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Comment by nashequilibrium | Hacker News Reader

Bullshit, I've heard white ppl talk shit about Jersey Shore and use racial slurs against Italians. Secondly look at the Silicon Valley numbers for diversity, how many Asian vs Black? So your point no black interaction == no asian interaction is incorrect.

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Regarding minority populations: it's not equivalent. But it is often the case. Think Texas, New York City, Los Angeles, or Chicago.

People talk shit or joke about the French, Italians, Germans too, but French and German people are considered white. Same with Poles and Italians.

Those stats you gave did not consider people of Italian or German descent as non-White.

At the moment, throughout the U.S., Italians are considered "white". In the recent past, in certain areas of the country, they (Southern Italians, at least) were considered "black". They were lynched and not allowed to marry "whites". Racial categories are ever-shifting social constructs that serve temporary political and social purposes.

http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-...

You're absolutely right, and I'm am only meaning to talk about the present.

Hm. My wife (Italian descent) reports differently. During her southwest upbringing she was treated as anything but white. I guess it depends upon your environment.

Perhaps I'm too quick to assume my experience is universal on this point. At school growing up, the white people were fairly mixed in actual ethnic background. Statistically, though, any researcher would consider Italian white if they used "white" as a category.

Would it be too personal to ask what she meant? Was she taken for Hispanic, or did people use anti-Italian stereotypes?

The 2nd. She was not welcome everywhere in town; she was viewed with suspicion in stores; her family's social circle was several notches lower than expected from her fathers' position (scientist at Los Alamos Natl Labs).

I'd have supposed Los Alamos, what with the laboratories, to be more cosmopolitan than Denver; yet so far as I know, that didn't happen in Denver. To be sure, I didn't have a particularly elevated social circle, and maybe the people at the Denver Country Club had some issues. But as far as I know, most people in Denver sorted ethnicities into Black/Chicano/Anglo.

Strangely, once Hispanic folks 'from the valley' were allowed on base (to clean and drive etc), Italians moved up. The Hispanics were the new bottom of the heap.

I'm sorry to hear that.

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