Kevin M. Kruse: — Subium • Bluesky web client

New post at CAMPAIGN TRAILS on Elon Musk's embrace of the racist Great Replacement Theory: open.substack.com/pub/kevinmkr...

Brand Xopen.substack.com It’s been four months since I left the Nazi bar formerly known as Twitter, but that doesn’t mean I’m not keeping up with news about what’s going on there. Increasingly, it seems, the site isn�...

In the more than 100 years this has been kicking about, if it were true, would we not have been replaced by now?

The people who were the targets of this a century ago — Italians, Greeks, Slavs, Poles, etc — were absorbed as “white” and are now just as likely to be targeting Latinos who might just as well be absorbed as “white” in time too.

Cartoon from 130 years ago I had my students study last week on this topic. They concluded that the descendants of immigrants complaining about new immigrants is as American as apple pie hti.osu.edu/opper/lesson...

Exactly. I love using this piece.

This is one of my favorite historical anti-immigration political cartoons because it shows that the rhetoric has not changed.

Out of curiosity what percentage of Americans were foreign born when this cartoon came out and what is it today?

14.8% in 1890, 13.9% in 2022. The foreign-born fraction declined from about 1910 to 1970, then rebounded and seems to be leveling off.

U.S. Immigrant Population and Share over Time, 1850-Presentwww.migrationpolicy.org This chart displays both the number of immigrants residing in the United States and their share of the total U.S. population over time.

Thanks. They can’t say they’re more motivated now because the percentage is higher at least

Extra props for the Edward Bellamy reference in the caption!

What distinguishes this era is actual immigrants (rather than their kids) trying to close the door. I know people who came with nothing and were very fortunate to be allowed stay here in the 90s who support DJT and all his exclusionist policies

In the UK we have a few members of our government whose parents were immigrants who are doing their best to pull the ladder up...

And, therein, lies the problem.

A great book on this from the Irish perspective is "How the Irish Became White". The Irish did not cover themselves in glory in this effort. Also, a data point: my grandparent's house in MA, 1931, had a deed covenant that prohibited sale to "any person of Italian, Jewish, Polish or Colored Blood"

Yeah, restrictive covenants offer an effective map of “who were the WASPs scared about *here*?” Asians, Mexicans, Jews, Italians …

If anyone wants to read SCOTUS on this subject (before its decisions were tongue-baths for the anti-abortion, anti-business-regulatuon, and pro-gun-lobby cohorts), the primary case is Shelley v. Kraemer.

Grew up in STL suburb, country club neighborhood where we lived had restrictive covenants like that. STL, as I understand it, was quite good at that sort of thing.

Weirdly It feels that shift went in the other direction in my life? Where I grew up at least, all my friends named Cruz or Garza or Castillo — or for that matter Flora or Soriano — were not anything other than white.

I mean, many already have been in Texas. Partly, intermarriage means that 2nd and 3rd Gen. presents as white. Partly, it becomes less about race and more about class (in TX, at least). This creates the bizarre phenomenon of Latinos engaging in discrimination against other Latinos.

In fairness, that phenomenon has existed since colonialism. The -- either unofficial or official, depending on region -- caste system based on perceived whiteness/'Europeanness' in Mexico, Central and South America has always been pretty complicated and fraught.

Absolutely. But most people don’t know this. My students were shocked to learn that Italian immigrants, especially from Southern Italy and Sicily, were not considered white for a long time. CUNY still has affirmative action for people of Italian descent.

super-fun conversation trying to explain to my dad that the 2 of us would technically not have been considered "white" 100 years ago in this country, and that in fact his own mother didn't get to be fully "white" until she was middle-aged in the 1960s

Latine is a heritage, not a race. It just means "from Latin America." You can be white Latine, black Latine (afro-latine), asian latine, indigenous Latine (mestizo). Privilege, white supremacy already exists there. TX was LatAm first. Texian descendants are already white.

