“The Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud,” goes the famous line from The Commitments, a 1991 film about an Irish soul band.
And now, apparently, that mantra is evolving into a political action committee.
The Hill reports that the McBLACKPAC will debut at the Democratic National Convention early next month, with an aim to help young Irish and black politicians get elected.
“Together we will work to elect Democratic candidates to Federal and State office who share our values, on civil rights, immigration reform, education, workers’ rights, justice, the environment, and economic progress,” the group said in an email this week. “Hope you will join us and look forward to working with you in the next Obama administration.”
The groups says it wants to build on the shared history of African Americans and Irish Americans, “from Frederick Douglass and Daniel O’Connell, to President John Kennedy and Rev. Martin Luther King, and now President Barack Obama and Joe Biden.”
The framework of the group’s not-yet-built-out website includes links to Obama’s Irish ancestry and “our McBlack leaders in the union movement.”
Irish like Paul Ryan?
– Gangs of New York, which is shown almost weekly somewhere on cable.
draft riots in New York during the civil war?
The New York City draft riots (July 13 to July 16, 1863; known at the time as Draft Week[2]) were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots were the largest civil insurrection in American history.[3]
President Abraham Lincoln diverted several regiments of militia and volunteer troops from following up after the Battle of Gettysburg to control the city. The rioters were overwhelmingly working-class men, primarily ethnic Irish, resenting particularly that wealthier men, who could afford to pay a $300 commutation fee to hire a substitute, were spared the draft.[4][5]
Initially intended to express anger at the draft, the protests turned ugly. At least 100 black people were estimated to have been killed.