General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI never really liked the work of poet Walt Whitman, but I never realized
what a hater he was of Catholics and the Irish.
He just seemed pretentious and long winded.
https://whitmanarchive.org/published/periodical/journalism/tei/per.00398.html
Will the democracy yield? Shall a gang of false and villainous priests, whose despicable souls never generate any aspiration beyond their own narrow and horrible and beastly superstitionshall these dregs of foreign filthrefuse of conventsscullions3 from Austrian monasteriesbe permitted thus to dictate what Tammany4 must do?
The bulwark of truththe "unterrified democracy,"5 ruled by a tattered, coarse, unshaven, filthy, Irish rabble! Americans, high in reputation, degrading themselves worse than the slavish nobles who of old kissed the toe of the triple crowned! They knelt to the Pope himself; Americans, to the abjectest menials of the Pope.
appalachiablue
(41,146 posts)Stuff is hard to read about.
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855. Whitman also wrote temperance novels to make money. His early poetry was doggerel.
He was heavily influenced by Emerson and others in the interim. His writing was transformed almost miraculously in just a few years. He changed dramatically.
pnwmom
(108,980 posts)But I found Leaves of Grass to be pretentious and wordy. Tastes differ.
MineralMan
(146,317 posts)I specialized in the transcendendalists in grad school. Whitman was on the fringe of that, so my research on him was more limited.
malaise
(269,054 posts)Some evolved - others did not.
TheBlackAdder
(28,209 posts)pnwmom
(108,980 posts)the same positions on being gay.
TheBlackAdder
(28,209 posts).
There is quite a bit of difference between 19th Century Catholic and Irish (mostly Catholic) and Protestants.
The Episcopals & Presbyterians were/are not as rigid in their dogma. Being someone who is not heterosexual, and someone who did not affirm themselves to a single faith, Whitman would not have been as seen as offensive as would be with those aligned with the Catholic faith.
.
pnwmom
(108,980 posts)The whole culture was.
Trek4Truth
(515 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 15, 2018, 12:04 PM - Edit history (1)
I guess I should of used the sarcasm thing.
Won't make that mistake again.
pnwmom
(108,980 posts)Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)a book by Herbert Asbury. There are illustrations in the book showing how the Irish immigrants were regarded at the time, pictures that show them as looking like apes, monkeys, and native Americans (who weren't well thought of in the late 1800's US.)
The pictures looked identical to ones neo-nazis were circulating via flyers on college campuses in modern times, which showed Blacks as apes, monkeys, etc.
The difference is that most Blacks in the US come from families that had been in the US since the 16 and 1700s, while the Irish catholics came in a huge wave after the 1840's famine. Blacks have seniority in the US, for the most part. I always tell any Irish that try to act racist around me 'the whites don't think you're white.'
braddy
(3,585 posts)was full blooded Irish, it was the Roman Catholic church and Catholicism that Americans did not want here.
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)And the English didn't regard them as white, either. That's just the WASP version of a divide and conquer, tiered caste system. The Brits used it in India and South Africa, too. And I was buddies with a couple of Brahmin class Indian Americans, whose families were re transplants. They were Americans who were Fiji Islanders who had emigrated from India.
The 'monkey indian' screed the know nothings were using against the Irish didn't say 'we don't like Irish catholics'. They did say they hated the pope and papists, (like the scots presbyterians did in Northern Ireland, after the Brits kicked the shit out of the Scots and turned them into 'Irish' ).
But the 'white' american racists said 'the Irish are monkeys', they didn't bother saying 'but we love our former prod president, Andrew Jackson'. And of course they hated the Native Americans' religion, too, but they didn't attack 'Irish Catholics who's religious practices were significantly matching the animism and multitheism of the Native Americans'.
Scumbag racists don't do nuance. They called the Irish (catholics) 'Indians', because they thought Indians were animals, and they were happy to slaughter them.
I'm well aware of the decent number of American Presidents who were of 'Irish' heritage. Scot Presbyterians, all of them. Except that guy who got shot in the head.
If you're Irish, whitey doesn't think you're white. If you're Scottish, you're a bit more white, but still 'beyond the pale'.
braddy
(3,585 posts)Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)I'm starting to think you have a personal stake in Scots Presbies being Irish, and white. Would it help if I called you 'whitey', braddy? I'm willing to do it, but won't call you Irish.
