Jezebel 
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New York, 9:44 AM
Wed Nov 11
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/06/09
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Why is it that recent immigrants are always the most racist? My great-grandfather practically got right off the boat, turned around, and yelled, "Go back to where you came from, you damn foreigners!"
10/06/09
How were these people not sold on the "melting pot" concept? I always feel like I'm missing something fundamental, when I can't explain this to these wackos.
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Mantra: "love each other love each other love each other love each other love each other..." AUGH
10/06/09
It makes prejudice sound legitimate.
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[tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com]
She will get her comeuppance, that you can take to the bank. It will take the State Bar of California a while to catch up with the blizzard of evidence that she deserves to lose her bar ticket, but her days as a lawyer are numbered.
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"The study found that white Europeans are more "American" than are nonwhite Americans in most minds. [...]"
That's hilarious, in a forehead slapping shameful way.
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I wonder if there's any different in where you were born/grew up. I'm from the NYC area and I'm used to diversity. If there are only white people in a place I get creeped out.
10/06/09
I didn't learn that it was only until 1952 that non-whites could even become naturalized in this country until I went to college. (Ha, how often do we talk about that as we pat ourselves on the back for being a constant "nation of immigrants?")
10/06/09
History is one of those really important subjects a lot of people get bored by...and then everyone acts surprised when we don't learn from it and crazypants people start screaming about things that make no sense.
10/06/09
If you recall from Gangs of New York the Irish weren't really considered white until the Civil War (and in Boston it took a while longer); even then it was only because they were a convenient source of cannon fodder.
10/06/09
We've had black people since before the U.S. was the U.S. and non-white immigrants for nearly a couple centuries, but these people weren't, until recently, treated as full people by the U.S. government. The attitude, apparently, has persisted in society far longer than it has in law.
10/06/09
One thing that surprised me after 9/11 was that in all of the hysteria, there was never a serious push to start rounding up Arab Americans in such a fashion. Maybe we have grown as a society, after all. Then again, it's more likely that it happened that way because the attacks were executed by (mostly) Saudi Arabians, instead of the armed forces of Saudi Arabia.
10/06/09
PS - your name is delicious!
10/06/09
i wanted to learn history, and tried to get it taught, but was punished instead. i'm a little bitter that despite 12 years of history and social studies classes, including 'world history' i still have no knowledge of any history not relating to the US. ok a lot bitter.
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@Cynical Media Bitch: Yes, that's exactly the kind of immigration history I learned in school. I thought Gangs of New York was very interesting because it really highlighted the immigrant/nativist tensions, actually showed some Asian people in NY (!), and really showed that the first major lynch mob was in NYC. But I digress.
I would also argue that the concept of "white people" as we know it now didn't really fully materialize until post-WW2 suburbanization (with Italians and Irish being the notable exceptions to the "euro but not 'white' "), but that is definitely a discussion for another time.
@Fatty Catty: Yeah, I think my family upbringing sort of prevented me from asking about other immigrant experiences too: my parents were refugees from SE Asia, so when I was growing up I just sort of assumed that all East and SE Asians were here in the US because they were fleeing communism, and ergo, they/we all just came over from the '60s - present.
10/06/09
Also, I don't know how old you are, but I was in high school ten years ago and we learned about the civilizations of China, Japan, India, the Middle East (cradle of civilization) in addition to what is commonly considered "Western" History-and that was during my freshman year of high school. I know this curriculum was common for all the schools in my area-and it still is in the school where I work.
Perhaps you were exaggerating for comic effect...I just found your bitterness a little extreme. I have taken numerous courses covering a wide variety of topics, from the history of Latin America, the history of Science, of Medicine and Women, to the history of film in China. I was motivated and the traditional concept of history as the story of powerful men fighting wars bored me. So if you had a problem with it, perhaps you should have taken some initiative instead of yelling and complaining at your teachers? And if you were in college, why didn't you choose to take courses that were more relevant to the areas of history that interested you?
10/06/09
@banh mi: Growing up, in my head, everyone pretty much came over on the same boats at about the same times. But also fleeing Communists!
10/06/09
I'm not certain what would qualify as the first major lynch mob, because you'd have to distinguish between politically inspired lynchers on one hand and ethno-religiously motivated lynchers on the other.
For some of the earliest political lynchings, I'd point to the Stamp Act riots of 1765. For an early lynch mob with religious motivations, I'll go with the Ursuline Convent riots of 1834, which took place in Charlestown, Mass. The years leading up to the Civil War were chock-full of anti-Catholic riots, most notably in places such as Philadelphia and Louisville.
I agree with you that today's concept of "white people" didn't emerge until after WWII; but by the 1880s, the Irish were "white" in most of America, as were Germans. Slavs, Italians and Greeks weren't considered truly "white" in many circles until the 1940s or '50s, even after two World Wars' worth of "Americanism."
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i forgot to mention that the next town over is the second richest town in the state and has an excellent school system. my town is known for a high rate of dropping out, and my year (2004) had the highest percent of girls (including those who would have graduated 2004 but dropped out) with at least one kid by graduation (25 of 250). the school has more pressing issues than just avoiding teaching about the rest of the world...
10/06/09
I wouldn't entirely avoid biographies, but they do tend to skew the story toward the role of the individual. Personalities are of course important, but go for the big picture first and pick out items for further attention as you go along. Good luck kid, I think you're going to need it.
10/07/09
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