Reply to Stanford apologizes for limiting Jewish students in 1950s

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m Irish-Italian.  My great-grandparents and grandparents were immigrants in the Irish slums and Italian ghettos —when do we get an apology? They faced severe discrimination “Irish need not apply” here in the US.[/quote]

I’m always puzzled when intelligent people cite this argument. The acculturation process for immigrants from most countries in Europe, excluding Jews, was extremely different from others. Like one generation versus generations of systemic barriers. [/quote]

I'm not the pp you quoted, but your response reveals your ignorance of the Irish immigration experience.   Please educate yourself before embarrassing yourself again.[/quote]

People who are familiar with the issue know that some groups (including Irish and Italian immigrants) were seen as “not quite white” and faced particular challenges and ALSO that that’s nothing like either the legacy of chattel slavery in this country nor the vigorously enforced antisemitic policies pursued in this country until a few decades ago.[/quote]

This is simplistic. First off, be suspicious of anyone who lumps the enslavement of Africans in the Americas with anti-semitism. They are very distinct, just as the discrimination against certain European groups prior to 1960 is also distinct.  Jewish people were never enslaved in the US. The closest thing to enslavement of Africans and their decedents in the US is the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII. Antisemitism is terrible but belongs in a different conversation than the institutional deprivation of an entire race of people of their freedom.

Second, you gloss right over how and why Irish and Italian immigrants "became" white in the US -- it was part of a systemic effort to reinforce racism against black people in the US as well as a way to quash workers movements that might have united oppressed groups. This is significant because white Jews in the US have undergone a similar process, as have some Asian groups (though that is made more complex by the size of Asian American populations in certain parts of the US which has entrenched racism views about Asians in a way that is actually most similar to how antisemitism grew across Europe before WWII, where Jews were viewed as too powerful and successful. The Jewish population in the US also experiences antisemitism but is too small at this point to garner this kind of reaction.

You have to do all the homework. It's complex.[/quote]

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