The problem with Irish American racism

A sixties portrait of William Melvin Kelley

His name was Kelley and he was from the Bronx.  But the Irish kids still did not like him.

The current issue of Harper’s magazine features a memoir written by novelist William Melvin Kelley.
Kelley explores the complex ways skin color, language and bigotry have influenced his own life, as well as recent American history.

“I grew up in the Northeast Bronx with the children of Italian immigrants who mostly embraced me,” Kelley writes at one point. 

Later, he adds, “My Italo friends much preferred me to most Irish kids.”

Then, Kelley recounts a particularly ugly incident.

“One day one of a group of Irish kids passing through our block called me a n****r.  My Creole mother had armed me against this, without going into it very deeply -- anybody who called me a n****r had simultaneously demonstrated his ignorance and his inferiority. 

“I should dismiss the comment as I would dismiss the utterance of a parrot.  So, when the Irish kid called me n****r, I assumed an attitude of superiority and condescension.”

Kelley’s friends were not so kind.  They doled out a beating to “the Irish kid, whom they’d caught while his companions ran away.”

Even when Kelley’s education took him to elite schools and prestigious museums, it seems there was always an Irish American around to remind him of the persistence of racism.

“In 1944 I started attending Fieldston, a Euro and predominately Jewish progressive private school,” Kelley writes.  “Over the next 12 years I went wherever my class went, to the Met and MoMA, to Carnegie Hall, to see Scribner make pulp paper for special editions.

“I went through the front entrance when I went to visit my friends on Fifth or Park Avenues.  Their parents had warned the Irish doormen not to turn me away.”

There is no reason to doubt Kelley’s recollections because, sadly, they are utterly plausible.

His memoir does, however, force us to confront a nasty little question -- have Irish Americans really been disproportionately racist?

Kelley’s own memoir alone proves nothing.  It is the massive accumulation of memoirs, books, novels, movies and TV shows with narrow-minded Irish American characters that is more alarming. 

As with redneck whites (usually Scots-Irish, incidentally), Irish Catholic Americans are often the immoral center of a given story, a stubborn obstacle to be overcome whether we are talking about real life or fiction. 

From the New York City Draft Riots to the Boston bussing mess of the 1970s, some Irish Americans acted deplorably during tense racial times.

As for fiction, there’s Studs Lonigan and his band of brutes from the 1930s novels by (Irish Catholic) James T. Farrell. There’s the psychotic thug Artie West from the classic film Blackboard Jungle, who is finally conquered by his heroic teacher, who had earlier pointed out that West is “Irish American.”

There’s the “ferocious Irishmen” who assault Saul Bellow’s hero in the classic novel The Adventures of Augie March. There is the oppressive Dunn family from the book (and film) Looking for Mr. Goodbar. 

And there is Amy Waldman’s recent novel The Submission, about a Muslim-American architect who is selected to design a memorial at ground zero.  This is opposed by Sean Gallagher, whose brother, Patrick, was a firefighter killed that awful day. We see a not-so-subtle Islamophobia in Sean’s Irish American family.

Again, are Irish Americans truly worse in this area than other ethnic groups?  Or are they simply convenient mouthpieces for ugly thoughts?

The most honest effort to answer this question was a book released last March entitled The Irish Way: Becoming American in the Multi-Ethnic City.

Author James R. Barret argues that “nativist hostility toward the Irish created a defensiveness in their relations” with other groups.

Barrett makes a compelling case but it is far from definitive or satisfying. 

And so, we rightly feel for the victims of bigotry, such as William Melvin Kelley.

And we are left to wonder if Irish Americans need to more forcefully confront a dark chapter of their past? 

Or, instead, if writers and movie makers need to get a little more creative when it comes to creating their villains?

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or visit tdeignan.blogspot.com)

When the Irish fought the Irish in the Mexican American war -VIDEO

A scene from BBC America's 'Copper'

Next month, the new TV show Copper will premiere on BBC America.  The show will explore the lives of cops and criminals in Manhattan during the time of the U.S. Civil War, so you know there will be plenty of Irish saints and sinners written into the show.

Irish actor Kevin Ryan is among the stars of Copper, while the producers include Tom Fontana, whose groundbreaking prison show Oz included the memorable character Ryan O’Reilly.

The fact that the British are producing a show about Irish American life is, at the very least, ironic.  But that’s a topic for another day.

Copper is set during a time of war and poverty, of tensions over immigration and patriotism.  That sounds familiar, right?

This very much should remind us of our own day.  Last week, in Brooklyn, however, there was another reminder of a similarly tense time that is not so well-remembered.

The setting was Green-Wood cemetery, an oasis of 19th century life (and death) in Brooklyn.

It was here that cemetery workers were joined by a military color guard for a ceremony honoring war veterans, among them numerous Irish Americans.

