U.S. en masse in the late 19th and early 20th century, Poles endured discrimination based on their appearance, religion and culture. In 1903, the New England Magazine decried the Poles’ “expressionless Slavic faces” and “stunted figures” as well as their inherent “ignorance” and “propensity to violence”. Working for terrible wages, Polish workers were renamed things like “Thomas Jefferson” by their bigoted Anglo-Saxon bosses who refused to utter Polish names.

The Poles, in other words, were not considered white. Far from it: they were considered a mysterious menace that should be expelled. When Polish-American Leon Czolgosz killed President William McKinley in 1901, all Poles were deemed potential violent anarchists. “All people are mourning, and it is caused by a maniac who is of our nationality,” a Polish-American newspaper wrote, pressured to apologize for their own people. The collective blame of Poles for terrorism bears great similarity to how Muslims (both in the U.S. and Europe) are collectively blamed today.

But then something changed. In 1919, Irish gangs in blackface attacked Polish neighborhoods in Chicago in an attempt to convince Poles, and other Eastern European groups, that they, too, were “white” and should join them in the fight against blacks. As historian David R. Roediger recalls, “Poles argued that the riot was a conflict between blacks and whites, with Poles abstaining because they belonged to neither group.” But the Irish gangs considered whiteness, as is often the case in America, as anti-blackness. And as in the early 20th century Chicago experienced an influx not only of white immigrants from Europe, but blacks from the South, white groups who felt threatened by black arrivals decided that it would be politically advantageous if the Poles were considered white as well.

With that new white identity came the ability to practice the discrimination they had once endured.

Over time, the strategy of positioning Poles as “white” against a dark-skinned “other” was successful. Poles came to consider themselves white, and more importantly, they came to be considered white by their fellow Americans, as did Italians, Greeks, Jews, Russians, and others from Southern and Eastern Europe, all of whom held an ambivalent racial status in U.S. society. Also, intermarriage between white ethnic groups led some to embrace a broader white identity.”

Sarah Kendzior, How do you become “white” in America?​

It took you 11 minutes to get here. You slow today?

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Of course African Americans became the key “untouchables” in American society, despite once having suckled and raised white children under slavery.

Many jobs, unskilled, semi-skilled and even highly skilled artisan jobs that both free black and slave workers once held, most domestic jobs in wealthy white homes too, were lost as waves of immigrants, especially Irish, arrived. These new workers often hated the blacks more than their patrician bosses. They fought to be fully “white” in our obsessively race conscious society.

The pressure was naturally enormous to get ahead, not to be considered black, and many light-skinned blacks also tried to “pass” into white society if they could. That was during apartheid Jim Crow. Wave after wave of immigrants labored first in factories and mines, where they were exploited — but trained. They moved up into the American Dream, the great Melting Pot, however they could. They got decent trade jobs, or opened stores serving whites, while “blacks” were held back and excluded. Even in the unions, which were often particularly racist. Black Americans became a race color caste, denied for another century after slavery rights to improve themselves on the job and in society as a whole.

It wasn’t until 1967 that “blacks” could legally marry “whites” in even a single Southern state. It wasn’t until after WWII that most Western states got rid of their own laws against — supposedly “unnatural” — mixed marriages.

 

[MizMolly]

Italians are white. They were not excluded by government policy.

“Here it is important to understand how, exactly, Americans ‘become white’. The history of Polish-Americans is an illuminating example. Upon arriving in the U.S. en masse in the late 19th and early 20th century, Poles endured discrimination based on their appearance, religion and culture. In 1903, the New England Magazine decried the Poles’ “expressionless Slavic faces” and “stunted figures” as well as their inherent “ignorance” and “propensity to violence”. Working for terrible wages, Polish workers were renamed things like “Thomas Jefferson” by their bigoted Anglo-Saxon bosses who refused to utter Polish names.

