Stop Talking About 'Irish Slaves.'

Resident Creator Garrison Hayes creates videos about race and history for a living, which results in being inundated with racist comments, dog-whistles, instances of historical revisionism or apologia, and other stupid stuff.

Every time he broaches the subject of slavery, for example, there it is, the inevitable comment: “What about the Irish slaves in America?” Often, it feels like an attempt to divert attention, to steer viewers away from the pressing issues surrounding Black subjugation. But, he thought, why not tackle this exact question directly?

To get answers, he turned to an authority on the subject: Dr. Nell Irvin Painter, a distinguished history professor from Princeton University and the author of numerous books on race and history, including The History of White People.

During our recent video interview, Painter said, “Well, that’s wrong.” While unfree white people did indeed exist in the indentured economy of the early colonies, she explains, “their unfreedom had a term limit.” The permanent servitude we associate with the term “slavery”—chattel slavery—did not include people we now consider white.”

#Irish #AmericanHistory #BlackHistory

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[princekrazie]

No, we will not stop talking about the historical truth. Millions were enslaved in the Arab Muslim slave trade and Scottish and Irish people starved to death under English rule.

[kamwickw]

THANK YOU. I notice that the 'White people were slaves too" always comes up when Reichwing acquaintences participate in a conversation about racism. And, of course, it became the talking point in the echoerverse - everyone repeated the same thing. It reminds me of someone saying "my daughter was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer" and another responding, "My aunt Edna had that too. oh well, you do know that we all die sometime, don't you?" I've had some awkward moments calling it out, but it was worth it.

[colinjames]

She is smart to know the difference between interpretation versus reality. I could kiss her face!

[IndianaBones]

People need to learn about the Arab & Barbarian slave trade

[clairejeannette]

A WONDERFUL and interesting interview. Keep truckin’. I’ll keep following both of you.

[tuckersabath]

Over the past few years I seem to have been blocked by trolls so I can see the comment count but not all the comments, presumably the troll bots. When the interview ended I wanted to share my impression that yes, the Irish slave children rage has become a thing. So the comment count was eleven with only a single long thread about investing. Now there's a couple I can see and mostly racist trolling.

It's a shame cause listening to the interview I was thinking of all those gas lighting bigots, they should see this. Well I think a lot of them did see it.

As for the question about what mechanism for "othering" that might come next, I guess religion. There was a Jesuit priest interviewed by the "Actom" channel, who pointed out that the forgotten demographic that never gave up on antisemitism was blue color Catholics. And as a carpenter that sounds true. Antisemitism seems to be the bond, at least on site, between Catholics and Muslims and fascists who've never really distinguished between religion and politics. That's of course during the trump years. Notice that alt right evangelical churches who also don't distinguish between religion and politics, they love getting on TV to claim being post racial. Yet not in their political statements.

I'd be happy to brush it all under the rug and let folks identify anyway they want, but.... The intersection of "end times" theology, Christian dominanism, and climate change, I'm afraid will be as potent as the bronze age collapse. Don't tell Samuel Clemens.

[judithmccrea]

You are so right. It’s ridiculous to discuss Irish slaves. They were indentured and could buy their freedom. And, their CHILDREN were not slaves. And THAT is the difference.😢. It occurred to me during your excellent conversation that perhaps one reason many poor White people are so virulently racist is because their ancestors in this hemisphere needed to distance themselves from indenture. So if they supported chattel slavery there was less of a chance of being forced back into indenture. Which of course, begs the notion of tenant farming….

[dalenewton]

Great conversation, you two. I could listen Dr. Nell Irvin Painter all day; her pedagogy is so gentle and earnest. I just ordered the illustrated version of The History of White People.

[hwi]

The concept of race is myth, not science. What would happen if we started living according to science rather than myth? Why don't we do it? Why does the discourse remain fixed and focused on our sinister past rather than focusing on a different and better future?

