I highly recommend reading How the Irish Became White [0]

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics...

Well, I'd refer you to this book: https://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics...

You are free to disagree with the thesis, of course.

> I wonder how much it'd shock Eugene if someone pointed it out to him that, in American racial discourse, Irish and Italian folk were once considered "not white."

The title of his piece is almost certainly a reference to "How the Irish Became White" [1], so presumably not so much. I'm with you on the broader point, though, that the hand-wringing about who is and isn't white is silly, and that if it serves as shorthand for racially privileged people, that's pretty much fine.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Irish-Became-White-Routledge-Classics/....