It's because they want to downplay their whiteness during a time when the issue of white supremacy is in the public eye. Any group that can be considered marginally white tries to do this.
They think shit that happened 100 years ago still effects them.
I mean it does.... seems like maybe what you're getting at is that Italians were fully folded into "white" during the postwar period
The best guess based on shit my father says is like "people don't take Italians seriously, they just assume that if you have an Italian name you must be in the mob or something! We can't be successful without people throwing around mafia shit!"
How does their ancestors being discriminated against effect them today? They don't experience systematic racism, control most of the unions in the northeast and chicago and alot of them are cops.
I'm just saying those material effects are still felt today however weakly, even if the institutions have stopped being racist towards them
just as a thought experiment, if you could eliminate systemic racism towards black and brown people tomorrow— there would still be lingering effects on outcomes due to the generations of oppression. barriers to generational wealth, poorer nutrition, exclusion from better jobs all would have an impact on the person you are today if your great-grandfather experienced them, even if you're no longer experiencing discrimination.
I'm not saying Italians are PoC, I'm just saying that generational material effects don't disappear instantly when the systemic part fades
I think we're largely in that place right now with the black community. Institutional racism, as in legal doctrine that explicitly promotes racist goals, doesn't really exist. Eliminating the explicitly racist laws just isn't enough to solve the problem of racism, even within our institutions more broadly (although you could absolutely argue that the Senate as exists today enables this same sort of racism).
There's not a single country on earth that at one point had a legalized caste system where the legacy of such doesn't persist today.
barriers to generational wealth, poorer nutrition, exclusion from better jobs all would have an impact on the person you are today if your great-grandfather experienced them, even if you’re no longer experiencing discrimination.
Other than poor nutrition (which tbh they have the money to change and don't live in food deserts) they literally don't experience this anymore other than gabagool jokes. Are you italian?
I feel like you missed this part?
if your great-grandfather experienced them
and no I'm not Italian, I'm just saying don't forget that the present is forged out of the material conditions of the past
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.
No I didn't miss it but I'm talking about whether or not they're experiencing systematic racism that was passed down to them. The answer is no and in fact they happily participate in the system of white supremacy that still effects generations of black, brown and indigenous.
This is absolutely true and needs to be discussed, as even within the context of the black community. The vast majority of the disparities we see today are entirely caused by post war era institutional racism and are near entirely removed from anything that happened during reconstruction or as a result of slavery.
Black people in major cities had equal levels of wealth when compared to the Catholic and Jewish immigrants before the great depression, but after the war and the new deal, blacks were left with nothing when these other white groups were totally folded into broader white society.
Haha those silly Italians! Now pardon me while I write a small essay about how those damn SPDers got Rosa killed a hundred years ago...
ayo dont forget the irish, love having to explain that Irish slavery is a myth like at least once a year
Nah, there was a point in time where they were considered the underclass. What's rarely mentioned is that what allowed them to "transcend" the label was their pigment.
It's because all of the contemporary disparities and institutional racism stem from the new deal era and post war era policies and have absolutely nothing to do with slavery and anything from the 19th century.
yeah but they weren't slaves, which is what i get sick of explaining
You clearly aren't in touch with any sort of ethnic white roots lol (also I'm convinced these sorts of things only really exist in the north east).
He would correct how I crushed garlic
The white American desire to roleplay culture never ceases to amaze
At least from my perspective as a NYer, virtually all ethnic communities, including those that have been in the country for more than 100 years, never totally assimilate into American culture and they keep ties to these things.
Religious institutions (I.e. all the Italian Catholics going to a different church than the Irish Catholics) and the entire family being nearby play a big role.
If they really wanna sell it, they need it all in italics
Bullshit. They're all voting for trump and you can't convince me otherwise.
I want to see Biden come out and do some Andrew Dice Clay nursery rhymes
