Talk:White ethnic

Comment

I'm sorry. Is this some kind of joke? This article is not researched, it doesn't say anything of value, and it includes unqualified racist epithets. And it's marked as part of Wikipedia Project Christianity?! WTF? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.132.245.226 (talk) 20:02, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

• I'll nominate it for deletion. ^Izzedine 18:17, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I have also attempted to nominate it for deletion but have been told we must provide a credible source *proving* its racism. Kitkat9311 (talk) 13:46, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Title

Last but not least, the title term needs turned around: Ethnic White. Also, Appalachian American belongs in this discussion, which includes, in some cases, a Native American element, such as, say, Cherokee.Godofredo29 (talk) 00:11, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Note

This article has been tagged OR, non-notable, and unreferenced for months and contains potentially defamatory material. For those reasons I've trimmed it down. ^Izzedine 19:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

It isn't defamatory. What parts do you find controversial ? What I did at the beginning was that I re-copied certain small parts of the articles anti-Irish racism, anti-Italianism, anti-Mexican sentiment, anti-Polish sentiment and White Niggers of America. ADM (talk) 19:22, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

That's called original research/synthesis of material. ^Izzedine 19:37, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

It isn't original research if you can source it. Right now, the problem is that this entry was originally created as a kind of stub, but it was not adequately improved by the subsequent users who edited it. ADM (talk) 19:42, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment

Keep racism and nonsociologically-referenced synthesis out of the article. ^Izzedine 10:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Conflicting definitions

This is one confused puppy of an article:

1st paragraphs tells us ethnic whites are non-European non-Protestant whites.

2nd paragraphs tells us they're decedents from European (central & east) immigrants.

To boot, the first paragraph tells us these guys are 9.4% of the population. Sounds about right if you're talking about non-European whites. Counting all the Catholic Italian and Irish Americans, I very much doubt it.

Bottom line: this article needs to state up front that there are several conflicting definitions and then clearly guide the reader as to which definition is being discussed.

Signature^brendel 08:57, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

It’s because this is an article for a term invented by white supremacists to try painting their ancestors as victims of mistreatment, a means of downplaying slavery and other forms of racism. It’s right up there with wanting a “White History” month, and speaking of confusion - immigrants from all of these nationalities didn’t even speak the same language, which makes it nearly impossible to share a unified culture. This article has an agenda; it’s subtle. The person who wrote it may not even realize the association between this term and the white supremacist movement; their recruitment tactics are deceitful and include misinformation such as this. Kitkat9311 (talk) 14:29, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

P.S. I’m a white Catholic whose ancestors immigrated from one of these countries, and I know this is hogwash. My cultural heritage is not the same as the cultural heritage of all of the other immigrants who happened to also have a Christian religion. They have, and are entitled to have, their own cultural identity. Kitkat9311 (talk) 14:31, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Discrimination in current versus past tense

The below section wrongfully talks of discrimination against ethnic whites as if it's completely something of past and no longer of current-day concern. This segment of the population is no different than others that receive discrimination; whereas, just because a few people make greater "attainment", it does not mean that others are not still experiencing discrimination, stereotyping or lack of privilege, etc. in their current (present tense) lives. Furthermore, just because someone does make greater attainment, doesn't mean that they don't sill have to struggle and protect themselves from discrimination or that they don't still come across occasional bias, resentment and attacks from others.

Furthermore this article doesn't really expand on the idea of white-on-white discrimination, such as between White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestants (WASP) and other ethnic whites. Most of the idea seems to be implied without real example, evidence or sources.Ca.papavero (talk) 19:12, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

"In the early 20th century, many white ethnics claimed to have been placed in a low socio-economic level, due to discrimination and ethnic stereotypes by the White Anglo Saxon Protestant or "WASP" elite. However, since the mid-20th century, most traditional white ethnic groups have ranked at the top of socio-economic indicators that suggest social status, such as income level, occupational status and level of educational attainment. "White ethnics (i.e. Italians, Russians, Poles, Greeks, Hungarians, Slovaks, French-Canadians, Irish Catholics, Turks, Croats, Armenians, Iranians and Jews among them) experienced some levels of ethnocentric racism and xenophobia by the majority culture they lived among with. Although in the USA the main racial divide was between light-skinned "White" and darker-skinned "Black" African Americans and so the European immigrants became "white" ethnicities were absorbed, assimilated and integrated into the mainstream in a much faster rate."

Ca.papavero Completely agree but do not have the time/expertise to make the necessary changes right now. Catrìona (talk) 04:26, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Completely disagree. The term "white ethnic" is an anachronism, and if something in the article needs changing, then it needs to reflect this reality. For instance, to call Irish Americans, in this day and age, "white ethnics" is preposterous; they are generic whites with no identifiable subculture or ethnicity. Same goes for most other Euro-Americans.

