Racial tensions of 2016 and the myth of Irish slavery

[gollygee]

This is about the tendency for white supremacists to reply to discussion of reparations, continuing effects of racism, etc., with "what about Irish slaves?"

http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/05/the_myth_of_irish_slavery_opinion.html

Furthermore, if these right-wingers are suddenly so interested in history, they should know the Irish didn't "get over it" simply by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. It was actually big government that helped the Irish survive. Political machines from Jersey City to San Francisco assisted the Irish when times were toughest. This, along with a very charitable Catholic Church, helped immigrants assimilate in the New World.

African-Americans, on the other hand, generally could not even cast a vote, much less get a civil service job such as ward heeler or police officer.

If we truly analyze history — rather than manipulate it — there's no avoiding our shameful racial past. As a nation, we're still paying for those sins today.

Tom Deignan (tdeignan.blogspot.com), a regular contributor to The Star-Ledger who lives in Woodbridge, is a columnist with the Irish Voice newspaper and author of "Coming to America: Irish Americans."

[Recursion]

1. The court case in Virginia that manumitted the Irish slaves is kind of fascinating

Because in the same ruling it specifically affirmatively condoned the enslavement of both African Americans and Native Americans for life and with corruption of blood. "Race" as a concept wasn't entirely developed yet (and I would argue was specifically developed over the second half of the 17th century to produce the American colonial economy as it was).

I have one pushback against the pushback, just to state clearly: there were, in fact, Irish (and Welsh) persons held in bondage in the early part of the colonial period. But the invention of whiteness eventually got those who survived long enough out of that bondage.

[heaven05]

4. really?

Last edited Thu May 19, 2016, 08:20 AM - Edit history (2)

the Irish were more indentured servants than slaves. They were not slaves. The whites of the time tried to enslave native-americans but they knew the lay of the land and escaped too easily. Africans made the only 'good' slaves for whites of the time...proven.....by the fact they were strangers in this land and their BROWN skin marked them wherever they might go or be. And very, very few blacks were ever indentured. When slavery of Africans became the 'law', even indentured POC became the property, for life, unto death, of whites of the time. These times show a remarkable disregard for memory of american beginnings. Since Reagan a lot of revisionist history has creeped into our collective history.

Attempts to diminish what happened to MILLIONS of Africans during the long treks from the interior by usually Arabs who saw Africans as heathens, the 'Middle Passage" is well known and finally involuntary servitude will not ever stand. Slavery, genocide of native-americans and hate of POC unto slavery and death will never be forgotten or swept under the rug as just another chapter in american history which still has festering cultural wounds that are poisoning many today and threatening to rip the fabric of society to shreds especially if a tyrant like trump ascends to POTUS.. No matter how hard we have tried to heal from that period of american expansion of that then new found land, the racial hate is still very prevalent in this society, 21st century. A very telling and sad implication/truth indeed.

[Kind of Blue]

9. Agreed. Even one of the earliest cases Master Samuel Symonds against Irish slaves,

Massachusetts, the plaintiffs were called slaves because they were stolen from Ireland and sold. But only so because it seems there were no terms for servitude, the plaintiffs argued, and their case went to trial. Even before the trial, there was bargaining for freedom between the parties. Though there was a bill of sale, if it was found illegal then the plaintiffs were freed. If found legal then they had to serve their time, not a lifetime.

"Verdict of the jury in the case of Samll. Symonds, gentleman v. Will. Downing and Phillip Welch, his two servants: That if Mr. Dell’s covenant be legal, they found service due said Symonds until May 10, 1663; if not, they found for the defendants. Court adjudged the covenant legal," of course, "and ordered said Downing and Welch to serve their master until that date." http://glc.yale.edu/master-samuel-symonds-against-irish-slaves

[zentrum]

2. K&R

[sarge43]

3. Any laws of the time declaring the Irish were property?

That they could be bought and sold? No? Then they weren't slaves.

[pnwmom]

18. The system of indentured servitude was legal and many of the people in it

weren't in it voluntarily -- they were pulled off the streets as children and shipped off to the U.S.

And if a woman reached the end of her term but had a minor child, that child would remain indentured and she'd have to abandon her child in order to leave herself.

I am not saying the degree of suffering was equivalent to what the black slaves went through but Irish people had their contracts bought and sold, and they were often put into the system by force. So it was a kind of slavery.

[kwassa]

5. and read about the Draft Riots of 1863 ...

