On this, to me, ridiculous holiday of St. Patrick Day, some notes.
If you are out there celebrating your Irish roots. Please take a moment to remember that they did not send their best when they sent the first Irish settlers (1600s-1700s). They sent their minions, the folks who are willing to listen to the Big Boss and kill to conquer a new world.
Did your ancestors come over during the potato famine? Well, the reasons for coming might seem better, because the were immigrating not colonizing, sure. They were miners, farmers, the poorest. They came to find better. They found that they were not considered any better here than they were at home by the colonizing Brits. So they fought, literally fought, to create the Hibernian Society and become part of the white patriarchy. Indeed your ancestors did. Soon they were filling the ranks of racists cops in city after city. Settling in next to their raping and murdering county lads who came over 100 years before them.
They were quick to understand and assimilate. Becoming as White as they could, as fast as they could, to be on top.
Or at least not be on the bottom.
St. Patrick Day is, of course, yet another one of our holidays for a religious figure from one particular religion that the country does not share. We know why. We know christianity with the big C is here and in force, and they want control. Catholics, Protestants, Baptists, etc. All have developed ways of controlling humans over decades, centuries, millennium.
But who even cares about a fictional being from a far away island? Dunno. But folks seem to cherish American Irishness. They seem to think it gives them a pass on being white. Even though, let’s face it, in tone we are some of the whitest people out here.
There is no pass on being white in the US. If your ancestors came from Europe (or Europe adjacent countries) at a time when colonizing and settling were still happening in the US.* Your ancestors participated in white supremacy.
This holiday has always made me cranky. The idea of feeling better about yourself because your roots are from a particular place has never made sense to me much. When I was young the folks around me, declaring their specialness, were not special. They were already white and privileged. But somehow they felt they needed to be more than that. They needed to have suffered before they gained that privilege. Do you think they felt they earned it because their ancestors struggled a wee bit?
* The territories of Alaska and Hawaii became states in 1959. So up until then we were colonizing and settling these places. Taking land and resources away from the people who already lived there. It weren’t all that long ago people.
