Also, there was a more complex racial hierarchy beyond the basic white/dark binary opposition (but the basic binary operated too). Truly, as you say, Southern, "swarthy" , i.e. dark , or "dark" Irish or Eastern Slavs ( is that related linguistically to "slaves? afterall the Eastern Europeans are Asians to an extent) were not at the top, but they were considered higher than the fullblown non-Europeans. WASP's were at the top. Africans were and are at the bottom of this European world conception ( See _The World and Africa_ by W.E.B. Dubois.) , a conception that dominates the world because this is an epoch of European domination of the globe.
"Ethnic groups" became the U.S. designation of the upper part of the hierarchy, with some discrimination as you say. Kennedy becoming President was a symbol of diminution of discrimination against the Irish and Catholics. Catholic was a major interethnic category of the second class Europeans.
So there is a unity and struggle of opposites, e pluribus unum. There are ethnic or "dark" European categories, yes. And those groups suffered discrimination (One might see the recent bombing of southeastern Europe by the West as a continuing expression of that prejudice ?) but it did not prevent a very significant level of white unity with respect to discriminating against the darkest peoples.
Charles Brown
Workers of the World , Unite.
>>> kirsten neilsen <kirsten at infothecary.org> 06/22/99 05:45PM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:
>
> Starting about 500 years ago, the overgeneralized distinction between > whites and coloreds originated with Europeans, who referred to > themselves as whites. Before the 1960's in the U.S. the overwhelming > majority of whites of all classes used this generalization, quite > freely and casually considering themselves superior to coloreds. The > cohesiveness of the group "whites" came from this internal social , > political and economic construction of self or identity.
gee, tell that to the irish, who, along side the chinese, built the railroads in the u.s. or the poles, the italians, european jews ... all of these groups, and more, were racialied, considered of inferior races, etc.
[don't even try assuming that i'm arguing that these groups were more oppressed, or even as oppressed than "non-whitees." i'm simply challanging the notion that whites formed a cohesive group in the u.s.]