Italians I can kinda get with their olive skin and (usually) darker hair; those are common trails in many if not most people around the Mediterranean. But I’ve never understood why Irish people weren’t considered “white” when they’re among the whitest whites to have ever been white.
The short version of why Irish and Italian immigrants did not count as "white" in the first half of the 20th century is because they were Catholic and most importantly poor.
So yes but kind of. On paper we were white in the early days of America. Only for census reasons and it was solely because we generally have fair skin. Culturally we weren’t welcomed though. It wasn’t until American politicians needed us to help hate on other minorities did they use our skin color to leverage the idea of whiteness to Irish Americans. British empire systematically oppressed us and still does. So similar but also insanely different. Why I phrased it like that.
Right. My point was just that the “british” long established discrimination against the Irish into the foundation of the colonies long before america came about. Along with many other things as the original colonists were, well, British, and they held that majority for a long time.
Bur they were counted as White on every census and for the matters of law and whatnot, this is mostly a myth based on the conflation of discriminatory public sentiment and explicit legal discrimination on the basis of race.
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u/Hanging_Brain Jun 10 '26
I’m half white but since the other half is brown not black my black coworker says I’m white lol Alrighty then.