I identify not just as Irish-American, but strongly so. If it’s a contest between identifying as Irish-American or white (and although this post will reflect the fact that I don’t have a sociology degree, I believe those two are competing for the same space or something like that and add up to 100%) I identify largely as Irish-American and partly as white.
In my experience many white allies have a problem with how I identify and say it is in conflict with being a white ally. This article will explain why I identify that way. It will also touch on related issues like the anti-racist nature of my N. Ireland activism, my thoughts about ethnicity, the connection between my identity and my decision as an activist to often devote large amounts of time to the issue of N. Ireland, and my record as a white ally.
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(I primarily think of race in the sense that involves it being socially constructed. That is, the concept of race that involves power, privilege, and socialization. I haven’t, for about 16 years, had a great grasp on socialization (and can’t find anything about racial socialization in my two (more or less) introductory Ethnic Studies books) But I think I understand it enough. I think my grasp of white privilege has gone down a bit in recent years, but I believe that two good examples of what I DO know to be white privilege (to demonstrate that I at least largely understand it) are A) how the police treat you, and B) white people being comfortable dominating a conversation involving people of color (and being ALLOWED by the other white people in the conversation TO dominate the conversation). And I think I have studied the exercise of power over marginalized people enough to understand it)
(Because it makes discussing the subject technically problematic, I’m suspending the idea that all white people are racist)
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When I say that I identify partly as white that’s because of three things. My skin color, how I was I socialized, and the fact that I have white privilege. The thing is, the white race exists only in the following ways:
1. In a VERY limited way connected with skin color and some other physical characteristics.
2. In our society it does if we focus on the concept of race that involves it being socially constructed and involves power and privilege, and it is of course necessary for white people who aren’t racist to acknowledge this reality (it makes a lot more sense to say white people instead of referring to the white race).
But the white race in other senses was invented to justify imperialism, exploitation and to divide the lower classes. Although I lack the sociological knowledge to explain this incredibly well, I see race in the second sense above as artificial. And I see ethnicity as organic (I'm only going to write this once in this post, but with American Indians, nationality might be a better word than ethnicity (also, if we ignore immigrants from Africa and the African diaspora, I'm not sure if ethnicity is the right word for Blacks, but I'm reluctant to say race or nation in the last two sentences of this paragraph, so I'm going with ethnicity)). Ethnicity is more about culture that developed naturally and is not inherently incompatible with equality.
At this point I want to further explain my thoughts on this and, specifically, identify what and who encouraged me to feel that identifying partly or largely based on my ethnicity was important.
One of the first things that encouraged me to go in the direction of identifying the way I do was a comment in a lecture by Angela Davis that I used to have on tape. The (probably host-created) title of her talk mentioned ethnicity in a way that assumed only people of color have ethnicity. She said something about white people needing to do something about their ethnicity (I think what she said was close to “explore” and/or “assert”). I believe that it was sometime in 1999 or 2000 when I heard that and I think the talk may have been sometime earlier in the 90s.
There was one thing that Ward Churchill said in a Native American Studies class he taught that I took that also got me thinking the way I have. It would have been 1998 or 1999 when I took that class. I asked some question more or less about my belief that the racial identity “White” is what you might call “artificial” and the ethnic identity, based on where the ancestors of European-Americans came from, is more “organic.” His response was to tell us a story about Stephen Biko, the anti-Apartheid martyr. Apparently when he was in court one day, before the proceedings began, the judge said something about how officially Biko was classified as “Black” but his skin is more of a “chocolate brown.” Biko responded by saying something like “well they call you “White” but you look more pink to me.”
On a minor but slightly relevant note, one day in 2000 when I bumped into Churchill, he greeted me by calling me “Irishman.” Also, in 2000 he spoke about an upcoming Columbus Day Parade in Denver, sponsored of course by an Italian-American organization. He said something about how an alternative celebration of Italian-America, perhaps centered on pasta, should be organized and he would be thrilled to take part.
When I was taking Intro to Ethnic Studies in 1995, Professor Estevan Flores said that there should be two Ethnic Studies programs (or Departments): The traditional kind and one for Irish-America, Italian-America, German-America, etc.
