There's been a lot of criticism over the NFL for not hiring enough minority coaches. And, of course, the NFL is trying to spin it. They said, "What are you talking about? We got two brothers coaching the Super Bowl."
How about the Jews? Heard they had it pretty rough......
And the Irish have not only dealt with it in Europe, but when they came over here.
As far as I know Jews were never disenfranchised in this country. Same goes for the Irish. Both groups were allowed to participate fully in the social and political processes where as African Americans were not. In my opinion the case of African Americans and Native Americans are unique in the United Sates in that both groups were systematically disenfranchised and or exterminated as a matter of public policy.
Not sure about the Jews, but when the heavy wave of Irish immigrants came to this country in the lat 1800's and early 1900s, they were regarded and treated as second class citizens.
Took a course on American Immigration in undergrad, and the Irish had it bad. Were often called the N word, women were thought of as dirty and useless, and many families (like other immigrant populations) lived in ghettos.
This sentiment is well documented in "Gangs of New York", "Far and Away", and the book "How the other half lives" by Jacob Riis.
Yes, the Irish had it pretty bad during the 1800's and early 1900's in a lot of cases. Businesses often had signs saying not "No Irish" or "Irish need not apply." An interesting take: a black co-worker told me once that he believed black slaves had it better than the typical Irish dirt farmer in the 1800's. His argument was that while the slave didn't have the freedom to move, get an education, change careers, greatly improve his lot, or make many of the decisions in his life, he had enormous value to his owner and never went without food, clothing, medical care, or housing. The Irish dirt farmer theoretically had all those things, but in practice had little opportunity to exercise them, had to work just as hard with no more reward in most cases, and there was nobody to make sure that if he fell on hard times that he wouldn't starve, go homeless, or die from lack of medical care. Thought provoking and probably accurate in many ways.