Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire

by Akala

Closer to home, Allen also contrasts the management of racial dominance in British-occupied Ireland with racial oppression in Anglo-America; there are many striking parallels between the way the Irish were treated and the way later racialised groups would be.3 --- The idea that the Irish were essentially savages still lingered with us in England until the 1960s, with the infamous ‘No Irish, no blacks, no dogs’ sign being just one example. Yet in the Americas, Irish immigrants became big supporters of black slavery, the confederacy and white supremacy, and ended up as a significant portion of slave owners throughout the Americas – though still far less than the English or Scots. My surname, Daley, is of Irish origin and possibly reflects the origins of the man that owned my grandfather’s great-, great-grandparents. Despite their own very real experience of oppression in Ireland, once in the Americas, particularly during the nineteenth century, the Irish came to understand very well the benefits of learning to be white, and learn quickly they did.