The most critical quote I can give you about this is something the late black author James Baldwin said. He said, ”as long as you think you are white, there is no hope for you.”
I don’t know if Davis, Churchill, Flores and the late James Baldwin would (or would have) agree(d) with me about identifying LARGELY as Irish-American and PARTLY as White (instead of the other way around). But I will shortly make a pretty good argument that it makes sense for me to do that. The thing is, I’m not saying that those four people agree with me (or would have agreed with me), although I think there’s a good chance that they would (or would have). I’m just saying that those comments are a big part of what inspired me to identify this way.
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One miscellaneous argument that I think I’ll put here is that white supremacists seem to identify more as white than as, for example, English-American (yes that’s a joke, I don’t think the WS community is any more English-American than the white population in general). That doesn’t seem to have any positive affect on how offensive their actions and thoughts on race are.
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How do I justify identifying more as Irish-American than as White? There are a couple minor things and two big things and they all add up to justifying my stance on this. First the minor things:
1. I am at least slightly interested in Irish culture. For example I listen to a fair amount of Irish republican music.
2. The last thing I want to do is suggest a connection between being Irish and being Catholic (or the other way around), but I was often told when I was young that we were “Irish Catholic” and my religion was fairly important to me as I grew up and still is slightly important to me. That earlier way of talking about it has had some lingering effect on my interest in Irish things.
The first of the two big things is simply my family tree. My paternal grandfather’s family was largely from Ireland and so was my maternal grandfather’s family. My Dad’s mother was partly Irish. On my Mom’s side, her mom was half Irish. Even if it were no more than a large minority of my family tree that’s Irish, I would probably still feel the same way about N. Ireland and would mention the Irish part along with whatever was the biggest part.
The second big thing is my participation in political activity around N. Ireland which largely meant among a chunk of the Irish-American population. I wasn’t involved with the more cultural or social aspects, but I was, in a political way, fairly active. I’ll describe that some more, looking at the first and second incarnations of the independent CU-Boulder group I organized (Students for Justice in N. Ireland (SJNI)) which were 1997-2000 and 2002-2004. (UPDATE 2/12/20 I keep forgetting that although we did almost nothing, the first year SJNI was called the
Bobby Sands Association)
(What I said above doesn’t mean that I WANTED it to be mostly Irish-American (you can see
this as evidence of that). Although I could have handled it more democratically, in 1999 when a fellow co-chair of SJNI made a flyer for our meetings that referred to us as an “Irish Student Organization” I just said no, as the more senior leader. As much as I wish I had had more of a conversation with him, I was passionately against what he was doing. But, unsurprisingly, at least 80% of the people involved at any point were Irish-American)
To a large degree my active interest in N. Ireland in general contributes greatly to the argument I’m making about my identity. But I’m going to focus more on the 1/2 of my N. Ireland activism that was also anti-racist or anti-homophobic.
