• ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
    25·
    2 days ago

    There was that whole media cycle about the Irish woman who was detained. That first wave was likely testing to see which groups resonated in the media before moving onto raids.

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
    566·
    2 days ago

    Yeah but as someone from southern new england I can assure you the irish immigrants still aren’t accepted there totally either. Day to day interactions no one targets you for being Irish descent but structurally being Irish American is considered to be barely white, more like poor white which is barely white among elite circles (ughh Boston is full of the descendents of the original immigrant european religious fanatics and it shows sometimes).

    Doesn’t make any of this right but notice the way oppression must metabolize and neutralize solidarity in a fractal process of targetting vulnerable groups along whatever axis they are exploitable along. Irish Americans must be both the oppressed and the oppressor for the system to work, and it is the same thing just more dogpiled the further you go down the ladder of real privilege.

    There was no damn potato famine, there was just England prototyping modern colonialism and capitalism on Ireland.

    • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
      19·
      2 days ago

      but structurally being Irish American is considered to be barely white, more like poor white which is barely white among elite circles

      I’m not trying to pick a fight, but interested in more info. What practical ways does this manifest for these folks? Are they subject to additional law enforcement scrutiny, denied job opportunities, or historically discriminated against in mortgage lending? Or are there other ways I’m not thinking of?

      • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
        13·
        2 days ago

        I mean, the thing with Irish Americans is that they have been shit on for most of their experience in the US but then in the last 40 years or so ceremonially brought into the “white” club, but this club has no real rules other than it only temporarily brings minorities in, however the club wants to define minorities.

        You won’t see structural discrimination against Irish Americans as easily perhaps as other more obvious examples of US racism but it is there, mostly in terms of classism. Irish Americans are the stupid hardworking drunks you do all the manual labor and leave the WASPs to run everything.

        Things are changing, but I think to begin a conversation about why Irish Americans can have such disappointing politics compared to Irish people proper you have to understand the way the white elite in the U.S. has been playing poor-person-in-the-middle with groups like the Irish for decades.

        • via_solaris@piefed.socialEnglish
          91·
          2 days ago

          I read a story in the paper about a middle-class white family that knew a big storm was coming and got out, and didn’t bother to warn their neighbors, poor whites living in a trailer park, who all died. And I was like, yeah that tracks.

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
            82·
            2 days ago

            I’ve lived in tornado alley for much of my life. During tornado season everyone watches the weather, and has a plan on what they are going to do. I would find it VERY strange if my neighbor suddenly started banging on my door telling me a storm was coming. I would absolutely already know from the same sources they know. Most of us are hyperaware of our dangerous weather. I imagine that point is the same for those that live in hurricane areas.

            Because you said the “got out” then it sounds like it was a hurricane. If a tornado is closing in, the worst thing you could do would be try and “get out”. So what’s even more confusing if this was a hurricane, those have days worth of notice. Everyone in that trailer park would have known a hurricane was coming days before and could either choose to leave, go to a hurricane shelter, or decide to stay put. The reality is that trailers are the worst form of protection during bad weather, tornadoes or hurricanes.

            What exact action you would expect from the middle-class family that wouldn’t make them racist/elitists from you post? Physically knocking on doors of dozens of trailers saying “a storm is coming” days before they leave?

            • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
              3·
              2 days ago

              I’ve been surprised by hurricanes before, it’s not impossible that it goes from a category 3 to a hurricane in the span of twelve hours to a day, and it’s relatively easy not to see news about it. I’m not in Florida, so it could be different there, but I’ve never heard of a hurricane siren, for example.

              • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
                2·
                2 days ago

                it’s not impossible that it goes from a category 3 to a hurricane in the span of twelve hours to a day

                Cat 3 is already a hurricane isn’t it? Cat 1 is too. Below that would be “Tropical Storm” and below that “Tropical Depression”, right?

                But you knew about the Cat 3. Would you still have expected the middle class guy from the house down the street to come and knock on your door (and that of dozens of your neighbors in trailers) telling them that the Cat 3 had upgraded to something worse while he’s trying to drive his family out of town?