The exception has been Ashkenazi Jews. Even among the non-practicing and intermarried, voting patterns and ideology differ vastly from other immigrants from the 1890 - 1910 wave. Martin Himmelfarb: "“Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans." Exception to exception: Haredi Jews.

Live Near Hipsters, Vote Like Mormonswww.city-journal.org A new Pew study charts the political shifts among American Jews.

As someone of Slavic background (3rd gen US) this has always just killed me. I literally grew up in an area the KKK was active specifically against my type. Oh and Poles are Slavs 😉

3rd-gen Italian-American here...one time there was a KKK rally in my hometown when I was a kid and my mom had to call my grandpa and tell him to wait to go to the grocery store until it was over because he was very obviously Mediterranean in appearance. Thank you for sharing your experience too.

people grouse about 'immigrants will never assimilate' to which I have noted 'maybe not but their grandkids will have been assimilated so well that they will complain about immigration.'

Yep, in 1894 a skirmish between Irish and Italian groups were considered to be a race riot: timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine...

timesmachine.nytimes.com

are you really even roman if you have ginger hair? the process of assimilation in to the elite class has a long and interesting history in western civ. youtu.be/ICWaKBtgZXE?...

Rome (HBO) - Vorenus' Speech for Magistrate Electionyoutu.be Lucius Vorenus' speech in Aventine for local magistrate election.I am fond of history and particularly in the history of Rome and I share videos about it. Ro...

I’ve said it before, no one’s whiter than the provisionally white guy

I know a lot of hispanic people who consider themselves white - Tejanos

There was a great schism in family friendships in 2016 as my mom and step-dad's Sons of Italy pals took a hard, hard anti-immigrant turn and then refused to see any irony.

If being 'white' is a privilege that can be doled out like other privileges, and gate-kept against 'non-whites' (who, as you say, will probably end up 'white'), does this not go to show what galloping nonsense the whole thing is?

Texas is now officially a Latino true majority state (50%+). The K12 schools have been such for quite some time. We are seeing a blurring of the lines between Latinidad and Whiteness, especially where I’m at in SATX. This is natural and not inherently bad, but we are seeing “new targets,” as you say

“Absorbed” is what Marc Lamont Hill touched on in this conversation with Rufo. youtu.be/ihnuYXKBGZg?...

Marc Lamont Hill Interviews Key Opponent of Critical Race Theoryyoutu.be Marc Lamont Hill sits down with Christopher F. Rufo, a contributing editor for City Journal and a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute, for an extended c...

Soooo, you're saying it's true is what I'm hearing.

Guaranteed. What surprises me a bit about all this racism is that I’ve not seen much directed at Asian-Americans. Am I missing something?

"Kung Flu?"

I forgot about that one. But I was talking about the repeated attacks from R loudmouths, media enablers, etc

Well, Tom Cotton was pretty racist in the social media hearings last week.

It was a lot less than a century about that JFK had to make public assurances that he wouldn't secretly be loyal to the Pope, Irish Catholic that he was

I was just thinking about this... Why haven't jews been absorbed as white? Is it because they're not Christians, do you think?

Irony of ironies, key components of the theory keep getting actually replaced.

No logic, it’s just racist vibes for assholes like that.

I’ve been thinking about this and don’t know how to put it without being a bit offensive but like, given the choice between the most absolutely average Ohio boomer vs *any* random person from Bolivia/Nigeria/Cambodia/etc I can bet I know which one is better for the economy, (and better food etc)

Like, have these crackers never met an immigrant before??? (Don’t answer that)

Where did the absolutely psycho capitalists go? The ones who want to feed as many people into the machine as possible. They suck but they liked immigration right?

You're probably not being serious here but... ironically, that tends to be how the demography of racism works. People who don't live around immigrants or people from other cultures tend to be more racist, statistically.

I maintain if we just have every white person a few papusas to eat the world could be a much better place

I don't think white racists constantly screeching about how they're going to be replaced have the self-awareness to realize that they're just threatening us with a good time.

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