How the Irish became White
by Noel Ignatiev · first published 1995
14mentions
2recommended by
13HN commenters
2013–2025first – last mentioned
15% recommend62% neutral23% critical
How the Irish Became White explodes a number of myths surrounding race in our society. Focusing on how the Irish were assimilated as "whites" in America, Noel Ignatiev uncovers the roots of conflict between Irish Americans and African Americans and draws a powerful connection between Irish "success" in nineteenth-century American society and their embrace of white supremacy. - Jacket flap.
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I highly recommend reading How the Irish Became White [0] [0] https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics...
on “Private Prisons Are Behind the Push for Homeless Criminalization” ↗I think "How the Irish Became White" by Noel Ignatiev is a good place to start with respect to engaging on this topic.
on “The Logic of Stupid Poor People (2013)” ↗Noel Ignatiev's "How the Irish Became White" is supposed to be a nice book on this subject
on “Some Facebook Employees Unite to Challenge Its ‘Intolerant’ Liberal Culture” ↗…American racial discourse, Irish and Italian folk were once considered "not white." The title of his article is "How the Asians became white" which as Eugene pointed out in the comments, is an allusion to "How the Irish Became White," by Noel Ignatiev. So it wouldn't shock him at all, that's his point.
on “How the Asians Became White” ↗…it'd shock Eugene if someone pointed it out to him that, in American racial discourse, Irish and Italian folk were once considered "not white." The title of his piece is almost certainly a reference to "How the Irish Became White" [1], so presumably not so much. I'm with you on the broader point, though, that the hand-wringing about who is and isn't white is silly, and that if it serves as shorthand for racially privileged people,…
on “How the Asians Became White” ↗Probably not at all - his article is a play on the title of a fairly recent book, How the Irish became white. As an Irish person (from Ireland) I was amused when I arrived in the US 20 years ago that people were still asking questions like whether I had grown up with electricity.
on “How the Asians Became White” ↗…extraordinarily complex. For instance: what exactly determines Whiteness, if it's a concept that is defined only as "not-ethnic"? Along those lines, Noel Ignatiev's (note: a controversial figure) book How the Irish Became White details how Celtic immigrants were NOT considered white in the antebellum South. Anyone in America, I think, with Irish or Scots ancestry knows the long history of American racism against the Celts. Ignatiev…
…unhealthy relationship to race. I still think that professor LeVine is busy pushing that "deeply unhealthy relationship to race". An example of how he does it, is by promoting Noel Ignatiev's very dubious "How the Irish Became White" theory. Both Ignatiev, and LeVine, ignore that most anti-Irish sentiment was actually anti-Catholic – so long as the majority of Irish immigrants to the US were Protestants, anti-Irish sentiments were…
on “The moral case against equity language” ↗Note that the Irish were not considered white throughout the 18th and 19th centuries and into the early 20th century. See eg. "How the Irish became white": https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Noel-Ignatiev/dp/0... There were plenty of "NINA" ("No Irish Need Apply") signs throughout the North, the same way we had Jim Crow laws in the South. Other…
on “Restrictions on house sharing by unrelated roommates” ↗…https://www.academia.edu/69843076/The_Becoming_White_Thesis_... In fact it is so false, that 8 Irishmen signed the US Declaration of Independence: https://www.irishpost.com/life-style/meet-8-irishmen-signed-... The myth was likely started by Noel Ignatiev's "How the Irish Became White" book [1]. The same Noel Ignatiev that co-founded the "Race Traitor" journal, "which promoted the idea that "treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity"". Who would have thought such an unbiased and…
on “How long can it take to become a US citizen?” ↗…venues/places, could marry other white people, weren’t affected by segregation, etc in every instance in society where you were “checked for white”, Irish people passed. The book the myth is based on “How the Irish Became White” defines white basically as “didn’t face discrimination”, which Irish people certainly did, but never because they “weren’t white”. Obviously these are different things, and this (I think deliberately)…
on “Private Prisons Are Behind the Push for Homeless Criminalization” ↗…some trouble accepting this, as identifying as white felt a bit like a betrayal of my mother and grandfather. So, I started reading a bunch of books like How to be Black, The Souls of Black Folk, and How the Irish became White[3]. I learned some pretty interesting things[4] and accepted that in almost[5] all contexts I am white. if someone (like a friend of mine from Canarsie) says I'm Black, thats fine. But on any sort of…
on “For Hire: Dedicated Young Man With Down Syndrome” ↗…hierarchy. They were not white; nor I recall were Italian-Americans. I vaguely recall reading Irish-descended critics pointing out how they were backstabbing others to gain white privilege. There's a book, "How the Irish Became White". I haven't read it and therefore can't offer a recommendation, but there's definitely literature out there. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Ignatiev) The racial system is a form of warfare and social…
on “No I won’t lean in because I stand up” ↗…collection of socio-economic attributes and their indicators, of which color and other physical indicators are only the most obvious/visible. And not all white people have always been white. See e.g. "How the Irish Became White".
on “Policing, Mass Imprisonment, and the Failure of American Lawyers” ↗