I think the first thing we did that was anti-racist (in early 1998) involved organizing a panel discussion about the Good Friday Agreement. We had three white Irish-Americans, and one Irish-American person of color (Glenn Morris, a Poli-Sci professor at the University of Colorado (Denver) and (at least back then) one of the top people in the Colorado American Indian Movement). Inviting Morris was my idea- another progressive activist told me he was very interested in N. Ireland and followed it closely (at the event I learned that Morris is half Irish-American, but I think this still counts). (about 25-50 people showed up)
The next event we did partially on a multi-cultural theme was in Oct. 1998. A few months earlier I had read a book called “Black and Green: The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America.” It’s by an Irish man from Britain named Brian Dooley and is about the similarities and connections between the two sets of issues and movements looking back as far as Frederick Douglas and Daniel O’Connell (one chapter is about Irish-America). If you doubt that such connections exist, read that book and/or read this
post. We got money from student government to do an event with Brian as the speaker. We did ask the Black Student Alliance to so-sponsor after we got the funding. They readily agreed but that was it. It could be I or SJNI in general screwed up by not involving them more- I’m not sure, but it may have been unavoidably limited to that. It was a one-speaker event plus a movie that I loved showing at events, partly to provide some of the background the speaker might skip over and partly because it’s incredibly inspirational. On one hand, we should have found some way for the BSA to meaningfully contribute beyond their name on the flyer. On the other hand (in my defense and at the very least), IF I had known of a BSA member interested in Ireland, I would have suggested that they introduce Brian (and make whatever comments or announcements that seemed relevant to them). It’s possible it was doomed to be limited and I’m done speculating about things I probably should have done. (I almost forgot that their co-sponsorship, as limited as it turned out to be, MAY have had an effect on the thoughts of some racist or near-racist Irish-American(s) who saw the flyer but didn't attend the event (the apparent and often actual absence of people of color on this issue does nothing to JUSTIFY racism among Irish-Americans, but my theory is that it might PARTLY EXPLAIN it in some cases and when people of color are visible on this issue, that might get racist or semi-racist Irish-Americans who care about NI to re-think their thoughts on race)). (about 75-100 people showed up)
The third thing we did on this theme was that when we brought SF’s Representative in America to speak on campus (in early 1999 and again with student government money) we had her introduced by a Chicano man, Leo Griep-Ruiz. He had, at some point in the late 1990s, a frequent column in the Colorado Daily (then, the main but not official campus paper). At that point he had done two N. Ireland-centered interviews on KGNU community radio and had told me that many Chicana/os don’t see it as a coincidence that
Bobby Sands died on Cinco de Mayo (he was the first to die on a hunger-strike by Irish republican prisoners demanding to be treated as POWs). So, at my suggestion, we had Leo introduce SF’s Representative in America and he spoke on some inter-connected themes for about 15 minutes. (about 75-100 people showed up)
During those years there were two things worth mentioning about homophobia. First, at a 1998 weekly meeting of SJNI, a gay woman asked about how SJNI felt about homophobia. I said that as far as I was concerned it was unacceptable and for better or worse there was no further discussion (I didn’t try to suppress it at all and there was no noticeable drop in attendance at the next meeting).
The second thing was that in 1998 or 1999 I learned of the controversy over the NY City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. There was a boycott of it because LGBTQ+ organization were banned. After the 1999 parade I (as an individual, not a representative of SJNI) wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the Irish News (the main NI paper read by Catholics) criticizing SF for marching in the parade despite the fact that they support gay rights. Although I was appealing to a foreign political party, I was doing so in support of LGBTQ+ Irish-Americans and Irish immigrants.
In the late 1990s I spent a lot of time on an online discussion forum created and moderated by Sinn Fein which was dominated by Irish-Americans. I some times did things comparable to what I just described doing in the previous 7 paragraphs). And I think there were a few other miscellaneous things I can’t think of right now.
In the second incarnation, we did 2-3 things that were anti-racist and one thing that was anti-homophobic.
In Nov. 2002, the Young Democratic Socialists CU-Boulder chapter (which I was also organizing) brought
Bill Fletcher Jr. to speak on campus with student government money. He had a massive history of various senior and very senior positions in the labor movement and had spent a few years as a National Co-Chair of the Black Radical Congress (it was a coalition for black people and organizations on the Left). I had learned just by chance that he was interested in N. Ireland and had in the 1980s done a lot of work on the issue. I spoke with people in YDS-CU and SJNI and SJNI organized a panel discussion that he agreed to speak on for free. (about 25 people showed up)
Around the 2003 anniversary of Bloody Sunday, we did a panel discussion that was supposed to include Ward Churchill an American Indian Studies scholar (he’s interested, at least slightly knowledgeable, and could have spoken about the concept of national self-determination) but he didn’t show up. (about 75 people showed up)
In Nov. 2003 we did a panel discussion involving a Black Studies Prof. named George Junne. When we brought Brian Dooley to speak on campus Prof. Junne had Dooley speak in his class. So I asked if he was interested in speaking. He wasn’t familiar with N. Ireland but did know a lot about something fairly relevant, which is the relationship that Black abolitionist Frederick Douglas had with Ireland in the 1800s. So he spoke about that. (about 25 people showed up)
in 2003 or 2004 I also learned that an important anti-racist training I had attended in 2001 was going to be done on campus and encouraged SJNI members to attend.