Furthermore, all this mention of "WASPs" and "white ethnics" is fantasy talk. The majority of Euro-Americans are mixed with 3, 4, even a half dozen different ancestries, with Irish-English being one of the most common patterns of intermarriage among white Americans (defer to the Census Brief). In other words, very few Euro-Americans are purely of one ancestry, and people just aren't conforming to these archaic ethnoreligious divisions in their interpersonal relationships anymore.

This article is inaccurate, unencyclopedic, and reeks of a political agenda. I support a complete re-write or removal. I would also suggest that perhaps some younger editors (and by "younger" I mean under the age of 70) work on this so readers receive a more contemporary view of modern ethnic relations. Jonathan f1 (talk) 10:32, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. The term white ethnic is actually white supremacist propaganda/misinformation, seeking to promote the idea that whites are and have been beaten down and made victims. (I am a an experienced lover person who fits one or more of the definitions in this article, to be clear that I’m not saying that in direct personal interest.) Still, the main point here is that this article isn’t based on fact or reality. It misused the terms ethnicity and culture consistently. It attempts to create a single identity for people who didn’t even speak the same languages at the time of their immigration here. I have gone through and separated nationality from religion repeatedly, and I have been removing unsubstantiated claims of a unified culture from this article, but someone really wants this page to be misleading...

How do we request it to be taken down? I would, but I do not know how. Kitkat9311 (talk) 14:38, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Hahaha, major typo. I am a white person. Not sure how autocorrect got those three words from that! Kitkat9311 (talk) 14:39, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

First "white ethnic" president

Martin Van Buren was Dutch, which is not anglo-saxon as far as I know. He came long before Kennedy. JBrownIII (talk) 12:25, 22 July 2017 (UTC)JBrownIII

Anglo Saxon and germanic are the same. The Dutch are very germanic and very Anglo Saxon. However, he was possibly who this article means to describe, as he was not British. What’s interesting to me is that a lot of this claims to center around socioeconomic class, and yet the politicians named are from upper middle class and even upper class backgrounds. Kitkat9311 (talk) 14:42, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Ashkenazi Jews as "Western Asians"

This is a very contentious subject, but I feel it needs to be addressed. Why are "jews" all categorized as Middle-Eastern? I understand that there is scientific evidence confirming that all ethnic jews have ties to the middle east, but why shouldn't Ashkenazi Jews be classified as Europeans? Genetic companies classify Ashkenazim as Europeans while also acknowledging they have ancient middle eastern ancestry. Furthermore, if anybody has taken the time to read the references which allegedly call them Western Asian, one would know that the studies also confirm that there is European admixture in Ashkenazi DNA. On another note, saying Jews descend from Western Asia is overly general because a statement like that implies that the differences in their genealogy is not significant. Does anybody have any comments or concerns about what I have written because I think saying Jews descend from West Asia while also classifying Ashkenazim as non-European is fairly erroneous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.0.148 (talk) 05:57, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Agreed, make the edit! Kitkat9311 (talk) 14:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Why is this article tagged with the category Xenophobia?

It makes as much sense as tagging the article Germans with the category racism because of Nazism and world war II. Most people would find this absolutely ridiculous and so do I with categorizing an entire ethnicity with the tag xenophobia. I am removing it. If anyone wants to add it back please explain your logic. Xanikk999 (talk) 18:54, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

It was likely tagged because it discusses discrimination against recent immigrants. I am not adding it back, though. The term “white ethnic” is actually an invention of the white supremacy movement, which is part of why it’s so ill-defined. It’s illogical and should be removed from the site in all reality. Kitkat9311 (talk) 14:45, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Kitkat9311, can you please provide a link to a reliable source that supports your assertion that the term "white ethnic" was invented by white supremacists? Thank you. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:52, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Politics, Comedy, or Pure Ignorance?

Imagine thinking that "Irish"-Americans are "white ethnics" in the year 2021.

Worse than that, the editors who pieced together this horrendous article don't even seem to know what an ethnic group is. They write, hilariously, that over 69% of the white American population consists of "white ethnics". If more than 2 in 3 white Americans are ethnic, and white Americans are the largest "racial" group (which is really an ethnic group) in the US, then literally everyone in America is ethnic and the US is the first and only country in history that doesn't have a mainstream. I don't know what backgrounds these editors have, but they're less likely to be scholars of sociology, anthropology or social history, and more likely to be in slapstick, lampoon, and/or standup comedy.