[morokeiboethia]

Fun fact: The largest shareholder of McMillan Book Publishing company for many years was none other than Ghislaine Maxwell's father Robert Maxwell. Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and her father Robert Maxwell are all Jewish. When you are the majority stakeholder of the largest book publishing company in the world as well as the largest publisher of American education books (elementary school, highschool, universities), then you control history. You can omit history you don't want taught if it is damaging to your race or identity group. You can publish lies as well. But the preferred method is to publish "half - truths." A half truth is a lie. If I say, "Bob shot Sam" and that is true but the entire story is "Bob shot Sam because Sam was trying to kill a guy to get his wallet" then although what I said in the first statement was true, the statement as a whole is a lie because I intentionally omitted other very pertinent facts of the situation with the intentions of making you believe Sam was an innocent guy who was murdered by an evil guy named Bob, while the full truth of the situation is completely the opposite of what I wanted you to believe when I told you that half truth. Half truths are the medias and edu's preferred method b/c you can't be sued or prosecuted telling half truths if you're in the business of media or edu. That being said, there was a 3rd ethnic group involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and that ethnic group is who was behind the founding of the slave trading firms in Holland. McMillan doesn't write the history books, independent authors do. But those independent authors have to bring their history books to book publishing firms to strike a publishing deal so they can hopefully be paid for the time they spent writing the book. If the largest shareholder of the book publishing firm doesn't like something contained in the history book (even if its true) he can tell the author to remove it, edit it, or simply choose not to publish it regardless. If its true that Jews were involved in the founding of the trans-Atlantic slave trade as well as many other roles in the trade, do you find it odd that none of the history books reveal this? When you are the majority shareholder of a company like McMillan, you have control of the full truth. The statement "when you control the present, you control the past" also makes more sense.

[nigelralphmurphy]

Check out the history of the term 'race' and for the longest time 'race' meant a group of people. so, the French were a race, the English were a race, even the white Boers in south Africa were a race that was different to the white British South Africans. So, race as a term has been around far longer than the idea of race as an immutable characteristic on the chain of being.

[jolenestrubberg]

Let them telll it
We have never been slaves!

[justmyopinion]

@11:10 she explains how all the European peoples came to be called Whyte. Because they didn’t call themselves Whyte in Europe, only in the USA.

[Sunshine-is_here_to_stay]

👉👉👉It's important to talk about all history.

[nigelralphmurphy]

I disagree with what she said about it being rude to say white except for a short time after the Hitler war. Countries had immigration policies based on whiteness (although they often meant British) such as White Australia and White New Zealand and they weren't shy about saying it. After independence the only people who could be naturalized were white males. But as she says, concepts change over time. The only thing that doesn't change is whites are at the top, blacks are at the bottom. If you're white you're right. If you're brown, hang around. But if you're black - get back, get back, get back.

[mcoonagh]

It was also a black man who fought in the courts to keep his black indentured servant beyond the permitted years, which led to the change of status of the black indentured servants to black slaves.

[devonrocks]

Oppenheimer made me fall asleep … too much time in court mixed in with explosion noises 😂. I think it would’ve been better suited as a lifetime channel adaptation.

[NanakiRowan]

Given the comments whining about Irish slaves (which didn't exist), it would appear that many commenters here didn't watch the video and were simply triggered by the title.

[robhannigan]

I’m American of Irish descent and no we were not slaves. We were treated far worse than that. 33% to up towards 50% died before paying off their debt. And black slaves coast more. So the more dangerous job went to the cheaper to buy Irish. Truth be told they Irish were forced under punishment of death to leave their homes long before the Great Hunger of 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848, 1849, 1850, 1851 and 1852. Genocides had been done to the Irish. Cromwell only killed 600, 000 Irish Catholics out of a total population of 1, 000, 000.00 nobody came to help them and my people don’t feel like anyone owes them anything. The Gaels are still here despite what everyone else has tried to wipe them out. But no we are no slaves. But they definitely weren’t free.

[soultothedirt]

stopppp!! only us black people can be victims!! 🤣