@mysteryman,
You assume everything and know absolutely nothing. Nothing I say has any meaning except racial to you. While I was speaking on the Black Experience, it could have been any race's condition, as ALL ethnics have had some discrimination committed against them as they tried to assimilate into American Society. When the Irish Catholics came to Boston, they were depicted in newspapers as "monkeys" and drunks. "Catholics need not apply" signs were placed on buildings where employment might be possible.
They were seen as "not white" by their Protestant counterparts. In Louisiana, they were placed on the docks as stevedores, lived in a "segregated" part of the City uptown in the "American" section of the City, because the French wanted nothing to do with them. Kept in a permanent underclass; slaves and people of color were considered valuable and shipped off to the plantations in the countryside in the summer to avoid yellow fever, poor Irish were left to die in the summer heat. All you need to watch are some of PBS's series on "The Irish In America", "The Jews in America" and "Eyes on the Prize Series" about Blacks fighting for equality in a country they were "born" in, but kept separate by Jim Crow laws.
It's the same old story in every instance, where whites created a "class" system for lack of a monarchy. The Plantation Owners were the ruling class in the South, with Blacks and poor whites, as a permenant underclass. In the North, wealthy white bankers and factory owners made their millions off refining cotton and sugar in their factories, using blacks and poor whites as cheap labor. The insurance companies in the North, insured slave ships built by the Brown Family, that whatever losses they incurred would be covered by their insurance companies, so Plantation owners suffered nothing.
When the Civil War broke out poor Irish were conscripted to fight in order to "prove" their patriotism, while the rich paid someone to fight for them. Sound familiar? It resulted in race riots in New York against Blacks because the Irish felt that the Blacks should fight for their own freedom. Blacks were not allowed to join the Union until later and then they were all-Black regiments, like the one from Massachusetts. Blacks were forced to fight in the South for the Confederacy, because they were losing.
When I speak of racism, I speak from a Black perspective even though I know we are not the only ones discriminated against. We ARE the only race that were slaves for 450 years. The Congressional Black Caucus was formed to insure passage of certain legislation of which congressional whites won't pass or even come to the floor of the House. The NAACP was formed by whites with a coalition of free blacks in the north, thank you. It was formed by white abolitionists. Oh, I'm supposed to be a walking statistician to tell you their numbers? I'm not even a member of the NAACP. See them as backward and "regressive". How many members of the Skin-Heads and the KKK are there? Did you also know that acts of terrorism were carried out by whites? Who bombed the Murrah Building in Oklahoma? Just WHO were the Branch Davidians that killed FBI agents? Who're killing doctors that perform abortions? Domestic Terrorists, that's who! Since you know everything, you tell me!