StevieM
(10,500 posts)The battle of Horseshoe Bend in central Alabama, was a particularly brutal engagement. Scores of Creek Indians lay dead. One of Jacksons soldiers discovered a little boy, perhaps three-years-old, wandering around nearby, crying in search of his family or of anyone familiar.
The soldier brought the child to General Jackson, asking what he should do with him. The militia was on the march. There was no one to care for a little baby. Jackson did not hesitate. Bring him to Mrs. Jackson, he instructed. It was the perfect solution.
peggysue2
(10,832 posts)The Irish were despised back in the day because of mass immigration as they fled the Great Famine and the inhumanity of the British. They were mostly uneducated and ragged if they survived the trip over. The Catholic identity only added to the hatred because bigotry against Catholics was fierce and continued right into the 20th century.
I was in grade school during the 50s and was called a 'Papist Pig' by a classmate. I didn't even know what that meant, anymore than I suspect the name-caller did. But he knew it was a slur and had obviously heard it used. My best friend's father said I was going to hell because everyone knew that Catholics worshipped images and statues. It was a stupid, cruel comment which I laughed at but it stung. I was eleven years old at the time. My grandmother had all sorts of stories about how she was treated as a child and a young woman.
The curious thing is the language of bigotry never changes. The Irish like other groups were said to be lazy, stupid, smelled funny, criminal by nature and bred like rabbits.
When Whitman was alive the bigotry against Irish Catholics was at an absolute peak. That does not, however, make him any less of a poet. He was a product of his time and age.
There are no saints in the world. What we can do is learn from history, push towards our better angels and make the future better than the past
tblue37
(65,408 posts)his winning the presidency. Furthermore, one main reason why Catholics established their own schools was that they were not welcome in public schools.
Discrimination against both Catholics and Jews was pretty pervasive in the US.
peggysue2
(10,832 posts)With JFK I learned later through comments by family members and reading that the argument was who Kennedy would serve--the US government or the Pope?
Sounds incredibly ignorant and stupid now. But at the time that was a real accusation and opposition point.
Wounded Bear
(58,670 posts)Yeah, discrimination against Irish was a real thing. That's why the caricature of the beat cop was of an Irish guy who couldn't get a better job.
braddy
(3,585 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,670 posts)1854: No Irish Need Apply
By Mark Bulik
Sept. 8, 2015
25
This feature looks at some of the earliest mentions of famous names or terms in The Times. Have an idea for someone or something you would like to read about? Leave a suggestion in the comments section.
Its a terse summation of the job discrimination that Irish immigrants faced in America in the mid-19th century: No Irish need apply.
The phrase turned up in The Times in a classified ad on Nov. 10, 1854:
?quality=90&auto=webp
Mc Mike
(9,114 posts)that sign existed. Art raised his kids around low income Irish/Italians/Poles/etc, on the North Side, but he shielded them from some realities and ideas.
Maeve
(42,282 posts)Richard Jensen's 2002 claim that it was not a significant factor in the US has been shown to be overstated and numerous NINA signs and newspaper postings have been found.(One of the best rebutters was an 8th grade student named Rebecca A. Fried)
A lot of the anti-Irish sentiment began to shift during the American Civil War due to the fighting of units like the "Fighting 69th" New York Brigade. That, and the preponderance of Irish in police and firefighting during the end of the 19th and into the 20th century.
Demsrule86
(68,586 posts)Tipperary
(6,930 posts)People are complicated.
tblue37
(65,408 posts)BTW, Abe Lincoln considered black people to be inferior, had no particular inclination to emancipate the slaves, and believed black and white people should not live together in the same society and certainly should not intermarry. In other words, like most people of his time, Lincoln was a racist.
As we become more enlightened as a society, more individuals become enlightened.
edhopper
(33,587 posts)Blazing Saddles
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)there's nothing new under the sun here -- Whitman is lashing out at what might today be called a 'special interest group' becoming an ever-growing demographic and having what he believes is an oversized say in local/state politics (sound familiar?)
Whitman is smart enough to see which way the trend is going and is scared shitless at the thought of waning political influence so he plans to put up a fight...
