The Myth of “Self-Made”: An Irish Legacy of Missing History and A Bond With White Supremacy

I spent last weekend with my extended family. My Grandpa has been having a hard time with a blood infection, so he’s been going into the hospital every day for blood infusions. He’s moving with stuttered steps and needs a walker. His pride is bruised because he can’t do much on his own anymore. My Grandma, petite as ever, is frail and needs an oxygen machine, but she still keeps the house going and helps my Grandpa stay on top of his medications. She has her own to keep track of too.

It was my Grandma’s 83rd birthday weekend, so there was cake, and endless opportunities to eat chocolate and licorice. We celebrated on Saturday night by ordering from a nearby Italian restaurant for pick-up. My Aunts and Uncles came over, and my cousin and her husband with their new puppy.

As I type this it sounds like a lot of warm and fuzzy fun. But I have always felt a dragging distance from my family, despite all of the things seemingly being in place for connection and camaraderie.

My upper-middle class, white, irish-Catholic family doesn’t talk about race, doesn’t talk openly about what’s going on in the world, the killer police, or the burning planet. When something casually racist/sexist/classist/ableist is said, and I pull us in to look at it, there…