At the time, a lot. But look at the countries responsible for that talk. England. Germany. United states. All the main intellectuals of the time that spread that talk are from those countries. wasp nations. England controlled the world when that spread. When the catholics and previous romans controlled the world, the germans and english were the barbarians and lesser peoples and im sure if you look it up theyll have justification as well in their sciences of the time.
A lot of people in here are looking at this as “black vs white” simple terms using american propaganda in the media. Italians and irish were always white.. They were just the “white trash” of their gen to other richer ones. And jm sure they said the same about poorer wasps.
Tell an italian from nyc area he aint white. Let him go down south theyll call him a jew. most of the south was settled by wasp scot/irish n english in 1700s with a bunch of germans french dutch. French and spanish had heavy mix of blood from arabs/moors/etc… but they had actual power snd strongholds on continent. Hence white. The others didnt. Not “white”
The catholic irish were brought over as indentured servants in 1700s. All that was an excuse to use them as slaves. They only freed them because the indentured servants in america teamed up with black slaves and took over settlements in carolinas i believe…
And it was decreed due to that, to stop the slave rebellion to keep the blacks in check, that they will no along allow WHITE indentured servitude. So OF COURSE they knew they were white the entire time… it literally became law. So the whole idea is actually revisionist bullshyt using documents from media and intellectuals/eugenics.
In 1800s the midwest was filled with middle europe that came in giant waves, catholic irish, italians, polish were just seen as lesser because they poor immigrants starting fresh living in squalor who “served their pope”. Poles are considered slavs … (which is what the word slave even comes from) but in germany theyre considered indo german. Poland was conquered several times and others profited and justified the continued abuse so now they slavs and lesser than other western whites because of russian taint. Everythings a matter of degree and opinion. But theyre all “white”.
Today you see white south americans, mexicans, etc. to blacks theyre white. To pure euro whites, not white enough. Until they are.
Pure tribalism. Justification for colonialism. Making it ok by “civilizing the savage”. When they once were the savage themselves.
Ok, what I was getting at was that in US history, whiteness and race were legally ( and informally) defined terms. And because of that, it went a step beyond perceptions and preconceived notions about national origins.
On paper, on census records, the groups mentioned in the thread title were "white".
In terms of access to opportunities in America, they had more rights and protections than the native born AAs.
But the major institutions were controlled by WASPs, and others who were grandfathered in due to their early arrival in America. Informally, these were the white people.
The spike in migration from ethnic whites caused backlash from the other group, who felt threatened by the trending population numbers. Ethnic whites were The Others.
So, the ethnic whites of the time being discussed occupied sort of a middle ground. The scientific racism promoted and reinforced their middle rung in the hierarchy . And unwritten laws and policies kept them from reaching higher rungs.
The 1924 Immigration Laws were put in place to check the population trends, and to fast forward the assimilation process for ethnic whites. That started their path to mainstream whiteness, in my opinion.
When the CRM earned legal victories blocking discriminating against people who werent male wasps, ethnic whites now had access to what they were previously blocked from, and were formally white.
