Passing Thoughts

In my neighborhood to be Irish-American was to be whiter than any Italian-American. Whether there was a hierarchy of whiter whites than Irish whites was really of no concern as long as it was recognized that Irish was essentially whiter than Italian, in this view.

I'm thinking in his time Will Rogers wasn't white at all except by general acclaim, and despite all appearances. But then it's always been defined by general acclaim, white being a slippery notion, the precise white being applied or denied in the instant a matter of exacting public judgements, which fell in favor of Rogers back then.

Heirloom

 

 

Obit

Never let it be said that there are no class divides in Irish America, or that the mutual contemptuousness of every class of Irish people for the other has not been successfully transplanted from the old country to its primarily urban and now suburban home in America.

Mark Wahlberg's Boston Irish character in Martin Scorsese's movie The Departed has naturally a deep contempt for the Boston Irish character played by Matt Damon for precisely these reasons, and expresses his natural contempt with succinct force from the first, as people of his station so often will.

When I first came to regard William Buckley, courtesy of his television program Firing Line and appearances on other talk shows of the time, I recognized in myself the upwelling of the sort of contempt for the man proper to my class of Irish Americans toward a man of his, and carried that contempt with me down all the years till now.

I say farewell to William F. Buckley, Jr., and to my contempt for him as well, satisfied that it no longer has its proper target. I reserve the right to my contempt for what he's left, however.