Over the centuries, America's racial categories have morphed and changed as new immigrants arrived at the shores of our country from nations far and wide. When America began, the three basic divisions that existed were mostly enslaved black africans, European Americans of mainly Northern European descent (majority British Isles, minorities from Sweden, Netherlands and Germany), and Native peoples just beyond the thirteen colonies. During the 1800s, scientific racism sprouted up, influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and pushed the belief that different races differed in intelligence and mannerisms through evolution. As a result, the divide between black and white people in America widened, now pushed by a new pseudoscientific white supremacist ideology.
In the 1850s, Irish immigrants arrived on American shores, fleeing a deadly famine in their homeland. The Irish differed from other Americans at the time due to their poor economic status, foreign culture and catholic faith, and partially influenced by British Imperialist prejudice toward the Irish they conquered, those already here alienated the Irish, and relegated them to ethnic ghettoes in New York and Boston. Social Darwinists classified the Irish as "Brown people" (does this sound familiar?) and claimed that they were not the same race as white americans, and were uncivilized and dangerous as a result. Some speculated that the Irish were a missing evolutionary link between Black Africans and White Europeans, or a mixed raced population. The Irish slowly assimilated into American society as future generations gained Middle Class status and political might through their civic participation.
Then in the 1900s, immigrants came to America from Italy, Greece, Poland, Ukraine and Russia. These immigrants were also considered to be a non white ethnicity originally, and faced nativist violence and discrimination on US soil. One of the biggest mass lynchings in US history was the murder of several Italian Americans in New Orleans after a rumor spread that a police officer was killed by Sicilians. These communities were non white in America until World War II, when individuals from them joined the United States war effort against the Axis, while the second generation worked their way into the Middle Class and Italian-America became known for Frank Sinatra.
Meanwhile, in 1944, the Supreme court of the United States ruled that Arab-Americans could not be banned by racial quotas on Asian immigration because Arab-Americans were white, and not regulated by such racist travel bans. Arab-Americans, then mainly Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian Christians, became white americans along with Southern and Eastern Europeans and Jews.
Through the mid 20th century, the white racial category in America expanded to include all Caucasian peoples of Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Hispanic Americans of mainly carribean descent (Puerto Rican and Cuban). Things began changing in the 1980s when the Mariol Boatlift occurred. Thousands of impoverished Cuban refugees arrived in Miami and settled the city, and the municipality continued to become more latino into the present day (Miami is now 71% Hispanic/latino in population). Meanwhile, terrorism increased in the Middle East, mainly from organizations such as the PLO. Thousands of refugees from Lebanon's civil war also arrived on US soil, many more of whom were muslim compared to the mainly Christian immigrants of the earlier 20th century. In the early 1990s, the collapse of communism in Albania and the Yugoslav Civil War drove thousands of Albanians to immigrate to America, setting up communities in New York, Detroit and Los Angeles.
In the 1990s, Al Qaeda became an increasing threat to the US, bombing the World Trade Center in 1991. Al Qaeda rammed a United States battle ship in 1998. Meanwhile, immigration from Latin America increased, and illegal immigration became an increasing social dilemma for America. Things climaxed in 2001, when 9/11 rocked the world. Arab-Americans and people who resembled Middle Easterners came under increasing suspicion and racist attacks following the destruction of the world trade towers, and Middle Eastern people in the US found themselves increasingly alienated from other people, viewed by many as potential terrorists. Latino immigration was at an all time high by this point and latin americans too began to be otherized, largely due to the Mexican Drug War south of the border.
As of the election of Donald Trump in 2016, Hispanic, Arab and Albanian Americans found themselves at risk for increased discrimination and violence from nativists. The Alt Right movement began drawing deeper boundary lines between whites and those they considered non white, and social darwinism experienced a major comeback.
In the increasingly racial atmosphere of the United States, one must ask three major questions. I want your opinions on America's racial divides. I have three questions for you as th audience.
1. What is your defintion of whiteness? What is the geographic border line in your opinion for what counts as white and what counts as non white? How do you define a white person as opposed to a person of color?
2. Do you believe race is a biological reality or a social construct with no real basis, cemented in human tribalist tendencies?
3. Have you ever experienced discrimination in the United States based on your racial or ethnic identity? This question isnt only limited to people of color, since I want those who identify as white persons to also feel free to talk about any violence or discrimination they may have faced from a non white individual too. Anyone who has been a victim of racism is free to tell their story.
PLEASE NOTE this conversation needs to stay civil. Do not personally attack people if you disagree with their ideas, but debate constructively instead. Also, do not fill the comment section with racial slurs or attacks on people based on their ethnic heritage. All racially charged comments toward others will get deleted.
I am trying to figure out what Americans think about race and how they draw the boundary lines of race. While I believe that race is a social construct based around the clinal variation of human skin tone, and is really meaningless, others may not agree. You may state your opinion as long as you do not personally attack other individuals. Let's have an in depth conversation about this issue guys, because after the Pittsburg shooting and the murder of two African-American customers at a Kroger in Kentucky, we need to have a dialogue about race and prejudice in the United States.
