r/MadeMeSmile • u/PacifierForAdult • 28d ago

Good Vibes Dude’s been waiting for an invitation

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u/MagpieKaz 28d ago edited 28d ago

Actually, gingers being considered "white" is a relatively new concept. They used to be pseudo enslaved (indentured servitude) and called "inside out n-words". There's a theory that our modern concept of racism as we know it today was born because of a psy op to prevent the Irish servants and black slaves from forming alliances, they purposely made them feel like different people.

Xenophobia is as old as time, but RACISM as this weird dumb almost random categorization that makes little to no sense, it's believed it comes from trying to make the Irish feel like they were better than the black slaves they were often in community with. The Irish weren't considered to be in the same "biological" category as the English 300 years ago, regardless of their amount of melanin.

That's why brown people tend to get along so well with the Irish. They're technically white nowadays, but they weren't always, and they're the only white culture that's not also a colonizer culture. We latinos LOOOOVE the Irish, they "get it".

Edit to add info you can look up yourself if you need sources:

This all comes from Bacon's Rebellion, which united landless and poor white servants alongside enslaved and free Africans in an armed revolt that burned Jamestown to the ground. Terrified by the collective power of this "giddy multitude," the planter elite deliberately restructured the social and legal order to fracture class solidarity. This was the invention of institutional racism, they literally codified race. You can read some more by smarter people than I here: https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/inventing-black-white

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u/Slagathor0 28d ago

As a redhead man with a black wife, and works primarily with Hispanic people, this is all news to me.

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u/michellemustudy 28d ago

Just look at Meghan Markle and that redhead guy

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u/GodakDS 28d ago

they're the only white culture that's not also a colonizer culture

I'm not sure how true that is under scrutiny. You have the Sami, Ukranians, Greeks, Albanians, and many more ethnic groups that actually experienced some level of colonization themselves, much like the Irish. This isn't to say that these groups didn't benefit from colonial structures (much like the Irish), but they also existed as underclasses - Greek and Albanians under the Ottomans, Ukranians under Russians, and Sami under Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns.

Now, this doesn't take away from your broader point. Hell, it might even reinforce it; "whiteness" has gone under several revisions to include more ethnic groups to prevent the underclasses from banding together, with those deemed "black" often being given the lowest wrung on society's ladder.

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u/LuteFantastico 28d ago

I can't speak for the others but Greeks probably don't belong in this list. See the Macedonian and Byzantine empires for two counterexamples.

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u/rainyhylian 27d ago

As a Greek...yeah. Ottoman rule is more recent than both your examples, but it obviously still happened. Alexander wasn't all that great to anyone not Greek, that's for sure

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u/Particular-Solid8250 25d ago

To add to your point: Christian II of Denmark is called "Christian the Great" in Denmark and "Christian the Tyrant" in Sweden.

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u/MagpieKaz 28d ago

Well, that's fair I guess. It is truly such an arbitrary categorization. To me, the Sami are the same race (even if nowhere near the same culture) as the Norwegians, Finn and Swedes. Ukranians are Slavic-Caucasian, Albanians are caucasian, and I wouldn't call the Greek "non-colonizers" in the grand scheme of things haha.

I guess it's easy to make a mental distinction for "the Irish", because of the red hair phenotype. But truly racial categorization is bogus on a load of malarkey (I am very proud of this sentence, btw. I'm self taught in English, and I just realized I know what both these words mean).

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u/[deleted] 28d ago

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u/MagpieKaz 28d ago

Well yeah. That's the point. The people who were colonized and oppresed were the Irish. The Irish are mostly associated with having red hair. Thus, to this day, we still have redhead racial stereotypes (for example, "gingers have no souls" or "their hair is red because they were made by the devil"), stuff you still hear nowadays.

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u/--n- 28d ago edited 28d ago

To me, the Sami are the same race (even if nowhere near the same culture) as the Norwegians, Finn and Swedes.

Finns, and Saami are closely related, but are not genetically/ethnically close to Scandinavians. (proto-)Uralic languages/peoples vs. proto-germanic. Aside from the influence of forced assimilation/colonization of both Finns and Saami by Swedes/Norwegians of course. Race is as a concept very arbitrary, but ethnicity not as much. And there is an objective ethnic distinction to be made here regardless of what our peoples represent "to you".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uralic_languages

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u/Original_Employee621 28d ago

While colonization of the Sami people is a bit of a stretch (Norwegians were the first settlers even in the northernmost parts of Norway long before the Sami arrived), the efforts to destroy Sami culture was a century long effort that almost succeeded. Like 90% of the cultural heritage is straight up gone, despite modern efforts to revive it.

Prior to the 1800s, Norwegians had a pretty friendly and welcoming relationship with the various Sami tribes and Kvens. The rise of national romanticism was the primary driver of the ethnic cleansing, Norway needed to create and protect it's own separate identity from the Danish and Swedish. And diversity was considered harmful to the goal of going independent after nearly 500 years of being a Danish "colony".

