imagine a scientist looking at you studying your features and assigning you a score one that determines whether or not you belong or whether or not you're something less than in 1885 John bedau a leading British Anthropologist did just that he created something called the index of nence literally a scale of Blackness if you were Irish the science was not on your side Irish eyes are smileing sure they steal your hard away well if I told you that just 150 years ago the Irish were not considered fully white their skulls were measured their hair color ranked and their entire identity questioned this isn't some obscure footnote in history it was mainstream science if you've ever looked at an old 19th century newspaper you would see racial classification charts and you might expect to see prejudices at the time against African-Americans or Brits with African ancestry but right next to those you would see an Irishman they were drawn with exaggerated almost ap-like features and labeled as something less than fully human and this wasn't just racist propaganda like I said it was science with a capital S and it shaped everything the jobs that Irish immigrants could get had they were treated in America and even the stories that were or weren't passed down in families including mine and the fact that this history has been erased is Not an Accident hi I'm Danielle Romero thank you so much for being with me here in my channel where we talk about American identity and family stories and part of my family story connects to Ireland most of the videos on this channel are about my journey of connecting to my mom's Louisiana Roots uh her gram was born in Louisiana of uh mixed ancestry but her gr married an Irish boy from New York that side of this family it's been harder for me to trace but it's been really rewarding and shocking at the same time in the 19th century race wasn't about skin color it was about power scientific racism the attempt to use science to justify racial hierarchies was everywhere and this was not a fringe belief this was mainstream this was everywhere it was published in newspapers taught in universities and used to justify policies that shaped millions of lives now one of the most popular forms of this pseudoscience was something called phenology this idea that the skull shape determines intelligence and moral character and scientists would measure jaw angles forehead slopes facial structures to argue some groups are naturally Superior some are inferior if you were Irish the science was not on your side I spent a lot of time on the Library of Congress website which is amazing I love the Library of Congress you can get on there search through primary sources I was flipping through really old books on phenology it was just amazing to immerse myself in in the way people perceived the world at the time imagine a scientist looking at you studying your features and assigning you a score one that determines whether or not you belong or whether or not you're something less than in 1885 John BAU a leading British Anthropologist did just that he created something called the index of Negrin literally a scale of Blackness he studied 13,000 men and he ranked them based on just their hair color and this is how he assigned points he said if you have red hair or blonde hair you get one point if you have brown or Chestnut you're neutral if you have dark hair one point black hair two points and so when he mapped out his findings he decided that the Irish along with the Welsh and the Scots were ranked as significantly darker than the Anglo-Saxons in his conclusion the Irish weren't truly white and they were a separate lower race than the Anglo-Saxons they were more primitive more emotional and less capable of self-governance which I think is kind of like a real doozy the throw in there so this wasn't just an academic Theory there were real world repercussions this was used to justify discrimination it shaped How the Irish reviewed in Britain which is a massive history all on its own right how they were treated In America which is how what we're going to get to but if you think that sounds extreme consider what Charles Kingsley who was a well-respected historian and clergyman read Pastor wrote after he visited Ireland he said quote I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw there in Ireland but to see white chimpanzees is Dreadful if they were black one would not feel it so much he wasn't alone British political cartoons especially punch magazine regularly depicted the Irish with ap-like features framing them as violent animalistic inferior drunkards but this wasn't just a British view nothing I'm just enjoying this Vivid display of Irish character these ideas followed imish immigrants across the Atlantic Ocean you see a lot of these political cartoons in America as well when the Irish immigrants arrived in the US they faced open hostility at times they weren't immediately accepted as white or the possibility of becoming American they were met with the no Irish need apply signs and job posting I know there's been some like discussion about whether or not that's real it is most certainly real I have a newspapers.com descri uh subscription which is amazing and you could search your old papers in just a two-c search I was able to come up with a bunch of ads that said in them like don't apply if you're Irish just straight up don't the Irish were portrayed in America as dangerous criminal lazy and many Americans questioned whether the Irish were even fit for citizenship there's a political cartoon I'm thinking of I don't have it printed out but I'll put it on the screen basically it's Lady Liberty there she's stirring this big pot this is the American Melting Pot and you see all these different people kind of being put in there and they're all blending together except there's one guy standing in the back that seems kind of out of control I think he has like his arms up in the air he's yelling he's pugnacious he's he's not agreeable he's not folding in and he's Irish and I I think the caption is something to that effect of like you know this is the one group that that can't really become Americans how amazing to hear that talk you know when we talk about the Irish now you you wouldn't think of it as oh well these guys can't really become Americans I mean they're as American as anyone right but that's not how they were perceived when they first came here and many Irish immigrants distanced themselves from other marginalized groups to to protect themselves especially black Americans they did begin to align themselves politically with white Anglo saxs and Protestants even though most of them like my family were catholic my great great grandpa came over from Northern Ireland and he was Catholic which is a whole a whole history there but the Irish did begin to adopt the language in the Customs here and the process wasn't immediate but it did work um another thing I had read about was the Irish uh especially in Boston New York which is where you you find a lot of Irish Americans so you know as police officers as firefighters and kind of uh becoming foundational parts of the community and that helped that identity shift as well so why does this history matter though today because I think it shows that one race is not really about skin color it's about power the Irish were not always seen as white they were not even seen as full people they weren't seen as people who could ever become Americans and the fact that the Irish Americans were once placed near the bottom of a racial hierarchy only later to climb closer to the top proves that this is not a fixed category it's a tool it's malleable it's it's used to divide to exclude to destroy and control people and if we don't recognize that we risk repeating the same patterns that once left the Irish immigrants on the margins of society most Irish Americans don't know that their ancestors were once seen as like truly racially different and I would say even a Step Beyond when you see these portrayals of the Irish as like apes I mean it's like same kind of garbage that uh you see with Africans um you see with Italians there this idea of like these guys are so low they're half animal but now that you do what do you make of it history has a way of shaping the present whether we acknowledge it or not whether we understand it or not so let me know what you think about this if you have Irish heritage um if you know about this history if you'd like to watch any other videos that I've done on the Irish American Experience I will link to those below and if you'd like to connect with me off of YouTube I'd love to have you join me over at patreon.com NTN otherwise we'll talk soon