As far as homophobia goes, we took an important position in support of the boycott of the NY City St. Patrick’s Day Parade. We made copies of our statement and put them out when we tabled at events or in the student center. I had a bunch of anti-homophobic buttons left over from my past involvement with the Young Democratic Socialists and although this may have been questionable, we put the buttons out, too.
With the anti-racist events I had hoped to do two things. The most relevant one is that I hoped our 5-6 efforts might have some effect on eroding racism among a certain section of the Irish-American community (the section that was racist and that also cared about N. Ireland). The less relevant one was to broaden our audience (which would have contributed to accomplishing the first goal) (as far as broadening the audience, I almost organized an event about environmentalism in N. Ireland for the same purpose). I’d say something similar about making the 2003 statement on the NY City St. Patrick’s Day parade.
I think that (in connection to my family tree) what I did trying to promote an anti-racist and anti-homophobic agenda among a large chunk of the Irish-American population while doing N. Ireland activism contributes to justifying my assertion of an identity that is more Irish-American than white.
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I would also like to briefly describe my work as a white ally. It’s a different approach to defending my desire to identify largely as Irish-American and still be taken seriously as a white ally; a different approach but one that I think complements the other arguments I’ve made. This is not an exhaustive list, but probably represents about 50% of what I did (most of the other 50% is probably less important and less successful than most of what I write below).
1. In 10th grade my very first bit of activism was when I walked out of my 3rd or 4th period class and joined other students marching around town in protest of the Rodney King verdict (in 1992). That evening I went to a CU-Boulder campus march and rally.
2. In the Fall semester of my freshman year at CU-Boulder I helped with a pro-immigration/immigrants rights event.
3. In the Fall 1995 semester I was one of the main people that organized an event defending Affirmative Action.
4. In the Spring 1996 semester I was a significant part of something similar but much more politically aggressive, and much more successful. It was with a large coalition of students and student groups. The issue was primarily affirmative action but immigration was part of it, too.
5. At the 2000 National Conference of the Young Democratic Socialists I got a statement opposing Columbus Day marches added to a general anti-racism document adopted at the conference (that had originally said nothing about American Indians).
6. In January 2001 I was a small part of organizing one event in Boulder about socialist anti-racism and a massive part of organizing another event on the same topic in Denver.
7. In February of 2002 I represented the Anti-Racism Commission of the Democratic Socialists of America at the National Conference of Sinn Fein Youth in Galway, Ireland (I publicly encouraged SF to reach out to people of color in America more).
I did some miscellaneous activities that I want to briefly mention (that are in the less important 50% I referred to above): tabling in the student center with some anti-racist materials; and joining what might be called “mass meetings” by students because of concerns about diversity and equality on campus; In the late 1990s I attended at least three protests or rallies in Denver about police brutality, and around the same time I attended about 5-6 actions or marches in Denver in support of Justice for Janitors. Around 2015 I went to two protest marches in support of Black Lives Matter.
For many reasons, including that it seems appropriate after listing a lot of the GOOD things I did as a white ally, I would like to briefly say some things about the biggest mistake I made as a white ally. There’s probably 5-10 other mistakes that are all much smaller than what I’ll describe in a moment (for example, what I wrote above about the Brian Dooley event and the involvement of the BSA).
In 2000 there was a Columbus Day Parade in Denver and a massive protest against it. I think it was organized more or less by CO-AIM and especially by Glenn Morris. During the early part of the protest I decided, without thinking of it in depth earlier, that I was willing to get arrested for sitting down in the road blocking the parade (it was non-violet civil disobedience). I actually asked Ward Churchill right before I was arrested how much trouble we would get in- years later I realized that sitting down and getting arrested was a big mistake. I am lucky in some or perhaps many ways and my Dad was a lawyer back then. He barely touched criminal law but offered to sort of be my lawyer in this case. At almost the exact same time he said he had heard some rumor that we were all going to go to jail. This was four months after my mom was killed in a car accident, and I think I was reluctant to get into an argument with my Dad- even more of a problem, I really didn’t want to be in Denver County Jail with all that emotional baggage. I took his advice and separated myself from the others in the court system and pleaded guilty to 1-2 minor charges and was not even put on probation (not long after that, the charges against the others were dropped). This is embarrassing and sounds lame, but I just went brain dead and didn’t consider how fucked up what I did was, not until about early 2013.
