Author: dsulli22

At the beginning of the semester I found myself struggling to make any meaningful connections between struggles seen in Ireland and America. I was met with a wave of relief upon hearing that I wasn’t the only one struggling. As the semester drove on and we started to have better discussions in class I started to pick up on some common themes simply from hearing one of us discuss them in class when talking about different works.

Now, at the closing of the semester I’m amazed at the progress I’ve made in my understanding of the connections between the two countries at the time. This culminated in our discussions of our final papers where I was able to listen to the points that were made in a number of papers and get an idea of where you were deriving your thesis from before you started to explain it. One of the more concrete examples is the role hope played. I think that coming into the class I was looking for more tangible connections in the form of policy or structure rather than a feeling. But feelings make up so much of what we discussed. You don’t simply set out to partake in a social revolution without having some sort of strong feeling about the matter.

Another connection I did not foresee making was the importance of religion in both countries. MLK used religion in an attempt to draw a wider audience to the civil rights movement whereas religion was a key divider in Ireland. Religion obviously played a major role in inspiring the Catonsville Nine to act. Again, this was not particularly what I was anticipating being one of the connections between the two situations.

Had you asked me anything prior to the class about the connections between Catholics in Ireland and blacks in America in the year 1968 I would’ve told that there were none. Looking back, I can name a number of them off the top of my head.

One of the connections I’ve seen between a number of the texts we’ve read is the struggle of balancing one’s value of their morals versus finding “safety” by allowing whatever injustices they see the system causing continue. This is most evident in the trials of the Chicago Eight and Catonsville Nine. The relative safety one would find by not participating in any sort of protest is different in each of the readings we’ve done, but nonetheless these people made the decision that their morals were more valuable to them then allowing the system to continue in its discriminatory ways which affected many, not just them.

The Catonsville Nine set out to make a statement in their acts. I think this is evident in the fact that they decided to be tried together despite playing vastly different roles in the act of defiance. What was important to them was making the statement that they felt the Vietnam War and the killings that came with it was wrong. They could have easily done nothing, let the war rage on, and not have faced the jail time they did. Morally, they felt the need to make a statement. The same can be said about Huey Newton. The “safety” he would have found is different than that of the Catonsville Nine, but he still chose to be outspoken against the system and make himself a known target. Had he not said anything he wouldn’t have seen his name on thousands of pages of FBI reports. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been noticed by the police officer who pulled him over, leading to him being hospitalized and beat. He could’ve accepted the injustices handed to him by the system, but chose to speak out for the ultimate safety of himself and others. I’ve personally found these acts and the other acts we’ve read about whether it be the Chicago Eight or MLK’s works to be courageous.

In class we talked a good amount about how marriage is portrayed in Mojo Mickybo and concluded that it is depicted in a flimsy way. We see this particularly with Mojo’s parents. We learn of how they used to go dancing and love one another but eventually it detoriated with Owen McCafferty alluding to Mojo’s Da having an affair and eventually his Ma takes him to go and live with his aunt. There are a couple of other portrayals in the play such as with the box office lady, but one depiction that we did not talk about is the boys’ “marriage” with their situation.

Throughout the play the two boys seemed to live in a fantasy world, set away from the grim situation they faced daily. They didn’t have a choice as to the environment they’d be born into and seem to try their best to ignore it by constantly embarking on fantasy adventures. I think that a relationship between a Catholic and a Protestant at the time would be labeled unhealthy because of the high tensions between the two. While the boys acknowledge that they are different, it does not affect their relationship. This all changed once Mickybo’s Da was killed. No longer could Mickybo escape to the wild west because the situation was brought to him. He quickly distances himself from Mojo because he is a protestant. It’s reasonable to assume that the boys knew more about the situation than was alluded to. At the end of the day the boys were stuck in an unhealthy relationship and tried their best to improve it but couldn’t run from the reality of it.

This past week we debated whether or not the BLM movement had or needed a central leader. The question was raised whether or not social media and its ability to connect millions across the country with information instantaneously had replaced the need for a leader. When comparing the BLM movement with the civil rights movement I think that a central leader is not needed nearly as much today because of social media, but that’s not to say that a leader is not needed.

One thing I’ve noticed about the BLM movement in comparison to the civil rights movement is that there is less consistency when it comes to the approach protesters have taken. The civil rights movement for the most part utilized nonviolence under the guidance of Martin Luther King. BLM has had a large number of peaceful protests, but also a number of protests with widespread looting. These occurrences of looting have been met with criticism which not only has been used to focus attention away from the issues they are protesting about but has turned some people off from the movement. Perhaps if they had a central leader to organize protests and the approach they were taking consistency would reached and the movement would be stronger. On the other hand, social media has given way for a multitude of people to be a leader of the movement. I know that numerous NBA stars such as Lebron James, Chris Paul, and Jaylen Brown have been vocal in their support of the movement with Brown specifically driving 15 hours from Boston to lead a march in Atlanta. It is up to the people with power on social media to use their platform to promote change and perhaps find a consistent approach. I do not think that there is a definitive answer as to whether or not a leader is needed.

This past week Montrezl Harrell, an NBA player, was under criticism for calling another NBA player, Luka Dončić, a “b****-ass white-boy” during their game. Harrell ultimately apologized two days later before their next game, but in those two days I saw a number of posts on social media saying things like “imagine if it was the other way around” and claiming that there is a double standard. I think this ties into what we saw in the readings this week with Irish Americans claiming they were enslaved and had it as bad as anybody but that “you don’t see them complaining”.

            The similarity between the two situations lies in the power to prevent another person from doing something. Dončić being called a white boy isn’t the same as Dončić using a derogatory remark towards Harrell because the term white boy has never restricted the rights of a person. The situation in Barbados was similar with the rights of the enslaved being much more limited than the indentured servants. The majority of indentured servants served 3-7 years whereas slaves served a lifetime. The servants had the opportunity to start their own life after their contract while slaves saw no such liberty. Servants also had protection from harsh treatment by the hands of their landowner. It’s impossible to classify the indentured servants and enslaved as equal because of these differences. Overall, I think this falls into the larger problem of people responding to cries of discrimination with something along the lines of “Hey we were also discriminated against, you don’t see us complaining” which does nothing but focus attention elsewhere.