ABSTRACT
In a debate on the status of Italian Americans (ITAM) that erupted in the summer of 2000 on H-ITAM, several participants argued that they don't consider themselves a part of a white society that oppresses its minorities because they are still themselves members of an oppressed minority. What was unexpected about this debate was that some participants couched their arguments in explicitly—and anachronistically—racial terms. Italian Americans, one argued, are victims of a "virulent and multipronged racism in this country." This chapter starts from the premise that "blackness," either visible or not, is not an apt metaphor for the Italian American experience. Certainly this is true in the present day. It is inaccurate at best to liken the ways Italian Americans and nonwhite populations are currently treated in American society.
