seems to be an accepted generalization in regaurds to blacks. So why do Italians hate black people so much? I’m black, and when I went to Italy, everyone seemed to love me. They even readily forgave all my horrible horrible mistakes. So what’s with Italian-Americans, what did we ever do to them?
Ugh, that title/opening sentence segue didn’t work so well. Ah, well, I hope people can figure out what I mean.
I come from what one might call an American-Italian family, and I have no idea what you are talking about. And I live in the South U.S.A. I’m sorry that you seem to have had enough difficulty with some folks somewhere that you would be possessed to generalize about people based upon the country where their ancestors lived. Please don’t paint us all with the same brush, some of us are decent people.
I’ve had no problems with anyone personally. I got this perception mostly from anecdotes, most recently here.
More fodder came when I searched for “moolies” in google, after hearing about it on Sopranos.
If you’re taking you’re opinions of Italian people from the Sopranos I’m not surprised.
But keep in mind, (I’m Italian by the way) I doubt you would like me to make sweeping generalizations about black people based on re-runs of “Good Times” or “The Jeffersons”.
Take their jobs. Well, that’s what they think.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a lot of immigration to the US from Europe, and a lot of competition for blue-collar, unskilled jobs. When African-Americans first started migtating northward, they were competing for jobs with recently arrived immigrant groups, such as Italians.
Blacks have a hard time in Buffalo because two the city’s three dominant Anglo ethnic communities, Italians and Poles, traditionally have not gotten along well with blacks; they all competed for precious jobs about 100 years ago.
Italians and Poles are considered “Anglo”?
Ack! Nevermind, I just looked it up. Another example of word perversion. If “Anglo” doesn’t specifically mean English, than what means what these days?
Anglo is English. (actually, weren’t the Angles Germanic?). So would Anglo-Saxon. For the Poles, Italians, Irish, Scandinavians, etc. just use “white” or “European”.
I was just seriously going to ask this question too! In our town the few Italians we have hate black people, and i always wondered why…I figured it was from way back in the day stuff
I think incidents in Bensonhurst and other parts of New York in the 1980’s led to this perception in recent times. Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing and Jungle Fever also underlined these tensions. One answer, certainly debatable, is that sincethe “whiteness” of Italians, especially Sicilians was long questioned by many old stock or “Anglo” whites, many Italian Americans felt the need to emphatically distance themselves from black people as a result. I don’t necessarily buy it, but it is possible.
Anyway, people are individuals, and for every Italian-American bigot there are probably several Italian-Americans who oppose racism - many Italian Americans were very active in civil rights as well. But there has been a long standing perception of southern whites and “ethnic whites” (Italians, Irish, Poles, etc.) as virulently racist, while WASPs have a softer and more more paternalistic attitude toward minorities.
Well, when I was living in New Mexico, an “Anglo” was any non-Hispanic white person, including Arabs, Italians, Greeks and Asian Indians. I use the term in that context.
pizzabrat, that was my post you got this from. My father is Jewish, and he’s just as bad. Yes, he and the Italian side of my family are all from Brooklyn and they are all hideously bigoted. Believe me, I’ve gotten into it with my father and my uncle and my brother and cousins many times, to no avail. The reason? I would never even descend to putting such things in writing, if you hadn’t asked…
(Disclaimer: I am stating opinions that are not my own, that I completely disagree with, and which I think are sickening and idiotic)
They think black people are lazy, don’t have respect for themselves, have too many kids, expect to be given things because of slavery (when their immigrant parents came to this country with nothing, not even speaking English, and they’ve managed to do fine), are violent, etc.
See? I told you. Stupid. The ironic thing is, they all seem to have at least one black co-worker or friend who they think is OK, but he’s “different.” Same thing they say about gays.
What you are describing, Rubystreak, is ignorance.
My father’s side is Sicilian. My grandmother was a first class racist. (She didn’t like (northern) Italians much either, and hated being called Italian).
My father distanced himself from that. He married a black/native American (plus some others thrown in for flavoring) woman (my mother). While not a paragon of understanding (don’t get him started on homosexuality or religion), racist he isn’t.
I don’t know the attitudes of his only sister (my aunt). I do know that two of her children and the husband of her third have bigoted attitudes towards blacks in general (but do not seem to have problems dealing with blacks on an individual basis). They’ve lived in the Fort Lauderdale area since the early 70s, and they all have worse attitude towards hispanics.