Men like James McCabe, Lieutenant Francis Boyle and Lieutenant Charles Gallagher had previously been interred under a marker simply stating “Mexico.”  According to The New York Times, these veterans had been lavishly honored at the time of their burial.  There were plans to erect an elaborate memorial to honor the veterans’ sacrifices.

“Sometime later, however, one of the people they city had charged with building an obelisk over the graves made off with the money for the monument,” the Times noted.

For years, little was known about Boyle, McCabe and Gallagher.  Here’s one thing we do know. These Irish American veterans may very well have been fighting against Irish immigrant soldiers.

The Mexican American war broke out in 1846, 15 years before America would be plunged into civil war.  At the time, America was a young nation anxious to expand. 

Mexico was struggling to maintain the vast lands previously controlled by the Spanish. Tensions between the two nations grew into all out war.

When all was said and done, America had acquired vast new tracts of previously Mexican land, a fact that riles many people to this day.

There is another thing the Mexican American war is famous for, and that is the St. Patricio Brigade. 
The Chieftains recently made an album bearing that name, while Black ’47 and others have sung songs in their honor. 

These were disenchanted, mostly Irish souls who sympathized with the fellow Catholic country of Mexico, and took up arms against the heavily Protestant, expansionist-minded United States.  They were led by Galway native Jon Riley and to this day are honored in Mexico.

It didn’t hurt that the Mexican army often offered higher pay and land grants to soldiers.

In their day, you can imagine how most Americans (even Irish immigrants to America) felt about the St. Patricios.  They were ungrateful traitors in the eyes of many and were treated as such when many of them were executed after the war.

Were the mythical St. Patricios honorably men of principle who understandably had no allegiance to an anti-Catholic nation which despised them? 

Or were they mercenaries bent on killing the many Irish Americans – including lieutenants Boyle and Gallagher – who stuck with America and went on to make it a great nation?

That’s probably too big a question to answer right now.  What is important for us to remember is that (to quote Billy Joel) the good old days weren’t always so good.

In particular, those Irish American super-patriots who run around today questioning peoples’ loyalty ought to ask themselves if they have set the bar for treason a bit too high. 

After all, imagine the scuttlebutt on Fox News if a band of immigrants got together to fight for Al Qaeda in Iraq or the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Imagine if there names were Kelly or Ryan or O’Neill or Riley.

Of course, we should remember Jon Riley, love him or hate him.  But Green-Wood Cemetery did the right thing last week so that we also remember the sacrifices of men like Francis Boyle and Charles Gallagher and James McCabe.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

Watch the promo video for 'Copper' here:

Will the real GOP stand up? Republican’s stance on immigration is vexing

Republican Peggy Noonan

A few weeks back, when an Irish-born journalist (and we use that term loosely) named Neil Munro heckled President Obama’s immigration policy during a press conference, many people pointed out the obvious irony. Here was an immigrant suggesting that the president get tough with immigrants.

To most people, this made Munro a hypocrite. But at least it was clear where he stood.

And now that President Obama has offered a path to citizenship for certain children of illegal immigrants, his position is fairly clear also.

As for the other side, that’s a lot more complicated.

Some Republicans grasp that immigration is a boon to at least some state economies. Some sentimentalize immigrants, while others (I’m thinking Mitt Romney here) are flummoxed to the point of silence.

Which is at least better than echoing the hard-right, anti-immigrant Republican line which was present at the party’s founding.

After all, the party of Lincoln was also the party of anti-Catholic, anti-Irish sentiment in the mid-19th Century.

I’m not demonizing conservatives here. Former Reagan White House operative and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan – whose name is as Hibernian as it gets - penned a fine column celebrating the immigrant spirit to mark Independence Day last week.

“The old hatreds,” Noonan wrote. “They dissipate here. In Ireland, Catholics and Protestants could be at each other’s throats for centuries, but the minute they moved here they were in the Kiwanis Club together.”

Again, kudos to Noonan for celebrating America’s immigrant heritage, and perhaps upsetting some fellow conservatives. But really?

“The minute” Irish Catholics and Protestants came to America things were just awesome and cool? I’m not Peggy Noonan for a scholarly dissertation on, say, the hanging of Irish Catholics such as Goody Glover in the 17th century colonies, or the 1870s riots that lefts dozens of Catholics and Protestants dead on the streets of New York.

But a little realism never hurt anybody, even on the Fourth of July.

Noonan’s sentimental approach to immigration is something to which Irish Americans are particularly prone. There is so much emphasis put on the contribution of the well-behaved immigrants of the past, there is an implication that today’s immigrants are, well, different.

Prior to 9/11, it was believed by some that today’s immigrants were simply not as hard-working, or as patriotic, or were gang members, or came here for the welfare benefits. And even if they were hard-working, that was a problem because they were taking jobs, or were simply illegal, which is a fairly unambiguous term.

All the more so in a post-9/11 world where illegal immigrants can be out to kill us all. Nevertheless, there remains a deep, scary and downright un-American strain of nativism out there in America.

