Irish and free blacks were speculatively expected to amalgamate

Evidence

Part of the reason for its effectiveness among the Irish was that it hit so close to the truth; as Fanny Kemble noted, the more Irishand Afro-Americans were lumped together, the greater the hostility between them. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 150 (#expands, via linked claim)

Let us imagine two families, one Irish and one black, living next door to each other in one of the maze of alleys off Seventh Street. In good weather the women wash clothes together at the well they share in the courtyard, and exchange news, complaints, and household advice. In emergencies, they care for each other’s children. Both families are desperately poor; the Irish husband works on the docks, when he can get work; the other goes up and down the streets with a sandstone wheel, crying “Knives and scissors to grind.” … A riot breaks out and a mob sweeps through the miserable street like some natural force. The word reaches the Irish woman: if she puts a burning candle in her window, her house will be spared. She does, and it is. The next morning she comes out to discover her next door neighbor weeping at the pile of rubble in front of her door that was once her bed, table, and dishes. … What can the Irishwoman say to her neighbor? That she is sorry? When the black woman looks at her reproachfully because her home was spared, will she feel guilty? And if so, how long will it take for her guilt to be replaced by resentment and rationalization? — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 459 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Irish ascension to whiteness resulted from strategic choice, not inevitability — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 35; Being grouped with blacks increased Irish hostility toward them. — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 150; Irish and Black families originally shared proximate poverty and mutual care — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 459 (+1 more)

Related

• Irish and Black families originally shared proximate poverty and mutual care (similarity 0.90)
• Being grouped with blacks increased Irish hostility toward them. (similarity 0.89)
• Irish whiteness required excluding blacks from any shared occupation and erasing memory (similarity 0.82)
• Irish mob violence against Blacks arose from labor competition, not prior hatred (similarity 0.81)
• Irish ascension to whiteness resulted from strategic choice, not inevitability (similarity 0.81)
• Irish immigrants learned anti-Black hatred upon landing in America, not at home (similarity 0.80)
• Anti-Black racism bled back to Ireland even as Irish-Americans whitened. (similarity 0.79)
• Irish peasants emigrated under conditions comparable to American slavery (similarity 0.78)
• Irish absorption into whiteness helped sustain slavery rather than vice versa. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Being grouped with blacks increased Irish hostility toward them. #expands (0.85) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 150
• Racism against Europeans like the Irish predated color-based slavery #expands (0.80)
• Irish and Black families originally shared proximate poverty and mutual care #contradicts (0.75) — Noel Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, 459