es. They worked in vile conditions, leading to thousands of deaths resulting from everything from lung disease to fires. Reverend Theodore Parker of Boston identified the inferior peoples in the world in a sermon as inferior in nature . . . behind [whites] in development on a lower form in the great school of Providence--Negroes, Indians, Mexicans, Irish, and the like.(Takaki, 149).Although not quite identical in all aspects, the trials that the Irish and the Native Americans encountered in their confrontations with whites resemble one another quite a great deal. Both groups were persecuted horribly and viewed as inferior, and as belonging to a lower level in the social order. The Irishs subservience was influenced mainly by ideological apparatuses, while the Indians were restrained mostly by repressive forces, such as military action. Yet, both methods were effective in lowering the people in the social rankings, so that they were frequently overlooked and wronged morally and legally. While we can not take back what has happened, we can use what has happened in the past to try to prevent such injustices in the future. The first step in the solution to racism is understanding one another....
