my comment regading the isreal treatment of jewish people with high concentrations of melanin was a reference to the isreali’s efforts to grey rock african; latin american; and south asian jews from immigrating into isreal, where they openly welcome european, american, and canadian jews without similar grey rocking.
also: there’s an easily verifiable historical record of Italian, Jewish and Irish people being treated similarly to people of color in the eastern united states and canada, but i agree that it can sometimes be problematic to still use this as evidence of prejudice today; especially so considering that the version of whiteness that we use today coexisted with the anti-non-white discrimination that the italian, jewish, and irish experienced in the eastern united states.
the book “the great arizona orphan abduction” has fascinating examples of irish and italian-american immigrants fleeing discrimination in new york who then went on to perpetuate the same type discrimination against mexican-americans in arizona. (imo: this was more troubling since the mexican-americans weren’t immigrants; they had been in the area since before it had become american territory; like the palestinians had been in palestine before it became modern isreal and also because the perpetrators experienced the same discrimination that they were doling out, so they knew how wrong it was, but did it anyways).
![[CW: racism] We’re so close to getting an answer to the question of whether Italians are white](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/85f32639-4f7a-45cc-b969-7c80edfe8504.jpeg){kind=link}
my comment regading the isreal treatment of jewish people with high concentrations of melanin was a reference to the isreali’s efforts to grey rock african; latin american; and south asian jews from immigrating into isreal, where they openly welcome european, american, and canadian jews without similar grey rocking.
also: there’s an easily verifiable historical record of Italian, Jewish and Irish people being treated similarly to people of color in the eastern united states and canada, but i agree that it can sometimes be problematic to still use this as evidence of prejudice today; especially so considering that the version of whiteness that we use today coexisted with the anti-non-white discrimination that the italian, jewish, and irish experienced in the eastern united states.
the book “the great arizona orphan abduction” has fascinating examples of irish and italian-american immigrants fleeing discrimination in new york who then went on to perpetuate the same type discrimination against mexican-americans in arizona. (imo: this was more troubling since the mexican-americans weren’t immigrants; they had been in the area since before it had become american territory; like the palestinians had been in palestine before it became modern isreal and also because the perpetrators experienced the same discrimination that they were doling out, so they knew how wrong it was, but did it anyways).