[quote=CelticRose;6128713]   she was like blacks and irish has a lot of things in common, we both suffered discrimination and we both had to fight for our rights as citizens.   Well, it  is  true though. The Irish were worked over by the British, oppressed and used as slaves and servants for hundreds of years, and in their own country. They even shipped several thousand Irishman to colonies in the Americas to work as slave labor and as servants. Many of the first Irish to come to the USA came as indentured servants, butlers, housemaids, and such, and later earned their freedom. In some cases in colonies in the Caribbean there were Irish Catholics who were forced to work as slave labor side by side with negroes. That's why alot of WASPs used to call the Irish, white ni**ers. When alot of them started showing up in America in the 19th and into the early 20th century they were mostly confined to ghettoes, no one would hire them, all of the help wanted signs would say NINA(No Irish Need Apply), and so many of them turned to crime, they started America's first real street gangs and first organized crime syndicates, even before the Italians. Many of them would start making alot of money as criminals and wear flashy, bright colored or pinstriped suits and jewelry, some of those old Irish gangsters would strut around in green suits and bowler hats with emerald pinky rings on their fingers and stuff like that:rofl . They were always being discriminated and told they were just a bunch of dumb paddys and slum trash white ni##ers so they would compensate by getting that real cocky, chip on the shoulder attitude and alot of us still have it:D They would give themselves flashy sounding street nicknames like Old Smoke(John Morrissey), Owney the Killer(Owney Madden), Diamond Jim(like Diamond Jim Brady), or Billy the Kid(was born in the Irish slums of NYC then the family headed West,always wore a green band around his hat), the Irish are really the ones who started all that kind of stuff.     They were considered low class, dangerous, ghetto/slum people and were stereotyped as being violent and criminally inclined, and often times that was the truth. The history of the Irish and the African-Americans does actually have alot of parallels, we both have a history of our people being enslaved and oppressed and forced into servitude and being discriminated against in America, being stereotyped as violent, dangerous, slum dwelling criminals, etc... Only one big difference...the Irish are White(duh), and you will never hear an Irishman(or woman) bitc* and moan about how their ancestors were oppressed, enslaved, forced into servitude and discriminated against by the WASPs, unlike the Blacks who just can't stop crying about it and throwing a pity party, boo hoo hoo:( You will never hear the Irish use their history as an excuse for being a miserable failure at life, and you will never see the Irish begging for and/or demanding handouts and special treatment, unlike the groids...     I am predominantly of  Irish  descent myself, by the way.:clink