Virtually every modern sociologist has written that the descendants of European immigrants have, at best, a Symbolic ethnicity - which is very different than actually being ethnic. In Playing the White Ethnic Card, Charles A. Gallagher makes the point that,

“The ethnic revival among many whites in the 1960s has been described as a “‘dying gasp’ on the part of ethnic groups descended from the great waves of immigration of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” (Steinberg 1989:51) to reassert or return to a real or imagined ethnic heritage. If this period was a “dying gasp” at attempting to revive a moribund sense of ethnic identity for whites, then the end of the twentieth century could be viewed as its funeral. A majority of white respondents I interviewed came from families so ethnically mixed, so far removed from the immigrant experience, and so thoroughly reconstituted through assimilation, divorce, remarriage, and relocation that the traits that once distinguished ethnic groups from various parts of Europe have become incidental background information. The overwhelming majority of whites in this study did not live in ethnic neighborhoods, did not feel compelled to date within their own ethnic group, did not have the ethnic traditions of their older kin, and did not obtain employment through ethnic networks. Most have undergone such extensive generational, spatial, and cultural assimilation that the “option” to engage in the activities or traditions that forge and give shape to an ethnic identity no longer exists (Waters 1990).”[1]

Also around that time, the late anthropologist Reginald Byron spent the better part of the 1990s studying Albany's "Irish-American" community, and concluded that residents there were not detectably ethnic.[2]

Upthread one editor mentioned that "white ethnics" was a term invented by white supremacists, and the editor Cullen asked him to produce sources. It's incorrect to say that white supremacists invented the term "white ethnics" -- there were European ethnic groups in the US, for most of the earlier part of American history. But there is a racial and political dimension to the way this term is used today.

In his textbook Diversity and Society, the sociologist Joseph Healey writes that,

“Without denying or trivializing the resolve and fortitude of European immigrants, equating their experiences and levels of disadvantage with those of African Americans, American Indians, and Mexican Americans is widely off the mark.. These views support an attitude of disdain and lack of sympathy for the multiple dilemmas faced today by the racial minority groups and by many contemporary immigrants. They permit a more subtle expression of prejudice and racism and permit whites to use these highly distorted views of their immigrant ancestors as a rhetorical device to express a host of race-based grievances without appearing racist.”[3]

Charles Gallagher has also written about how certain whites "play the white ethnic card" to deny or trivialize contemporary racism (usually by promoting highly exaggerated or even mythical "immigrant stories").

I apologize for the length of this comment, but I am calling for a complete rewrite of this page consistent with contemporary academic sources or an outright deletion. It's comically out of date with recent sociology by several decades. In fact it was after World War 2 that the "great mixing" of the descendants of European immigrants and Protestant whites took place, which formed the new "Euro-American" ethnic group (who now make up the majority of the "non-Hispanic white" category). What sociologists and demographers are writing about now is the next "great mixing" across racial lines and the new rising multiracial mainstream. Richard Alba wrote about this last year, and the 2020 census count would seem to confirm these trends.[4]Jonathan f1 (talk) 06:00, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

There are still legally white people immigrating to the US and bringing their culture here you know, such as many hispanics, slavic people, albanians and middle easterners. Are they integrated yet? Cause if not, there are still "white ethnic" communities that are truly ethnic 209.214.231.30 (talk) 19:08, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. This article seems to be implying via omission that the term is still relevant, which it is not. The "lost power in urban areas due to new immigrants" line also rubbed me the wrong way, as it seems to imply that these "white ethnics" have been displaced via a system of oppression. Which is of course, nonsense and needs to be clarified. SinoDevonian (talk) 09:50, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

I see a few years out and this article is only marginally better, but is still missing the content I cited here. It still contains a statistic claiming nearly 70% of American whites are "white ethnics", and is still, in some places, relying on low-rent opinion columnists at publications like "IrishCentral" (as far as I'm aware, IC has not been qualified as an RS on here, for any subject). The article ends with a statement about "suburbanization" and the "continued assimilation of white ethnics", which would make more sense if it were written ~60 years ago.

Another major problem is the association of "white ethnics" with religion, as if religious identity is the only ethnic trait that matters. This totally ignores the ethnic Scandinavians in the Upper Midwest, or the Pennsylvania and New York/New Jersey Dutch who were the original "white ethnics" in Early America. Martin Van Buren's first language was Dutch (called low-Dutch at the time), and is still one of only two presidents with ancestry outside the British Isles (the other being Eisenhower). But apparently religion trumps language, and Kennedy was the first "white ethnic" president (which I'm sure would be news to Van Buren, who well knew he was different than most of his contemporaries). Jonathan f1 (talk) 23:50, 28 January 2024 (UTC)