Question for the Americans

[james_davis_nicoll]

When Irish-Americans go off on rants about the evils of demographic change do you think they are in any way aware that a century ago people making that speech would have been complaining about the Irish?

Comments

[onyxlynx]

Probably not; irony is lost on "conservatives."

[boxofdelights]

Yeah, they do, and they will tell you completely seriously that that means they understand irrational prejudice in a way that most people don't, and that is how they know that their prejudices are rational.

[bcholmes]

"Like"

[boxofdelights]

Your relatives too, huh?

[mmegaera]

This makes my brain hurt.

[dsgood]

Add: People whose ancestors came from the Scottish Border or from Sicily complaining about lawless immigrants.

[bibliofile]

which is why you're not Bill O'Reilly (and thank ghu for small favors)

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, sometimes not. When they are aware of it, they think it's different this time.

[hano.livejournal.com]

Further proof, if it were ever needed that O'Reilly's an asshole

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

If you are listening to Fox News the you are already in deep doodoo

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The Irish are white.

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Now.

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

See also Jews. Who of course come in just about every color imaginable (though the ones who emigrated to the US tended to be paler, since there was less persecution of Jews in the Middle East and North Africa in the first half of the 20th century) but are nowadays considered white.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Try renting a house in London with an Irish surname and see how long it takes you to run into "no blacks,dogs, Jews or Irish".

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

And, of course, not all Irish are white these days.

[elizaeffect.livejournal.com]

See also a statement I read a while ago by a white supremacist neonazi with a Polish surname. Wish I could find it again.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, tell that to Ben Franklin.

[nojay.livejournal.com]

"There came to the beach a poor exile of Erin,
The dew on his wet robe hung heavy and chill;
Ere the steamer that brought him had passed out of hearin’,
He was Alderman Mike inthrojuicin” a bill!"

A Kipling chapter-header for one of his Indian stories.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

We could go back to Cromwell, if you wish.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Cromwell might have been more open-minded on this than Franklin. Not that Cromwell was a touchy-feely liberal but Franklin had a pretty narrow definition of white, one that for example your Swedes didn't meet.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I don't remember that Ben was into genocide.

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Yup. Their shtick is that they came here and worked hard and didn't depend on either government handouts (lol) or criminality (LOL) to assimilate.

Works almost every time!

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

To be fair, he complained about it. (http://www.historycarper.com/1764/03/01/a-narrative-of-the-late-massacres/)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

The one I know certainly is not.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine "no dogs". The level of dogs around London seems remarkably high to me.

And of course they're required on certain tube station escalators :-) .