Irish people were legally "white" from the moment the racial category was deployed by colonists in the 17th century.
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To paraphrase Eric Foner, being discriminated against did not make one non-white.
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"No one had tried to prevent Irish immigrants from voting on the grounds that they were not white, hauled them into court for marrying..."
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"...white persons, or claimed that the law prevented them from becoming naturalized citizens."
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"The elevation of whiteness to an all-purpose explanation for political, social, and cultural behavior ignored the fact..."
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"...that the “white” category contains within itself many kinds of inequality." http://www.ericfoner.com/reviews/092010harpers.html …
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To successfully navigate these complex and entangled histories such sweeping (but enticing) narratives should be treated w/ extreme caution.
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Playing with these categories also tends to erase Irish people of African descent. The only known "free born" Irish person who was sold into
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perpetual hereditary chattel slavery in the Anglo-Caribbean was a man named in the State Papers as Mulatto Jack. He was kidnapped in Ireland
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in c. 1720 and sold into slavery in Antigua. This was only possible because of the colour of his skin. He was Irish but he wasn't "white".
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If you wish to explore what it meant to be designated non-white in Colonial America & the United States, see threadhttps://twitter.com/Limerick1914/status/706979527449296897 …
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