Reply #80: The point is, it isn't "people dividing themselves"

[Romulox]

And Irish (also Jews, Greeks, Italians) were not considered white for most of this country's history.

By claiming it is "'white' people finding a reason to look down on other 'white' people" you are attempting to blur the distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed. The socially constructed identity of "whiteness" is the tool that allows you to do this; since the people who hung the "no Irish" signs and the Irish themselves are both constructed as "white", this is merely an example of "white people" discriminating against themselves, and therefore the victims are responsible for their own discrimination such that they not only deserve no special consideration, but instead deserve the same condemnation as bigots who placed the signs in the first instance.

In this way, an artificially constructed "whiteness" is used to excuse discrimination, and to place guilt by association on previously marginalized groups.

Geeeez indeed!