Oh dear.
Quote:
Originally posted by Ryanicorn
an "irish people were slaves too" teas |
Historically, we've a pretty complicated relationship with notions of race. There's a pretty good book out there called 'How the Irish Became White' that traces this problem in an American context, but essentially Irish people weren't classified as "white" by many within the British empire for way longer than you might think was possible.
Irish people were often subjected to many of the same stereotypes that African-Americans struggled with in the same period - one example is the common depiction of Irish people as apes in British literature (like the satirical periodical 'Punch' in the 1840s), similar to racist representations of African-Americans as late as... well, sometimes even now.
This is a bit complicated to explain on ATRL, but yeah. It can still be touchy, depending on who you talk to.