It might not sound horrible to many progressives, but it is, as you’ll soon agree. The argument in favor of blocking the parade is something like this- the parade is close enough to advocating genocide that it’s illegal under international law and therefore we were enforcing International law. In the early 1990s a Denver jury agreed with people who did the same thing back then. Me pleading guilty to two things was a problem.
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Another reason I felt comfortable blocking the parade is that I supported efforts to keep anti-Catholic Orange Order parades out of Catholic areas in N. Ireland (in the Summer of 2002 I was in two riots (with the security forces) in west Belfast triggered by such marches (in 2002 such rioting was popular in the nationalist community)). Although some would argue that downtown Denver is not an American Indian area, this whole continent used to be theirs, AND, what the Columbus Day parade stands for is worse. The worst the Orange parades stand for is what happened as a result of British policy before and during the Famine. 10-15% of the population died and and 10-15% emigrated otherwise they would have died. On page 31 of his 1995 book, “Since Predator Came” Ward Churchill writes about the results of European and European-American settlement in the area that is the United States and writes: “by 1890, fewer than 250,000 Indians remained alive within the United States, a degree of decimation extending into the upper 90th percentile.”
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Overall I’m not sure how much damage I did- maybe none, but if Glenn Morris were to tell me that I undermined the cause a lot I would feel bad. But they WERE able to say that X, not X minus 1, people were arrested. I got the Colorado Democratic Socialists of America to endorse the protest and as a leader of that group I did a little bit of publicity for the protest (we made some flyers for the CU-Boulder campus and we made it clear that CO-DSA were just helping a tiny bit with spreading the word). I also had done a handful of other things as an ally of Indians specifically (including getting a statement on Columbus Day into the YDS document I referred to above).
For whatever it’s worth, I prefer to end by repeating what I said above- I made a big mistake by sitting down to get arrested at that point in my life and I also want to apologize- in general and to Glenn Morris (I have apologized by email but haven't heard back).
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Besides a brief conclusion this is the last component.
In 9th grade (90/91), 1-4 years before I was a progressive, I became kind of a supporter of the IRA, vaguely in connection with my religion and family tree and in connection with a good friend of my mom’s who was an IRA supporter. I was probably the least educated about the conflict among American supporters of the IRA and did practically nothing about it. That changed in early 1997. I had been a socialist and very active anti-racist for about two and 1/2 years at that point. That passion for justice is part of why it changed then.
I know this will, at least initially, sound like I’m a bad white ally, but even today my identity (Irish-American and Catholic) does play a significant role in my decision to focus more on that issue than most other issues (when you look at the years 1997-2001 and 1997-2004 or 1997-today).
Here are some of the reasons why I think American progressives should do work on this issue:
1. The Catholic community in N. Ireland experienced high levels of inequality in the first 50 years of NI ’s existence (for more on that see
this (describes the undemocratic and sectarian creation of N. Ireland, the inequality Catholics experienced, and how the Troubles began)). Around 1970 the situation transformed. Although there were fewer laws that could be compared to Jim Crow, job discrimination continued or got worse (in 1971 Catholics were twice as likely to be unemployed as Protestants and in 1988 they were TWO AND A HALF times more likely to be unemployed as Protestants) repression got worse, and violence against the Catholic population skyrocketed like you wouldn’t believe. During the Troubles (roughly 1969-2005) they went through a nightmare. 856+ Catholic civilians were killed in the years 1969 to 2005 by either loyalist paramilitaries or the security forces (a comparable scenario in America would have meant around 67,000 unarmed people of color killed by cops or Nazi skinheads (etc.) in the same time period). (A: based on what I’ll describe below, I would guess that the actual number for that was probably somewhere around 7,000-8,000; B: I'm not saying the racist system in this country wasn't, ideologically or programmatically, capable of killing 67,000 people of color in those years if the "rebellion" among people of color here had been as militaristic as the one among Catholics in N. Ireland; but the reality is that as bad as it was for people of color here in those years, it was, in terms of deaths, MUCH worse for Catholics in N. Ireland). Between 1975 and 1998, with practically zero influence on law and policy beyond local government, they were ruled by a state they quite reasonably saw as both foreign and hostile.
