- Mar 11, 2015
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Every group that came to this Country had it hard and for a LONG time in some cases. NONE of them are crying like little girls and demanding money from the Government cause a hundred years ago laws were bad to them. Grow the FUCK up and be a man.
I'm grown. Which means I have complete command of American history. And that history shows me this, for example:
āSince 1790, the U.S. has taken a census that divides citizens into racial categories. These categories have transformed dramatically over the past 220 years along with U.S. demography. In 1790, there were three categories: āfree whitesā, āother free peopleā, and āslaves.ā Over the next few centuries, new groups were added ranging from broad racial categories (āAsianā) to subsets (āKoreanā, for example, was added as its own race in 1920, removed in 1950, re-added in 1970, and subsumed into āAsianā in 2000.)ā
So at least from 1790, this nation has divided itself by race. Pretending that anything has been different is untrue. And the old dumb claim of that was long ago, doesn't flush.
āThe most recent census, taken in 2010, divided Americans as follows: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or Some Other Race. In 1980, as a result of a huge increase in the Hispanic population, āHispanicā (or Latino, often the preferred term) was added as its own category, with a note that it is an ethnicity, not a race.ā
So let us continue.
āWhiteness is a social construct, and one with concrete benefits. Being white in the U.S. has long meant better jobs and opportunities, and an escape from persecution based on appearance and culture. Although these structural advantages remain, the meaning of whiteness is still hotly debated.ā
Now let us understand how those who claim today to have suffered like blacks did not.
āHere it is important to understand how, exactly, Americans ābecome whiteā. 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 Polesā āexpressionless Slavic facesā and āstunted figuresā as well as their inherent āignoranceā and āpropensity to violenceā. Working for terrible wages, Polish workers were renamed things like āThomas Jeffersonā 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. āAll people are mourning, and it is caused by a maniac who is of our nationality,ā 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 āwhiteā and should join them in the fight against blacks. As historian David R. Roediger recalls, āPoles argued that the riot was a conflict between blacks and whites, with Poles abstaining because they belonged to neither group.ā 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 āwhiteā against a dark-skinned āotherā 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.ā
What we are looking at here is literally white privilege. Not one of these groups can honestly make the claim of how they have had it just as bad as blacks. A grown up understands this, faces it's reality and doesn't try arguing weak childish arguments that are easily debunked with historical fact.
So grow up and be a man.