Irony

[jhetley]

One thing with remembering history -- when Norwegians (and Swedes, and Finns) *were* the major wave of immigration, the xenophobes hated *them*. Same was true with Italians, and Poles, and Germans, and other "white" strangers. And Jews, of course, no matter what country they came from.

Comments

[malkingrey]

Indeed. There's an entire lexicon of obsolete or near-obsolete ethnic slurs from past eras -- still insulting, but the use of one of them these days would mark out the user as not just a bigot, but a bit of a fuddy-duddy as well.† (To pick a couple of terms from my own ethnic heritage, "mick" and "paddy", for example. I don't think anybody these days refers to the police vehicle used to haul off transgressors in bulk as a "paddy wagon," but there was a time....)

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†Granted, "bigoted fuddy-duddy" does describe a not-insignificant portion of The Boorish Vulgarian's voter base.

[jhetley]

And "hooligan" . . .

[conuly]

Nowadays they're considered white. (Well, except Ashkenazi Jews, who only seem to be white when it's convenient....)