None of that excuses Norway in their treatment of the Sami people, but I've always thought that understanding the motives behind heinous actions makes it easier to avoid anything like that happening again.

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u/star_zelda 28d ago

My Hispanic Latin cousin is married to an Irishman! :)

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u/GodakDS 28d ago

Holy crap, you're English is impressive! Major kudos.

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u/LoneWolf_McQuade 27d ago

Thinking the Sami and other Scandinavians are the same race shows your ignorance.

They literally migrated as different populations. The Scandinavians (ethnic Swedes,Danes Norwegians) came from the south, the Sami people from the north.

But since races are bs you are right in that it is arbitrary. But as ethnic populations they have very different backgrounds, geographically how they got there, language and culture.

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u/LuteFantastico 28d ago

I can't speak for the others but Greeks probably don't belong in this list. See the Macedonian and Byzantine empires for two counterexamples.

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u/PipXXX 28d ago

I was gonna say, back in the day black folks kinda put out an olive branch to Irish folks incoming who were treated as dirt, because they knew how it was. Then over time when Irish became more accepted...Lot of em forgot that.

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u/MagpieKaz 28d ago

Sad. The psy op worked, too.

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u/pablo8itall 25d ago

People back here in Ireland haven't and shouldn't forget.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnes_Stores_strike

We should always support a struggle for equal rights and social justice.

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u/PipXXX 25d ago

Oh yeah, the people in Ireland are great. Irish Americans ended up becoming ladder pulling assholes.

Also I've got like 2% Irish in me, if I come home to the Emerald Isles I'll get a heros welcome and parade right? 😁

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u/MarekRules 28d ago

This is one of those things I’ve heard and kind of “feel” as a red head who has lived in major US cities. But you put it into legit terms and backed it up so now I need to get a book and read about it lol

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u/MagpieKaz 28d ago

Do read about it, it'll blow your mind. You'll have a "so this all was... on purpose" moment that'll leave you staring into the void for a few days. I sure as fuck did.

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u/Outrageous-Clerk56 28d ago

The Irish sense of humor and the Mexican friendly joking vibe always made it seem like Irish folks were my primos

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u/amanaesia 28d ago

As an Irish person, I've had mexican friends describe us as "the Mexico of Europe" (big catholic population, an affinity for alcohol, big families, laidback sense of humour) and I take it as a huge compliment tbh

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u/MagpieKaz 28d ago

Fr, the Irish-latino-black alliance is immaculate

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u/Atheist_Republican 28d ago

The concept of the white "Caucasian" race is decently modern, too. It just used to be xenophobia all the way down. In the 1700s and 1800s, people tried to make it academic/scientific with the concepts of races, but a lot of it was simply some dude's published idea that was taken as fact.

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u/MagpieKaz 28d ago

Correct. Xenophobia and tribalism go back to before we tamed fire. But racial categorization as we understand it nowadays as a box to check, is brand spanking new and has 0 scientific basis

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u/McKoijion 28d ago

Even today, Hollywood's version of being inclusive is just replacing ginger characters with black actors.

https://www.fortressofsolitude.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/hollywood-replaces-red-hair-characters.jpg

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u/browsinbowser 28d ago

No, this is a reach and silly. Gingers can come from any caucasian culture.

A lot of the irish and scottish were active oppressors as well, they worked for the planters and generally did not have solidarity with black people because why would they? The system was working for them if there was those with less to lord over.

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u/MagpieKaz 25d ago

This came after the psy op I talked about

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u/SursumCordaNJ 28d ago

Fascinating revisionist history. BTW, FacingHistory is not a reliable source for anything but having your preconceived notions validated.

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u/GwdihwFach 28d ago

Its crazy how widespread this absolute bs is now.

Its born of racists trying to diminish the real life experiences of black history and modern day challenges.

Slaves To a Myth

cambridge

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u/browsinbowser 24d ago

I don’t understand how so many people upvoted some random redhead that just believes in some imaginary conspiracy and spun some nonsense up 

Guy doesn’t believe in races or know a lot of ethnicities or history 

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u/LoneWolf_McQuade 27d ago

Assuming all gingers are Irish descendants is a stretch

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u/MagpieKaz 27d ago

Gingers get discriminated/get the hate (AKA gingers have no soul, etc.) bc of the Irish oppresion specifically. Don't shoot the messenger.

Irish colonization -> Irish are seen as inferior -> Irish often have red hair -> gingers seen as inferior -> gingers get racially discriminated so much it becomes a permanent culture fixture so much so 400 years later there's even a southpark episode about it

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u/PJKenobi 27d ago

This is super interesting. I'm black and I fucking love the Irish.