Comment by karpierz
4 years ago
Here's the issue: you've come to a conclusion, and then you're using that conclusion as an assumption to dismiss evidence against it.
For example: you say that it seems unlikely that Franklin considered Irish people inferior, because in 1755, Americans didn't have anti-Irish sentiment.
But the fact we're trying to determine is "was there anti-Irish sentiment in colonial era America", using Franklin's words as evidence. If you simply assume your conclusion and use it to invalidate evidence, then there isn't really a point to me providing evidence.
Something else worth noting is that Ben excludes Swedes from whiteness, despite their Protestantism.
Anyways, this isn't really a hill I care to die on, so I'll be bowing out of this discussion.
> But the fact we're trying to determine is "was there anti-Irish sentiment in colonial era America", using Franklin's words as evidence.
Franklin's words are irrelevant to the question of "was there anti-Irish sentiment in colonial era America" – because he never mentions the Irish at all.
He does express a belief in an intra-white racial hierarchy, of "more pure" and "less pure" white people. He never once tells us where he thinks the Irish sit in it. My assumption about where he would have put them is as good as yours.