How the Irish Became White
Jan. 14th, 2007 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jasonI have been getting help from a number of Ryerson faculty, Steven Solomon and Alana Butler in particular, to get my head around bring issues of race, identity and sexual orientation into my courses. Alana sent me the following link, after a conversation on hour our two cultural backgrounds would have interacted historically. In my course we did not explore so much historial interactions of groups, but I directed students to explore how each had been complicit in the oppression of others, based on Ann Curry-Stevens’ works (available at http://www.socialjustice.org/). There’s lots I need to learn, but this was really interesting:
Ignatiev traces the tattered history of Irish and African-American relations, revealing how the Irish used labor unions, the Catholic Church and the Democratic party to succeed in American. He uncovers the roots of conflict between Irish-Americans and African-Americans and draws a powerful connection between the embracing of white supremacy and Irish “success” in 19th century American society.