2. The government most responsible for that nightmare (see
this) is the most important ally of the US government in the entire world (in addition to some other relevant info, that post exposes the fact that the British were no more concerned by the sectarian slaughter of Catholic civilians (by organizations that did little else) than they were concerned by IRA attacks that almost never resulted in civilian death). I realize that we are not propping them up like we do with Israel, but who helped us patrol the “No Fly” zones over Iraq 1991-2003?; who contributed something like 20% of the military forces for the invasion of Iraq? And who made a similar contribution during the occupation of Iraq? I believe that the British have a problem- an Ireland problem, or an imperialism problem or whatever you would call it. They need an intervention and you get friends, not enemies or strangers for interventions. The US needs to convince the British to begin, ASAP, a decades-long process of getting out of Ireland.
3. It gives us a chance to do something important that won’t require hardly any extra effort beyond what we should be doing on N. Ireland anyway. The more people of color and visibly anti-racist white people get involved (at least to a small degree), the more we erode racism among a large chunk of Irish-Americans (I’m not saying that the apparent and often actual absence of people of color justifies that racism, but I think it partly explains it). Although I haven’t heard of a specific example of it happening, I believe it can and does happen. A friend of mine with a BA in Sociology, a BA in Psychology, and a Masters in Social Work (from Denver University (which means that she must have gotten good grades in her Psychology and Sociology classes) agrees with me.
(admittedly, the last 15 years or so the situation has improved greatly in terms of overall violence and inequality for Catholics. But Catholics still don’t experience anywhere near total equality, and I would say we should wait for 10 years of that before we talk seriously about it not being a problem anymore. Also, for 3 years until Jan. 2020 there was a pretty serious crisis in the peace process, there are still republican paramilitaries active, loyalist paramilitaries are still active, the British are not owning up fully to what they did during the conflict. Basically, even if there’s not much opportunity or need to do much now, at the very least progressives should educate themselves a little so that if things DO go downhill and they want to get involved to some degree, they’ll have already started educating themselves. I recommend Michael Farrell’s “Northern Ireland: The Orange State.”) (UPDATE 11/7/20 See
this for relatively recent developments in the Peace Process (it might soon come to a halt))
I think that the 2nd-to last thing I need to say in defense of WHY I am so interested in N. Ireland is to refer to Prof. Angela Y. Davis. First, as I mentioned earlier, she does encourage white allies to do something with their ethnic identity (I think something like explore and/or assert). She also feels very strongly about the need for Black people to take N. Ireland seriously as an issue. Specifically, in 1994 (I think; and on a tape of a lecture she gave at a Black Studies conference), she compared African-Americans who are unconcerned about NI with those who are pro-life, homophobic, or anti-union. A slightly different version of this is found online
here, in a paragraph towards the top that starts with the word "beware."
You combine these two thoughts and I can’t imagine her having a problem with Irish-American white allies working on the North partly because of their ethnicity.
