Just for curiosity's sake, when you talk about Italians being widely considered white what context is that in? Because you later talk about anti-Irish racism in the US in the 20s and 30s and the experience was pretty similar for Italians in the US in that time period as well. I have living relatives that can give you firsthand accounts of open, organized, violent anti-Italian racism in Pittsburgh pre-mid WWII.

I mean modern day. What I'm trying to express is that "nobody today would be racist against $whateverGroup$!" has precisely zero bearing on what absolute batshit lunacy people were racist about even 50 years ago.

Its also the case that even in the 1920s, while there was a lot of anti-Italian racism, people generally saw that Italian heritage was better than African heritage.