The Interwar Origins of the White Ethnic: Race, Residence, and German
Philadelphia, 1917–1939
RUSSELL A. KAZAL
ON A RAINY DAY IN 1968, a reporter named Peter Binzen walked into a tavern
in Kensington, a working-class neighborhood of Philadelphia. As Binzen
entered, he heard "the barkeep and his lone customer . . . exchanging
views on a favorite subject: niggers." The customer, "a white-trash nigger
hater," was making little headway with the bartender, a man "who looked
to be of German extraction." " 'There's good whites and good niggers,'
" Binzen recalled the bartender as saying. " 'Bad whites and bad niggers.'
"
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