The Wages and Price of Whiteness

Abstract

Despite the Irish experience of white-on-white racism, can any predominantly white country in the global North be free of white supremacy? It has been argued that the Irish became white. What was the cost of becoming white? What does Ireland endorse in accepting this construct of whiteness? This article attempts to answer these questions with a contemporary analysis of the wages of whiteness in Ireland against the backdrop of Irish history. It argues that the recategorization of the Irish as white and the subsequent change in positioning on the racial ladder came at a price of subscribing to white supremacy. It presents white supremacy as the unacknowledged, everyday positioning of white superiority, as opposed to white extremism, and argues that whiteness is employed as a determinant of Irishness. The article ends by arguing that history can either reify or debunk white supremacy, and calling for a decolonized narrative in Ireland.