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Untrue Historic “Facts” It’s Time to Erase

Khalid Elhassan September 8, 2020 35 min

Siege of Budapest - World War II — Red Army soldiers marching into a captured Budapest in 1945. Radio Free Europe

17. The Myth of Irish Slaves

A variant of the “Irish slavery” meme. Medium

It is probable that sometime within the past few years, you have come across this meme or a variant thereof on social media. Frequently posted by somebody prefacing a statement with “I am not racist, but…“, the meme asserts that Irish Americans were enslaved just like African Americans. However, they are doing much better than blacks today, and their descendants never complain about their ancestors’ enslavement.

The main reason why Irish people do not complain about their ancestors’ enslavement is that their ancestors were never enslaved. Additionally, Irish Americans have fared better than African Americans because the Irish in America never faced anything approaching the generations of institutionalized racism to which blacks were subjected. The whole thing is a myth.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.