Glorfindel
(9,730 posts)(humorously) the prevailing attitudes about the Irish in his time (1871). Here's an excerpt from "Niagara":
The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine. I love to read about him in tales and legends and romances. I love to read of his inspired sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of mountain and forest, and his general nobility of character, and his stately metaphorical manner of speech, and his chivalrous love for the dusky maiden, and the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. Especially the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. When I found the shops at Niagara Falls full of dainty Indian beadwork, and stunning moccasins, and equally stunning toy figures representing human beings who carried their weapons in holes bored through their arms and bodies, and had feet shaped like a pie, I was filled with emotion. I knew that now, at last, I was going to come face to face with the noble Red Man.
A lady clerk in a shop told me, indeed, that all her grand array of curiosities were made by the Indians, and that they were plenty about the Falls, and that they were friendly, and it would not be dangerous to speak to them. And sure enough, as I approached the bridge leading over to Luna Island, I came upon a noble Son of the Forest sitting under a tree, diligently at work on a bead reticule. He wore a slouch hat and brogans, and had a short black pipe in his mouth. Thus does the baneful contact with our effeminate civilization dilute the picturesque pomp which is so natural to the Indian when far removed from us in his native haunts. I addressed the relic as follows:
Is the Wawhoo-Wang-Wang of the Whack-a-Whack happy? Does the great Speckled Thunder sigh for the war-path, or is his heart contented with dreaming of the dusky maiden, the Pride of the Forest? Does the mighty Sachem yearn to drink the blood of his enemies, or is he satisfied to make bead reticules for the pappooses of the paleface? Speak, sublime relic of bygone grandeurvenerable ruin, speak!
The relic said:
An is it mesilf, Dennis Hooligan, that yed be takon for a dirty Injin, ye drawlin, lantern-jawed, spider-legged divil! By the piper that played before Moses, Ill ate ye!
I went away from there.
By and by, in the neighborhood of the Terrapin Tower, I came upon a gentle daughter of the aborigines in fringed and beaded buckskin moccasins and leggins, seated on a bench with her pretty wares about her. She had just carved out a wooden chief that had a strong family resemblance to a clothes-pin, and was now boring a hole through his abdomen to put his bow through. I hesitated a moment, and then addressed her:
Is the heart of the forest maiden heavy? Is the Laughing Tadpole lonely? Does she mourn over the extinguished council-fires of her race, and the vanished glory of her ancestors? Or does her sad spirit wander afar toward the hunting-grounds whither her brave Gobbler-of-the- Lightnings is gone? Why is my daughter silent? Has she ought against the paleface stranger?
The maiden said:
Faix, an is it Biddy Malone ye dare to be callin names? Lave this, or Ill shy your lean carcass over the cataract, ye sniveling blaggard!
I adjourned from there also.
Confound these Indians! I said. They told me they were tame; but, if appearances go for anything, I should say they were all on the warpath.
I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only one. I came upon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, making wampum and moccasins, and addressed them in the language of friendship:
Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws, and High Muck- a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you! You, Beneficent Polecatyou, Devourer of Mountainsyou, Roaring Thundergust you, Bully Boy with a Glass eyethe paleface from beyond the great waters greets you all! War and pestilence have thinned your ranks and destroyed your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and a vain modern expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors, have depleted your purses. Appropriating, in your simplicity, the property of others has gotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your simple innocence, has damaged your reputation with the soulless usurper. Trading for forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk and happy and tomahawk your families, has played the everlasting mischief with the picturesque pomp of your dress, and here you are, in the broad light of the nineteenth century, gotten up like the ragtag and bobtail of the purlieus of New York. For shame! Remember your ancestors! Recall their mighty deeds! Remember Uncas!and Red jacket! and Hole in the Day! and Whoopdedoodledo! Emulate their achievements! Unfurl yourselves under my banner, noble savages, illustrious guttersnipes
Down wid him! Scoop the blaggard! Burn him! Bang him! Dhround him!
It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudden flash in the air of clubs, brickbats, fists, bead-baskets, and moccasinsa single flash, and they all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of them in the same place. In the next instant the entire tribe was upon me. They tore half the clothes off me; they broke my arms and legs; they gave me a thump that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee like a saucer; and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings and add insult to injury, they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and I got wet.