[gee_totes]

I am not OP (they seem to have been downvoted to oblivion) but a fascinating book I read recently on this topic was "The Invention of the White Race" by Theodore W. Allen.

The book traces the historical development of the concept of whiteness from early Britain, where the Irish were considered non-white as a means to "other" and impoverish them, to pre-revolution Haiti, where people of mixed race could attain certificates of Whiteness that would grant them the same rights and privileges as non-mixed French people.

Those are just two of the anecdotes I remember from the book. It's really worth a read if you're into the whole "race as a social construct" thing, since it digs into the mechanics of how that social construct was created.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

Haven't read this book, though it's on my list now.

You can go back and find writing from the USA's so called Founding Fathers that makes quite clear most of them didn't view the Irish, Spanish, or Italians as white. Then if you look at the history of immigration waves in the US, you see a clear pattern where the definition of whiteness was expanded to groups previously discriminated against as a form of solidarity against the newly arriving group.

This is what all the rhetoric about being colorblind misses. Whiteness is not the same as other ethnicities, and policy that pretends it is will have problems as a result.

[wonderwonder]

Intersting. Growing up in South Africa I vaguely remember Indian people being given "white" status. Didn't know that about the Irish who are pretty much the whitest people I can think of.