The Poles, in other words, were not considered white. Far from it: they were considered a mysterious menace that should be expelled. When Polish-American Leon Czolgosz killed President William McKinley in 1901, all Poles were deemed potential violent anarchists. “All people are mourning, and it is caused by a maniac who is of our nationality,” a Polish-American newspaper wrote, pressured to apologize for their own people. The collective blame of Poles for terrorism bears great similarity to how Muslims (both in the U.S. and Europe) are collectively blamed today.

But then something changed. In 1919, Irish gangs in blackface attacked Polish neighborhoods in Chicago in an attempt to convince Poles, and other Eastern European groups, that they, too, were “white” and should join them in the fight against blacks. As historian David R. Roediger recalls, “Poles argued that the riot was a conflict between blacks and whites, with Poles abstaining because they belonged to neither group.” But the Irish gangs considered whiteness, as is often the case in America, as anti-blackness. And as in the early 20th century Chicago experienced an influx not only of white immigrants from Europe, but blacks from the South, white groups who felt threatened by black arrivals decided that it would be politically advantageous if the Poles were considered white as well.

With that new white identity came the ability to practice the discrimination they had once endured.

Over time, the strategy of positioning Poles as “white” against a dark-skinned “other” was successful. Poles came to consider themselves white, and more importantly, they came to be considered white by their fellow Americans, as did Italians, Greeks, Jews, Russians, and others from Southern and Eastern Europe, all of whom held an ambivalent racial status in U.S. society. Also, intermarriage between white ethnic groups led some to embrace a broader white identity.”

Sarah Kendzior, How do you become “white” in America?​

So, having white skin meant it’s okay to treat them badly? This in no way denies or reduces the harm done to blacks, but you absolutely refuse to admit that any other race or ethnicity has suffered.

 

[Persistence Of Memory]

Italians are white. They were not excluded by government policy.

“Here it is important to understand how, exactly, Americans ‘become white’. The history of Polish-Americans is an illuminating example. Upon arriving in the U.S. en masse in the late 19th and early 20th century, Poles endured discrimination based on their appearance, religion and culture. In 1903, the New England Magazine decried the Poles’ “expressionless Slavic faces” and “stunted figures” as well as their inherent “ignorance” and “propensity to violence”. Working for terrible wages, Polish workers were renamed things like “Thomas Jefferson” by their bigoted Anglo-Saxon bosses who refused to utter Polish names.

The Poles, in other words, were not considered white. Far from it: they were considered a mysterious menace that should be expelled. When Polish-American Leon Czolgosz killed President William McKinley in 1901, all Poles were deemed potential violent anarchists. “All people are mourning, and it is caused by a maniac who is of our nationality,” a Polish-American newspaper wrote, pressured to apologize for their own people. The collective blame of Poles for terrorism bears great similarity to how Muslims (both in the U.S. and Europe) are collectively blamed today.

But then something changed. In 1919, Irish gangs in blackface attacked Polish neighborhoods in Chicago in an attempt to convince Poles, and other Eastern European groups, that they, too, were “white” and should join them in the fight against blacks. As historian David R. Roediger recalls, “Poles argued that the riot was a conflict between blacks and whites, with Poles abstaining because they belonged to neither group.” But the Irish gangs considered whiteness, as is often the case in America, as anti-blackness. And as in the early 20th century Chicago experienced an influx not only of white immigrants from Europe, but blacks from the South, white groups who felt threatened by black arrivals decided that it would be politically advantageous if the Poles were considered white as well.

With that new white identity came the ability to practice the discrimination they had once endured.

Over time, the strategy of positioning Poles as “white” against a dark-skinned “other” was successful. Poles came to consider themselves white, and more importantly, they came to be considered white by their fellow Americans, as did Italians, Greeks, Jews, Russians, and others from Southern and Eastern Europe, all of whom held an ambivalent racial status in U.S. society. Also, intermarriage between white ethnic groups led some to embrace a broader white identity.”

Sarah Kendzior, How do you become “white” in America?​

Italians are white above the belt, but African below the belt...hehehehehehe