The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), known at the time as Draft Week,[2] were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil and racial insurrection in American history, aside from the Civil War itself.[3]

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln diverted several regiments of militia and volunteer troops from following up after the Battle of Gettysburg to control the city. The rioters were overwhelmingly working-class men, primarily ethnic Irish, resenting particularly that wealthier men, who could afford to pay a $300 (equivalent to $5,766 in 2015) commutation fee to hire a substitute, were spared from the draft.[4]

Initially intended to express anger at the draft, the protests turned into a race riot, with white rioters, mainly but not exclusively Irish immigrants,[3] attacking blacks wherever they could find them. The official death toll was listed at 119.[5]The conditions in the city were such that Major General John E. Wool, commander of the Department of the East, said on July 16 that "Martial law ought to be proclaimed, but I have not a sufficient force to enforce it."[6]

The military did not reach the city until after the first day of rioting, when mobs had already ransacked or destroyed numerous public buildings, two Protestant churches, the homes of various abolitionists or sympathizers, many black homes, and the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, which was burned to the ground.[7]
[ div]

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

Edit to add: The riots were depicted in the film "The Gangs of New York" by Martin Scorcese, though I felt the racial aspect was underplayed, and the racism of the Irish never examined.

The riot:

[Coolest Ranger]

6. Its not just right wingers

using this. I have seen white liberals try to justify Irish slavery and totally dismissing what black people have gone through, still going through even today

[Jackie Wilson Said]

8. White liberals are different from white right wingers only in their acknowledgment of

racism and all that surrounds it.

White liberals, many anyway, still react to the issue with the inborn racist attitude that is conditioned in all white Americans.

It is not a character flaw or even fault that if you are born white in America you are born with certain advantages and attitudes, and eternal blame for it is not appropriate, AS LONG as you do more than acknowledge it's existence.

[Kind of Blue]

7. The No Irish Need Apply signs is another myth

used to bolster that Irish-Americans "got over it by pulling themselves up by their own boostraps." Irish Catholics in America have a vibrant memory of humiliating job discrimination, which featured omnipresent signs proclaiming "Help Wanted--No Irish Need Apply!" No one has ever seen one of these NINA signs because they were extremely rare or nonexistent. "No Irish Need Apply: A Myth of Victimization" http://rjensen.people.uic.edu/no-irish.htm

We know from the experience of African Americans and Chinese that the most powerful form of job discrimination came from workers who vowed to boycott or shut down any employer who hired the excluded class. Employers who were personally willing to hire Chinese or blacks were forced to submit to the threats. There were no reports of mobs attacking Irish employment…On the other hand the Irish repeatedly attacked employers who hired African Americans or Chinese. http://racerelations.about.com/od/historyofracerelations/a/Discrimination-And-The-Irish-American-Experience.htm

From the article "How the Irish Became White" An article by a black writer in an 1860 edition of the Liberator explained how the Irish ultimately attained their objectives: "Fifteen or twenty years ago, a Catholic priest in Philadelphia said to the Irish people in that city, 'You are all poor, and chiefly laborers, the blacks are poor laborers; many of the native whites are laborers; now, if you wish to succeed, you must do everything that they do, no matter how degrading, and do it for less than they can afford to do it for.' There were other avenues open to American white men, and though they have suffered much, the chief support of the Irish has come from the places from which we have been crowded."

Once the Irish secured themselves in those jobs, they made sure blacks were kept out. They realized that as long as they continued to work alongside blacks, they would be considered no different. Later, as Irish became prominent in the labor movement, African Americans were excluded from participation. In fact, one of the primary themes of "How the Irish Became White" is the way in which left labor historians, such as the highly acclaimed Herbert Gutman, have not paid sufficient attention to the problem of race in the development of the labor movement. http://www.pitt.edu/~hirtle/uujec/white.html

[heaven05]

10. +1000

[Number23]

12. Holy crap! Those No Irish signs were fake???! I've heard about those for years!

[Behind the Aegis]

13. They weren't fake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment#No_Irish_need_apply

However, they weren't as prevalent as some like to claim, and were usually tied to British immigrants/immediate descendants not wanting to Irish people.

If you go to Newspapers.com (you'll need a free sign-up), you can see advertisements in actual newspapers with "No Irish Need Apply." There were actual signs too, but they were mostly limited (as I understand) to New York and Massachusetts, and weren't as common as once thought, but they did exist as did advertisements from individuals and companies claiming they wanted no Irish applicants.

[Number23]

15. So was the point of acting like the "No Irish" signs were more prevalent than they really were

just an attempt to (wrongly) compare the Irish struggle with that of the black one?

[Behind the Aegis]

17. I am not certain.

I am sure some do it for the reasons expressed in the OP. However, it is ahistorical to compare the struggles of the two groups because they are very, very different and the circumstances were also quite different. That said, just as much as I don't like those who downplay or try to rewrite the African-American struggle, I don't like ahistorical pieces that deny the issues endured by others in this country. The author's statement, in the above piece: "No one has ever seen one of these NINA signs because they were extremely rare or nonexistent." doesn't even make sense. One can't claim something is either rare or nonexistent, when he claims "no one saw them", because obviously, people have seen them. That eliminates the possibility of them being "nonexistent".

I would guess some think the "NINA" signs were more prevalent based on "family stories" (we have all heard them and have them) as well as making assumptions about them without real knowledge of the history, something we often see. Using one's history or movement to denigrate, ignore, downplay, or mock another's history or movement is disrespectful to both cultures. Parallels may exist, even comparisons, but the uniqueness of peoples' histories are important.

