As Maria, my protagonist, is Italian-American, I read AN OFFER WE CAN’T REFUSE: The Mafia in the Mind of America by George de Stefano. It looks at the history of Italian-Americans and bias against them, particularly the stereotype that they’re all mobbed up (as opposed to a reality in which lots of ethnicities have been involved in organized crime). That in turn leads to a look at The Godfather and The Sopranos, which was ongoing at the time the book came out.
While de Stefano dislikes the stereotype, he actually loves the Godfather films for how awash they are in Italian culture, and The Sopranos for updating the stereotypes (suburban gangsters who are conscious they’re not playing at the Corleone level). While sympathetic to the anti-defamation groups that condemn Mafia fiction, de Stefano dismisses the arguments that Italian Americans get it worse than anyone else (“We’re not pulled over for driving while Italian.”) and accuses some of the critics of rejecting their roots (i.e., they’re upscale enough to be embarrassed at the Corleone’s Old World ways). Interesting
ARE ITALIANS WHITE?: How Race Is Made in America is a collection of essays edited by Jennifer Guglielmo and Salvatore Salerno that concludes the answer is yes. While Italians were often considered an inferior race to Real Americans there were no serious attempts to class them as colored, so they could gain citizenship, voting rights and other benefits black Americans were denied. The essays discuss the broad and diverse approach of Italians to the race question (from radicals who opposed all forms of racism to people who cemented their claim to be white by dumping on blacks) to individual profiles such as Giancarlo Esposito and his roles in Spike Lee’s films (he argues that Lee actually does a better job capturing Italian-American life than he does black). Useful in developing some of Maria’s family backstory, also a reminder that yes, race in America does have a subjective element.
As my setting of Pharisee, Georgia is predominantly Irish-ancestry, I looked at their history too. According to HOW THE IRISH BECAME WHITE by Noel Ignatiev, the early Irish immigrants were seen the lowest of the low, little better than blacks, and considered by Protestant America the ones most likely to “amalgamate” with blacks. This attitude had its roots in England, which began looking down its nose at the Irish after conquering it, plus many Irish supported abolishing slaver. Others saw supporting abolition as too risky: they wanted American support for Irish independence and didn’t want to alienate slaveholders. Many Irish embraced the bullshit that the life of a slave, with guaranteed shelter and food, was easy compared to that of the real slaves, the white working men (Frederick Douglass pointed out that if they really believed that, his running away had left a slave position vacant). Beyond that, racism against free blacks became common, both before and after the Civil War. Free blacks doing the same job as whites was seen as lowering white workers to their level. The Irish, like most whites, wanted to establish they were well above that level, which meant as much segregation as possible.
WHITE FLIGHT: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism by Kevin M. Kruse looks at how Atlanta, known as “the city too busy to hate” for its moderate desegregation efforts (in contrast to other parts of the South that defended the color line at all costs), actually did quite a bit of hating from the post-WW II years through the 1970s. While the civic and business leaders were willing to work with black Atlanta — allowing blacks to buy homes in white neighborhoods, desegregating some public parks, minimally desegregating schools — the working-class saw this as a sell-out by rich people whose private schools and private parks wouldn’t be affected.
For some the solution was neo-Nazi groups or the KKK, but over time they adopted more euphemistic approaches, such as their right to “freedom of association” — which in their eyes meant a)they should be free not to associate with blacks; b)therefore segregation so blacks were kept away from them, even in public spaces; c)if segregation fell, then whites simply abandoned facilities to Those People and over time fled to segregated suburbs. Kruse argues that the roots of modern conservative attitudes were born here: a conviction white taxes went to support black moochers, enthusiasm for privatizing public facilities (in the hopes they could then deny blacks the right to use them), opposition to spending on public projects or infrastructure (when Those People would use it) and so on. While Kruse didn’t tell me anything about racism I didn’t already know, it’s gut-wrenching to read 250 pages about so much hate.
This book definitely got me thinking about how I handle racism in Pharisee, and how desegregation came to the town. And also about the makeup of the white newcomers from Atlanta; obviously if they’re moving to a town that isn’t all-white, they probably aren’t the die-hard segregationists. Not necessarily liberal on racial issues, but more moderate than other parts of Georgia. It also gives me some insight into the generational divide for Pharisee’s blacks (the older go-slow generation and younger more aggressive activists).
None of this reading guarantees I got race and race relations in my book right; any errors are my fault, not those of my sources. White Flight cover image from the Calvin Fred Craig papers at Emory University. All rights to images reside with current holders.