And being sentimental or selective about immigration is not much better than being outright hostile to it. Back in 2006, none other than Noonan wrote this, “There are a variety of things driving American anxiety about illegal immigration and we all know them -- economic arguments, the danger of porous borders in the age of terrorism, with anyone able to come in. But there's another thing.

“(We) are not assimilating our immigrants patriotically. And if you don't do that, you'll lose it all. We used to do it. We loved our country with full-throated love, we had no ambivalence.”

Does it really need to be pointed out that, back in the good old days, there was massive ambivalence on the sides of both native-born Americans and immigrants?

We fought not one but two wars against a nation which gave us millions of immigrants (Germany) and we held members of two large immigrant groups (Japanese and Italians) in detention camps during World War II. Meanwhile, how do you think a lot of Americans felt about Ireland being diplomatically neutral during World War II?

All of this is simply meant to point out that immigration has always been vexing.

For now, we know where Obama and the Democrats stand. And even if they’re just after votes, isn’t that partly what our system is all about?

Currently, the Republican Party is made up of historical revisionist sentimentalists like Noonan, neo-nativists like Munro, and confused bumblers like Romney.

By November, will the real GOP stand up?

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)

The real miracle of Bishop Fulton Sheen on his road to Sainthood -- Overcoming New York’s Cardinal Spellman was a true miracle

 Bishop Fulton Sheen

Two years ago, an Illinois woman named Bonnie Engstrom gave birth to a stillborn baby. Throughout the pregnancy, Engstrom had prayed for a healthy child.

Specifically, she invoked the name of the popular 1950s television priest, Fulton Sheen.  In a development that surely would have made the media-savvy Sheen proud, Engstrom even watched videos of the former Irish American bishop on YouTube.

Nevertheless, tragedy for Engstrom’s newborn seemed imminent. That is, until the baby’s heart finally did start beating. The two year-old child is now happy and healthy.

Was this a miracle?  Did Sheen, in death, intercede on behalf of this mother to save the child’s life?
If the Vatican believes so, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen may very well become the first male American-born saint.

Last week, the Vatican officially recognized Archbishop Sheen’s “heroic virtues” and gave him the title “venerable.”  The next step towards sainthood is to establish whether or not Sheen is indeed responsible for miracles on earth.

There are fewer and fewer people around these days who remember Sheen, even if millions watched his TV show in the 1950s.  (Sheen even won and Emmy.) 

Those who do remember him recall a firm yet comforting figure, and one who represented arguably the high point of American Catholic power.

However, it’s important to remember that while Sheen may have seemed a stabilizing presence, he rose to prominence at a time of great tension, just two years after a controversial anti-Catholic book became a best seller.

Meanwhile, once Sheen became a household name, he privately battled an even more powerful Irish American force in the church who was known as the “American Pope.”

In other words, you might say Sheen already pulled off a miracle or two, in doing battle with the likes of author Paul Blanshard and Francis Cardinal Spellman.

Sheen’s television show Life Is Worth Living hit the airwaves in 1951.  Just two years earlier, American Freedom and Catholic Power was riding high on the bestseller lists.

Written by Nation magazine editor Paul Blanshard, the book argued – as anti-Catholics had for over a century in American – that Catholics simply could not be Democracy-loving Americans because of their allegiance to Rome.

The book clearly struck a chord with many readers, given its popularity.  In 1954, Blanshard published another book, this time bashing the Irish.  The book was simply called The Irish and Catholic Power.

Given this lingering suspicion of Catholic power, one would think Sheen would tone down his act on TV.  But Sheen always wore his full clerical garb.

At the same time, he reminded viewers that Catholics were deeply committed to fighting Communism, which seemed to go a long way towards establishing their ability to be full-blooded Americans.

One viewer who embraced Sheen is currently leading the New York church -- Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

“(Fulton Sheen) showed the broad American public that the truths of our faith were consonant with the highest values of the society -- patriotism, God, family and the struggle against Communism,” Dolan said back in 2009.

Perhaps an even more formidable foe than anti-Catholicism was Dolan’s predecessor and America’s most powerful Catholic in the 1950s, New York Archbishop Francis Cardinal Spellman.

Tension between these two Irish American powerhouses rose in the 1950s.  In his role as leader of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, Sheen butted heads with Spellman over money and programs designed to feed the world’s poor.

It has been said that even Pope Pius XII and President Eisenhower were forced to intercede in the war of words between Sheen and Spellman.  In the end, Spellman had the final word: he reassigned Sheen, forcing him to leave New York to head up the much smaller Diocese of Rochester.

Despite all this, Sheen persisted and remained a cultural force until his death in 1979.

Surviving the anti-Catholic rants of Paul Blanshard and the massive ego of Cardinal Spellman?  Seems to me the saintly Sheen has already accomplished several miracles.

(Contact “Sidewalks” at tomdeignan@earthlink.net or facebook.com/tomdeignan)