[Kind of Blue]

14. Neither were the signs omnipresent to the degree

of mythic proportions in living memory. What I find interesting has been the prevasiveness-of-the-sign debate online, totally dismissing Prof. Jensen's well researched paper. To his critics, seeing one or a few signs was enough to foster the belief of rampant descrimintation; up until the 1960s, as one critic cites. Another deflection to me to nullify the paper as well as the history of AA in America to this day.

He ends with
Did the Irish come to America in the face of intense hostility, symbolized by the omnipresent sign, "Help Wanted: No Irish Need Apply"? The hard evidence suggests that on the whole Irish immigrants as employees were welcomed by employers; their entry was never restricted; and no one proposed they be excluded [End Page 418] like the Chinese, let alone sent back. Instead of firing Catholics to make way for Protestant workers, most employers did exactly the opposite. That is, the dominant culture actively moved to create new jobs specifically for the unskilled Irish workers.

[Number23]

16. So a few "No Irish" signs and some are willing to compare the Irish struggle with the black struggle

Meanwhile, after slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and rampant and WELL DOCUMENTED discrimination in housing, employment and education, some still act like discrimination against black folks was never really that bad.

Once again, the power of white privilege shines through.

[Kind of Blue]

20. Exactly. No one discounts the discrimination

the Irish went through in the U.S. But to then target blacks to say look how badly we were treated, as they assimilated into the broader culture while maintaining their own for the most part culture/religion, made incredible economic/political inroads. Then to top it off no or not much, as far as I can see, resentment of those who did discriminate against them. This is where the debate changes.

[pnwmom]

19. The signs were real. Prof. Jensen's theory was disproved by a teenager with online research.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/01/the-teen-who-exposed-a-professor-s-myth.html

In short, those famous “No Irish Need Apply” signs—ones that proved Irish Americans faced explicit job discrimination in the 19th and 20th centuries? Professor Jensen came to the blockbuster conclusion that they never existed.

The theory picked up traction over the last decade, but seemed to reach an unexpected fever pitch in the last few months. Explainer websites this year used it to highlight popular myths of persecution complexes that are, as Vox put it, “stand-ins for an entire narrative about how immigrants are treated in America.” That’s from the lede of an article printed in March called “‘No Irish Need Apply’: the fake sign at the heart of a real movement.”

Here, of course, is the problem: After only couple of hours Googling it, Rebecca, a 14-year-old, had found out these signs had, in fact, existed all along. Not only in newspaper listings—in which they appeared in droves—but, after further research, in shop windows, too.

The Irish were persecuted in the American job market—and precisely in the overt, literally written-down way that was always believed.

SNIP

[Kind of Blue]

21. Oh, I've read that and I can add to your argument

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SiK7yVvlYduouv92lQBzkdLklALFrAgD98m_fjBLa5Q/edit#gid=0 269 adverts found from 1827 to 1919. Maybe more will show up to prove these signs were everywhere, even up till the 1960s.

You may see Jensen's assessment as a "blockbuster conclusion" but I agree with his words that "they were extremely rare or nonexistent." Nonexistent, IMO, in so many places as opposed to ubiquitous in the oral history that's far outlasted discrimination. I agree with you the Irish suffered discrimination but cannot agree that it was just as bad as for blacks. That's what I argue and will continuously bring up as people debate recognition of the sign because this meme to nullify AA experience, as per the OP, has been around for a long time.

There were also No Italians Need Apply signs. And if memory serves, I remember reading about Scottish discrimination here, Italians who were lynched in the late 19th century to about 1945. And lynching of Jewish immigrants, too. But we know that they have assimilated and why. So it's just curious to me that of all groups that some, if not many Irish-Americans, would point to their success here within 100 years as a way to do away with our continuing struggle of many, many centuries.

[pnwmom]

22. Of course it was much worse for black people. But the two realities existed at once.

It doesn't minimize the evils of slavery to acknowledge that there were other wrongs during that period, too.

And the children who were snatched off the streets of Ireland and shipped off to indenture servitude in America did experience a kind of slavery, though it wasn't permanent -- except for the many who died while still in servitude.

[Kind of Blue]

23. I am not trying to minimize either. I recognize them and not just

my own, as stated previously. And as stated previously, reality changes when comparison to nullify our experience is inserted into experiences of another.

[Starry Messenger]

11. I hate it when liberals do this too.

I'm Irish-American, and the Irish were absorbed pretty quickly into the white power structure, despite early Nativist bigotry.

There is an Irish cultural website, Irish Central, that always prompts the most clueless comments from people with Irish names...my favorite in reply to something about Black Lives Matter: "We were oppressed too and never rioted or harmed property!11" Um, the fuck? Someone already mentioned the Draft Riots. Another great Tom Deignan article about the Orange Riots: http://irishamerica.com/2006/08/the-other-irish-riots-of-july/

The Irish should have stood in solidarity with other oppressed peoples instead of lashing out at them as soon as they got a toehold. http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2009/03/17/irish-americans-racism-whiteness/