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I honestly don't think these interviewees know what they're talking about. The most objective argument I have to support this is that they keep talking about "

I honestly don't think these interviewees know what they're talking about. The most objective argument I have to support this is that they keep talking about "whites" as a race. Never "white Americans", "caucasians", "white europeans" etc etc, just "whites" or "white people". Which is hugely problematic considering the entire concept of white as a race is incredibly modern. Before the 19th century, there wasn't a concept of whiteness, you belonged to a nation rather than a race. And it kind of makes sense, since where do you even draw the line on white? Are Egyptians white (Rami Malek...)? What about much of the middle east, many Syrians could pass for either white or Arabic? Or some western Asian countries, like most of the -istans? Ultimately, the idea of a white race was created on classist principles. The Irish were accepted as whites, despite being persecuted for centuries, as they were seen as "better than black". They weren't seen as white at all since that concept had not been created until mass immigration to the US. There's a good quote on this: [1] >The Irish, arriving poor, were in direct contact and competition with the African Americans whose social class they shared. They managed to become identified as white through their complicity in the oppression of blacks. Despite, or perhaps because of, calls from Daniel O’Connell in Ireland for the Irish in America to support the abolition of slavery, the American Irish felt their tenuous position in America would be weakened further if they were to associate themselves (or allow themselves to be associated with) the plight of the Africans in America. My point isn't really to start a debate on whiteness or anything like that. My point is that throughout this entire interview, where they say the word "white" in various forms eighteen times, and use phrases like "white supremacy", "whitesplaining", "whites cannot be the victims of racism", they never once mention that whiteness is a concept that was made specifically for discriminatory purposes. Even if that doesn't fit their agenda, mentioning the origins of the "white race" should be a prerequisite to talking about race hierarchies at any such length. It's like an electrical engineer not knowing what electrons are. A lot of this interview just reeks of Jordan Peterson-esque pseudo-intellectual tripe. They even mention him in passing, and the site seems to have multiple articles on him. I probably won't have the patience today to actually debate any of this in length, but I implore anyone who is taking this article seriously to look up the troves of valid criticism of Peterson [2], because a lot of it applies to this article too: I honestly do not think the authors are qualified to discuss the sociological concepts they're talking about, and this is coming from someone who freely admits he does not have the qualifications to discuss it either. We shouldn't be giving a platform to people like this. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20130428181555/http://www.polsis.uq.edu.au//dialogue/vol-1-2-4.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20130428181555/http://www.polsis... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LqZdkkBDas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LqZdkkBDas

DanAndersen 8y ago
I take issue with your claim that Irish were "not considered white." Such an argument only makes sense given a prior assumption that "white" only means a vague definition of acceptability in society. Under that stand-in definition (and frankly a modern revisionist definition), the Irish immigrants who were considered outsiders would be tautologically "not white," but that's not how people at the time thought of it. As evidence I present the Naturalization Act of 1790 [0], which restricted US citizenship thusly: >That any alien, being a free white person,Alien whites may become citizens, and how. who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof Note that this was far before the period of "mass immigration to the US." The "free white" requirement remained in US law until the mid-19th century. I've never known of any case in which an Irishman was denied US citizenship during that time period on account on "not being white" (I would be happy to be proven wrong here). There were several signers of the Declaration of Independence that had Irish ancestry! [1] An outsider group, yes, and one that took time to be integrated as a full part of the in-group, but the idea of people of the time looking at an Irishman and saying "he's not white," would not have made sense. You're right that the concept of "white" as an identity group is relatively recent (on the order of several centuries) and was largely born in the American colonies as a way to distinguish an in-group from an out-group (mainly, colonists from various areas of Europe wanted something to distinguish themselves from the Indian tribes and black African slaves). But that's the way of all these categories ("black" can be similarly deconstructed as a recent American ethnogenesis). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790 [1] http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/the-irish-american-signers-of-the-declaration-of-independence http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/the-irish-american-...
- mayniac 8y ago
  The Naturalization Act is actually quite interesting. Hadn't heard of it before being non-American. Looking into it, it seems like the act caused a load of confusion over race and nationality from the start, all the way up to the early 20th century. [1] I agree with what you're saying about the Irish and "whiteness" having looked into it further. A lot of sources indicate they were seen as "white" but not in the same way as other Europeans, mainly being generally lower-class and Catholic. Regardless, I think this discussion should have been present in the interview, or at least mentioned: this was just meant to be one example of points they have completely glossed over or ignored. I'm honestly quite saddened that this type of article is being upvoted on HN, there are a lot of flaws in the post which are not being discussed in the comments. [1] https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/immigration-law-1.html https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/i...

DanAndersen 8y ago

I take issue with your claim that Irish were "not considered white." Such an argument only makes sense given a prior assumption that "white" only means a vague definition of acceptability in society. Under that stand-in definition (and frankly a modern revisionist definition), the Irish immigrants who were considered outsiders would be tautologically "not white," but that's not how people at the time thought of it. As evidence I present the Naturalization Act of 1790 [0], which restricted US citizenship thusly: >That any alien, being a free white person,Alien whites may become citizens, and how. who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof Note that this was far before the period of "mass immigration to the US." The "free white" requirement remained in US law until the mid-19th century. I've never known of any case in which an Irishman was denied US citizenship during that time period on account on "not being white" (I would be happy to be proven wrong here). There were several signers of the Declaration of Independence that had Irish ancestry! [1] An outsider group, yes, and one that took time to be integrated as a full part of the in-group, but the idea of people of the time looking at an Irishman and saying "he's not white," would not have made sense. You're right that the concept of "white" as an identity group is relatively recent (on the order of several centuries) and was largely born in the American colonies as a way to distinguish an in-group from an out-group (mainly, colonists from various areas of Europe wanted something to distinguish themselves from the Indian tribes and black African slaves). But that's the way of all these categories ("black" can be similarly deconstructed as a recent American ethnogenesis). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalization_Act_of_1790 [1] http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/the-irish-american-signers-of-the-declaration-of-independence http://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/blogs/the-irish-american-...

mayniac 8y ago
The Naturalization Act is actually quite interesting. Hadn't heard of it before being non-American. Looking into it, it seems like the act caused a load of confusion over race and nationality from the start, all the way up to the early 20th century. [1] I agree with what you're saying about the Irish and "whiteness" having looked into it further. A lot of sources indicate they were seen as "white" but not in the same way as other Europeans, mainly being generally lower-class and Catholic. Regardless, I think this discussion should have been present in the interview, or at least mentioned: this was just meant to be one example of points they have completely glossed over or ignored. I'm honestly quite saddened that this type of article is being upvoted on HN, there are a lot of flaws in the post which are not being discussed in the comments. [1] https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/immigration-law-1.html https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2002/summer/i...