                My one experience with hurricane evacuation was when I was visiting Florida. Notices of danger are literally all over the place. Businesses close, grocery stores empty out, and THE TRAFFIC! Something like 12 hours before the expected arrival the government even authorizes all interstate highways to be unidirectional. What this means is that both sides of the highway are traffic flow away from the storm. Yes, half the drivers are driving “the wrong direction” down at highway speeds away from the storm. It was kind of fun actually legally driving the wrong way down an Exit ramp onto the highway going the wrong direction. Fun fact I never knew, there are a whole bunch of “WRONG WAY” signs on the back of the regular interstate highway signs. We never see them because we’re going the right way. Also, the road reflectors in the separating the lanes are ALL RED. Again, you only see them if you’re driving the “wrong” direction, which we legally could during the evacuation.

                • idiomaddict@lemmy.world
                  1·
                  2 days ago

                  Yeah, I brain farted. I meant category three to category five. Category three is not really a concern where I grew up (~50 miles inland), but category five will fuck things up. Because of that, news coverage and radio interruptions and the similar tend to set in around category 4.

                  I guess I found out about most hurricanes from talking to other people because it becomes a topic of small talk, so maybe that’s coloring my perspective. I would expect people to talk to their neighbors about it, if they suspect that their house will be swept away, if only to check what their plans/forwarding address will be.

            • adminofoz@lemmy.cafeEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              I know you typed a lot, but a simple “hide ya kids, hide ya wife” from the bougie woulda been nice.

          • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
            4·
            2 days ago

            I am not the first person to point this out and I won’t be the last… but this is really the only way the system can work. If people aren’t turned against each other in this multi-dimensional shit show of empathy strangling twists of stereotypes and lived experiences than it will inveitably collapse into a giant “Why the fuck are we doing this?” and people will stand up together and put a stop to it.

            It is NECESSARY for the middle-class white family to leave abruptly without telling their poor neighbors in order to rationalize the hate the middle-class white person has for poor whites (I wouldn’t do this awful of a thing unless I was right because I AM a good person) and vice versa to rationalize the hate the poor white person has for middle-class white people or black people or whatever… all that matters is an unaddressed trauma is created and then denied any resolution for the victims. Rinse Repeat.

            Personally I think a better alternative would be free quality healthcare for everybody but what the hell do I know shrugs

        • NewNewAccount@lemmy.world
          4·
          2 days ago

          It’s interesting because virtually none of that anti-Irish sentiment exists on the West Coast. Someone of fair complexion here is considered “white”, full stop.

          • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
            2·
            2 days ago

            I honestly think it is as simple as the elite white class of easterners wanted desperately in some way to be like mindfuckingly rich european elites and so why the hell would they go west when their parents already in their minds went farther west then they the children wanted to and were now having to commit genocide and other attrocities to drag a fabrication of that fantasy into reality here in the US?

            You have to look at the cowboy trope and interpret it quite literally as the US collective psyche, racism, stereotypes of westerns and all because it really does explain the behavior of the US right now.

            The west was not built by blonde hair blue eyed european descent cowboys taming the savage wilds, it was built despite them trying to kill the very soul of the landscape and despite the fact that retroactively cowboy imagery was violently whitewashed and plastered over a vibrant if brutal tapestry of history in order to simplify problematic questions about the “american project” into easy answers.

            Edit John Company the board game explains this exhaustively in that the game is meant to express a similar process that went on with the Colonial elite of India under occupation by the British empire.

            https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/332686/john-company-second-edition

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
            2·
            2 days ago

            It’s interesting because virtually none of that anti-Irish sentiment exists on the West Coast.

            I’ll echo this from the midwest. Thats why this post about discrimination against the Irish was so surprising to me. Chicago in particular goes all out on St Patrick’s day, and having any sort of Irish heritage is celebrated and cache that day.

            • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
              2·
              1 day ago

              It is celebrated in southern new england, I don’t think I have ever seen anyone insult someone seriously because they were Irish or use slurs or anything (other than the incredibly prevalent joke that Irish people are all alcoholics? Like kind of yes but so is every other demographic basically…? At a bare minimum the Irish certainly aren’t alone there…) but I am not talking about big boisterous celebrations here, I am talking about structures of society and those can go entirely unreflected upon even as symbols of equality are flourished all over the sky, I ask myself with respect to Irish-Americans have those structures changed? I am not so sure and even if they have they left their mark on Irish-American culture, at least the parts I have experienced.

              I don’t mean to claim I am an expert, I am not significantly of Irish descent and I am not Catholic, I hope I am wrong and I am seeing more into things than I have any right to but it just makes sense to me based on my lived life experience and what I know intellectually.

              • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
                1·
                2 days ago

                You’re speaking in abstracts, which there is certainly a separate welcome conversation on, but how are those of Irish descent treated differently? Can you give me a concrete example, even anecdotal, where someone of Irish descent in New England was treated worse simply because they were of Irish descent?

                • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
                  2·
                  2 days ago

                  Structural Racism look it up

                  I can barely give you an example off the top of my head of a white person acting racist towards a black person in front of me, but that doesn’t mean the landscape around me wasn’t shaped by a racism towards black people…? It just means I have been fortunate? enough to be shielded from seeing it most of the time when it actually rears its ugly head…

      • Philote@lemmy.ml
        7·
        2 days ago

        You can think of it like the infamous caste system in India. Which is in play almost everywhere if not as well defined. There are layers beyond just elite and poor. The Irish and Russians along other white immigrants might be considered in the trader caste (Vaishyas) while Latino, Haitian, South American…. P.O.C. immigrants and such are treated as Untouchables (Dalits)

      • adminofoz@lemmy.cafeEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        Also not trying to pick a fight.

        Poor whites are subjected to subject to additional law enforcement scrutiny, denied job opportunities, and discriminated against when trying to purchase a home. Im not saying it’s on the same level that it happens to black folks or actual minorities. But you don’t have to be Irish, to be white and get shafted by capitalism.

        • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
          21·
          2 days ago

          Poor whites are subjected to subject to additional law enforcement scrutiny, denied job opportunities, and discriminated against when trying to purchase a home.

          This I completely recognize and agree with, but that wasn’t the premise posted. The premise was “Irish American”. I’d never heard that as a modern day form of discrimination, and that’s why I was questioning it.

          But you don’t have to be Irish, to be white and get shafted by capitalism.

          Right again, but again, that wasn’t the premise posted.

  • Agrivar@lemmy.world
    26·
    2 days ago

    Can confirm. My town is full of immigrants, both legal and otherwise, and the recent ICE raids magically didn’t see any of the Russian or Irish illegals, but Jah help you if you were born with more melanin.

  • flandish@lemmy.world
    282·
    2 days ago

    my neighbors are immigrants from Ukraine. A family of hard working people and a new baby! I worry for them and do not look forward to interrupting ICE when they raid and I see them on my cameras. “seen these people?” “nope also who are you, get off my lawn.”

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
      15·
      2 days ago

      That’s just so screwed up.

      Like, why should it be so hard for your neighbors with a house and a baby to become a US citizen in the first place? It’s impractical. If they become citizens or something in between, they pay taxes, everything, all anti-immigration criticism (other than the racism) evaporates.

      • flandish@lemmy.world
        132·
        2 days ago

        100%. In my opinion, if a state “must” exist, becoming a citizen should be a 15 minute process. Do you have fingerprints? Can you sign your name? Ok. Welcome, citizen.

        • vrek@programming.devEnglish
          23·
          2 days ago

          I agree mostly, maybe a little more… I don’t want any more violent criminals and I don’t think lions from the safari should be brought into someplace like NY state.

          That said I, as a natural born us citizen of several generations, believe we should welcome other potential citizens with few exceptions.

    • nandeEbisu@lemmy.world
      7·
      2 days ago

      I’m tempted to participate in disruptions of ICE raids, but my parents are naturalized citizens and with that potentially being revokable, I don’t want to take any chances.

    • AES_Enjoyer@reddthat.comEnglish
      13·
      2 days ago

      Can you imagine yourself targetting a black neighborhood because of a link between a black person and Trump? Then why are you doing this with a Russian neighbourhood?

  • pticrix@lemmy.ca
    31·
    2 days ago

    If the people allow all this to continue, then they’ll get there, surely. Right now, given the mean intelligence and pattern recognition of the members of the cops and ICE goons, they better go for the low hanging fruits (aka : following the FamilyGuySkinPalette.jpg).

    Glad to see the start of real unrest, given the context. I wish safety upon all the participants on the side of empathy.

    • snooggums@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 days ago

      If the people allow all this to continue, then they’ll get there, surely.

      No, this has always been about racism based on skin color, not immigration itself.

      • OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world
        6·
        2 days ago

        At first, it’ll be about skin color. But trump promised “mass deportation,” and once they start running thin on brown people to abduct, they’ll start in on other demographics. They want to get those numbers up.

        They won’t stop with black & brown people. They won’t stop at all.