[IBARW] GIP & FHA

[tablesaw]

I've got Photoshop at work, now. So I've been spending downtime haphazardly learning how to use it. This is my first attempt at a Gaff icon. I may replace it, especially if I get a chance to take my own screencap.

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evilprodigy has a post about invoking the historical oppression of Irish-Americans, "[IBARW] It's Not The Same Thing (Or, Leave Your Irish Ancestors In Their Graves)." The comments touch on American assimilation, directly and cluelessly indirectly.

The extent to which "assimilation" is contingent on whiteness, or the acceptance of white supremacy, is rarely discussed during "melting pot" idealism. It reminded me of this passage:

A 1933 report submitted to the FHA by one of its consultants, Home Hoyt, reveals the FHA's assessment of racial worth and its acknowledgment of the fluid and contingent boundaries of white identity:

If the entrance of a colored family into a white neighborhood causes a general exodus of the white people it is reflected in property values. Except in the case of Negroes and Mexicans, however,these racial and national barriers disappear when the individuals of foreign nationality groups rise in the economic scale or conform to American standards of living. . . . While the ranking may be scientifically wrong from the standpoint of inherent racial characteristics, it registers an opinion or prejudice that is reflect in land values; it is the ranking of race and nationalities with respect to the beneficial effect upon land values. Those having the most favorable effect come first on the list and those exerting the most detrimental effect appear last:

1. English, Germans, Scots, Irish, Scandinavians
2. North Italians
3. Bohemians or Czechoslovakians
4. Poles
5. Lithuanians
6. Greeks
7. Russian Jews of lower class
8. South Italians
9. Negroes
10. Mexicans

Thus, FHA officials recognized the inherent instability of ethnic hierarchies, but remained vigilant toward racial distinctions between white and nonwhite. This recognition provided a material basis for the development of an inclusive white identity predicated on suburban home ownership, and in Southern California, where the FHA maintained a most vital role in shaping regional patterns of suburban development, the settlement of places such as Orange County and the San Fernando Valley created a space where a diverse array of whites and white ethnics could "conform to American standards of living."

—Eric Avila, Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight: Fear and Fantasy in Suburban Los Angeles

I believe the emphasis wasn't in the original. Of course, by the 30s, the Irish had clearly ascended to whiteness, but you can see the stratification of other groups whose status would change with the next World War. Except for those two groups at the bottom, of course. I wonder what they have in common.