Just before I became a teenager, we moved from a predominantly black / Caribbean neighborhood to the wilds of Long Island. Our new community was predominantly white (you could count the black students in my school on your fingers; if you added any non-white you might have been able to finish on your toes), although of mixed European and Jewish heritages. Racism was rampant, only they didn’t realize they were being racists. (There was a significant Jewish minority, and except from diehard bigots, I didn’t pick up on any overall bigotry directed towards Jews).
I think the ignorance is that they don’t know the obstacles that were put into place, and in many instances are still in place, to poor blacks succeeding. Many of the parents of my high school friends believed that a poor black and a poor European (they all felt discriminated against due to their heritage, regardless of which country they were from) had equal chances to succeed in America at the turn of the 20th century. The theory is that they started as poor immigrants and made a name for themselves; why couldn’t black people?
This is not to discount anything elmwood said; I’ve no doubt that was another major contributor to tensions. Just adding my own observations from the front lines.
[P.S. I was able to find out a lot about how many were thinking because I have wavy but not kinky hair, the complexion of a hispanic, a Sicilian last name, and I’m generally well-spoken. People didn’t think of me as black in my LI neighborhood, and considering their attitudes, I didn’t try to correct them]
I’m an Italian-American who grew up in the hotbed of anti-black biggotry, Bensonhurst Brooklyn, during the worst years of racial tensions, the 70’s.
Let me tell you, the hatred and mistrust of blacks is real, not some media hype. I once witnessed what could fairly be described as a mini-race riot erupt from a kids softball game while I was in grade school. Even my parents, I’m not proud to say, are less than open-minded on the subject.
There are three factors at play, IMO.:
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The historical issues – comprtition for low-end jobs – that has already been described.
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The culturally inbred xenophobia that Italians have turned into high art. Italian-Americans love their families first, fellow I-As second, and nobody else third. They fear and distrust outsiders, and who can be pegged as an outsider faster than someone with the “wrong” color skin?
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The last factor is a little more subtle, and is a consequence of place (NYC) and time (the 60s & 70s), rather than culture. Beginning w/ mayor Wagner, but primarily w/ mayor Lindsay and later Beame, the city went UTTERLY WILD with social entitlement programs aimed primarily at poor blacks. If he could, I suspect, Linday would have gone to Harlem handing out bags of hundred-dollar bills from the city treasury, no questions asked.
This was perceived in IA (and other white) communities as a huge undermining of the American blue-collar work ethic ( – never mind that no black could EVER gain entry to, say, a construction union – ) and a vile scheme to pander for votes.
Now, truth be told, I AGREE with this last assessment, albeit without the racial hatred. The seeds that Wagner, Lindsay and Beame sowed wrecked this city for thirty years, financially, socially and culturally. And we’re still not fully recovered. Generations of black families were crippled by a cycle of welfare and a mentality of victimhood while droves of whites seethed with resentment. All for what? Enough votes to stay in office! Stupid panderers.
True to my Italian roots, I say this: “Wagner, Beame and especially you, Lindsay – I spit on your graves!”
Well, MY family is perfect, and doesn’t hate anyone. Not even Republicans. It’s true.
I actually decided to flat-out ask my dad about this. Now, he’s not Italian, but he married one, and all his friends’ last names end in vowels. He grew up in Bath Beach and my mother in Bensonhurst, so this is the scoop:
“They’re different.” That’s it. Really. They don’t like their neighborhoods being “overrun” by people who are so different from them. They say that when black people moved in, crime, poverty, graffiti, and general squalor came into the neighborhood with them. The thought of having a black person inside their house is just intolerable to them.
My mild-mannered, generally easy-going father becomes highly irrational on this topic, I might add. It wasn’t any fun asking him what he’d do if I fell in love with a black guy. The words “don’t bring him home” crossed his lips. I told him how disgusted I was by that attitude, and he said he’s too old to change his mind now and that’s that.
Ignorance is what it is, yeah. My brother is pretty much the same as my dad, but at least that’s one trait I won’t be passing on to my kids. At the same time, though, you can see why I wouldn’t want to drag some perfectly nice black guy into this bullshit, can’t you?
stuyguy, you forgot to mention that there is often a division between northern and southern Italians - often carried through a generation or two of children who’ve never been to Italy - with the IA community. Although, I agree that they’ll back each other against any non-Italian.
Question at large…could Italian-Americans be the most prejudiced etnic community in the U.S.? I would think, from my NY experiences only, that Orthodox Jews might rival them (which raises the question of whether they are a separate community, or a subset of the Jewish community), and any group has its “less-than-enlightened” members, but looking at the community as a whole, could it be?