Lastly, if American progressives have a problem with me doing this, I have to ask how they feel about Jewish-Americans being very interested in Israel and/or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Even if we set aside the fact that I’m supporting the oppressed and the Jewish-Americans we are talking about are probably more likely to be pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian, why is it okay for them, but not me, to be very interested in politics that are relevant to them/me because of their/my religion and/or ethnicity? Some would say that Jewish-Americans are oppressed and neither Catholics nor the Irish (in America) are. Are they really OPPRESSED? I have a bad history with this question, but let me just briefly say that even in the last 6 years during which we saw 14 Jewish people killed because they were Jewish, they are not oppressed (my timing could be much better and I might sound insensitive, but A) I am not going post-pone this post any longer, and B) although this doesn’t mean I am above criticism as a Christian ally, I think it’s reasonable for me to point out that
a lot of the material on my blog is against anti-Semitism). What about widespread police brutality? Mass incarceration? Disproportionate unemployment? Jim Crow-type laws? A low rate of educational success? Where am I getting this? I’m not going to offer a flurry of sources, statistics or quotes. I doubt anyone will seriously say I’m wrong on the relatively specific points I just made. I have been observing American politics a lot the last 25 years. During that time I have probably read an average of 3000 words a day about America in different articles or books. It’s also relevant that while getting my BA in Ethnic Studies, I don’t think anyone ever said something like “that also happens a lot with Jewish-Americans.” (UPDATE 3/28/20 this is discussed further
here)
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In conclusion, I believe that there is nothing about identifying mostly as Irish-American and partly as white that’s at all inherently in conflict with being a white ally. Although I haven’t said much about this because I think it might require more of the sociological training I clearly lack, I think that what I’ve written in some parts of this essay implies that it might even be BETTER if white allies would have some sense of their ethnic identity and maybe take it as far as I do when that makes sense (on the other hand Northern France doesn’t exist, and certainly isn’t occupied by anyone). Although this doesn’t require taking it as far as I do, identifying as Irish-American has given me another opportunity to do stuff that had the potential of lessening the racism (and homophobia) in this society. Also, ethnic pride among European-Americans (for example, Irish-American pride) is (in general) to one degree or another much less offensive than white pride. I’m not saying it’s crucial for the equality-based, multi-cultural society we want to build, but it can’t hurt either, for white people to have some degree of pride as, for example, Greek-American (as an alternative to white pride).
(UPDATE 4/30/20 Somewhere here I need to say something. Even if 99% of Irish-Americans were racists, it wouldn't be because they're Irish-American. If that were the case, no other white people would be racist. I could go through a list of all the other European-American ethnic groups and say the same thing. And with Irish-Americans, look at the colonial history of Ireland and how anti-racist the Nationalist community in N. Ireland is, and how abolitionist the Nationalist population in Ireland as a whole was in relation to America. Those white people who are racist are racist because they're white and various sociological and psychological and political factors HERE have contributed to them being racist)
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What makes me confident about my statement “probably somewhere around 7,000-8,000”?
1. Between 1996 and 2005 according to the FBI there were 38 racist murders. I have read that the Department of Justice officially estimates that for every hate crime reported to the FBI there might be 20-30 that aren’t reported because not all local law enforcement agencies report such crimes to the FBI. So I came up with 1,140 for those years.
2. I heard (from organizers of a Black Lives Matter protest) that in a 12 month period during a 2014 (apparent) surge in police murders of black people including those of Eric Garner in NY, Tamir Rice in OH, and Michael Brown in MO among other highly publicized such cases, that around 200 black people armed or unarmed, had been killed by cops in America. Although I’m very open-minded about accusations that cops plant guns, this country also has a ridiculous number of guns.
3. Bear in mind that decades ago the number of people of color and the number of cops in this country were both smaller or much smaller than they are today.
4. If it’s worth much, about 10 years ago I read a huge amount of what the Southern Poverty Law Center put on their web-site in the previous 10-15 years. I also got an Ethnic Studies degree if that’s worth much.
5. There was little or no talk about “Brown Lives Matter” so I get the impression that very few Latinos/Latinas/Chicanos/Chicanas have been killed by cops in recent years (as far as I know, even Arpaio’s sheriff’s department in AZ didn’t kill a single such person) and that might reflect the situation in earlier decades. I have practically never heard of Asian-Americans being killed by cops. And if Native Americans were being killed at a high rate in the 80s and 90s I would have heard (a massive chunk of my major was Native American Studies).
UPDATE 6/9/21 I just found a Democracy Now! story relevant to this. It's
about the last 20 years, but there's a small overlap between that and
the period I was looking at Catholics and people of color (1969-2005),
and it's possible that what I said about this comparison is off a
little. Bear in mind that the figure I refer to in item #2 above came
from organizers of a Black Lives Matter protest.
