Stop, Stop, For The Love of God, Stop, With the Irish Slaves Nonsense
Every March I read the same rubbish.
No, the Irish were not slaves too.
No, the Irish didn’t have it as bad as Africans. Or worse.
It is utter nonsense. A myth that at best perpetuates a misunderstanding of history, and at worst enables and fuels a racist agenda.
Yes, in colonial times there were Irish who had it very bad in the Caribbean. There were also English, Welsh, Scottish, and other white Europeans. Horrific at times, and great suffering, yes, and it shouldn’t be made light of - but that was servitude. Indentured servitude. And servitude was not the chattel slavery reserved for Africans. Slavery in the Americas was racial.
This is not semantics. Servitude was temporary and non-hereditary with practical and legal rights. Chattel slavery was permanent and it was hereditary, with no legal rights because legally you weren’t even human - you were livestock.
Yes, there are many forms of slavery, and we use the term today often in a general sense, but if we’re going to compare peoples in the same time period and the same places, like the white Irish with the black Africans, in colonial times, there was no comparison. Being a servant, an indentured one, Irish and white, was far better than being a chattel slave, African and black.
So by all means, and on this day, remember this horrible dark time in history for the Irish - but do not use that to play down the greater suffering and oppression of Africans and their descendants, nor the racial significance of it.
On that note, Happy St. Patrick’s Day - whatever that means to you. I’m not in Kansas City myself; I haven’t been for ten years. I’m at home in Ireland being Irish.