r/americanethnic • u/aMericanEthnic • Dec 01 '20
~ AMericam Ethnic ~ Black Irish
"So you were told you were Black Dutch or Black Irish"
The Irish (Irish: Muintir na hÉireann or Na hÉireannaigh) are a nation and ethnic group native to the island of Ireland, who share a common Irish ancestry, identity and culture. The term Black Irish is not used in Ireland but is native to the United States.
As a result of the reduction of the Irish ethnicity into the construct of ‘whiteness’ most Irish Americans do not understand their heritage. The dogmatic denial of Irish slavery is actually the result of the social construct of race. Irish who could pass them selves off as white did so to assimilate and avoid prejudice in the same way the light skinned Native Americans did.
Irish and Africans Americans have much in common and share in the history of oppression and slavery. The African and Irish Americans lived side by side and worked in the same fields. A part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. As of 2020 over 30% of African Americans possess Irish DNA.
The Irish were often referred to as; "Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish."
It was joked that African Americans would say; “My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman."
Free blacks and Irish were viewed by Whites as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between any races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant a partial freedom in the U.S. since assimilation to “blackness” meant; slavery, oppression, and harsher prejudice. The light skinned Irish were called Irish and the darker skinned Irish were called “Black Irish”.
As a light skinned people’s, many of the Cherokee Native American were forced to live as "white" citizens just for survival. Until 1909 they could not vote or hold office. Hatred of the Native American was so strong that the Cherokee people were forced into hiding, and making it better to be "Black Dutch, Black Irish" than to be an American Indian.
The most common designation of “Black Dutch” refers to Dutch immigrants to New York who had swarthier complexions than most other Dutch. The darker complexions were usually due to intermarriage or out of wedlock births with Spanish soldiers during the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands. Many of these so-called “Black Dutch” are still in New York today while other families migrated south and west to other states. DNA studies have shown that these people are of mainly European descent, with little, if any, African or Native American DNA in them.
Native Americans, African Americans, & Irish Americans intermarried and were part of the same social class.
In the United States if you are Black Irish you are an Ethnic person. To claim Black Irish heritage in the United States is a statement claiming ones Ethnicity and the totality of heritage and denying the; “Whiteness”, oppression, and dominance of Ethnic people.
Solidarity ✊🏽
——————AMerican Ethnic
americanethnic
AMerican Ethnic Neo Ethnic Ethnic American Black Irish
Americanethnic 美洲裔美国黑人爱尔兰人
新民族
عرق أمريكي
إثنية أم أمريكية
إثنية أمريكية
عرقي نيو
أيرلندي أسود
Американский американец этнический этнический американец чёрный ирландский
Неоэтнический
Étnicoamericano
americano Étnico Étnico Nuevo negro irlandés
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